Here is another great video clip that Elder Anderson and Elder Johnson put together.
8/11/2020
Today was our Pday which was pretty cool, we had a lot more success today than I thought we would, we ended up getting our 2nd testimony from a member which we were pretty excited about, he was super talkative, and super excited about his opportunity to help us. Evidently these members are ready to go, they just need someone to give them that push, both testimonies we've gotten were from people when we were sitting right in front of, we're going to have to start recording more that way. He talked so much, and lived so far away, that we ended up not having time for anything else, or our devotional at night. It was a blast though to get to scream my lungs out to Nathan Pacheco's music (even though I can't hit any of his high notes), and to teach that lesson, today was a great day.
8/12/2020
Today was super busy, it was a lot of fun, though. We had three different lessons lined up today, which I think is the most we've ever had, usually we get one or two lined up, but having three lessons, and one of them with a new investigator, was incredible. Our investigator today taught us how to cast for fly fishing, which was pretty awesome, and we left a Book of Mormon with him, which was even more exciting. Nick was very excited to have some people to talk to, we had an awesome lesson. We tied the whole fishing thing back into the "fishers of men" verse which he really like, and then we lovingly told him he was our favorite kind of fish, which he seemed to like even more. We had dinner thanks to Brother Hightower tonight, I'm afraid we're going to eat him out of house and home, but he treats us like we're his sons, and always has place for us. I really love that man. We met a guy who was pretty crazy when we were talking to Brother Hightower today, he runs a cafe and this man came in who was cursed with information he couldn't understand because he looked beyond the mark. We talked to him about God and he said that we were limiting God to be our perception of Him. He was pretty crazy, but it was almost refreshing in a way, I haven't met a guy that crazy since I was in Brazil.
8/13/2020
I'm getting lots of reminders of Brazil, today we went to a bad part of Olathe and the homes were so trashy that it reminded me of Brazil, we also got some street directions from a couple helpful guys, that's definitely not something I've seen since Brazil. What was probably the most fun though, was the dog that came growling at us. There was a giant dog that marched growling at us as we were heading to our dinner, and it freaked out Johnson so much that he started running and completely abandoned me, while I walked up to the dog and calmed it down. It's good to know that if we ever get in a bad situation that I'm on my own for self defense... Today was really good for personal study, I got to talk to Brother Vincent and he dropped off my weekly subscription to "Deep Doct." It was some pretty cool stuff. We had our weekly planning with the ward, except that didn't go very well because only the missionaries and the ward mission leader showed up. We had a fun discussion on our own, though. We then got to do a lesson with Jesus, which was a pass off lesson to the Elders in his area. That was probably one of the saddest lessons I had ever done. We had an awesome lesson, before we passed him off, though. We helped answer his questions one about Priesthood authority which was really well explained, and one about feeling the Holy Ghost and what the fruits of the Holy Ghost are. it was really cool to get to be a part of, but when it finally came time to say "goodbye", all of the fun evaporated, it was heart-wrenching. I was so sad about him leaving, and he was really connected to us too, he said that if he ends up getting baptized, he wants us to do it. That was pretty flattering, and cool to hear.
8/15/2020
Today was pretty good, but didn't end very well... I was really excited because I've been studying Hebrew, and today I overcame the challenge that's been holding me back for a few days: Hebrew doesn't use vowels, and trying to read the "vowel pointings" (modern day reminders of how the word would have been pronounced so that the language wouldn't be lost once all the native speakers died out), trying to read those vowel pointings and all of the letters of a new language was too much, but today I finally got them all memorized, and so I can actually read and pronounce these words! There's a really cool promise about the Book of Mormon (I don't know where it is, but I've tried it and know it works), if you read out loud in the language you're trying to learn from cover to cover, you'll be able to speak enough. For me, as someone who has that goal, and today had the chance to use a language I had been learning by reading the Book of Mormon, I was astounded to see that the promise held true even before I was done reading, that by trying to do this I was able to be blessed to speak in tongues: Today we had an encounter with a Spanish speaker, this awesome guy named Emanuel helped us break into our house (he got through our lock in literally three seconds which is kind of concerning for our safety) and afterwards I was able to have a conversation with him in Spanish! He was super excited once he found out that I spoke, even though it wasn't that well, and it made for an awesome encounter. That was definitely a tender mercy since we couldn't have met him under any other circumstances. It was really cool to see that Book of Mormon promise in effect, because now I'm trying to read a scholar's translation of the Book of Mormon (it's not as inspired as the first presidency's revelation, but fingers crossed that the Book of Mormon promise still applies to it). Today most of our work time was spent making and posting a video, we made a video about Christ's hands being their in our life, and it got taken down by our ZLs. I had received personal revelation to make that video, and wasn't very happy with the reasons that they didn't want it on our area page. This also presents a problem for us because the stake president is coming to visit our church this Sunday, we don't have any videos up yet, and it's important that when the Stake President announces his "New Releases" video to the stake that we're able to direct them to what we have as our videos. I'm not entirely sure what we'll do now, maybe we'll just post the other video we made that isn't perfect quality.
8/15/2020
Today was okay. We went down to Olathe to try to give a letter we wrote to one of our investigators we had lost contact with, that was the last thing we could possibly do to try and get in contact with her, and for all intents and purposes, she's no longer our investigator, that could change if she reaches out to us, but otherwise we've lost a little lamb. We got to talk to Brother Hightower a little which was great, he seemed a little more stressed out today, but he was so excited when he heard that we were coming back tomorrow to bring the sacrament to him. We got to bring back spoils of war with us today, Brother Hightower gave us food and since all of the Uncompahgre Elders are out of food and members to eat with, we shared that gift with them. We also managed to get a post set up for our ward conference tomorrow, it's going live an hour before everyone will arrive at church, so no one's going to see it, but at least it'll be there after church.
8/16/2020
Today was pretty busy so I don't have time to record much. We taught three lessons, got a new testimony video, and had to delete all of our posts from the Facebook page we had been proselyting on.
For today's spiritual thought I wanted to share a few verses from Doctrine and Covenants 21:
4 Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me;
5 For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.
6 For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory.
As we strive to obey all of the commandments, God will provide a way for us to find the Tree of Life, even Jesus Christ. We have to be patient and faithful, though, if we hold out faithful to the end, God will prepare a way in His time and His way, for which I am so grateful because He knows all, and His ways are always better than our ways.
Love,
Elder Anderson
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