"When the hardest part is over we'll be heroes"

The world,

"When the hardest part is over we'll be heroes"

"We are caught in the crossfire of heaven and hell"

"Tell the devil that he can go back to where he came" 

 

Hands down one of the best songs ever written, so true. I guess my entire life I have wanted to be someone’s hero. That really is my dream. I have been thinking about that a lot. And I feel like I am in one of the hardest parts of my life right now so far. So I am going to do all I can to be someone’s hero not just a superhero :)

So I cried this week. One of the members of our ward, the Davis family, took us out to Perinies the restaurant here that is world famous and it won the best burger in the United States a couple years back. It totally deserved to win, so they got me a filet steak and gave me part of their burger as well, but when it came to the table it looked so perfect. And so I cut a piece out of it and I put it in my mouth... a flood of emotion entered into my body and tears began to pour out of my eyes.... I wish I was kidding. I realized there are only three things that can make me cry: 1) when I talk about the gospel. 2) when I talk about my family and 3) Perinies steak haha.

Also this week we met with a family in our ward who has a son who has not been baptized yet so we are blessed to start teaching him this week. Prayers and hard work are paying off. Not really anyone was mean to us this week so I am so stoked! haha The life of Jesus Christ was real and it changed everything. The other night we went to give a blessing to one of our investigators who is struggling with an addiction and the thought came to my mind that when Jesus suffered for us he took on all of the urges, temptations, wants, cravings, and he beat it, he overcame it and he did that so he can know exactly what we are going through so he can help us through it. So if you are struggling with something turn to him he has already beaten it for you and just for you.

We are never alone.

I love you guys so much be safe. 

Love elder c

Saving the world one person or cow at a time...

Hey Hi Adios Goodbye,

SO this was an interesting week because nothing really too exciting really happened at all, but I am just so happy it is awesome! Actually something cool happened… a guy actually talked to us the other day when we were street contacting. It was the best day ever. Sure he was asking about a family history storage center in the mountain, but who cares it was so nice to actually talk to someone!!

Being here in Abilene has really made me appreciate life so much much more. And the love I have from those I know. I have also began to realize what humility truly is. I guess back home I always thought I was super humble, haha that is a red flag all in itself, but I believe that I was put in Abilene to truly help me understand what Humility means… I can do nothing by myself as for my strength I am weak. But that’s okay because I am made alive and strong as a representative of Christ. I seriously am more happy than I have ever been which shouldn’t be possible because everyone around me hates my guts. I know because of that simple fact that this work is true.

Also I have been thinking about possibly becoming a doctor someday. So one of our members this week who owns some cows asked us if we wanted to come help him with them so we said yes. It was way awesome, not the same as dead cow pulling, but we did get to give them their shots and castrate them. It was the best day ever haha and while we were doing that I really learned a lot about myself as I saw all of that blood and gave all of those shots. I learned that there are things in life that no one really wants to do. But there are so many things that we need to do. I have decided to be the person who not just does what he wants, I will do what I need to do to save the world.

And someday I will save the world one person or cow at a time :)

The boots Keeg bought for a souvenir. 

Mother's Day and the little things...

Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Mother’s Day,

to all of the Ladies out there who have been a mom to me at some point in my life thank you so much and Yesterday was totally your day!

That being said I gave my talk in church and I have never seen more middle-aged women cry in my entire life haha…in a good way. It was really fun to speak on mothers on Mother’s Day and what they truly do and how important it truly is. And only few people came to the study class and the movie, but I know so much more are going to come next week! This is going to work. Never give up never surrender! 

This week I don't have much time so I have a quick story. As a missionary I see so so so many miracles all day that I feel like I have begun to start taking them for granted. And I really don't like that. So the other day we drove out to Buffalo Gap to do a service project with the youth in the ward and when we got there they were all walking away and we were late and didn't know where we were going, so we were trying to be super quick so pulled in super fast and tried to get out, but the keys wouldn't come out of the ignition. So we started freaking out and screaming… then I was like... “wait.....Lets pray” and it was kinda a joke, but serious because there is so many more things that are way more important than that that I could be praying about, but as I said it, the three other missionaries in the car bowed their heads and I prayed. Immediately when I said amen, I moved the shift just a little bit to the right and the keys came right out. And it is funny, so much of the time for me I think I need these huge things to happen to strengthen my faith in God and I have to see people rising from the dead or something. But that act of seeing the keys come out of the ignition strengthened my testimony more than anything else. It showed to me that God cares about the little things in our life and that He is always always there to listen to your prayer… even if you are in a car in the middle of a po-dunk town of 400 people on a ranch. He still cares. So look for God in the little things and I know you will feel Him a lot more. Small and simple truly is the way to go.

I love you guys and if you need any extra lovin send a letter my way and I promise I will send one back!

be safe 

love elder c

 More info from the Mother's Day phone/Skype call:

1) He said he spoke of Mother Mary (Christ's mother), Lucy Mack Smith (Joseph Smith's mother), his own mom's conversion story and Peggy (his surrogate mom or our neighbor when he was a little boy). 

2) He sang part of Amazing Grace to the tune of The Scientist for us and it was actually really good. He is creative.

3) He said they have been doing more hours of service (mission went from 3 hours to 10 hours a week) including trimming huge trees and a company that does it for a living stopped and told them each tree they trimmed was worth like $1200 to do professionally.

4) He has been getting up and working out at 5:45 every morning and he said that helps him have more energy during the day. 

5) Missionaries have been arrested there that have tried to proselyte after 7:00 PM.

                                                                          

Mormon movies, Amazing Grace and Mother's Day...

It has hit the fan my friends,

Haha so Abilene is exactly how I explained it last week and then some haha, but I have searched to the very depths of my soul to find the answers and this is what has come to me….Okay it’s not as dramatic as I just made it sound, but since we cannot go talk to people after 7 o clock I have made a few plans:

So I scheduled the building for a Book of Mormon study class that me and my companion are going to teach once a week at 7:00 then the next day on Friday we are going to have a weekly showing of a church film starting off with “Meet the Mormons” to try to get people to come into the building! So I need your prayers for that this week.

Also I got a call from my Mission President’s wife yesterday and she asked if I would come up with a number to sing for the missionaries in the south-eastern part of the mission for conference and I accepted. So I put the song “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “The Scientist” by Coldplay and I am doing it tomorrow.

Then next Sunday the bishop asked me to give a talk on Mother’s Day and man that is going to be an emotional roller-coaster haha, but it will be only the 2nd time I have talked in Sacrament on my mission so I am pretty stoked. I told all of you all of this so you would keep me in your prayers this week that my plans might go through and something might come of this.

This week was a toughie, we tried to find people to talk to or teach but no bites yet. We are doing our best to get out there and try teaching people or even helping people and still no luck. But even though it is hard to only get rejections I know that the Lord has a plan for this and for this area and I think he has a plan for me. I probably will just have to face a lot of rejection in my life coming up so I need to get used to it now or something. I learned this week that sharing your testimony on Fast Sunday can give you more blessing than a planned talk to give. I don’t know why but I feel like that is important… so no matter what you have a testimony of, this week I challenge you to go out and share it no matter what it is of.

I love you guys so much be safe out there and remember who you are and what you stand for. 

Love elder c  

Exploring to understand Abilene

Carry on, 

The world is a beautiful place my friends and Abilene can be that beautiful too if you look really really really hard haha. I’M KIDDING. I dig it here a lot. So my area is the rich part of town I found and every single house here is a lot nicer than my own, so I was kind of intimidated when I arrived I am not going to lie. Driving down the road for the tour of my area only struck more fear into my heart with every house I passed by. Knowing that all of these people already attended one of the 400 churches in town made me think of the difficulty of my situation. Then I said a prayer for God to give me strength in my new home here. Immediately my outlook of the whole situation changed.

I realized with the light and knowledge in which I have gained all I can do is help these people. Even though they all attend a different denomination, they all have questions that cannot be answered by anyone but me and my companion. And the Holy Ghost of course. My area has a few mega churches in it as well. If you don’t know what that is… picture 3 football fields or so side-by-side, then put a giant box over it with a steeple on top. Each one of the huge churches holds thousands of people every Sunday. And a few of them teach a strictly anti- Mormon Sunday School class. This town everyone is so religious but it is so strange to me that with all of this love for the Savior everywhere, there is so much hate towards the one sect that I represent. This is going to be a crazy transfer I know it. But I have no fear. With the Lord and my companions beside me Abilene’s heart is going to be softened. Challenge accepted my friends.

The Church is true… it is more true today than it ever has been before. I know this because there is no way I would be able to feel the way I do right now if it were not. I love my Savior and I love y'all too… if you need me I am here for ya.  Be safe out there remember who you are and what you stand for. 

Love elder c 

(And my pictures aren’t working today :( sorry everyone I had some cool ones this week.)

PS. Keegan bought some souvenir boots :-)

Goodbye San Angelo...Hello Abilene...

Goodnight and Good luck to good old San Angelo,

If that didn't give it away, I got the call on Saturday night…oh Saturday night…that I am leaving this wilderness of San Angelo and embarking on a new journey to the forbidden land of Abilene, Texas for my last two transfers I presume. To a Land that has more different kinds of churches per capita than anywhere else in the world. A Land so weary that because of so many churches it is illegal to proselyte after 7 PM. A city so mysterious that it has a Red Robin....the only Red Robin in the mission mind you… It is weird I have been called to the Lubbock Texas Mission. But I have yet to serve in actual Lubbock itself. I have literally served everywhere around it. Am I livid? A little. Do I know the Lord has a plan? 100%

This week I would like to touch upon the subject of friendship and good impressions. So moving from area to area as a missionary is kinda lame sometimes, mainly because you build such good relationships with these people, then a couple months later you stab them in the heart and just leave them. I have done it a lot on my mission, so I am kind of used to it. But this week I had to say goodbye to all of the people I have grown to love here in San Angelo. I think I learned what friendship and love truly means these transfers. True friendship you don't need to be fake or talk too much or anything, if you are yourself then everything will fall into place. But I don't like the term just “be yourself”. I don't. I know a lot of people will disagree with me when I say that, but that is okay. I believe in order for us to make the best friends and have the best environment to live in, we need not only simply always just be yourself… but always be your “best self”. If we are being our best self, we are always improving, we are always getting better and I have found myself being more myself these last few months more than I ever have. And I have found that,

1) I am living the best life I ever have

2) I am having the best happiness

3) I am making the best friends

And because of that I have the best testimony I have ever had as well. So I challenge everyone to be their best because it will only bring the best. And I know that all of you know what your best is and way too often we are not doing it. So try it.

Also go to the temple as much as possible. I went on Saturday and it was revolutionary.com and then I taught seminary this morning as well about the temple and missionary work vs. temple work. It was so cool. The students asked me a couple questions which is weird cause in my mind I literally just graduated high school, so I don't feel any older than these kids, but it was cool. They asked if going on a mission was better than school. And I said,  “oh my goodness yes”… haha but  it is. They also asked if they should go on a mission at 18 or wait. And I guess I never really thought about that before. Should people just go at 18 or should they wait a year. Then I thought about me personally. And there is no way I would have had the tools to make it through college without my mission. I hear all the time that college is where you "find yourself" and that is such a crazy intense place to find yourself. Which is good in some ways because you can say no to temptations head on. But there is so much more room to fall. Going on a mission I was able to find myself in ways that I thought I already had figured out. I have found myself so there is no need to do it later. I know who I am. I know God’s plan. And I am going to be me.

Well I love y'all. If you need me let me know. I will be in Abilene.

Be safe.

Love elder c

P.S. my address is 3549 Curry Lane Apt. #3612, Abilene, TX 79606

Eating out, unexpected kiss and helping hands...

Every day is my destiny…

Such a weird week, it was the most far-out week of my mission but I loved it.

Couple cool things that happened… We went to Ballenger this week to teach our investigator there. He works at the local best restaurant in town and I like to go out to eat so people can see us as normal people and we always have people come and talk to us so it is sweet, but this was different. This being the best restaurant in town, in a small town on a Friday night, literally everyone in town was there and literally all but 3 came up and talked to us asking us where we were from and were so happy that nicely dressed younger men were coming into town to make the appearance of it better. And all of the old ladies hugged us. It was weird...but legendary. But now we have a lot of people to talk to there so the Lord works in mysterious ways. As long as you are out doing His will, He will put people in your path.

Secondly, I am keeping a distance away from every girl I see now haha. So this week I went on exchanges with the other companionship in my district and something crazy always, always happens on exchanges. Well anyway we taught so many people that day literally over 12 and it was nonstop teaching, but on the way to one appointment we were biking down the street and we see this girl crying, she is in her early 20s and she looks upset. She was being sent to a voluntary rehab clinic for the next 6 months and she was so afraid of the future. We talked to her about how if you put God as your goal and continue to strive to walk towards Him taking steps of faith onto an unknown path, God will put the stepping stones in front of you in order to make that journey. It was an incredible moment on the side of the road, and then she asked in her tears if we could pray for her, I gladly said yes and began to pray for her saying the things that she needed help with and asked God to help her. We all said amen and I look up, as I am in the motion of looking up I see her face getting super close to mine, and I panic and all of a sudden she kissed me right on the lips!! I jumped back really quick (obviously she was a little tipsy),  then I said goodbye as quick as I could and we got out of there but she was just happy as a clam telling us thank you, thank you so much, she knew everything was going to be alright. I am glad we got to talk to her but idk if it was worth the cost haha. I felt dirty all week but my companion assured me everything is alright. 

So ya, it has been a crazy week here in San Angelo. To close things off…. this week on Saturday we did a helping hands project for a member of our ward who’s house is slowly eating away with squirrels in their roof and the sides falling down. So we got the ward together and there is a member who owns a contracting business in the ward. And we got all the materials donated and we rebuilt her roof and the sides of her home. Putting in new windows and doors and sinks. It was so cool to see the look on this mother’s face with her daughter and grandchildren living there with her. She was crying and said thank you. Thank you for all you have done. I am so glad I have been able to come on a mission and help people who truly need my help in many different ways. I am also blessed for what I am learning. I will now be able to do repairs and help my future family with our house issues as well as those in my ward. The Lord has many reasons for us to be where we are and I am so excited to find them all out.

I love you all be safe this week.

love elder c