Oposite Day

 

(Sarcastically speaking)

Life stinks. Everyone in this new area is too excited about the gospel. They all just want to get baptized. So annoying. They all want me to help them do it. My comp is all cheerful and Mexican, and he only wants to speak to me in English. The seats in church are all cramped because everyone wants to come every Sunday... ugh.

The members keep trying to get us to eat their food, and I'm pretty much have no time to buy and make food myself. The selfish little kids in the USA want in on the cash cow of baptisms here, so they are having to divide the mission now.

I showed up, and a whole family of three wanted my comp and I to go watch them get baptized as well as another young man. Four people.

I want to go home really bad.

Don't write me.

Insincerely,

Elder Kent Thalman

;) ;) ;) ;) Oposite Day!

My comps name is Elder Rodas, and he's tight. My comp from my last area, Elder Young is now training. He's soooo cool! I miss him but I know that elder Rodas and I are going to tear it up here in Dos Caminos, zona Merendon. It's way hot though. I'm going to have to use sun screen so I don't repeat what happened in La Lima when I got scorched.

the family is Familia Melgar. they are so great! So pilas. They are really excited to be members and the dad already has the priesthood. they remind me a lot of the first family I baptized, and the branch loves them.

They are planning on building a building here in August and I know that after there's a building, we're for sure gonna be a ward. there is so much priesthood here. There are three missionaries in the field here, and four more leaving really soon. One just got his call this week, so that make five under call. there are like 40 youth, as opossed to the 5 in my last area, and all the young men want to leave and work with us. It's nuts!

I've never seen a branch like this anywhere in the world.

I love and miss you all, and am so proud of my friends who are going on missions!

Love,

Elder Thalman

Pics of the week

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

So, this week we are going to need to go three forward if we want progress. None of our possibilities got baptized, even though we did some good work.

We had a lesson on Monday with Rita. We immediately saw that something was different with her the moment we saw her. A good different. She just seemed so bright eyed. haha. That´s the best we can describe it. We taught her the atonement using Mosiah 3 verses 5-11, and the spirit was really really really strong. She knows it´s true. But she wouldn´t accept the date. We visited her quickly every day this week. On Friday (her birthday) she said, "I don´t think I´m getting baptized tomorrow (we´d been reminding her all week) but soon though." So we feel good that she at least has admitted that she will do it now. She puts up her catholic faith as a front, but now she´s starting to just accept that she can´t deny it any more. We ran by the house quick last night and shared 1Nephi3 verse 7. At the end we asked if she had any questions and she was just glowing...she wanted to say something but said, "no, I´m good." We left and looked at each other. "She so wants to get baptized now!" We both had the same thought. We´re going to set the date for this Saturday. But as it turns out, her nine-year-old grand daughter is a tough little cookie. She´s just too darn Catholic! haha. But she´ll come around.

Kevin will be getting the new job this week selling water, which will give him better pay, and free in the evenings and on Sunday. We´re really happy about it, and we know that it´s because Kevin is exercising his faith to live the commandments. He told us that what he´s praying for is a job that is free on Sundays, his own house to raise his daughter, and a wife who will marry him legally. Preferably who´ll go to church with him. We told him that those are righteous desires and that he should keep praying for those things. I promised him that if he lives the commandments, within six months after his baptism he will be able to move into his house with his little girl. Right now he lives in some tiny apartment and we don´t like the environment. But he already has a house, but there´s no floor or anything, and he doesn´t have the money to make it livable yet. God is really blessing him, and has really prepared him. He said that he´s was praying for months before he was invited to church to be able to find a church where he felt happy. SO COOL!

We are teaching a young thirteen-year-old named Nelcy who is really tight. She was a reference of a member, and we didn´t see too much in her at first. The second time we found her, we asked if she read the pamphlet, and we quickly realized that she is very prepared to hear the gospel. We taught her in the house of a member this Saturday, and we started the Plan of Salvation. She, at the end, bore her testimony to us. "At the beginning of this school year, I was thinking of not entering because i had nothing. I thought I would have to drop out. But then Reina gave me the shirt I needed, and Orbelina gave me the bag. Then someone gave me the skirt. I know that my Heavenly Father is watching over me, and it´s because of Him that I can study this year."

We hear stories like that a lot, and honestly, this was way more sincere. We both just felt the Spirit really strong, and we could feel the love that God has for this young woman. It was cool, and we feel good about it all.

This mission is the best. It´s really hard, and sometimes it feels like what we´re doing isn´t bearing fruit, but I know that´s not true. I can feel us changing lives. We will move forward!!!

I know that Christ is our Savior, the Redeemer of the world. He came to suffer for all, that His own may come unto Him and receive everlasting life.

Love,

Elder Kent Thalman

Priorities

 

So, we got really sick of people going right up to their baptismal dates, and then falling through for not going to church, so decided to put all we had in the three with dates for this weekend. It worked!!!

We have been really diligent with Rita and her grand daughter Gaby for a while now. They went to church all on their own this week! So, if they can get ready, they should be baptized this weekend. We love them, and are excited for them. One night, we didn´t have too much to do, so we went and helped them destroy half the house that they´re remodeling. FUN! We spend like an hour taking out a giant cedar post and got my shirt all stained up... but it´ll come clean. I hope. haha.

The other one this weekend is Kevin. We hadn´t been able to get a hold of him for a lesson for almost two weeks. He´s really cool, but every time we went to his place we felt awful. then we get him out of there, and we feel better. Some thing Saturday night. We got him to a house of a member, and he expressed all of his desires to still get baptized, but his work is killing all of his time, week day and Sundays. We taught him about the sabbath day and our member showed him the scripture about the guy getting stoned to death in the book of Numbers.. That´s why you prep the members before the lesson. haha. But... he went to church! And he´s got connections with a cousin of his for a job that will give him evenings and Sundays off work. So, he´s set up for this Saturday if he gets the job. We are really excited for him, and know that he´ll be a great member. He was the only investigator we had second hour in our gospel doct class, so we taught him lesson two, which he needed. It was really cool, and my comp and I now love teaching lesson two because of how excited investigators get. It´s really fun.

Missionary work is the best!

I love you all!

Elder Kent Thalman

Bold but not Overbearing

 

Things in Florida are finally starting to get heated... haha. Punny.

We were able to get some excellent new investigators this week. We now are just trying to keep a grip on the old ones and BAPTIZE THEM! But yeah. One of them is named Marcotulio. They call him Tulito. He´s way cool. We just contacted him in the street on the way home late Tues night. Sunday night I told my comp around seven, "Elder, it´s diligence hour. The new investigators we find right now are the ones that are getting baptized." I remember the letter Sister Berbert sent me about going to the end of the street in all that you do, and I have found wisdom in that. Sometimes God holds the good stuff for very last. You´ve just got to get there.

So anyway, Tulito. He´s 20 years old and is studying in San Pedro. In the contact, I bore him my testimony and felt the Spirit really strong. I immediately knew, this one is going to be good. We went with later in the week, and he accepted a baptismal challenge. Then later on we taught the restoration. He had expressed to us desire to find a new church where he felt comfortable. He told us that he had read the pamphlet, and he seemed to understand tons. He had questions about the word, "atonement" and the two priesthoods, etc. By the time we started explaining prophetic dispensations, I was just too excited to keep a smile off my face. I just can´t wait to get to the first vision with this kid!!! We taught it all, and he accepted the date. He´s in the "pray to know the truth" process right now, but I can already tell that he has felt the Spirit. He went to church yesterday and brought his friend and another inactive kid of the same age. We are really pumped for this missionary!

So yeah, he´s awesome.

Denis and Anita went through some tough experiences this last week, dealing with two ridiculous white kids from the States telling them what to do. jaja. They are awesome! We taught them all sorts of great stuff from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they continue to read and pray like bosses. And we found out that he voted for Mitt Romney... which we assume is a positive sign. haha... jk. but really, he did.

They invited us over for dinner Sat night and it kind of freaked me out. They put a bunch of food on the table and then gave us our plates. We served ourselves and then ate. Wow! I haven´t seen that for over a year! haha. Normally meals here are every man for himself. Get you food. Pray. Eat whenever. He´s very American.

After dinner, we taught them the word of wisdom. Then we put a baptismal date. Knowing that he was going to leave the following Monday (today), we challenged them to be baptized.... the very next day. They were pretty dumb struck at first to be honest. We asked them to ask the Lord in prayer, and promised that they would know. The fact that they didn´t run immediately was pretty positive in and of itself. I know that they know it´s all true. But they prayed and yesterday they told us that they don´t feel ready yet. Honestly, I trust them in that decision, and I felt them same. But we didn´t regret the challenge. Doing it really helped them evaluate exactly where they were in their progression, and brought their doubts out in the open for us to be able to address. They still went to church the next day, and afterwards, we taught them about eternal families and gave Denis a triple combination because he wanted to learn more about D&C. He gave us a big hug when we left, and I trust that he´ll go to church in the states. We´re going to keep working with them, and I know that the both will get baptized very soon. They are very prepared, and all the members of the church here say so too.

I love this gospel! It´s the best! Keep livin´ it! If you´re not... do it. It´s what will make you happy. If you´re already happy, it´ll make you even happier.

The scriptures are the best. Conditions are perfect. It´s reading time! (shout out, Joe S.).

Sincerely,

Elder Kent Thalman

The FAMILY

Okay, so some cool stuff this week, but I will keep it limited.

On Tuesday this week, we had a lot of stuff fall through, and we weren´t able to visit a lot of people that we were planning on. So we started just talking with people close by, and then we decided to go on. We are always just trying to find families, and know that references are better than street contacts. But... God can send you anyone in anyform.

We were leaving the doorstep of a lady we contacted when I saw a couple sitting outside together, and there were some kids running around them... irresistible! So we turned around and bugged um. The husband is from Nicaragua, but spent most of his life in the states. He´s actually a legal citizen. She married him in the states, and then was deported. He came here to be with her and help her get papers. Denis and Ana. They are WAY cool! We started talking to them, and they are just a great family! It´s so cool. He seems to be really a good dad, and she´s a nice mom. We met them this week, and we´ve taught them the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, tithing, and they´ve already read the panflet on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are also reading in the Book of Mormon pretty well. We´re super excited. they came to church yesterday, and everything just went smooth, which made us happy because we wanted them to have a good experience.

On Saturday, we felt that we really needed to focus on the Book of Mormon more with them. We got excited about all of their questions and kind of didn´t put enough imphasis on it. So we explained it more with them and read from the intro. We told him about how Chirst came to the Americas and his face just totally changed. My comp sincerely asked him, "what do you think about this, that Christ came to this continent?"

"Really surprised... but I don´t see how you could say that it didn´t happen because it´s obvious that God sent his Son to save the world and not just the middle eastern area. I´m just... surprised..."

It was SOOOO COOOL!!!! I love the Book of Mormon!!! It´s so cool to see how it really changes the lives of those who read it with an open heart. The Lord has prepared Denis and Ana so well, it´s almost unbelievable. He told us the first visit, "I´ve been looking for a clean ministry (church) for many years now, and I was thinking of visiting that church even before you guys talked to me. Now I´m definately going." And he did!!!

I know that this is Christ´s church that he had established when He was on the earth. It is the same Gospel yesterday, today, and forever. I know that He truly was and is the Lamb of God, a perfect sacrifice for sin. I love Him, and know that He lives.

Mucho Amor,

Elder Kent Thalman

Meekness.

 

This week was so great!!! We got some pretty good work done, and I´m really starting to learn how to not just reach goals, but get true work done that actually touches hearts and changes lives. It´s funny how as a missionary you constantly feel like you´re learning stuff that you wish you knew at the beginning of the mission. And ironically, I still haven´t had more success in comparison to those first few months. Well, success is measured in a lot of different ways, but yeah. I´m starting to ramble.

We are still moving right along with Edwin. He turned 17 this week. We went running with him at 5am one morning, which looking back was a dumb decision, but I think he really looks at us as his friends. haha. He came to church yesterday, and seemed like he learned a lot. He´s really smart, and knows him Bible well for someone who didn´t believe in God as of a few weeks. We convinced him by teaching lesson one. What ACTUALLY happened is the Spirit convinced him. haha. But that´s not how he says it.
We taught him the Plan of Salvation, which blew his mind! And then we taught him the Word of Wizzum, which is trying him because he LOVES coffee. haha. But he´s two days dry! He´s kind of funny because he always seems so doubtful about keeping commitments, but then keeps them better than anyone else in the end. We pray for him a lot, and I know that he will make it. He wants it now for himself. He´ll make a great missionary.

Our branch Pres. finally called a ward mission leader!!! Yes! It´s so nice to have one! His name is Solomon, who has been mentioned here in this blog before for his incredible testimony. He is the inspiration for this blog title.

Yesterday, we left to go work with him in the evening. First, a little about him. He is super poor. He´s been working on his mission papers for a while now, and is getting close now. He´s not too educated, but I´m not sure that anyone in this country could beat him out for having just a sure fire, powerful Spiritual witness of the truth.
 He´s very quite, but not shy at all. And when he bears testimony, you can honestly just watch him as he struggles for just a few moments, and then justs submits to the Spirit. I know that no human has taught him the steps, "teach, testify, invite, promise," but the Spirit has. Everytime I asked him to testify of anything in a lesson, he would just start speaking and you´d feel the Spirit. He´d share a really short experience with the investigator, bear pure testimony, and then promise blessing with all of his heart.

With a young 19 year old that we were teaching, he did that with the Book of Mormon. We challenged him to read the Intro of the book, and he neglected. He said that his eye sight was really bad, and if he read more than a few sentences, he got headaches and his eyes would water so that he couldn´t see. That´s a common problem here because people can´t afford to go get glasses, and no one is used to reading.

I sat for just a moment, pondering on what I could even say. Solutions....? Then I just hear a voice from beside me, "I promise you that the Lord can take that problem away." I quickly sat up and looked over at Solomon. He honestly just spoke so calmly, but there was literally a power that you could almost feel in his words. He wasn´t just talking to fill time.
 He continued, "I had the exact problem. I couldn´t read because of my eyesight, but I prayed and asked God to take the problem from off my eyes so that I could read the Book of Mormon, and He did it."
 My thought was honestly, this guy is unstoppable! I know that my companion was thinking the same. I almost want to send a letter to the First Presidency to let him skip the MTC. He already does everything so well, I want him to go just how he is right now. MEEK.

That kind of meekness, from what I can see in him, is a result of true humility and powerful convertion. Such attributes give one the key to unlock power from onhigh, and act as the Savior would. I love Solomon because he is such an example to me of a Christ like servant.

I´m all out of type in my fingers. I love and miss you all, and testify that if you´re not out here in the mission field, the you should be!!! :) Son bromas, quisas.

Love!

Elder Kent Thalman