Monday, August 27, 2012

The Good Samaritan

Hey Family!!!

Man...sometimes it’s a lot to take in when you guys write me: volleyball tryouts, funny stories, spiritual counsel, car crashes, you name it...More than anything I want to thank you for your spiritual counsel. I was asked to speak in church on Sunday and I actually
used that same quote:

“If you do not magnify your callings, God will hold you responsible for those whom you might have saved had you done your duty”

It was basically about the importance of "rescuing" inactive members since it’s a big problem here. I also talked a little about Eddie Aikau (Dad might appreciate that). I’ve thought about that quote and the quote that you sent me, Dad. Honestly, I feel like we’ve worked hard these last two weeks but that we haven’t made much progress. It may be the week that I’ve gotten rejected the most in my mission. I feel like what the Lord really might be doing is testing if I really will push through all the way. One big success is that Elder Comfort is coming along pretty well. When you’re in the service of the Lord you can’t really lose because if nothing else we’re coming out better people than we were when we started.

All right, enough crying on my part. Here’s a funny story told in scripture form because that’s how Elder Comfort and I thought of it:

28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

30 And Jesus answering said, A certain drunk man went down from Jerusalem to Jinotepe, and fell down in the middle of the street, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

31 And by chance there came down a certain man selling bread that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

32 And likewise a taxi driver, who almost ran him over, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

33 But two certain missionaries, as they journeyed, came where he was: and when they saw him, they had bcompassion on him, and said, "Dude, Elder Comfort...this drunk guy is gonna get rocked by a car...let´s move him to the side of the road!"

34 And they went to him, and tried to wake him up, when suddenly he woke up kicking and punching the air violently...saying every kind of obscenity that you could ever imagine, causing all of the neighbors to come out of their houses. Then, without further hesitation...the two missionaries departed saying amongst themselves..."So much for the Good Samaritan."

Anyway, that’s my story for the week. We’re working hard to find some new families to teach and going strong with the one investigator that we have. He has a baptismal date for the 8th so we’re going to do all that we can to get him there. By the way, we didn’t feel any earthquake or anything. This week a missionary came home from the Panama, Panama City mission. It was cool being able to tell him that I know President Ward. Anyway...not much else from me...love you guys and be good!

Love,

Elder Ward

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Gospel Blesses Families

Oye quates!

It’s good to hear from you guys! Dad, I’m pretty impressed by the yard work you did. It reminds me of an example that I used in our district meeting this week. We talked about how in a harvest it’s better to use a harvesting machine rather than a lousy sickle and compared it to the work we do by ourselves and our work combined with the members.

This week was awesome, but in a different way haha. Tuesday was our first full day and I remember being super excited for our first full day to get out and kick some butt in the new area. Well...I think we might have contacted over 20 people that day and not one of them wanted anything to do with us or our message. There are a lot of churches here and a lot of very deep Catholic roots. In the mission this zone is known as the "zona de castigo", or the punishment zone, because nobody gets baptized here. I realized pretty quickly that Elder Comfort was going to need lots of help with his Spanish since he is a brand new missionary, and I felt a little overwhelmed by all of this. I thought a lot about that talk that I sent you guys and I’ve been trying to have the faith to make things happen. So, we approached things from a different direction. We started visiting all of the members that live in our area and to get them excited about doing missionary work. Many of them were shocked that we were even visiting them and lots of them are working with people that will eventually be referrals. I’ve had to have extra patience and humility this week, giving Elder Comfort opportunities to learn and teach, and it’s awesome to see how much he’s grown in just this week.

Wednesday we had a meeting in Managua and it was kinda weird seeing all the office elders and President and his wife. I missed them a lot and it seems like I left the office so long ago.

There are a bunch of other people living where we do and there is a family there that we’ve started talking to a lot. Since day one I’ve felt the need to share the gospel with them and this week little miracles have happened. The other day I was talking to Marcela, the wife, and she got to talking about marriage and families and stuff. She explained how she feels like she can never find true happiness in her family as tears welled up in her eyes. It felt good to bear my testimony of how the gospel blesses our families and to be able to talk about my family and the blessings we’ve received. As we were walking out last night her husband called us back and asked us for a pamphlet. We have an appt. with them tomorrow morning. I think I was sent here to baptize that family :)

Yesterday was pretty funny. We have one of those automatic pianos in our chapel where if you just touch the keys it plays the hymns. Well, Elder Comfort doesn’t know anything about playing piano but he can touch the keys with a decent rhythm (or so I thought). We couldn’t help but laugh as the members sang about 4 seconds ahead or behind the piano. I’m really starting to love this area, even with its difficulties, and I don’t even want to think about leaving it yet haha. Don’t worry, I’ll keep going strong and yes, time is going way to fast. Love you guys a bunch!

Love,

Elder Ward

Monday, August 13, 2012

The Good News and The Bad News

Dudes!!!

Honestly, this letter couldn’t describe what could be the most eventful week of my mission, but I will make an attempt. I will try to write it in a way so that you can feel a little bit of what I did. This week Elder Chacaj and I worked like I have never worked on my mission. I found out pretty quickly that there weren’t really any investigators...so we got to work. We started out teaching short, powerful lessons to the members and many of them gave us referrals of their friends, family, and neighbors. We talked with EVERYONE. On Tuesday morning a miracle occurred. We prayed hard in companionship study for a family that was ready to be baptized and within a half hour the phone rang. It was one of the leaders of the Church in another city who said that his nephew and his wife had just moved to La Estación, Granada, that they had gone to church various times, and were already married. Few times in my mission have I felt so strongly that we had to go visit a family. It was tough to find them, but we did, and they were so happy to see us. They accepted the invitation to be baptized and were committed to read the BOM.

Other story...we were walking along and saw a bulky, young bald guy with his wife sitting out in front of their upper-class home. My first thought was...hmmm, probably not interested, but the Spirit told us otherwise. They happily agreed for us to return and that first lesson was amazing. The wife, Karen, explained that she had gone to so many churches but felt that she hadn’t found the truth. She also had a fond memory of when she visited a temple in the United States. The Spirit was super strong and I think that we all felt it was true.

We had a FHE with an awesome member family and the referral that they gave us. They’ve had a lot of tough problems in their marriage and are thinking of splitting up. We also talked about the Atonement and forgiveness. Really...I’m glad that we have an obligation to forgive others and that Christ makes forgiveness possible.

On Saturday night, I couldn’t help but smile as I thought about the awesome week we had had when the phone rang...AP´s: "Dude, I’ve got good news and bad news." (It’s never good to hear from the AP.) "Bad news: You’ve got emergency changes again. Good news: You’ll be training." So...long story short, my first Sunday in Granada was my last and I’m now here in the beautiful Jinotepe with Elder Comfort, a gringo from Canada. I wasn’t really disappointed but just asked myself why...then I remembered the story of a new untrained missionary (myself) whose first month of the mission was pretty miserable and how his "step dad" [second companion] changed everything around. I’m super happy to be here with him, and yes, it’s going to be an opportunity to grow. He is struggling with the language and his companion basically just taught him a lot of patience. It feels good knowing that I could make a difference in Granada though and I’m really starting to realize that sometimes the Lord needs us for very exact purposes. That’s why we’ve got to "Be the man He wants us to be." My comp’s name is Connor and he is about Connor’s age...I’m already starting to see him as a brother and I know that the Lord will bless us with success. I’m also the district leader of four sisters....WOO HOO! Haha jk, that’s bad...It’s going to be fine.

I love my mission more than ever. I feel like I am a completely different man than the one I came as and I love the Lord. Pray for us :) and have fun with all my friends :) hahaha.

Love,
Elder Ward


Monday, August 6, 2012

CHANGES!!

Hey!

I know this probably seems really weird that you have an e-mail from your missionary son on a Monday afternoon. Well, the unthinkable happened. I had changes! It basically just came out of nowhere. I was about to go to bed on Saturday night when the two APs, Elder Payne and Elder Cabrera come running into the room yelling, "Dude! It’s what we’ve all been waiting for!" I was super confused. They went on to show me a text message from President that said I would have changes the next day (on Sunday). I honestly didn’t believe it. I didn’t think it would be so hard to leave that area. On Sunday morning, I spent time saying goodbye to all of the amazing people that had changed my life in one way or another. I don’t think I could have asked for a better farewell because I was leaving right after sacrament meeting and it was fast and testimony meeting. The tears started coming as I looked out over the congregation and saw the faces of many of the people that I could baptize as I bore my last testimony to them. I felt so happy and so blessed for the opportunity that I had had to be there, but most of all I just felt a deep love for them and for the gospel.

And now....I’M IN GRANADA!!!!!!!!!! Seriously if there was one zone that I wanted to come to before my mission ended, it was this one. Granada is super beautiful. My companion’s name is Elder Chacaj from Guatemala. He’s a short, quiet, hard-working, happy missionary and I already love him. I’ve got a lot of adapting to do though. 1. It’s much hotter than an air-conditioned car or office. 2. No more McDonald’s every day. 3. Working the WHOLE day. 4. Not having any assignment like district leader, zone leader, etc. 5. Not living in a house with eight people. Honestly though, it’s all worth it. I’m so excited to just be able to focus on baptizing a ton of families for the last two months of my mission. Well, don’t really have much more to write, but you guys can write me on Monday next week, just a heads-up. This is Christ’s true church and it is the only way to have true happiness in this life.

Love,

Elder Ward

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Mountains to Climb

Hey Fam,
How´s everyone doing? First off, Dad, don’t worry about your letter. A lot of the time you have to make sacrifices to have missionary experiences. Ava, thanks for your letter! That’s so awesome that you have some new dogs and that you’re going to be in first grade! I bet you are like 100 times smarter than when I left. I miss you so bad too and what do you mean I’m almost home? I only have two months in the mission. J Love you Ava!
Well, the Lord has given me some mountains to climb this week. I’ve known since the beginning of the change that a missionary was going home halfway through the change and that there was a good chance that I would go take his place in the field. I was super stoked just because I feel like I’ve been pretty useless in the office lately (folding letters, going to get the mail, washing the car, etc.). Well, the missionary went home and I stayed in the office. It was hard for me to understand why my righteous desire of going out to the field wasn’t being fulfilled. It hit me that I could either waste time complaining about it or I could just forget myself and go to work. That’s when the miracles started happening...
We stopped by an investigator named Mariella that we hadn’t visited for like a week because she just didn’t seem very interested. When we sat down she excitedly said, "I read that book that you gave me!" (referring to the Book of Mormon). That caught us off guard. She opened the introduction and began to read where it invites everyone to read, ponder, and pray about the book. She said, "That´s what I did...and do you know what my answer was?" She began to bear a simple testimony that she knew that everything the book said was true. She has a baptismal date for the 25th of this month. J
Mom, I’ve thought a lot about what you told me last week: "Be the man that the Lord wants you to be." I had a hard time understanding why I was in that area still, especially because nothing was really going on. So, I asked Him what to do. We felt prompted to go and visit a member family that we had never really taken the time to visit. We had a great lesson prepared for them and in the end we invited them to share the gospel with their friends and family. They said that they would think about it, and a little disheartened, we said that we would come back to help them with that process. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the miracle that was taking place. We came back two days later and there was a 19-year-old girl in the kitchen. We began talking to her and she explained that she had been living there for about three months with her boyfriend, who is the member’s nephew. She also explained that she went to church a few weeks ago and that her sister was a member from another city! Long story short...We left Yeseña and Alexander a Book of Mormon after the first visit and they both read and prayed about it and both received an answer. The members that live there are very involved in our lessons, which makes all the difference. We thought they would have a hard time with marriage since they’re a young couple that met through texting about five months ago...but they really want to get married! They have a baptismal date for the 18th of this month. J
I know that when we accept the Lord’s will and work diligently, even if it’s not what we want to do, there are many blessings that come. It was pretty funny because I had already accepted that I would be here until the end of the change but we had interviews this week and President said that he was considering sending me to the field this week. I’m not even going to get my hopes up, but if it were to happen...I’ll know that maybe the Lord just wanted me to witness a couple more miracles in Memorial Sandino.
Well, I’m really not sure what else to write about. I can’t believe how fast time is flying by now. Have fun getting ready for school, playing volleyball, doing mom stuff, etc...
Love,
Elder Ward