Riding Through the Hills of Daybreak

So we have been working with the S family a lot recently, they are the closest and most sure to being baptized for the transfer. Sister S has been reading the Book of Mormon everyday on her own and is already in 2 Nephi. She said she has loved the Isaiah chapters and was so excited because it talked about a secret sealed book, which is the Book of Mormon! She wants to be baptized badly, but her husband isn't so sure about it. When we had a lesson with him on Thursday, he told us he didn't receive an answer but has the feeling he really needs to read the Book of Mormon. He said this was odd because he's never liked reading books. So we've been helping him read the Book of Mormon everyday. 

This week was a little crazy, we ended up moving apartments again, so now we are living in the southern part of the Highlands Stake, only a 7 minute bike ride to Grandpas house, I can almost smell his hot cakes! I guess the other place we were living required payment and was pretty expensive with 2 sets of missionaries so they gave us the boot.

Daybreak is pretty weird/cool place, we are struggling to find people to talk to recently so we are trying to work closer with the members. It's not quite like West Jordan where you can kinda tell if a house speaks Spanish or not. But I'm liking it a lot, it's a lot hillier so we are finding out pretty quickly the best routes to go. 

Training & A New Area!

This week we white washed into the Daybreak 5TH area and I’m training a new missionary. Daybreak has been a big change from West Jordan.  It kind of reminds me of that movie where they make a kid grow up in a TV show, what's that one called? (The Truman Show).  But our view right outside the apartment is amazing. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple is two minutes from us, in fact we bike past it almost every day. So now I'm even closer to grandpa now!

But we've been beginning to understand this area and it's been a really fun challenge. Yesterday and Saturday we had great lessons with strong potentials that committed to come to church, and the members they live with promised to help out as well. We also taught a man from Colombia yesterday. He used to be a player for the Real Salt Lake team and now coaches for the Monarchs, really good lesson.

In my studies I read from the talk "Becoming a Disciple of The Lord Jesus Christ" by Robert D. Hales. I was inspired to read this talk with a desire to become more charitable. Something I took out of it was that love and any emotion is completely our decision. We choose to love, but charity comes from God. I think it's kind of like believing versus faith. We make the choice to believe to bring it to the next level we have to go to the Lord. I'm very grateful we have been put here to serve in this Ward and with these people.

Miracles!

A lot of great miracles happened, starting on Saturday with the V family from River 9th. So Elder Fletes is still serving there and managed to get back in contact with them, which was a miracle on its own. If you remember they were to be baptized Christmas Eve and had come to church consecutively for 2 weeks, they were super ready. All they needed was to get married that Friday so they could get baptized, but Friday morning during weekly planning the sister called us in tears saying they got in a huge fight and to call off the wedding. After that they didn't talk to anybody for like a month, and all the friends they had were members. However, this Friday they finally got over their conflict and got married. Then Saturday the whole family got baptized! It was a really great experience.  The brother at the end of the service told me Elder Fletes and I had helped his family a lot to make this step to come to church and finally get baptized. Hearing that I had actually influenced his life has really grown my desire to help other make the same jump. It's been like everything is so much clearer and I feel a greater love for strangers. 

The other crazy experience happened yesterday. We visited an investigator named Carlos. The way we found him was a little weird I guess but it works out in the end. So a few weeks ago Elder Craig and I noticed that we can download the app White pages. So we started using it to look for common Hispanic names and it gives us their address and Carlos was one we a really strong feeling we needed to visit. So that Sunday we knocked his door and he invited us in like immediately. At first we were thinking, ok he's totally a member, just going to the English Ward. We were looking for clues like pictures of Christ or the Temple but couldn't see anything. So we sit down and had a great lesson, he was really penitent during the whole thing so we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing big came out of it although he felt the spirit really strong. He would accept really any invitation. So yesterday we went by to check up on him and we kinda expected he dropped us.  That was a little sad but before we left he told us not to think we didn't help him, that we saved his life. Apparently before we came someone had robbed his house. So this man is from El Salvador from the time of their crazy civil war. This man has seen some crazy stuff and done some crazy stuff and what he did was look up who robbed him on the internet and was planning on "taking it into his own hands". Not just for the man but his whole family and right before he went to go do it we had knocked on his door. It goes to show no effort is wasted. Carlos is a new man now, he doesn't care about material things and is closer to Christ and even though right now he isn't ready, he's much closer than he was before and I'm sure we will see him again soon in white.

We had a great successful week of finding new investigators and putting them on date, we're working close with them and trying our best  so we can see them at church this Sunday. We've felt more hopeful and faithful during the week and I think it's been because of our increased focus on our purpose and baptism.

I read in the Bible Dictionary the other day a really pleasant sentence under Baptism. It says : "Its symbolism is beautiful, and its consequences ever so desirable." I think when we really understand how desirable the consequences of being baptized are it's easier to help others come to the same understanding and desire.

Transfer news came today! So I'm gonna be moving to Daybreak 5th! Still Spanish and finally biking again and my companion will be...I don't know yet! I got called to train! What were they thinking! I guess the Lord qualifies who he calls, I'm pretty nervous though. Elder Craig's going to River 9th #2 with Elder Smith so he gets to teach the V family and Elder Fletes is going to be coming here to Mtn View 4th as District Leader. Wow! There are 3 new Spanish missionaries coming in and so the other trainer will be my new District Leader, Elder Pineda.

"Brighter and Brighter Until the Perfect Day"

We were really lucky to find an investigator at home named Z, she has been meeting with missionaries since living in Ecuador. She said something like 20 missionaries have visited her, and she is just waiting for her answer. Everyone she lives with are members and she is committed to start making changes and to come to church tomorrow, she has amazing fellowshippers and we are planning for her to be baptized really soon. We are super excited and full of faith to what the new week brings for us. I think for the both of us being on exchanges with the zone leaders has really boosted us spiritually and mentally. I think Elder Craig is definitely feeling really good and motivated. 

Studying the talk "Brighter and Brighter until the Perfect Day" by Elder Bragg really helped me set the stage for my mentality for the week. Something that really made me think what his analogy on the Heliotropic Effect. How it's natural for every living thing to move towards the light. Plants don't just grow in the pitch black. You still have that natural potential inside of you but it's just not going to work like that. So I've been working on putting myself more in the sun and away from the dark where I know I won't grow as much and tried to keep as faithful and positive as I can.

This week we were talking to some Hermanas and they gave us some Salta Montes or sea trampolines. They're salted grasshoppers, and they were huge! They were straight from Puebla Mexico and super nasty. But also kinda good, but probably more gross than good. You have to take off the legs to eat them cause they're huge!

We found a kid named M yesterday, he's the son of a drunk guy we found one day. He lived in Mexico for 4 years and has been through a lot even though he's only 16. He's on date for the 13th of May.

(Picture of Elder Bessey's entire mission) 

General Conference Weekend

General Conference was definitely really good, there's something special about watching it as a missionary. It feels like sometimes it's just for missionaries. think being a missionary it's really made me tune in a little closer and I feel like I got a lot out of it.  It was a really good one this year. I received a lot of revelation and felt the Spirit super strong throughout the weekend.

One thing I loved so much was the focus on how we are children of God. It really hit me hard the last visit we had on Saturday. It didn't go quite how we planned as the family was really focused on bashing, but we still testified strongly and tried our best to help. Even though maybe we didn't see it, somebody in that small living room was touched by the Spirit or otherwise we wouldn't have been guided to their home. As we ended with a prayer it really sunk in that I am a child of God and how much of a blessing it is to be able to talk to a loving and perfect Heavenly Father.There were about 5 other people just making a lot of noise. It seemed impossible for Heavenly Father to give any sort of answer to us. This made me reflect much on the scripture that talks about how the Spirit comes in a still small voice and helped me think on the things that I need to change to bring more of that subtle voice with me. It is also such a great blessing it is to have the revelations we have as well as an actual leader, a prophet, to guide us in what God needs us to do.

To try to make up for missing Fuddruckers before the Priesthood session with dad, I convinced my companion to go to Cubbys for lunch, which is probably the closest thing to it. Fudds is still numero uno though.  

This week was a bit of a hurdle but we had felt super guided just every day. We found a brother who let us in and just opened up to us. He felt really burdened by sin and didn't know how to fill the hole he had in his life. It was such a blessing to get to be there in that moment to help him feel better.

A Special Visit to the Draper Temple

Today we had an amazing session in the Draper temple. It's right up in the mountains and such a cool temple. It is one of my favorites. It was such a good experience and our Zone is just so special and close together. Since its a Spanish Zone it covers the whole mission and really nobody leaves it and we know each other pretty well. What was really neat was to run into someone I knew from Westland 5th. He was a Seventy and such an inspiring and spiritual man. He gave everyone in our Zone names from his family to do. So it was something very special. Elder Bottari is back in the Zone again, this time as Zone Leader so I get to see him a lot which is awesome. It's great going to the temple with people you are really close with.
 
 A few days ago we did some "Spirit Tracting" and we were sent to this older lady who just lost her husband, she hadn't gone to church in a while and so we tried our best to lift her spirits and invited her back to church, she seemed pretty committed and at the end she referred us to a new family down the street. She said she knew they were new but not sure if they spoke Spanish or not. So we go and knock the door and found a new family from Mexico! Unfortunately we couldn't have a lesson right then but they said we could stop by later today when the whole family was there. So at 8 we swung by and had a really short but powerful lesson. During the lesson someone said, "We are here because one of you prayed for us to be here in some way." I'll admit I doubted a little and thought it was kinda crazy, but then later we asked the Sister to offer the closing prayer and she expressed thanks in the prayer and told God she was looking for more guidance in her life in terms of religion just that morning. It was a sweet miracle and boosted us in motivation especially since our last week was a little dead.
 
 A few days ago Elder Nelson came to a ton of Stakes and our stake was one of them! Utah is so crazy! He blessed West Jordan that it will be attractive to many non-members and if the members were obedient then it will be an amazing missionary opportunity. 
 
We have been feeling very guided this transfer and seen a lot of people willing to accept us. We found 2 new families, one recently dropped us but we are sure that in the future they will be super ready, maybe we just aren't the right missionaries for them and we just had to find them.
 
I'm way excited to see what this transfer brings and to work with Elder Craig. We are working together very well and strengthening the unity everyday. As I've been reading the story about the sons of Mosiah it's been crazy how similar their mission is to ours. We talk to a lot of Catholics and we hear a lot of the same phrases like "your traditions are not ours" and meet many people who only follow the traditions of their fathers. But the Sons of Mosiah still find people who are ready to change because of salvation and the joy of repentance.