Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise... I might only qualify for one of those.

This week I´ve been healthy!  Yipppeee!  We started working... and the members too!  they seriously just kicked it into gear this week.  We had lessons in the homes of members, left with the young men all week, and there were even visits going on without us even assigning them.  A couple of relief society sisters visited a family of 6 and did a birthday party for her.  She said that pretty much no one would have done anything for her on her birthday had it not been for them.  I´m filled with love and gratitude for those two sisters!  We even had less active young men going out with us, and recently activated members ask to do lessons in their homes.  So great!  I think that this next Sunday we start to see the results here.

Friday, we´re going to start teaching a super dynamic doctrine class, and a member wants to teach it for us.  He never ever ever has worked with any of the missionaries before.  We´re the first.  He loves computer graphics, so I talked to him about all his projects on Blender, and all that just made him love me.  And he wants my companion to teach him piano too.  haha.  They all think that we´re going to end the mission together, but that´s pretty much impossible.  haha, but we´re trying to convince them still to let us train a newbie together.  We´ll see...

The miracle this week was with Summer.  He´s been having problems getting his papers for marriage due to a divorce.  He´s been going to church and visiting with the missionaries for over 6 months.  This week we´ve been praying that he´ll be able to pay to get his partida de soltería, and then Friday he got paid!  No one was paying him even though he was working.  This was a major miracle because if it had come any later, costs for getting him married in September would have been more than double, and he´s pretty poor.  But now he´s really excited to get married and then baptized this Saturday.  I know that he´ll be a great member and that he´ll magnify his priesthood.  And soon he and his wife (reactivated member) will be able to get sealed with their little girl.  We really love him.

I love you all, and hope that you all share the gospel every single day!  I´m never going to stop being a missionary!

Love, 

Elder Thalman

Louis Armstrong

Elder Ficklin and I are really good neighbors.  We´re teaching almost all of the people who live near us!  :)  

 This Friday, we found a couple that is really young, but the wife is pregnant.  The husband said that he was already baptized in another church.  We taught the restoration focusing on authority, and at the end, he accepted baptism!  I was surprised, because it would appear that the whole restoration of priesthood authority actually made sense to him.  

 That´s not really normal here, so this guy is pretty smart.  They are also really easy to keep track of because they live right next door.  haha.

 We had our Musical Fireside on Wednesday and Sat.  Elder Adrian Ochoa was there on Wed with our mission president, and it was super cool.  The big problem was that I had two solos, and I was really sick on Wednesday.  

 Ugh.... I had a really bad throat, sounded like a frog.  Yikes.  But in the end, I think that it just came out sounding like Luis Armstrong.  haha.  But with a little more soul of course.  

 Thursday we had a zone conference with Elder Ochoa, and it was great.    In the leadership meeting afterwards, he said that missionaries wouldn´t get sick if they were working hard enough, so I felt super bad... cuz he knew i was really sick.  haha.  I´m trying my best, I promise!  But now I´m healthy, and we´re getting things going again.  I love being healthy!  I love being a missionary!

I think that of all the things, I learned a powerful leadership principle.  Some zone leaders were asking, how do we best influence the whole zone, because sometimes we just can´t focus on every single one?  He explained some things, and I felt like it hit me.  

You focus on the leadership.  that´s how you make lasting change.  

Focus on the district leaders, so that they can help the rest.

 Focus on working hard with your Bishop and ward mission leader, and they´ll do the rest.  That´s the real change.  Those are the guys that keep the work going forward after you leave.

 So that´s what we started doing, and yesterday we had a meeting with the ward mission leader and the auxiliary leaders.  then we went with him to the bishop´s house and proposed some ideas.  

He seems a lot more unified with us now, and I think that that´s going to make all the difference.  Now we have to teach it to the missionaries, so that the zone gets going in the same direction.  The mission plans haven´t been taking off because of the lack of unity between them and the bishops and ward mission leaders.

So, that´s that.  Just learning the basics still... you´d think that´d I´d have that down before now right?  

I love every single one of you who read this!

Elder Thalman

Cha Cha changes

This week was transfers... But Elder Ficklin and I are continuing the legacy!!!  yeah!  I love this guy.  But the rest of the zone got super messed up (in a really good way).  We love all of our new missionaries.  There are three newbies in the zone!!!  We love newbies so much.  One is this ridiculously trendy elder from Midway, UT.  The other is a Mexican sister, and the last is a PERUVIAN!  The first ever in this mission!  We´re so happy about it.  I love Peruvian people.  I taught one in the MTC, and their Spanish is super awesome sounding.  

We are preparing everything for this Musical Fireside that we´re doing this week.  My comp is playing piano, and I´m singing a couple of songs.  We also have a choir that´s a lot better than I´d thought.  In the end, the best part is that Elder Ochoa of the first quorum of the 70 is going to be there with the mission president!  I´m excited!

The new missionaries in the zone are all really positive (by new, I don´t mean they´re starting the mish, just new to the zone).  they are way excited, and I can already tell that the zone is going to improve a ton.  

Basically, being a missionary is the best things ever.  This week has been crazy just shaking things up, opening areas, finding new houses for missionaries, etc.  All nuts.  

 

But I´d thought that I´d share a super cool experience that I got from my dear friend Elder Matt Bradley who´s serving in Hong Kong.

"Every once in a while the Mandarin missionaries in Hong Kong have the privilege of teaching prepared souls who come down from mainland to hear all of the missionary lessons and get baptized in the same day. These experiences are usually really unique and refreshing to hear how the Lord blessed them with testimonies and provided them a way to first hear the gospel and then hear their usually pretty remarkable stories about how they were able to come to Hong Kong and meet us. Last Thursday's visitor baptism (picture included) was a special one.

 

So my companion and I are on the left of the picture then in the middle is the visitor's older sister, than it's the visitors husband Zhang dx, and then our visitor Chen Huan, and on the right is my former companion Elder Woods and his trainee Elder Dy. Elder Woods and Elder Dy taught and baptized the husband and the older sister two weeks ago (I actually didn't know that until Elder Woods came for the baptismal interview). Their story starts from last June and goes as follows:

 

In June her brother-in-law's older brother got back to Mainland having just lived in Canada. In Canada he got baptized and has a wonderful family. So when he moved back and met with his relatives there they were all impressed at his wonderful and unified family. They started asking him questions and learning about the Gospel from him. Then at the start of July their two year old daughter had a fever that wouldn't go away. It was really frightening for them and they didn't know what to do. Unlike previous fevers their daughter had it wasn't going away and so one particularly bad night they rushed her to the hospital and found out that she was actually in fatal condition. They prayed together as a family and Heavenly Father miraculously made her fever go away. After this experience they both knew that it was the right thing to be baptized and to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they determined to come down on July 27th and all get baptized  together as a family. When that day came though Chen Huan wasn't able to go with them and so the father and her older sister went without her. They took the lessons with Elder woods and got baptized that day. The Sunday after their baptism Chen Huan was really discouraged because she hadn't been baptized with them but she took courage when one of the sisters (who came and watched her get baptized) said that the Lord would let her get baptized at the most suitable moment for her. After she heard this then she took courage again and started to plan on coming to Hong Kong on August eighth. When the Branch President heard this he had the inspiration to have her husband baptize her on August eighth as well. They got everything prepared and while we were teaching her on Thursday she found out that her husband was actually going to come down and baptize her, and that he had all the things necessary (membership record, Aaronic priesthood ordination certificate, etc) that he needed to baptize her. While we were teaching her she also found out that a lot of the branch members would also, unexpectedly, be there to watch her get baptized. And another thing that just proves the Lord is in the detail of our lives is that Elder Woods was the only elder available that could help us with the baptismal interview. I had tried to schedule two other companionships to come and help us with the baptismal interview but he was the one that had time. During the baptismal service everyone was so happy, and I was elated to see a newly ordained Priesthood brethren baptize his wife. What an amazing experience it was! The Lord's spirit was definitely there with us, and I just felt so pleased and happy to be there.

 

In difficulties and outside of difficulties we sometimes make it so complicated and get so discouraged, but God is bigger than all our problems, He loves us and knows what's best for us, and will give us the best things according to His perfect timing. What a great comfort to me."

I love missionary work.  But I´m getting away from calling it that.  It´s all the same work of salvation!  We can and must all participate if we expect to gain our own.

Elder Thalman

Forming New Zones & a New Baptizm

 

On Monday, we went to visit Salamaleco, who had been reading the Book of Mormon a lot.  We felt impressed to read with him where he had gotten to at that point, and ended up read in 2Nephi, and Isaiah chapter.  The Spirit of the Lord was so strong and present, and all of us understood what it was saying (and I´ve never been good at reading Isaiah).  A lot had to do with the gathering of Irael (like normal in Isaiah).

Afterwards, we asked again how he felt about his baptism that Saturday (he had not yet ever given us a sure "yes").  He then solemnly explained in hushed tones that the Spirit and "light" that he received from the Book of Mormon had brought him to the personal decision of getting baptized on Saturday!  Then he said something super cool; "I had always wondered if I was a decendant of Israel, and now because of this book, I know that it´s true."  

 

That´s unlike anything that I had ever heard from an investigator before.  The Spirit was so strong, and Elder Ficklin and I were so filled with joy after, that we were on fire.  Anyone that talked to us after that that day was touched by the Spirit that we felt.  It was probably the happiest I´ve ever felt in the mission, if not in all my life.

For lack of time, that´s all for today.  Love you all!

Elder Thalman