Dramatic!

My companion is just the greatest guy ever. Elder Bethers rocks. We worked our tails off this week, and really want to continue doing that for a really long time. A few days ago we had been teaching, contacting and working like mad, but we still felt like we were lacking something, and actually felt a lack of power in our message. This troubled us for a while, and has made us reflect on our efforts. We feel that it is because the commitment is what allows for one to become converted, and we need to concentrate our efforts more on the Spirit´s power to bring out inner commitments. Due to the fact that María got baptized really fast and still hasn´t come to church, we figured that this Sunday we were in for one with the Bishop because he was wary of acting so fast. Well, it turns out that this man really really has a very deep love and appreciation for all of God´s children, coupled with a grand understanding of how to help them, and where I subconsciously gave in to the temptation to say that all has been done, he simply told us to pass by with all of the leaders in the ward to figure out what she needs, temporally and spiritually. This we will do, and your prayers will be greatly appreciated as well. Last night, we contacted this older gentleman, and as we tried to explain to him the importance of the message he ended up just rejecting us and hardening his heart. I ended up just looking him straight in the eyes and praying to the Lord that he could understand how much he is missing out on. That is when the Spirit testified of our message. I wish that I had done that earlier in the contact before trying to convince him with my words. The Lord will provide for him at a later date. In church we had a double miracle. None of our investigators had come, and we went outside to call them, to think out loud for a while and to seek the Lord´s guidance. As we sat outside discussing what we could do, Hugo walked over. Contacted a few days ago, this great soul had humbly showed up to see us and to seek guidance in his life as well. He appears different, but lives and loves like each of God´s Children. He couldn´t stay the whole time, but he got to know a little bit and has some goals this week before he comes back the next weekend. Also, a girl that has a great friend bringing her to church is just rearing to go. Her name is Victoria, and we didn´t see her due to the fact that she usually wears glasses, and that she went calmly to primary where we usually don´t look for newcomers. What miracles we had! Truman G. Madsen has some great advice concerning missionary work. He says "let THEM say no" or in other words, give people the benefit of the doubt. I have been applying this principle this week, and it has let me show more faith and help more people commit to learning more about the gospel and applying the eternal principles of salvation. In place of saying something like "hey, we don´t want to waste too much of your time, so we are just gonna give you a card, say a quick prayer and walk away", something more heartfelt and bold is what will make the difference. "I have been thinking about you and the struggles that you have had in your life, and do you know what? I would like to take a few minutes and explain how my baptism changed my life, and then I would like to invite you to do the same by following the example of Christ and joining yourself with His church. Think it through before you let me tell it, because if you let me do so you will feel the Spirit of the Lord telling you that this is what you want in your life, and you may well end up a Mormon in three weeks. May I continue with this message?" I really liked how brother Madsen gave multiple examples of such experiences and that they worked, though I paraphrased a little bit. Y´all get the idea. This is the Lord´s church, and we can all feel it upon praying about it. I love prayer, the heart´s sincere desire, and I often pray for each of y´all who received this message.

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

The title is the only prison song that I know, and due to the fact that I entered one this week to talk to an investigator´s significant other, I thought that it would be fitting. I had completely forgotten all documentation, yet somehow still managed to get through... hmm... Anyways, to make things more epic, it was all during our time for our interviews with the President, and we had to take a taxi there and back. The first taxi driver robbed us of 20 pesos, so we had to cut the ride back short and walk the rest of the way. Ah, the joys of the mission!! My talk with the President was great. He wants me to fully drive myself in the gospel and let nothing get in the way. Opposition, trials, temptations, all of them are naughty excuses for not achieving great wonders in the name of the Lord. We currently are about to explode here in Centro, and the members are really getting good at staying excited for the work. We´ve been spreading cards, Preach My Gospels and copies of the Book of Mormon like wildfire, and hope that it catches big. Two of the part member families are getting married here in February, so we are way happy for them. I love my companion. He is humble, intelligent, meek, loving, funny, and . Elder Bethers will be a lifelong friend for me, especially because he lives so close. He reminds me of Layten Durda mixed with Trevor Pierce and Clayton Young, three of the people with which I share some of my fondest memories before the mission. What a pleasure it is to serve with him in this blessed land! I got Christmas mail from the ward back home, and it made my day. Isaac Fotu had some great comments about David, but don´t tell him I said that. Just keep doing what you´re doing, pal. The Moeller´s Questionaire was hilarious, and the mere mention of carnivore soup makes my stomach do flips and twirls inside. All in all, I am happy to say that I am alive and well, the Lord is blessing us with people to teach, and expects us to work very hard. In all reality, we don´t have the time to visit everyone by ourselves and have to get organizing regular divisions to keep us on the right track coming up here soon. Love, joy and peace to everyone. Elder Lindsey

God is a God of Miracles!!!!!

This weekend was easily the most miraculous weekend of my mission. In Rio Cuarto, my area was one of only four areas in the MISSION that hadn´t baptized. We had no progressing investigators. None of our investigators came to church, even the man that had miraculously agreed to be baptized the day before. Our faith began to falter. We emptied the font. We went home to eat our lunch, and figure out what exactly we could do. Enter the rest of the Zone of Rio Cuarto. Every single area came into our Zone. Another missionary, a youth from another ward and I put ourselves in a room with our Bishop Fontana, a real good one, and we looked through all of the ward records for the Part Member Families. We had three other companionships out and about contacting them and inviting all to be baptized. One of our recent converts had talked to me in church to say that his mother had enjoyed the last visit where we had talked about faith to help him prepare a lesson for Sunday School, and he said that she would like for Elder Santo to come back. Well, we sent him over with one of the Zone leaders, and she accepted to be baptized last night. An hour later, they all show up in a taxi at the church, with 12 missionaries looking on and we sang a ton of hymns, welcomed her other son and had the most beautiful baptismal service that I had ever seen. Other Elders had been calling us all week to keep us up and happy. They simply testified of the need and that we can do it with the Lord´s help. Now, the lesson is that we shouldn´t procrastinate, but more deeply I realized that the Lord is ever so merciful with us in our weaknesses and shortcomings. Every other companionship in the mission also baptized, completing a Mission of Zion. How grateful we are to the Lord, and how much more we still have to change to be as the Lord wants us to be! I will send pictures later when I come back to the computer place to send the picture of the register for the baptism, and you will see the joy of missionary work when it is applied selflessly and with all of our hearts. I love y´all! ¡Feliz Ano Nuevo! Elder Lindsey

Hey!!!!

I got the package for my birthday!!!! Thank you sooooo much. The extra extra socks made my day, and I currently am wearing them, for those who are wondering. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and never lets us get too up nor too down. This week I have felt the love and affection of the Savior more than any time in my life. President expressed a ton of confidence in my abilities, as did my district leader Elder Santo. Elder Van Loo, my companion, is a man that I highly respect and hope to keep a good contact between us for the rest of our lives. These three men in this time have raised me higher, and deserve all that I have to give (as does really any child of God, but these three especially.) Please keep them in your prayers. We still haven´t baptized this month, but there is still hope. The power of faith coupled with fervent prayer to discern the Lord´s will, and immediate action to do it, all comprise the formula for success. We´re gonna add a little bit of our spontaneous love for others as our own part, but the rest really lies in the Lord´s hands to shape us and direct us to His prepared children. Christmas time is here. Are we all happy? It is the most wonderful time of the year, especially in South America with our summer heat. Goodness how I love it! People here don´t put as much emphasis on Christmas as they do the New Year, which saddens me, but the season gives us great reason to contact and talk with everyone: sharing a message of the Savior´s birth. There are myriad accounts of it in the Scriptures. The first Nephi, not the 2nd 3rd nor 4th, prophesies of Him, King Benjamin tells the tale, Samuel the Lamanite tells it, Isaiah foretells it triumphantly, and St Luke made it famous. Try reading them and think about the significance of that moment, paired with that of Easter, which in reality was the day which gave the most hope to all of mankind. Without Easter, we would have no point of living. I love the Savior and all that He has done, does now and will do for me and my loved ones. Spend some time with your loved ones this time of the year, and make loved ones out of those who have none. ¿Feliz Navidad! Elder Lindsey

As I have heard reports of the Lone Peak High School Madrigal Feast and its festivious successes, I am again turned to think on the Savior and how much I love Him. My favorite of all the songs we ever sang for Christmas is "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree" I don´t have time to write the lyrics, but He keeps us alive and gives us rest. The Reason for the Season is love, as the Bible teaches us. "God is love", we learn. So, how do we become like Him? Love! We worked like crazy this last week to get all of the members in on the Bring-a-friend-to-church Day, and those that did were richly rewarded it seems. Those who didn´t saw that, and have promised to work with us this next week. Whew. So much to plan, and so little time to do it! We had a couple come with us to church on Sunday, and they really enjoyed it. They are talking about coming back, and their questions slowly answer themselves in the message of the gospel. We are very happy for them. We had our Christmas Zone Conference yesterday, and it was great to get packages and letters from everyone whilst missionaries from across the world did the same and feasted on delicious roast pork and beef. We played soccer, piano, sang carols and just enjoyed ourselves. I have heard that the mission calls for the young ladies have already been sent out to the world near you. Mary Petersen wrote to tell me of her upcoming adventures in Canada. Good luck Mary! I love really getting to know people and having them feel the Savior´s love as I have come to feel it. "For this is life eternal, to know the Father." I hope we can all do that especially over this Christmas season. In Christ, Elder Lindseyi

All of you know that the Lord respects His children´s prayers and fasts, that He answers them and grants blessing to us even when our imperfections get in the way. This is exactly what happened this week. We worked hard, really hard, to find people and help people come to church, accept the challenge to get baptized and become like Christ, but it just wasn´t having any fruits. And then came the miracle. The whole Zone fasted and prayed that our area could baptize this week to complete a Zone of Zion, (that everyone baptizes). We ended up finding two registers of previous baptisms that hadn´t been sent in, and these two poor souls weren´t technically members of Christ´s Church. We sent in the two of them, and we effectively baptized two people before even leaving the house to preach that morning. The Lord works in Mysterious Ways, no? I love it here in Centro. We have a much smaller area to work than my old one, but it is a functioning ward with a full staff of authorized assistants of the Lord for this city, all of whom wish to work like dogs to save God´s children. I am very very very excited to be in a ward for the first time in my whole mission. We are going to get things rolling well if we listen to the Spirit and convey desires to help people come unto Christ. I have thought long and hard on the topic of prayer for a while now, and I believe that it is the single most important thing that we can do to begin, sustain and end our day. I find that often the nightly prayer is the most rewarding, though the most difficult to apply and/or remember the next day. My new plan is to try and make the morning prayer and prayers throughout the day more effective and with more results. Wilford Woodruff was visited by Brigham Young in a dream, and he said that the only thing that he told him was that the saints need to understand the importance of having the guide of the spirit constantly to assist them always in their lives. Well, the spirit comes through the prayer of faith, and if you want it in the day you have to ask for it genuinely and for the correct purposes. I love the mission, and recommend it to all as soon as one is able to, not when one plans to in the distant future. Satan is a cunning little devil, and will tempt you beyond what seems fair, and as we learn from King David´s example of not being in the fight when he should have been, he fell for Bathsheba and lost his exaltation despite his good works in the past. Go ahead and leave your nets "immediately" as did the Lord´s chosen apostles, for time is short, and the laborers are few. Imagine what would have happened to them if they had waited a few months or years to work with the Savior. They wouldn´t have been able to work with Him, for He had a work do now right then, and not later. Procrastinate later. Go out there and do some good now. With Love, Elder Lindsey

This week was nuts!

This week was nuts, full of events and ever so spiritual. To expound, we had an earthquake, 6.0, in Catamarca, and both of us felt and heard it, about 60 kilometers away from us, or about forty miles or so. It lasted for about ten seconds from what I could tell. We had a three foot snake in our pension that we took pictures of before pushing it out with a broom, a giant spider jumped at my companion during nightly planning, my bike got stollen and we will check tonight to see if the police have found it or not, we went to La Rioja to see Elder Zeballos of the Seventy who talked to us as a Zone, and our most promising investigator received a very clear answer when we all knelt down in the chapel to ask the Lord to give her one. Furthermore, another investigator showed up to church just out of the blue after a week of not being able to find her. The Lord sure does like to keep us on our toes. It has been strangely cool here for Catamarca this time of the year, but I assure you that it is just a fluke. As things warm up here in temperature I hope that things will continue to warm up in the hearts of the people around us so that more of God´s children can be saved. Perhaps the most important thing that has happened this week is that I have put in an extra large effort to never rest and to always be pushing myself to do everything possible and just to bring people to Christ. Nephi says I will go and do what the Lord has commanded, and not "I will sit around and think about it for too long first, and then maybe I will do something along the lines of what we have planned." Most importantly, the Spirit will always guide us in our actions, but we have to act to be guided. I have learned more of the Love of Christ this week as all of the crazy facets of life have piled themselves on me, and overwhelmingly it seems at times. The other morning I just needed the Father to calm my troubled soul, and earnestly knelt in prayer to ask Him for comfort. As Elder Bednar teaches, we must be willing to act on the answer that we receive, and the response which I got was to search the materials that I have to study to find the answer: a frustrating, but faith building reply. As I looked over all the books, scriptures, magazines and pamphlets that neatly resided on my desk, none of them struck me as the designated medium for this moment of love which I needed. Upon a more diligent search through my things, my mind fell upon a letter from a friend, which threatened to kick my butt when I got home if I didn´t give it my all. That, and other small phrases reminding me of the importance of the Spirit, as well as that the Lord can´t allow His work to mess itself up, not even if we try, really lifted my spirits. I stand all amazed at the love He offers each and every one of us, even now as I sit at the computer. I also stand all amazed in behalf of the love that He gives us and testify of its reality, that each of us can feel it and later testify of it to all we encounter through our example, smiles, choices, works and divine potential. I love y´all too, even if I do only write once a week. Be Good! Elder Lindsey