Miracles have not Ceased!

Dear Family and Friends,

I know that the statement above is true! I can prove it to you through my week I just had! I am so grateful for the knowledge I have that Miracles have not ceased! That God lives and Loves us as we strive everyday to become more like him. No matter what we do, have done, or will do, he will always love us! However, the only way we can return and live with him and our families forever after this life it by Faith, Repentance, Baptism and Receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then Endure to the End!

Here is how my week went!

Week January 16th - 22nd 2017

Monday: MLK Service Day/ P-Day

Today seemed to have been the busiest and craziest days of Preparation, because more than half of it was spent giving service in Fort Worth for Martin Luther asking Jr. Day! Many churches from all over came together today at the Baker Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church and had a worship service, and what do you know, we missionaries where their choir! It was a wonderful service and super funny! The people all screaming Hallelujah and Amen! Now I don't write this to make fun of, but to express how I felt for my first time in a church or surrounded by hardcore church goers. However, after we gave our service and came back to have lunch together, we sat down next to 2 older couples, both with a ton of money. They told us how they got their wealth and said that they love to give service to help them realize they are blessed and try to help others. It thought that was nice and even found our why they chose the church hey were in. One said because they let him drink. And the other because he mom was a teacher there. However, when I think about why I am a member of my church it isn't because of anyone else. I didn't ask anyone else or go because I could do certain things. I prayed to God and received an answer from him, and that is why I am a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! Because I received an answer from God who told me it was the true church Restored to the earth today! As we ended we held hands together and a lady said a prayer that caught my attention. Because many of times we try to pray to an almighty who just wants a real conversation. Then I also realized she said, "father, let us seek for a restoration of all things." As she said that I just wanted to shout out and say, "that has happened!! Come and see!" But I knew that would have been bad. It was a fun day! As we finished giving service we went and had the chance to email and go shopping and then our Pday was over before we knew it! However, we were able to go and be with some of the amazing members and investigators today and we were able to teach the importance of the temple and the importance of reading in the Book of Mormon. We read 3 Nefi 11 and takes about it with AG and he expressed how he just wants to come back! Now we have to help him see it is through his acts of faith that this will happen!

Tuesday:

Today was a little bit of a unplanned day, because we woke up and from that moment on lessons began to cancel on us and we just had a great planning for all of them and were to the point we just had to fill up and try to find people all day! We didn't find anyone new to really teach, however, we taught 3 work of salvations and found one lady who is going to let us come back on Thursday! It was amazing to see how one can grow from Contacting. After knocking one door and getting someone with a return appointment it just seems like they all begin to accept, or you are happier and more willing to talk to everyone you see! We had a wonderful dinner with the Barraza family where we were able to talk about Temples and they told us they are going like 4 times this week because of the amount of names that they have! So this evening for Noche de Hogar, or Family Home evening, we had a few converts show up and learn how to do the Family History. As we were helping them we were asked last minute to teach Family Home evening for the adult s in the other room, because they hadn't assigned anyone to come and teach it! It was the second time in this week we have been assigned, and I did enjoy it! I always love spur of the moment experiences, because God seems to help you out with thoughts and scriptures! Something I have had to learn while here in the mission is how to combat with false doctrine without hurting feelings, because sometimes the members have certain thoughts that don't align with the doctrine found in the scriptures! However, It is a perfect opportunity to teach using scriptures! Today was a simple but wonderful day!

Wednesday:

“I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work! If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry. Work, work, work--there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.”

                                      –President Ezra Taft Benson

                        The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson (1988), 200

I love this quote, because I have seen this time and time again in the Lords work here in Texas, and today is another testament of how God puts people in your way to talk to if you just WORK! Or in other words, be outside, knock doors, talk to people! That is how God knows you are ready for someone serious! So today we were able to gather, Elder Hanks, Hermana Eyestone and I to practice a song we will be doing in Church this Sunday. It will be Come thou Fount, however, it is one that I have had to write a cello part too, and a brother from Fossil Ridge let me borrow his cello! It is a beautiful one and I have had a blast with it! Then we had District meeting and headed out to work! It was crazy to think that this was the last District Meeting for both Hna. Eyestone and Brown! So as we got out and started looking for people, we found 2 families that have interest that we pretty much found right there close by each other, and we taught them a good lesson and even got their numbers to stay in touch with them! So as we kept going on through the day we had an amazing dinner with a new family that just moved in called the Schmidt family. The husband is from America and served in Dallas and then went to Venezuela to work for 6 years and met his wife there! Then they returned and I love their accent and just their life style! They both are so excited about the missionary work and asked us about all our investigators and less actives! We talked about them a lot and are super happy with them in our area! A really happy moment for me is seeing my recent convert, Manuel, fellowship a member that just moved here from Honduras that is 20 years old. We were able to take him on exchange with us to visit Manuel and it was a wonderful. Also we love Miguel! He is a wonderful young member who is just trying to endure to the end!

Thursday:

Today I saw one of the biggest miracles in my mission when it come to teaching lessons! And I pray everyday that these people will look for us and that we will be able to teach them and have them except the Gospel. Today while studying and planning we remembered we had an appointment that was set for a lady we ran into in the trailer park, and she had a good amount of interest, because she had talked to missionaries before and had seen a temple in Maryland! She was pretty amazed by the temple and had lots of questions throughout our whole lesson. Her name is Alejandra and the amazing part was her husband Jose was there and willing to listen as well where he was out of work because of the rain! They both seemed to be understanding perfectly what we were teaching, and as we told them about the apostasy they both got wide eyed and the husband Jose said, "now I understand why there is so many church in the world today!" As we went on Alejandra expressed how she only worshipped God in her home and how she doesn't feel like God will appear to her like Joseph had happen. But we testified of the Book of Mormon and told her, "If you read this book and ask God we know he will guide you by feelings and thoughts." She immediately agreed and promised to read it! It was such a great lesson! Also the rest of the evening we had good appointments and sadly AG and Samira are breaking up for awhile, because AG is more focused on his phone and games than his wife and kids. He just hasn't grown up to much becoming a Dad. I feel so bad for them, because the Gospel would have fixed their lives if they would have just acted instead of waited to be acted upon! It doesn't make sense why they won't act more!

Friday:

Today we literally had ever single lesson that we were going to teach, but dinner, cancel on us! We didn't let that stop us though! We decided it was going to be a perfect opportunity to find more people to teach and baptize and again as we went out and had a temperature of 78 degrees in this winter season, you can imagine every person was out of their houses enjoying the weather, and we had quite a few lessons. Many just simple contacts, but also a few amazing contacts and return appointments! 

It seemed like God placed specific people in our paths as we has begged and prayed for in our prayers, and he answered his servants prayers. I was so impressed as this evening we were thinking of one more family to visit, and looked on the map and found a few different dots, but as we sat there, we found one and said it was he one! We went by and knocked the door and a full family was inside and invited us to come in! She mom, who seemed very religious was on a phone call when she saw us, and was so excited she just hung up and came to welcome us! We waited as they got the dad out of the room, and we met Jesus Abarca in his wheel chair with one less leg than he had a few years ago, but he was not letting that effect him and they were all asking us what took us so long to return and who sent us! We didn't know how to respond and were happy to get to know them! They are attending a church, but they were super willing to keep reading in the Book of Mormon and pray more about it! It was a family that I can truly say God has been preparing! Even the teenage daughter had been to activities at the church as was super sad she wasn't going as often with them now! She was dieting to go back, and right as we left the Book marked for them to read when Jesus came to the Americas, she began reading and couldn't set it down! What an amazing day!

Saturday:

Today has been such a great day! I seriously did not think it would be possible to have God give us more than what he already did in this week with miracles, but today was another day just full of them! Every single person we found today was just a miracle in and of itself! To start off our morning we were able to go and take part in the baptism of 9 year old Miguel Gonzalez, a boy who we were teaching, but whom we gave to the Bike Elders, because they needed a bigger area to find people to teach. As we did so they set a date fast with him and he was very prepared from the lessons we had taught, to help him get baptized! It was a very happy day for all of us!! So we were trying to find a referral we had tried to find for about 3 weeks and were to the point of just dropping him after tracking through a small trailer park looking for him, and as we were walking out we saw a man sitting on his stairs smoking and drinking some coffee. As we were walking we went right to him to of course give him a card, and try to get to know him, and as we did we found out he is from Cuba! The first Cuban I have met on my mission. We had a good conversation and asked him for his name, and come to find out it was Eduardo, the man we were looking for and we know that we were guided to him and he was also guided to us by feeling like he needed to go outside to pray on his steps. We gave him a bible that he had requested and also gave him a Book of Mormon. He was amazing and very friendly! Then as we were walking back to the truck we heard a guy yelling to us! So we stopped. As we began talking to them I thought they were going to bash us, but they just questioned us like crazy on our beliefs and why we believed in another book, and then we explained that Jesus came to the Americas, and they were very open and said things like, wow that could of happen and if it did that would have changed the world even more! And then one of the guys had been studying up heavily on our church, and explained how the natives of Mexico area had traditions about Jesus appearing to them. So we talked about authority and it was pretty amazing just to be able to testify boldly and lovingly for what we do every single day! Also today we were able to go by and try contacting a lady named Patricia La Santa! As we knocked they let us right in without any problem! Her and her son who is 21 listened to us as we taught the Restoration very simple, and they both understood it amazingly well! The both said, "that makes so much more sense then having a group of humans pick a man to be their leader. You are saying that your prophets are called of God and not by man?" And then we were able to testify. Today I testify that God revealed his hand, and I know that he will keep revealing his hand to me and to all of you as you live worthily and work diligently in the Lords Work!

Sunday:

Today was such a wonderful Sunday, and also a really busy one! I feel like my free time at 9:30 to 10:30 has been given up when I came here, because I usually don't finish everything required of me until 10:30! But I know that my zone will be blessed and our area will be blessed as I just keep pushing and working and focusing on nothing more that my mission! I had a wonderful Sunday service today and was able to play the cello while Sister Eyestone sang and Elder Hanks played the piano! The song we performed was Come Thou Fount, but in Spanish! It was super powerful, and as we did that and finished we had so many people that were crying! Haha it was a powerful song! So today as we finished church we were able to go to a JustServe meeting, a new program, or one that is being presented better, where we focus on fulfills the commandment of love thy neighbor even more! If you haven't seen it, go to JustServe.org and check it out! It was a really cool presentation and given to us by the First Presidency! Then this evening we had a wonderful lesson with Mable Bencomo, and actually set a baptismal date with her as well!! It will be February 11th, and gladly I will still be here for it, because I a, staying one more Transfer with Elder Graham!! I will be in this area for more than 6 months, and I am so grateful for that! I have grown to love the people here and really want to keep seeing them progress! So for all of you that new about upcoming transfers on Wednesday, no worries! I am staying until next transfer!

What a wonderful and busy week! We had an awesome 35 lessons this week!