May 21

Dear Family,

Some items to take care of. First is a thanks to mom and dad for bringing me some goodies along with my bike last night! Thank you very much! Did Elder Marble also mention anything about a DMV printout? I need one of those to submit along with my papers for obtaining permission to drive in this mission. So any news/help/update on that would be much appreciated. Elizabeth sent me several pictures, as well as a rebuke for not writing her a letter today. :) That was fantastic and much deserved. Please expect letters in the mailboxes, I have been trying at least, in fact I did by my first batch of U.S. Stamps this week. As an announcement to mom and dad, I did call brother Hedger and left a message on his phone to meet with president Jones on where the future of my mission lies. Thank you for the reminder. I love you all for your love and support and letters to me. Thank you very much.

And now for an update on the area. Here's whats happening in our neck of the woods. This past week was pretty good. The gears are still grinding and we're trying to oil them, but the work and foundations of new programs seem to be underway. Elder Smethurst and I found two formers, one of them is a part member family, and the other is a man who never converted but was married to a mormon woman. He was very cordial, but had been taking missionary lessons for about 40 years. So both of those seem pretty satisfied with where they are at in their lives and actually both of them have had missionaries on and off throughout their whole lives. But Elder Smethurst and I will get them. Just a lot of role playing. That will do the trick.

Aside from that, we are getting a family history project underweigh for one section of our area, and then we'll spread it out. We are pretty excited. We have some "in's" with a couple of HOA's and so we're trying to get service projects there to set an ensample for the inhabitants thereof. Something that I brought up with Elder Smethurst that we are trying to figure out how to do is to help our youth get more involved in the missionary work. They always seem pretty excited to help out. So we are starting to seek advice from the youth quorum leaders. In fact we visited the Deacons quorum president of seven hills last night. We explained to him his awesome power as a president of his quorum. He is already doing a rescue effort for their only inactive deacon who has an oppresive father who will not let him attend. So the deacons, under the direction of their zealous president, have sought freindship from this lost member. We are scheduled to meet with the Teacher's quorum president in anthem this week.

Baptismal plans are underwiegh for two formally excommunicated members of the seven hills wards. Brother Gary was supposed to attend church this last week to talk with Bishop Messina about getting baptized since he almost lost his life from lack of oxygen to the brain. However, he did not attend. The other excommunicated member, however, is extremely excited to have the missionaries over. We have been teaching him, and quite successfully. We have a good relationship with his children, expecially one of his sons to whom we gave a blessing for the sick and afflicted. Tonight we are discussing patriarchal blessings per request of one of the younger daughters who seeks to obtain such in a later time. (Yes that last sentence was purposefully stuffy, I am just being ridiculous.)

News about Brazil -

I heard from two of my friends from Brazil. Elder Cox, my companion from Provo, and Elder Green, an Elder from my district in Brazil CTM. Oh Elder Cox's letter was extremely touching. I loved hearing from him. Elder Green told me that another Elder from our district in Brazil was sent home. Elder Moat became really really ill and is actually released from missionary service. That leaves only 5 of us from our Brazil district still Brazil, and only 7 of those still in working condition. We are under fire. Man. 

This brings me to my lesson learned this week.

I absolutely love President Brigham Young. His was a fantastic president and arduous apostle. He is frequently compared (by missionaries) to Elder Holland of Latter-days. He stood up against the most ravening rebellious apostles of Joseph Smith and put their sorry speeches to shame. The doubter of God or one of his servants could only doubt himself when Young was through with him.

One of my favorite accounts of Brigham Young after the journey from Zion's Camp. We know that the Zion militia actually never saw any real battle but that the hand of the Lord protected them. However, those who had spent countless hours in the humid grilling sun marching with a musket and completing a rigorous journey plus military training, began to murmer. Many had felt they had gone and returned in vain. In fact, upon returning home, a well to do man, dressed in his fancy apparel, looked up at Elder Young sitting upon his horse drenched in sweat and wearing merely tattered work clothes, and said, snidely "Well, Brigham what did you gain from this little trek?" Elder Young looked down and smiled and said "All that we came for. I wouldn't trade what I learned from the prophet for the wealth of this whole county."

As I heard the news about Elder Moat, I was a little discouraged. I thought to myself "What is the purpose of the missionaries encountering such unbearable trials while in the Lord's service? What do they get out of that? It's not fair." I got on my knees and prayed, read my patriarchal blessing and then pondered for a moment. As I pondered, the account above came into my mind. My answer to "What do they get out of that?" is simply - "All that [they] came for." I am sure they will not trade the relationship they gain with the Savior for the wealth of the world.

It is my prayer that when delay, or dissapointment comes, we will remember what we came to this earth for and realize, we are definitely getting what we came for.

I love you all. Thank you for your support, letters, and love.

Sincerely,

-- 

Elder William Lloyd Lovell

Nevada, Las Vegas Mission

9270 S. Maryland Pkwy. 

Las Vegas, NV 89123 

D&C 6:36 - "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not"

7 May

You can tell William is getting into his missionary work because his emails are getting shorter :)

Dearest family,

 

Happy mother's day! Mommy, I hope you enjoyed the e-mail I sent you! I believe I will be able to skype this weekend! Long time no see right? Send me your skype addresses. If I dont skype I am sure I can call.

 

Man, this week was a blur. We have visited member after member, after member, and less-active after less active, but we still only have pretty much 1 solid investigator in our teaching pool. If you can count her as solid. That one is samantha who is having all the problems with smoking and being pretty much held hostage by her roomates. (Refer to last weeks email for more information on that breaking news.)

 

However, we stopped by one of our ward missionaries houses, brother Ericho, two nights ago. We brought up an idea of maybe doing service for the HOA's around here, just as Ammon did of old. Hopefully we can cut off some arms too. That'd be fun! But we also thought of organizing missionary parties within the gated communities as well. So we're excited for that new approach. I'll make sure I remember to keep you informed on every step of progress on thaty front. We are also thinking of signing up as "clergy" for the St. Rose hospital. (it says we can do those things in our planners so, dont think Im apostatizing.)

 

The only other thing of huge significance this week was the baptism of Richard Lopez. He is absolutely fantastic. Our last meeting with him will be this week as we hand him over to the ward members to be taught the member lessons. So that will be pretty exciting.

 

grr... aside from that, nothing too exciting. we're just kind of waiting up for this P-day to be over so we can implement our new goals.... yeah.

 

 

Wow... pretty uneventful week I am really struggling to know what to say.... hmmm... Oh I know, my companion is pretty much stricken with the plague. First he had really really bad diareah and was close to barfing throughout the day so we kind of had to come home early about 4/7 times this week. After he got over that he got some really bad bug bites or hives or something and they itched so much he had to come home again. So I gave him itch cream, told him to take a bath, wash his sheets, yadayadayada. He couldn't even do nightly planning he was so eaten alive.

 

How is the family going? What are ya'll doing for mothers day??? Make mommy breakfast please! Mom, hope you have a great week! I love you so much!

 

Thats pretty much the news this week. Hopefully have more next time. I'll try and send you all some more personal emails with the time I have left.

 

Love you all! 

April 23 - April 30

Dear Family,

Well well well. I am not getting transfered to Reno. I am staying in the greenvalley zone. I am getting transfered to the Anthem area. I have the inspirada, summerville?, and somethin or other ward. There's three of them though. But I know inspirada well because I went to a meeting with them and they have an excellent Ward Mission plan. They are serious about working with the missionaries and understand the need for members doing the finding and NOT missionaries. The fact that that area is pretty much a bunch of gated communities makes it pretty much essential that the members work with the missionaries.

Elder Sparks is still my zone leader... and OPE! HE just got his girlfriends ring size in an e-mail. They are probably going to get married in December... on the 19th. Yes he has that ridiculously planned out. I cannot even include a hundredth part.

Elder Adjei is getting transfered and he is training. My grandfather is dying this transfer. Thats gonna be sad. But hey, I still have the birthwright! That was in jeopardy if I went to Reno because I'd be considered dead. But I still have it! Woot! Ok, Elder Lovell, calm down, you're a little intense with these things.

Well we cleaned out our teaching pool mostly. Had a baptism about 2 weeks ago. Her name is Chelsea. She is solid. She even came to the fun run this last weekend and I think ran a 5K. Yeah, she's going to be "twinkled." Kathy... she needs to be rebuked. I wish I was going to stay just so I could do the rebuking. She is putting the secular things of the world above Eternal Life. What the! But she is still really really nice. She just needs to really put in some sincere honest effort to get an answer. And its not like she doesnt know how for heavens sake! She almost a Ph.D. Sure she's working on a dissertation for college... but thats besides the point. If she got baptized she would get the spirit and therefore have more inspiration to do it correctly.

Hmmmm.... what else is happening in this zone of note. The ward mission work is going great! Wow, the Legacy ward just has this awesome ward mission leader! He is getting things done! In fact he and the full-time missionaries are going to teach a lesson this week on the importance of members inviting people into their houses to recieve the missionaries. I would like to maybe take a few minutes and encourage members of the Lovell family (and others if they read this) to take on this new inspired approach. Basically the missionaries no longer want to tract out your referals. Member homes are a stake for the spirit. They are the most basic conduit of where the love of the Lord can be most palpable. I encourage members of our family spread throughout the world to invite people into their homes to feel the spirit. You do not have to make them recieve the missionaries on the first visit. Just maybe have them start coming over for dinner a couple of nights a month. Then tell them later "We had the missionaries over a while back for dinner and man they shared some great things with us that made us feel great and gave us strength throughout our week, do you mind if they show up to the next dinner appointment we have together? They are really nice people and I think we'd have a great time!" So Lovell family, will you try that over the next 4 months? Pray for someone you can invite in your homes to feel of the spirit and eventually recieve the missionaries? We'll do a follow up later - in four months.

-------------------------------------------

Finally, for my short little discourse of the week. In the 10th chapter of Preach My Gospel - "Teaching Skills" there is a section about Listening. Oh! Wonderful section. I wish people would do it more in this mission. Its something many struggle with. But I dont wish to touch on that section as a whole today, rather, focus on a question that Elder Holland asks us as missionaries to ask our investigators. "What do you Cherish?" "what do you hold dear?"

Be careful what you say. Seriously. It has taken me a long time to realize this. For the short time I have been on my mission I have learned this key lesson in a rather trialsome way. When we as members, of our faith or even others, are asked what we cherish, perhaps our first response will be: Prophets, modern day revelation, the spirit, the scriptures - Book of Mormon or Bible. These are all extremely important. Some of which, if they were taken away, the very structure of the church would collapse and even be useless.

Those who know me well, have heard of my trials with dyslexia. They were tough. As I look back and see how I was able to help others with those experiences, I realized how central the scriptures, esspecially the Book of Mormon was, in helping me get through that process. In my testimony, I often said "it was the power of the Book of Mormon that healed me." And I spoke of its truth and divinity. Now before you think I am going down a radically rebellious path, I would like to make something very clear. I do not discredit or lessen the power that comes from drinking from the pages of the Book of Mormon. In fact I testify to everyone, member or not, that if you read and pray about the Book of Mormon, you will feel the power of it effect your life tremendously and YOU WILL GET AN ANSWER THAT IT IS TRUE. However, the purpose of this discourse is to cite where the power of the Book of Mormon comes from. Perhaps all too often, we mistake the keystone of our religion for the keystone of our salvation, as I did. My testimony should not have been that "The Book of Mormon healed me." Because frankly, it did not. It was a conduit for healing. A catalyst for faith and works. But my healer came from my master, Jesus Christ. I testify that he is the keystone of our SALVATION. He is our Master, King, SAVIOR, and Teacher. My mission is not to bring you or anyone else to the LDS church. My mission is to represent Him and bring people to Him.

All my life, I have searched for that one thing that I could do to obtain happiness in this life and Eternal Life in the life to come. Surely the Book of Mormon is an excellent source for that nutrition, as it says almost those exact same words in its introduction. However, the Central, Core, Heart, Life, of everything we do. The way we obtain peace in this life and Eternal Life in the life to come, is through our Master. He's not secondary, He does not make up the difference, He is the difference, He is the church, He is the law. He is the way, the light, and the life, and whosoever believeth in Him shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life. I testify of His divine existance, and that He suffered for you and me. I testify that because I have seen the effects of it as surely as I can see the sunshine and feel the heat from its rays. How I ove and cherish Him. That we all may put Him in the center of our every belief, thought, motive, and action (D&C 6:36) is my humble prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

April 30

Dearest Family,

Well, Mom, Elizabeth, Chloe, and Olivia pretty much have the most recent and accurate portion of summary of which I will recount to the rest of you. But first let us start with some items of bussiness.

I would like to congratulate Elizabeth on the numerous e-mailed pictures of the two finest nieces in the world. Also Erik, for two really excellent e-mails. And dad for the letter I recieved this morning via mom. I understand there is another letter that I have recieved along with dad's but was pretty much wrenched out of the door to write e-mails this morning and still have not had a chance to read the entirety of Dad's letter, nor even look at the sender of the phantom letter. However, those will be taken care of, pronto. (The way english people use "pronto" is stupid by the way. They have no idea what that means. Dumb. (Yes I just used it the dumb way.))

This week has been fantastic. Let me pull out my planner to give you a clear account on the record of this my people. Hold on... one sec... Ok now  I just have to unbotton the planner, hold on... Lets see.... week 1... and... tuesday.... wait no... wednesday... aha! Apparently we didnt do anything that morning. But thats a little understandable because I had language study so there isnt much to do from then until lunch, so I think we took lunch and then went out and started at 12:00. Ok, we stopped at Sister Holden's house, but she wasnt awake, her maid or someone answered the door and said she was lying down. We then visited kim Melville. She is French! Wonderful woman. She has some different ideas about health. She believes that if you drink H202 (in other words adding an oxygen supplement to your water :p), then you will never get cancer and apparently it cured her arthritis. She thinks the pharmesutical (sp?) companies dont want to tell you the truth about medications and self-cure solutions because then they would go out of bussiness if you permanently cured yourself!!! Other than than that she is very spiritual. But less active I think.

Lets see, asiude from her it was pretty uneventful until dinner and then we met with the owens.... I have to wrack my brains here and remember who they are... OH YES! Brother owens is the assistant district attorney. He put OJ away. He is a pretty serious individual but says some really sarcastic things and sometimes its hard to tell if he is really joking or not. Nice family, we challenged them to think of people they could invite into their homes to feel of the spirit there. Apparently brother owens has been trying... in fact, tracting people in his area because he knows missionaries cant tract in the gated communities and he says people there are just too stiff necked. So we challenged them to pray about someone they could invite and also promised them that someone would come to mind.

Lets see... what were some cool highlights of this week. OH yeah! I inherited a baptism in this area. We will be holding a baptismal service this week for Brother Richard Lopez. Great, fantastically faithful man! Wow. He has cancer and could die so he is getting the baptism done as fast as he can. He comes to church and asks so many questions and the thing is, he can remember enough about what he has learned that we can delve deeper into more of the culture of Mormonism. Tell him how the mission is set up, talk to him more specifically on how prophets recieve inspiration and he understands and ACCEPTS it all! Oh man, wonderful wonderful person. Hopefully, we find out that the cancer is treatable and that he wont pass. But if he does, he KNOWS exactly what he is doing. Its going to be a wonderful service.

In the Sevenhills ward, we have a wonderful ward mission leader named Brother Lee. Hilarious person. At first I saw him when I was with the Zone Leaders at the stake mission meeting, and I didnt think that highly of him. He seemed really bored with his assignment and not wanting to talk too much. But then, now that I am in his ward, he is fantastic. We are setting up a great plan with him to have a missionary cook-off type thing every month to create that opportunity for members to always have something they can invite a friend to. That way its never too awkward for them to bring someone to church or what have you. He is fantastic. It seems like our personalities kind of clicked and we are just so sarcastic and are usually just cracking up all the time. This brings me to a favor to ask. Sister Lee says she has an inactive sister from her family in OUR stake as in YOUR stake, mom and dad. She lives in the Paradise Hills ward. She was wondering if maybe you could visit her or find someone we know from the ward to visit her and her family. Her name is Susy Barlow, her husband is Jim Barlow and they have a son named Connor. They live on 198 Ridge Crossing. Sister Lee's family was converted when she was younger but only she and her mom remained active. Her sister, Susy always calls Brother Lee when she needs a blessing and knows the gospel is true but just "doesnt have time for church." So if you could visit them or have someone else visit them, that would be fantastic!

Two days ago, Saturday, was my favorite day of this week! We went to Brother Mooseman's (an excommunicated member) house to help him paint the roof so that he wouldn't get fined by the HOA, but found out he was in the hospital because he wasnt getting oxygen to his lungs. We still helped his wife paint the roof, but then made plans to see him in the hospital sunday. After that service gig, we went to Brother Lee's house again to help him with his pool (dont worry we didnt not jump or fall in. BUT HE DID HA!) That took a couple of hours and then they gave us lunch. After them we went and visited some members and then went down to our dinner appointment. We were a little early for the appointment so we parked the car and walked around the neighborhood searching for people to street contact. We saw some hispanic people working outside of a person's home and asked them if they needed help. They agreed. So in our shirt and ties we began shovelin' rock and dirt! It was fantastic! The workers said they had seen missionaries before but never had a chance to talk because they had such busy work schedules. So before we left for our dinner appointment we left them with our number and told us to call them again and agreed to teach a lesson next time while we helped them shovel rock. FANTASTIC!

One fun fact as I border my spiritual moment... Sister Hepburn (Who I will tell you more about in this next upcoming paragraph) Has a son named Riecher. Yes, as in William T. Riecher. So when he answered the door and told me his name, I said "do you know who you are named after? A famous spaceship captian!" and sister Hepburn (his mom) said "YES! I am so glad you said that! We are trying to tell him that! He hates it though, its so disapointing. When he gets into late high school, and early college he'll realize how cool that is." (true that!) She said also that she asked her husband to give him a baby blessing to "bodly go where no man has gone before" HAHAHA! Oh loved it. Thought you would too. No? Ok.

So now, for the spiritual finalle. We're teaching a girl named samantha. Probably in her mid-twenties. She is in a bad lot in life. Her parents didnt raise her very well. She was allowed to do whatever she wanted with no consequences and frankly they just didnt really care about her. So we have been working with her a lot just to plant that seed of faith. She feels like God is dissapointed with her and also she doesnt know if she trusts God. She wonders why God didnt keep her brother from commiting suicide. Why didnt He give him the strength. She has been suicidal too and has been feeling like whenever she tries something, she fails miserably no matter how much work she puts behind it. And she does try. She REALLY tries. But since she has shown the faith in continually meeting with us, her countenance has begun to change. She is happier and she also has a job! She started her own bussiness of dog grooming! Fantastic. And she has a direction to go. Anywho, while we were talking with her we discussed more of her concerns about God not wanting to help her because she doesnt think she has sufficient faith. She thinks she cant have any doubts if she wants an answer. (Boy I have fallen into that trap a lot.) So Sister Hepburn (mentioned above) was with us and pretty much recited Alma 32. Faith being like a little seed. If planted it will grow. Fantastic! The were able to talk girl - to - girl for a little bit. Then I told her about how worthy men carry the priesthood and if she'd like a blessing for faith and comfort, we could give it to her. She seemed willling but kind of sarcastically said "Well what would that blessing entail?" and I said "Well, lets put it this way, if Jesus Christ were here right now, what would you ask Him for?" She said.... "Well... thats a hard and really good question............... I would ask that I could be reborn. Not just your form of spiritual rebirth, but physical re-comming out of the womb. Because if I were to be reborn your way, I'd still have my felonies, all the bad things people will think about me etc." For a moment there was silence. Then I said "It seems like you want physical proof of your 'rebirth' and maybe things being right between you and God isn't just quite enough. Is that what you're saying?" and she said yes. And so I promised her as a representative of Jesus Christ that if she did what we told her and continued to meet with us, she would see those changes and her faith would grow. It was sweet! I felt scared. I couldnt believe I felt confident enough to say it. But I did. Then we gave her a blessing. And Elder Smethurst promised her those exact things in the blessing. It made me cry. Gosh dang it. But she was funny she said "God kind of intimidates me."

So that was a great experience. Aside from that all. I miss Elder Sparks and Elder Adjei, but this new companionship is going pretty well. Anyway sister Neider just called so we might have to leave here a little early. I love you all so much! Remember to make your family mission plans.

With much love,

Where in the world is William Lovell + 2 emails.

Ok all y'all friends of William. Sorry about the anticipation in what is going on with his mission. William had some medical problems and is on a temporary leave (not release) from Brazil until they can make sure he is alright. He had been home for a while going on splits with the local missionaries, but now he is serving in the Las Vegas mission and he is having a great time. Here is his mission address

Elder William Lloyd Lovell
Nevada, Las Vegas Mission
9270 S. Maryland Pkwy.
Las Vegas, NV 89123

I will keep you posted on his medical process once we know what is going to happen mission-wise. He can certainly use your prayers, letters, and love.

Here is his letter from April 2nd. (Sorry for the lateness on the updates. I had finals and then went on a trip to Italy...how dare I.  Plus I'm still there, so I'm sorry for any more delays, but I'm trying to do better.)

Well, giving you an update of the last 50 minutes from when I went home, the mission is going great! Except I still cannot find my wallet! Thats no fun. But Im thinking it must be in my black suit coat pants, which I will check the minute I get home.

So far today, we fixed the car's back left blinker! Thats about it! Look you know everything about whats going on! Gosh thats the shortest update I've ever had to give in my life!

 

So now down to bussiness, you all need not forget that writing your missionary is important! Dont forget it! I know I sure did when I was at home, and you were all on missions, but dont do what I did! If I could go back in time I would have written ya'll every single day of my life. And by way of that announcement, allow me to thank mom publicly for her awesome e-mail she already sent. If you would like to begin competing with her, she sends an update plus a spiritual thought. I would recommend you make this a very intense competition. Let the games begin!

 

Hmmmmm... what else. I think thats just about it. Wait, mom and dad, do you have a good picture for my plaque? I think a good scripture to go on it would be D&C 36:6. I cant believe how awesome that scripture is. I think its a perfect sum up for anyone who has read the book of mormon and bible. If they understand what Christ did for them. That He suffered ALL things for them. Then what is insurmountable??? The scripture is "Look unto me in EVERY thought, doubt not, fear not." I've thought about this scripture a lot. You'll notice, if you look down in the footnotes for thought, it says "Motivations" to me thats interesting. Its something that has helped me with this anxiety stuff. Some times the tone of it comes out very cynical to me. When I get all worried and start freaking out its like Christ is just looking at me shaking his head... "look, do you believe in me really? then dont doubt and dont fear, if you're having some wierd thought, take President Utchdorf's sermon and stop it." I also really liked what Elizabeth told me once about what she studied. She said that the scriptures contain "the peacable things of the Kingdom" they shouldnt scare us, ever. Even the sinner that wants to repent. Repentance is awesome. Its not scary. So, I dont know maybe Im just thinking out loud, but since "there is no tempation taken [us] but such as is common to man..." I would think that someone more than just me gets scarred of the vast endlessness of the gospel sometimes. When life gets scary or just overwhelming, turn to the scriptures and think "what in these can help me be at peace?" The Book of Mormon esspecially promises peace. That its ENTIRE purpose. to give men, "peace in this life, and eternal life in the life to come." I testify that that is TRUE. Without a single doubt in my mind! If you're anxious, sad, depressed, angry, flustered, nervous, whatever! This is the cureall emotional pill. I KNOW thats true. It doesnt mean it will solve all your problems. But it really is a guide book to life. Just pick it up, humor yourself and read and find out for yourself its truthfulness and power because it will do it for you. Reading the scriptures is a commandment. And when we recieve any blessing from God it is because of obedience upon which that law is predicated. To have true, thirst quenching peace, you really have to just read. I testify that is true. I've felt it.

 

Well I dont know, that could have been just me thinking out loud, but hopefully someone got something from that.

 

I love you all. You are all awesome. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in mine.

 

Elder William Lloyd Lovell

And here is his letter from the 16 of April:

Dear family,

 

Good to hear from mom and dad! Thanks mom and dad for your faithful writing and not using the excuse that I am only on a reassignment. It is truely a wonderful blessing to hear from both of you. I would like to hear from more of the family as well if at all possible.

 

This week was very good. We taught Kathy again and had one final meeting with Chelsea Utick. It was her baptism this last saturday. It was beautiful and she will do well in the church. I enjoy the Legacy ward a lot. But by the second session of church I am usually pretty burnt out and try very hard to stay awake but have failed these last two times. Elder Sparks just laughs. Speaking of Elder Sparks. I love this Elder. The more I get to know him, the more just impressed I am with him. First of all, this child is talented. He plays trumpet and guitar very well. He's great at basketball and football. While those things are all exemplary and good though, I really enjoy hearing his first experiences as a missionary. He said that his trainer (who is our district leader Elder Poytress) saved his mission because when he (Elder Sparks) came on his mission, he said he was a punk and just probably one of those kids that just needed to be slapped. But Elder Poytress (this happy, loving cheery Elder) helped him greatly. This kind of personality, he said, saved his mission and he's going to be pretty hurt when Elder Poytress goes home.

 

One of my favorite things about being a missionary is the "missionary lineage." As a trainee, you get a father (your trainer) and his father is his trainer, so on and so forth. Previous 21st century missionaries laced throughout our family will know of this geneological lingo. (ha, I liked that last sentence, that sounded like an apostle!) Well, this past week, Elder Sparks told me he and Elder Adjei were taking on the titles of my fathers. Haha. Yup, I was happy. That made me feel part of the mission. Quite frankly, I feel like Elder Sparks saved my mini mission, and therefore possibly my mission in general. Every day where I just have thought I couldn't take it anymore, or I just wanted to go home, I have found myself laughing with him about stupid things. Elder Sparks has really taught me that being a missionary is not being a robot. I can still have fun out here. And I feel loved, and honestly I kind of want to stay in Las Vegas now. I enjoy this mission with Elder Sparks and I have learned that if life is going to be fun, you make it fun. Elder Sparks seemingly enjoys just about everything. Every part of everyday. And thats tough to do because as we all know, every part of everyday is not neccessarily peaches and cream, sometimes its pure poopage, or just minor. But Elder Sparks has a huge talent to look past that and no matter what, he makes the situations enjoyable for everyone around him. Perhaps thats why I had to come home. I learned more from Elder Sparks than any companion or teacher in the MTC. I have learned more with him in two to three weeks that my total time of staying at the provo and Brazil MTC combined. So if you all get a chance to see him sometime later in life, give him a hug, I love that Elder.

  

Mom and Dad, there is certainly not enough space in the world to say about what you both have done for me. Always believed in me and loved me. When I've been in the lowest of lows out here, I often think of how much you both believe in me and that breaks down pretty much any barrier in my way. I hope I can someday replenish in you the joy and love you have given me throughout my life, because I am sure what I have to offer will take a couple of eternities to even make a dent in what you have given me in a finite world. You have been so supportive of such a troubled child hahaha, ok Im not that bad, but you know what I mean for sure.

 

Finally, I would like to insert a thought for asspiring missionaries, or even those who should serve but dont want to. When I was being taught by my saxophone teacher in high school, Mr. Pardee, I remember my feelings after a great year in making Allstate first chair tenor saxophone. We were both pretty happy. In a lesson after that experience I told him "Mr. Pardee, it is a releif to finally feel like I am getting a hang of this." He looked at me and smiled and told me something that changed my outlook on life. he said "Young Grasshopper," (Seriously) "its good that you are starting to feel confident about your playing, but rememeber others around the world are feeling that way too. Dont get confortable. Keep working, because everyone is working as hard, or harder than you. I dont mean to scare you... but I do."

 

If you are getting ready to serve a mission, or wherever you are in life, it might be easy to say at times "Yes! I finally have a hold of this gospel. I am ready my scriptures and going to church and praying!" If you are doing that and consistantly improving on that each day, good for you! But I warn you if you are going through the motions and simply do those things, not to improve, but to be able to say you did them, then be cautioned and remember your enemy. You are a soldier, up against a long living father of lies. Simply trying to sit on the good side of the bench will no longer do. As Elder Holland says, "Remember we are ALL enlisted!" You have to actively promote righteousness. Fill your mind with something righteously rejuvenating each day, learn something from those scriptures, dont simply toss them aside and say "all is done, now back into the battlefeild, lets leave everything I learned in morning or nightime 'training' here." I can testify to you all that Satan is real. He is as riotous as he is cunning, as blatant and he is snivelingly sneaky. And we are at war. I quote from my great saxophone teacher "I dont mean to scare you... but I do." I testify that Christ is our Savior. He loves us. Satan's shafts have certainly forced me to learn that. I wished I would have believed in Jesus Christ and His words and had made him a greater center of my life before my mission. If you think the gospel or being a member is too weird, too much, or simply not just cool enough, sorry, think again. THIS life is weird. This life is forgein to you. You were more than this before you came here, and will be more than what you were and are now, if you give everything you got to Jesus Christ. Take on His name now, and dont procrastinate. Because someday, sometime, whether by His works, or some others' your heart will be melted, and completely exposed to reveal the core beliefs of your identity. Its time to prepare now, not later.

 

A couple of questions I have leveled at investigators are some I will level at some of you now. Are you reading your scriptures with real intent and dilligence DAILY. Are you going to church, and listening with real intent and dillegence each week. Are you praying with understanding that God will answer your questions through your feelings via the scriptures? That is your theorem to success in this life, and peace, and also eternal life in the world to come.

 

I say that in the name of Jesus Christ amen.