Monday, April 13, 2015

Thank You Bishop Vaughn

Hello friends, guess what tomorrow is? Transfer time! I remember one time talking to a Sister who was having trouble adjusting to her new area, she felt like the old one was better and and more successful and blah, blah, blah. I told her to think about it like a video game. Every transfer or period of change is like a level. And of course if you were doing well and having an easy time in your last area or period of time this one is going to be harder, you just leveled up! It means your are making progress and now you are moving on to harder things. Well, I must have seriously leveled up without my knowledge or something because I've got a lot coming my way this next transfer! As you know from my whining last week we are losing our car and are moving to a bike area. I know that I probably sound really lazy complaining about that but my biggest concern is that it is going to slow everything down so much! Especially considering how wide spread Rio Rancho is. But, people have been doing it for forever so, what can I say? Anyway, it's be an adjustment. I am also taking over the area for the first time, yay! Ha, it's crazy how I've been here for 6 weeks already but I still really don't know where anything is. And my new companion is also fresh off the MTC boat. So it'll be fun! I don't mean of course to complain, I have absolutely no doubt that is it entirely possible to do amazing and have lots of success and fun with these situations, just that they will take a little getting used to! Ha, Sister Morco and I were also talking about how really those and most of our issues, while annoying and stressful at the time really aren't that big of a deal, but that they were probably predatory or Aaronic problems for to help us later in life when we have real crazy things happen or Meckezedeck problems. You know like family issues and debt and all that fun stuff. 

Since this was our last week with our car we have spent a lot of time exploring the outskirts of our area which would be much more difficult to do with a bike. So we have been listening to our banjo hymns a lot this week. In one area we searched we only found three houses. We also found a lot of houses that have pretty good Edgar Allen Poe potential. We chose to avoid most of them. I think our general rule was that if the door is missing or might as well be to skip it. We also found that the days that we committed to spend time out in the super dirt roads it was also always increabily windy. Everything gets dusty here and tumble weeds are now a lot less comical and a lot more normal (they'll always be a little funny, you have to admit). By the way, it kind of hurts when they run into you. Those things are prickly! 

We discovered this week as well that despite my being an FHE group leader for three school years, when it comes to kids and doing a fun activity/object lesson with them that also a gospel principle we only have one card up our sleeve! So thank you Bishop Vaughn for doing that activity about prioritizing your time with the Mason jar when I was in Young Woman’s because I've already done it twice! Maybe one of these days we'll think of a new one but so far it's worked out alright and it's a good secret lesson for the parents too. 

I think that I mentioned last week that President Miller has asked us to spent time learning more about Family History so that we can teach it to others and use it as more of a tool. So this Wednesday we went to the family history class at church and did some of it. I connected my relatives on the Baker side to myself and connected a census to some of the ancestors. We even found some kids on the census that weren’t on family search, so I or someone will have to do a little more research to figure out if they were lost kids that need work done or if they were part of something else or what. It's a little bit crazy too because there were like three different marriages involved. 

This week we found a new investigator! Huzzah! Now we have one! Ha, ok it's not quite that bad but it is cool. We actually did find a few people that might be investigators in the future though which is what we are going to work on this week. One of whom is a guy named Demetrius who we almost didn't go talk to because I am a coward and he looked scary. But we did because Sister Morco is awesome and inspired and he told us that he had just gotten out of prison and was looking for a way to turn his life around. He had been asking God to show him what to do. How cool is that? I guess that's what I get for not wanting to talk to him. Maybe I should not want to talk to people and my companion should make me do it more often so we have more people to teach! Just kidding, maybe I should just talk to more people. By the way, this is completely random but I just remembered something cool. The clouds here are like Toy Story clouds. You know how they just have a ton of texture? A lot of the time it's the same thing here. 

So, something that I have been thinking about this week is the difference between Moses and Enoch. In Exodus 3 and 4 Moses sees a burning bush and God commands him to return to Egypt and free his people. Moses tells Him “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” And God tells him basically, who made man’s mouth? Go and I will be your mouth. But Moses still tells Him no, I can’t do it, so he sends Aaron to be his spokesperson and they get the job done. In Moses chapter 6: 27- 31 a very similar experience happens to Enoch. God tells him that he is to declare repentance to the people and Enoch says "Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?" And just like he does to Moses in the next few verses God says, go and do as I say and my spirit will be with you "wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me." and then it says about Enoch that "and he did so". Moses 7: 13-17 it talks about a lot of amazing things Enoch was able to do as he was preaching repentance, the very things that God had promised. And that "he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him." Enoch and Moses both did the will of the Lord, they both did amazing things and were amazing men, in fact, both of them were translated. And I’m sure that as he went on, Moses gained a lot of confidence and faith and no longer needed that spokesperson. But that small difference of faith, of going and doing from the beginning, and trusting that the Lord will fulfill his promises made the difference between Enoch, who walked with God, and Moses who saw God face to face. Anyway, maybe it’s just my crazy interpretation, but I thought that it was interesting at least. God knows what we can do when we arewilling and work with Him! He has confidence in us! So should we!
Anyway, I hope you all are doing well and have an amazing week. Talk to you soon!

Love,

April 

 ps Those two kids, the Molina boys, were ridiculously excited about our name tags. Every time we see them they would yell "We're going to take your names! I'm a missionary!" Right after they "stole" them they started saying "We're going to leave in our car, its right there. You live here now. You live in there" And pointed to their room 

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