November 19,2011

There are less than 100 days before I hit a year. I know that may sound like a lot, but it's really not! I remember when I thought having 100 days in the mission felt like a lot. Ya no. (In spanish that means not anymore). This was another pretty good week! Last week of the change in fact!! Next week I get a new companion, right before Thanksgiving (more to come later).

 

Monday was absolutely fabulous. I prefer having Mondays as regular working days and Saturdays as Pday, not gonna lie. It seems more like a normal thing I guess you could say. Anyways... Sunday afternoon as we were getting ready to leave for the area, I called Carla to see how she was doing and if she needed anything from us since we were going to be in the area and she said that she was feeling really weak, but aksed if we could pass by tomorrow (Monday) and I said of course and now here we are on Monday. I've come to realize more and more how much of a miracle it was and how much we needed to go and knock on Carla's door. Today when Elder Spilker and I tried to enter her street the guard stopped us and said "Where are you going" "What's your purpose" and a whole bunch of other questions. Had we not had a specific house and name of where we were going, he would NOT have let us in. In addition, we even had to leave behind ID. With this kind of criteria Elder Williams and I never would have gotten through a couple weeks ago. But, for some reason, the other guard didn't say a single thing to us two weeks ago. It's just another great manifestation of the love of God and the ways He brings about His divine purposes!

 

Carla was weak again today, but asked us if we would give her a blessing, so I was the one who pronounced the blessing once again, but this time a lot less nervous now that I knew her and her situation and I felt everything was slightly more in tune, I don't know how to explain. Afterward she asked us if we could "talk to her about God", and of course our answer was yes. I talked to her a little about the great love that our Heavenly Father has for her and the many ways he has showed it and also talked a little bit about how the gospel blesses us and the purpose of prophets. Carla has been inactive for quite a long while now and would like us to reteach her as if she had never known anything at all. I'm extremely grateful to be a part of her spiritual journey back to the gospel. I don't know how to explain it, but sometimes I feel like there are certain people here in the mission that I have known for my entire life, or even before this life and I'm just doing something I always knew was going to happen. Just like, some special connection that was before the world. I don't know how to explain it, but it is a very powerful and spiritual experience!

 

That was the climax of the week and super awesome!!

 

Tuesday we did splits with a couple members and we were able to get 3 lessons with member which was AWESOME! and they were really great lessons! On Wednesday we had district meeting and had a GREAT message about setting and completing goals based on the desires of our heart coupled with some great scriptures about Alma the Younger in his missionary efforts! I wrote down a whole thing in my journal, but it would take a while to explain it all. If you want to look it up and see how Alma set his goals and what kind of things he did in the process the scriptures, in order, are Alma 29:4, Alma 8:10, Alma 10:11, Alma 16:15, Alma 31:32-34, Alma 31:30-31, Alma 17:5 and Alma 25:17. It's a great chain!!

 

now.... for the big exciting news about my change! I am.................... staying in the office. But I will be getting a new companion. I will be senior companion *gulp*. My companion's name is Elder Barahona and he is fromHonduras. And he is 22. Ya. I don't know. I think we will get along great! I've never met him... but I'm worried about having 2 latinos and 2 gringos. (Me and Elder Francks and Elder Cantillo and Elder Barahona). It shouldn't be like this, but it ALWAYS happens that we polarize and take sides. I would rather just be with my companion and always be happy, but, i don't know if it will work like that. I sure hope so! More news to come next week!!! Love you all!!

 

Love,

Elder Andrew LaPray

November 12, 2011

Second best Sunday ever

TO: You + 5 More

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 Well that stinks! I just wrote out like three paragraphs and then it got deleted! SUPER frustrating! Not that exciting here in the office and I totally just lost all desire to want to write out what I just wrote again... but I'm going to do it anyways, you're welcome.

 

Last Saturday was the baptism of René. It was a great experience and he was baptized by his older brother Freddy. Sorry, that's about all the detail there is.

 

I really enjoy fast and testimony meeting, even though I'm not very good at the fasting part with my acid reflux, I do what I can. I'm still really frustrated about the email getting deleted, sorry. Anyways... Last Sunday was an extremely great blessing because Lourdis, Carla, and their mother came to church again! It was really cool to be able to see them in church and participate in Sacrament meeting. It strengthened my testimony once again of God's incomprehensible love for us, His perfect knowledge of us, and his consistency in manifesting that love to us! (For further explanation see last week's blog). I hope that Carla can keep coming to church to experience more fully the comfort we receive from the Spirit and the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. On Sunday afternoon I did divisions with a missionary named Elder Aguilar who got his wisdom teeth taken out a few days ago. We mostly just did a lot of contacting, but contacting is SUPER important, otherwise people don't get the opportunity to hear the "good news" which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I just wish more people would accept it.

 

Monday in the office was SUPER long! I spent literally the whole time working on future missionary recommendations. I was updating all of the information we had received from them and then making a list of everything that they were lacking to be completed and then I wrote that up in a report to send out to all of the District Presidents and for President Watts. It was a vbery long and tedious process, but super important so that these members can fulfill their desire of serving the Lord like I am doing right now to share the Everlasting Gospel with all those who will listen. 

 

Unfortunately that's pretty much it for experiences this week. Not really anything to write about from Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Yesterday. Yes, I am still working, just not really like experiences to share if you know what I mean? It would be really boring and nothing uplifting I guess you could say. 

 

But, I am here, serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in His work, to bring to pass the immortality and the eternal life of man! How great is my calling? I hope that we can ALL particpate somehow in this great and marvelous work, at least by letting the light of Christ shine through us, and having His countenance engraven upon our own.

 

Love,

Elder Andrew LaPray 

November 5, 2011

Bad Saturday, Incredible Sunday, Awful Week

TO: You + 5 More

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How's that for a disclaimer? Just a crazy mix and whirl of emotions and feelings and experiences and just everything. First off, I am fine, happy, and healthy. The subject has nothing to do with any of that, just lots of crazy experiences to share. Don't worry!

 

I can't talk a lot about Saturday since they were perosnal experiences involving other people that isn't really my place to share, but I heard some tough news and I didn't exactly know how to react. I knew it was all for the best and for a divine purpose, but nonetheless, difficult to accept. So that was basically Saturday. Get ready for an emotional 180.

 

I have shared this experience verbally several times and written once. I liked the way I expressed myself when I wrote it, then copied it in my journal, and now I am going to make a direct quote from my journal. It's a LONG excerpt.

 

"This day was an absolute miracle in my life. The best experience of my mission so far. Skipping over church and lunch, Elder Williams and I were out on divisions. We went to contact a place where we had never contacted before called Zapote. I wasn't expecting much success, but I knew the Lord needed us to be there. The first few houses were busts. So we went to a house with some noise. Nothing. So we went to the house next door.

    "This 9 year old opened the door and I asked if his mom was home and if he would call her. He turned around and a woman came out and said,´Hi Elders, come in'. She came closer and said, 'Who sent you here?' Usually we say something like 'God' but I said, 'No one. We were just walking around knocking every door.' She continued, 'Really? No one sent you? I am a member of the church. I want you to give a blessing to my sister who was just diagnosed with cancer. I called missionaries the other day to comeon Sunday but they said they probably couldn't come. It is a miracle that you are here. God sent you'.

    "I know Heavenly Father sent us to this woman. There is NO WAY we could have known, but we made that contacting plan days ago so that nothing would interfere. This woman desperately needed us, and we followed the Spirit and we were able to be the miracle Carla needed, and she was our miracle too.

   "So the woman, Lourdis, let us in and we talked for a few minutes and she told her mom and sister (Carla) what a miracle it was that we were there. After talking for a few minutes we were invited to giveher a blessing and I was the one who sealed the annointing and pronounced the blessing.

  "I always feel awkward giving blessings to people I don't know just because I feel like they expect me to tell them they will be healed. This blessing was different. I just called her by her name, 'Carla Lorena Mejia Martinez', sealed the annointing, and started to give a her a blessing. Sometimes as Priesthood holders we stumble or speak slowly in blessings. I feel it's because we're trying to follow the Spirit and prounounce the blessing that comes from our Heavenly Father. I can't say it was an eloquent blessing in which I said, 'Be thou healed', but I can say I blessed her according to the Spirit. What a beautiful experience.

   "We then shared a small message about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It was honestly the most amazing miraculous experience I've had on my mission. Right now Carla is less-active, but her sister, Lourdis, said she, Carla, has been wanting to go back at least to Sacrament, and didn't know there was a chapel so close. Lourdis and her family are active members where they live in Canada, but she is going to be down here visiting her sister until December. What an amazing wonderful incredible experience to end the weekend and see the blessings the Lord has in store for us when we just continue to be obedient and follow the Spirit.

   "There honestly aren't enough words to come close to describing the whole experience and how I felt. I felt as if everything that had ever happened before, any bad experience, none of it mattered because of of that one moment that so infinitely overpowers any experience that I know I at least fulfilled one little purpose God has for me in my mission. I want this experience to be engraved in my memory for the rest of my life. It was one of those moments in life where you realize that God exists and He knows each one of us individually and He loves us so much that he sends two young missionaries to be able to give a blessing to His daughter who is in desperate need of that blessigns and the love of her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ."

 

  That one experience makes the rest of the weeks experience sound lame, because there was one good one, and the rest were just not that great. But, like I said, this one experience so greatly overpowers any bad experience that it doesn't matter. So, I realize now, that the rest of the weeks experiences don't matter at all, and I'd rather not share them, just to keep the wonderful experience a wonderful experience, untainted. Kind of like a drumroll. The drumroll is always so exciting and a build up experience, but what it builds up to is always kind of... meh. I'm going to consider my Sunday experience as the drumroll. A moment that will forever be untainted. (Partially stolen idea from How I Met Your Mother, season 1, episode entitled "Drumroll, Please".)

 

Love,

Elder Andrew Anderson LaPray