Family,
Here is
Sam’s letter for this week! I just sent last week’s letter a couple of
hours ago, so I am repenting and sending this one as soon as I received
it.
I love Sam’s
letters from the Mission Field!
It is
Wonderful to see someone so excited and happy to be a Missionary! It is a
great lesson to all of us that the Gospel is FUN and you can have a BLAST when
doing the Lords work! I am certain that it would be easy to be frightened
or discouraged serving where he is (just a couple of weeks ago and drunk man
threatened to come back and cut off all of their heads). In his first
area they had very little success - if you measure success only as Baptisms –
it appears that Sam understands that true Success on a Mission is measure by
effort and faithfulness! The Lord calls Missionaries to go and do the
work to which we have been called. If they are faithful in keeping the
commandments, following all of the Mission rules, and living worthy to have the
Spirit, then the Missionary must just give his or her whole heart to the work
and go out and work hard every day – that is how you measure Success on a
Mission.
It is like the story called Moving the Rock. The
Lord asked a man to go and push on a Giant rock. Every day the man went
out very early and worked until late in the evening pushing on the rock.
He spent years going to the rock everyday and pushing as hard as he
could. After a long time had passed, he became discouraged and went to
the Lord and said – I have done as you have asked, but I have failed to move
the rock by even one inch, my labor has been in vain and nothing good has come
of it. The Lord answered the man in a way that surprised him. The
Lord said, I never asked you to move the rock – I only asked you to go and push
on the rock with all of your might, this you have faithfully done. The
Lord then went on to say, I am the one who will move the rock – you were
only asked to go and push on the rock with all of your might and now look what
has happened to you as you have obeyed and been faithful to my
commandments. You have become a strong and mighty man, faithful in every
way. What a great lesson for all of us. Do we faithfully fulfill
our assignments and do we see a greater purpose in our labors? To me, it
looks like Sam gets it!
President
Benson said that the secret to being happy on a Mission was this - WORK.
Sam must be working hard!
Love you
all,
Dad/Alan
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Hey family sounds like
everyone is doing great. So I sent the card by mail, like I dropped it off in a
normal mailbox, hope thats okay! And I didn't send my retainer I still have it.
Right now I'm using the clear retainer things that I put that paste in. It
seems to work. But does the orthodonist in AZ have records that they could make
a new one, or do I have to go through that process again? And I can't wait
for the package! So Kingsbridge is pretty cool! And I love my companion, we get
along very well and are having a blast! So Wednesday we just unpacked and hung
around the apartment. Then we had English class afterwards! Thursday we had a
lunch appointment with a member who invited my companion and I and the other
companions in our apartment and we had a great time! Then we had an appointment
with one of our investigators named Darwin, he's about 12 and he is really
cool. He comes to church. I think he was a referal from his Grandma because
she's a member. But I don't know. After that we went to the family Lucero who
are part members. Its confusing, but the God-Mother of the family has two kids
she adopted and they live with the Luceros, and those two kids we are teaching.
And we gave them a baptismal date for the 15th of September! Then we had
English class again to end the night! Friday we give service to a Senior
Center and we just help serve lunch to them, which is fun because its something
different! And we get a free lunch. Haha, and the elderly people are very
nice and give us food to take home. Then we had a Blitz in another
companionships area. A Blitz a zone thing where we go to someones area and do
work in there area for about two hours just trying to help find potentials for
them to teach! Then we did some tracting and look ups to end the night! We were
able to teach 2 lessons from that! Saturday we did some tracting and found this
really cool lady named Andrea, the only bad thing is she leaves for college
Thursday! But we told her to find the missionaries upstate. Sunday we had
church and I rode in a New York taxi for the first time! Then we went to the
Lucero family and had a good lesson with them! Monday we had district meeting
and we just got to know each other. There are six of us total in our district
and 14 I think in the zone. And I love everyone in the zone. My companion is
the district leader. But we did some look ups, tracted a little bit and had
another lesson with Andrea. It was a really powerful lesson, and we talked
about baptism and it made a lot of sense to her. So hopefully she looks the
missionaries up when she leaves! Then we had a Noche de Hogar with a family and
some yummy food!! Chicken, rice, and beans! Tuesday we had the service thing
again at the Senoir Center and had a good time their. These nice elderly ladies
gave us some cookies which was awesome. They were the pecan shortbread cookies,
which I catergories that as an older persons cookie, but they were good!
Haha. Then we had another lesson with Darwin and we taught about the 10
commandments. Then we went over to another investigators Tony and Casey and I
just got to know them. And they just returned from a trip from the DR. But we
talked about the Book of Mormon and about who we pray to and why its bad
to pray to the apostles and all that stuff that Satan has corrupted the
world with! Also as we were walking to that appointment with Tony and Casey we
saw these two guys at a dumpster with I think crack or cocaine. Saw my first
drug deal going on. Haha. But today Wednesday we are going to the Bronx Zoo.
Elder Sorensen hasn't been there yet and he really wanted to go! Also I think
most of our zone is going also, so it will be fun! Kingsbridge is
definetly way more different then Olmstead! Well I'm shocked to hear mom had
cancer, and I'm greatful that she is okay! I love you all! Hope all is
well!
