Moving Forward...

So, no huge huge news for the week, but some cool experiences as Elder Vega and I are trying to boost the area as best we can.  Things are proving harder than we thought as this week we had only two investigators in church, way way less than we were expecting.  We are realizing that we will have to boost the strength of the members here first if God is going to trust this area with new converts.  Tough, but we will not become discouraged!


An update on an investigator named Hector.  This week, we talked to him about how he´s doing with quiting smoking.  He said that he has gone from about 20 cigs a day to 5!  And he hardly drinks coffee now too.  He´s made incredible progress for just one week.  We gave him a blessing, and then commenced to teach lesson one... that turned out to be a funny experience.


We started if he had ever heard the word prophet before.  "well, I think they are people called of God to lead and direct us here on the earth."  That was a little to much of a perfect answer, and my comp and I actually started to laugh a bit.  Then my comp just straight up asked him, "so what do you know about the life of Jesus Christ?" 


"Well, He organized His church, primarily upon the blocks of prophets and apostles, whom He gave His authority to act in His name."  What the!?


We asked him how he knew all that, and aparently he was listening in the other room when the missionaries spoke with his wife when she was baptized.  He didn´t remember too well about the Book of Mormon, so we gave him one and we will see how he does with reading it.  Easiest lesson one I´ve ever taught.  Haha.  I am blown away by the faith of this man!  I really love Hector.


We also have a baptism scheduled for a little girl named Leivi!  This will be this Saturday because she´s come to church for four weeks straight, and we´ve only just now gotten to talk to her.  We didn´t even know if she wanted to be baptized.  We talked to here and said we got permission from her Dad to baptize her, and she just smiled.  We asked if she would like that, and she just smiled and noded her head yes emphatically.  The next day in the lesson, she said she had a dream that she was being baptized and that she can´t wait.  Haha!  How cool is this kid!


We don´t really want to get a reptuation for being baby baptizers as they say, but this girl wants it and this will be the first baptism in Nuevo San Juan since January.  Almost seven months.  Pretty cool.


We´re still preparing many really great investigators, and families!  Byan and Marisela are still really good, and they came to church yesterday minus Bryan.  He said for sure he´ll come next week.  We´re getting them started on family prayers and the Book of Mormon.  I love how much we´re using the Book of Mormon now in the work.  That´s def how it should be.


I love this mission, and can see the hand of God ever in this work and in my soul.  I feel Him changing me, and I´m starting to feel more capable of enduring the trials before me.  That´s what I think David Bednar means when he used the phrase, "enableing power of the Atonement of Christ."  He doesn´t just take things away when they´re hard, but rather He gives us the strength to overcome them through the Atonement that we might grow. 


I have hope that this week will be even better than the last.  I love my companion.  I love this mission.  I love the people here, and mostly, I love the Lord Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father.  I also love and miss you all, and pray that you will try this week to experience the sweet fruits of missionary work in your every day lives this week.  Try and put more effort this week to help someone learn about the gospel and then write me about it! ;)  haha, but seriously.  do it.


Les Quiero mucho,


Elder Kent Thalman

MIRACLE

So, it´s finally happening again.  I´ll explain...


Wednesday, I got my new companion.  Let me first explain some back story.  In my first area, I remember several of the missionaries in my zone.  I really like Colón, and it was an awesome zone.  One of those missionaries was Elder Vega.  He was pretty tall, and honestly, really crazy.  I remember just watching him and thinking, "wow, he seems like he´d be a really immature companion to have."  I didn´t really think about it too much from there. 


At the changes meeting on Wed in San Pedro, I was nervous.  Nervous.  Almost everybody is to get a new companion.  You know me, jittering and twitching, and moving all over.  They keep calling name after name after name... where´s my comp?  Finally they call "Elder Vega...".  He stands up. 


"Elder Vega´s gonna be my comp," I said to Elder Baldwin. 


"...has been to assigned to serve in Nuevo San Juan with Elder Thalman."  I knew it!


Haha.  He might be my favorite comp so far!  A really fun guy, but we W O R K.  And that feels good.  I´m really happy to be talking with everybody again, and I can just see the miracles happening.  You´ve just got to open your mouth, and people will listen.  I´m learning a lot about the kind of missionary I want to be with him.


Saturday we contacted a guy who was just sitting on the grass outside his house reading the paper.  Seemed normal.  We talked for just a moment, and he seemed pretty receptive, and we started to get bold.  Elder Vega asked if he had ever read the book that was in my hand.  I realized I was holding a Book of Mormon, and I handed it to him.  He was immediately interested and was looking at it and skimming its pages the moment I handed it to him.  He said he´d read it and come to church the next day for sure.  We asked him if he´d ever been baptized and if he thought it was important.  "No, but I would say it´s really important."  We asked him right there if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.  He said he would, and we left.  It was a really cool experience!  I love it when stuff like that happens.  He didn´t come to church, but I am sure we can work with this guy to help him progress.


We´re working with two other really great families.  One is a reference from a member.  This member is a little bit like a little girl dispite her having four children, but that´s really normal for all the people here.  However, she is really helpful with these references, and this family is awesome.  We´ve got them to agree to prepare to be married.  Hopefully we´ll be able to help them accept baptism soon, but We´re convinced they´ll progress.


The other family is a street contact, they too are so awesome.  Immediately we met the husband and were talking with the two of them and laughing like we´d been friends forever.  It only took like 5 min to establish a relationship with Marisela and Bryan.  It was probably the most fun I´d ever had in a lesson ever.  We got them to accept to be married, and they are super interested, and seem more responsible than most of the people here, so their commitment to come to church means a little more I feel.  Such a cool family.  I really love them, and am just having so much fun here.


We´re also visiting less actives more diligently and working with the active members as well.  I feel like we are going to start changing this area a lot, and I know we are going to start baptizing a ton.  The fact that this area hasn´t baptized doesn´t mean we can´t do it.  To me, it means that no one has put forth the effort for a really long time here to do it, and now that it´s been so long, there are tons of people prepared.  I feel like we contact really likely baptismal candidates every day now.  It´s only been four days, and I feel like our relationship with the members is excellent, including our communication.


We are looking for a new house, because the water is making my skin break out still with a bacterial infection... so yeah, we´re gonna look for something better.  This place is pretty ghetto to be honest, but I don´t mind it.  My comps last area, as well as mine, were pretty nice.  His was a tourist site, and on the beach.  Trujillo.  The best.  Really really nice.


So yeah,  Elder Vega and me.  He´s from Nicaragua, and he´s totally insane and focused on baptizing tons of people.  Yeah man!  Also, he´s really tall and weak, so I´m taking him to the gym in the mornings... make him strong.  I just wish he could tell me how to get taller.  Haha.


This mission´s the best, and I´m super excited for the next 6 weeks with Elder Vega.  I´m praying that I´ll have to changes with him. 


I know that this work is changing people´s lives.  I am so grateful to God for the oportunity to share these things with everyone I meet.  So grateful for the ways I´m learning and growing, and for the relationships Im developing.  I sent out a few letters.  Thank you so much to those who have written me.  I´m trying my best to write people, but I really don´t get much time.  I´m doing better, so please be patient in getting a response.


I know that Jesus is the Christ.  I know that God calls prophets.  I can´t believe the power I feel whenever I listen to or read the words of our living prophets, seers, and revelators.  I love the Book of Mormon and testify with all my soul that it is true.  Let it change your life.


Les Quiero mucho!


Elder Kent Thalman

They´re Everywhere! Part II

Sooo... first, Elder Tavita has a transfer this week!  Ugh!  So this means that in four changes, I will have had four companions!  I really want to know who my next comp is goin to be.  I hate waiting.


This week has been a lot of fun, and I´ve been having so many great, personal, spiritual experiences.  That´s the point of the title!  Spiritual experiences and miracles ARE EVERYWHERE!  We should have them and recognize them Every Day.  Last night, I finished with everything a little early, so I decided to watch some Preach my Gospel videos about how to help people read the Book of Mormon.  One of them just really helped me figure some stuff out, and I realized that I could be focusing on the Book of Mormon more in this work right now.  At the end of the video it showed a clip from Elder Holland´s famous talk where he really testifies boldly of the Book of Mormon.  I´ve seen that one before, but for some reason, this time something really stuck out to me.  He said something really close to no member or investigator can come to full faith and full conversion in this church without knowledge and conviction of the divinity of this book!  How true!


When I heard those words, once more (and this really hasn´t happened too often for me in my life) I felt a powerful witness in my heart of the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon.  The feeling was rather transcending this time, and I am confident in saying that it was probably the most powerful witness I´ve ever received concerning this thing.  Don´t misunderstand.  Since the beginning of about highschool I think, I´ve known without a doubt that this book is true.  But what I think made the difference this time was simply prayer.  Recently I started including in my prayers to have my testimony of certain things fortified, that I might with more conviction help these people feel the Spirit concerning our message.  I have only very very recently started praying for that the last couple of nights, and did I ever receive an answer!  If God so quickly answers these prayers, I think I will continue asking, in this and other Gospel aspects.


I testify to everyone reading these words that I know for myself that the Book of Mormon is the word of God!  It truly is the very keystone of my testimony.  Because I know that it is God´s word for me in my life, I know that Jesus Christ truly is God´s Son and my Savior.  That´s what the whole book is about.  I also know that Joseph Smith was not a liar.  On the contrary, I know that he most surely was and is the prophet of this last and great dispensation!  How wonderful it is to know these few simple truths in my life!  I want everyone to know and feel these things.  I want the blessings I have because of these things to be a part of everyone elses lives.


I invite everyone to read the Book of Mormon.  If you´ve already read it, please read it again.  If you read it with the Spirit, and prayerfully, it never gets old.  I invite everyone to ask God, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ if it really is true.  If you´ve already asked, ask again.  I testify that He will strengthen whatever conviction you already have of it´s divinity.  Even if that conviction is zero.


So, will you read the Book of Mormon tonight, even just one page, and then ask God to know if it´s true.  I promise you that if you do, you will know, just as I do, that it is true, and that it will bless and guide and change you life forever.


I´m not just saying it.  It´s a promise.  It´s God´s promise.  Prove Him.  In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.


Love,

Elder Kent M. Thalman