One Wedding and Two Baptisms

Monday, March 25, 2013

 

Amazing week!  I'll try to convey a little bit of it.

 

So once a month we do this thing in our mission called "Park Day"  (So called because we hang out at the Park all day!  Haha.  Just Kidding. That's NOT what it is.  In reality, we 'Park' our cars all day, and have to bike/walk everywhere) 

 

So here's the thing, on Park Days I try and have a good attitude, and just work hard all day and hope for miracles... but they never happen! I always have rough park days, where it's long and hard and tiring, and absolutely nothing works out for us.  

 

So this Park Day, I was also a little bummed, because it was Friday, and we were supposed to have a wedding on Thursday.... But it didn't go through, and we couldn't get a hold of the couple. 

We're out knocking doors and whatnot, and we get a call- It's Rachel and Mitch (The couple)!  They apologized for Thursday, but their excuse was understandable...they were in the hospital, about to have a baby! But the baby wasn't quite ready to be born yet, so they were released from the hospital on Friday morning.  They called us because they both had the same feeling, that it was really important to them to get married BEFORE the baby was born, so the baby could be born into a Marriage :) Isn't that awesome?!

 

So they call us, and we realize that we have a little problem, the bishop is out of town! (which is why we were planning on doing it Thursday, before he left) So we call all of the neighboring bishops, but can't get a hold of them.  Then we call the Stake President.  No answer. So we call our Mission President, and ask if we can just marry them!  He said no, but that HE could!   So he came up from Tacoma, and the Stake President actually was able to make it too, so he officiated, and President just came for fun :) The Wedding was simple but awesome, and it was cool because a lot of their friends actually came out to support them :)

 

We went out beforehand and grabbed a cake and some flowers to try and make it nice, and a little wedding card too.  We were WAY stressed though, because it took longer than we anticipated, and we had no way to get to the church in time for the wedding! We started street contacting people, but asking for rides instead of asking for them to hear our message.  It didn't work too well.  Fortunately, a part-member family that we were teaching came through for us, answered our call, and took us to the church in time!  After the wedding, President told us he thought they should be baptized right then, and told us to fill the font.  We called Bishop, ran it by him, and he was down!  Rachel and Mitch loved it, they were hoping originally to be baptized the same day they were married, so their wish came true! 

 

It was amazing, probably one of the biggest miracles of my mission :)  We had one of our boys baptize Rachel, and the other baptized Mitch, and yesterday at church they also gave them the gift of the Holy Ghost.  It was incredible. 

 

I love my companions, I love the Book of Mormon, I love weddings, I love knocking doors, I really love the Book of Mormon, And I love the sunshine!

 

 

(Another thought from Chase I thought was worth sharing:)

Heavenly Father definitely puts us in specific places for specific reasons - which are usually specific people :) 

 

 

Marriage, Missions, and Mosiah

March 18, 2013

 

Guys, can you believe how fast March is going?  I CAN NOT!  But it's cool though, I'm way stoked for General Conference!  It will be a blast.  Also, April will be fun because It looks like we'll have a couple baptisms on April 6th.  What a good day for baptisms ;)

 

Ooh, also, we'll be having a marriage on Thursday! Rachel and Mitch, after church this Sunday, were talking to me and they told me that they finally went out and got their marriage license!  Bishop will be performing the ceremony on Thursday, we're gonna go out and grab them a little cake and something to try and make it memorable, and I can't wait :) I love marriages!  and then their baptism is scheduled for after church this next Sunday :) What a miracle :)  The spirit I felt at the last marriage I was at was so special, I'm really excited for this one. 

I definitely feel WAY more in tune with the spirit as a missionary than I did before, I'm going to do my best to hold onto that post-mission.  

 

I LOVE being a missionary.  It is the best, most worthwhile, most fulfilling thing I've ever done by far.  I wish I could be a missionary forever.  I'm scared at how fast it's going. 

Elder T and I would talk about it sometimes.  If we could watch movies on Pday, listen to our own music during non-proselyting hours, and date girls on the weekends, we would happily just be missionaries forever.  But those three things will definitely make coming home pretty fun.  And the other thing is that being a missionary is so stressful. ESPECIALLY as a Zone Leader, I just feel like there's tons of pressure.  When I go home, I think it will feel like taking about 500 lbs off my shoulders.  So that will be nice too.

 

I've been studying in Mosiah the past week or two, it's been GREAT.  It's so funny to me, I read this pretty darn recently, and I read it pretty darn in depth, and yet I feel like I missed so much last time that I'm catching now, and I'm sure next time I read this I'll catch even more. 

 

Here's some food for thought:  So Abinadi spends a good deal of time ripping King Noah and the wicked priests for their misuse and lack of understanding concerning the Law of Moses, yeah?   So I looked into that a lot last time I read through, it was great.  Abinadi keeps telling them that the Law of Moses is shadow and a type of things to come.  But check this out, I've never noticed this before ( maybe this is common knowledge, but since I discovered this only a couple days ago, it seems pretty profound to me!), Abinadi is a type of Christ!   I don't have much time to delve into it, but check out Mosiah 12:1, 18-19, 28-29, 13:2, 6, all of mosiah 14, 15:1-5, 17:5-8,9-12, 13,19,20

 

Pretty intense.

 

 

 

Convinced -- Conviction

Hello! 

 

It's been a great week! I miss Elder T, he was such a good buddy, and such a good companion.  I got to hang out with him for a couple minutes at the new missionary/ trainers meeting.  You know what's great about serving with people? You get to keep seeing them! And then it's even better, because you love them AND you miss them!  Speaking of which, my old buddy Elder C is with me today.  He got permission to come down to Bremerton and drop off something for us.  So we're emailing together in the same library we did last year!  It's great. 

 

My new companion Elder B is cool, he's a great missionary, and way funny.  We caught on to each others humor way fast, so we've just been having a blast.  It's funny, I didn't realize that we missionaries have our own humor, until last transfer, when we were talking to all these new missionaries, who didn't think we were funny...   I'm nervous for going home, no one will laugh at my jokes!  Fortunately I'll continue to laugh at my own jokes.   haha.

 

Guess what?!? One of our new boys is only 18 years old!  That's crazy!  He's 2 years younger than me, and I still feel like a child.  He's great though, definitely wouldn't know he was 18 until he tells you.  Although a lot of the 18 year olds really do look like deacons/teachers. No joke. they look way young.

 

We've been working as hard as we possibly can, and trying to be perfectly obedient, so that we can set good examples for our baby boys.  I really think their first couple transfers will impact the rest of their missions, so we're trying to make them stellar! 

 

Only a couple minutes left, maybe I'll share something I've studied recently?

 

Eh, not enough time.  Just a quick thought though.  So, in the Book of Mormon, we hear the phrase "convince" a lot.  (2 ne 25:18, 26:12, hel 5:19 etc)

and in Lonas' head, he was like "wait a minute- I thought we weren't out here to 'convince' people, we're here to "invite" right?  Yeah thats true.  Because I was reading it wrong I think.  I feel like in my head, I was implying "convince (against their will)" which is silly. 

 

"a Man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still" right?

 

But I was thinking about what it means to be convinced of something? well, it means to have a thorough conviction.  In that sense, we definitely ARE out here to convince anyone and everyone who will listen to us, who has a sincere heart and real intent.  We want them to be convinced in the same sense that we are convinced, that Jesus is the Christ and his Gospel has been restored :)  It's so great to be convinced of that.  I'm so grateful I am.  and how can we convince people?

shoot out of time.  But it talks about it in Hel 5:18. 

Subs, Twins, and Heroes

 

Monday, Mar 4, 2013

 

Guess what? I got to go tour a submarine this morning! It was sweet.  It was an Ohio class sub, the kind that carry those trident missiles to blow up ornery countries.  (Sidenote: I love the word ornery. I use it a lot more than necessary in my day to day language.  Shenanigans is another keeper)

 

It was pretty tight. figuratively and literally. (haha)

 

Anyways, week was good :) We got transfer calls,  Elder T is going to Tacoma, I'm staying here and getting former AP Elder B. I'm nervous, but it will be a really good learning experience I'm sure, I hear he's a great guy, and a stellar missionary.

We're also having twins! that's right, double training boys!  It will be an adventure.  Especially since an enhanced sense of direction isn't one of the talents I've developed on my mission, and we're getting 3 new people, which makes a total of 4 who don't know where anything is.  I can always find my way back to Little Caesars, though.  That's kind of my anchor, and I branch out from there.

 

Guys I'm really sorry, but extenuating circumstances (legitimate ones this time) left me with only a few minutes to email, so this will be short, but I want to talk about one more thing briefly that's been on my mind. 

I really like my heroes.  I really like having them, they are fun to have, and they give me ideals :)  In the past I've looked up to MacGyver, Ace Enders, David Belle, and tons of other people. On my mission, I continue to admire MacGyver a lot, but I've developed a lot of new heroes: Captain Moroni, Teancum, Mormon, and tons of others.  I love my new heroes and I love my old heroes. I don't have a perfect definition for Hero, but I think it would be something along the lines of someone who you look up to (to whom you look up? still a dangling preposition?) someone you respect, admire, someone who motivates you to be better, and gives you a hope you can be more than what you were/are.  My favorite hero is my dad.