June 18, 2012

Journal Writing Back on Track... and 2 Baptisms!

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(Forewarning... this is sarcasm)... I wasn't sure which was more important, the fact that my journal writing was back on track(sort of) or that we were going to have 2 baptisms, so I put them both!

On Tuesday we had a conference with Elder Richard J. Maynes of the Presidency of the 70. Our conference with Elder Maynes was really good. It was in Montufar. As we sang "Somos Los Soldados" (We Are All Enlisted translated to We Are the Soldiers) I thought, "I felt the Spirit strongly witness that we all are the soldiers of the Lord." He made an interesting common about the First Vision that I would like to share. As we know, Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees and began to pray to his Heavenly Father and received the most astonishing experience in modern religious history. Joseph Smith represents each one of us, and every investigator, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ represent the very first missionary companionship of this dispensation, asking the most important question, "What do I need to do to have eternal life?" and now, 192 years later, I am one of those missionaries answering the same questions that Joseph Smith had. It was a very humbling thought.

On Wednesday I wrote, "Today we had a lesson with Gilda and Marian at 9 a.m. As usual they had good questions for us from their Book of Mormon reading. After their questions we asked them both if they had decided on when they want to be baptized. Marian said yes and Gilda said no. She's just not quite ready to make the complete change. I definitely understand though. We're asking her to change almost all of her former beliefs and traditions. Marian originally wanted to be baptized this Friday, but we explained how she may not quite be ready, so we'll be doing her baptism next Tuesday or Friday (now Tuesday), depending on whether or not I have a change, because she wants me to baptize her. I'm really excited for her. I don't know if she completely understands the significance this change and these ordinances will have in her life, but I know that little by little she will begin to comprehend how much of a difference it will make in her life.

"This afternoon we had divisions with the assistants here in our area. At about 1:45-2 Elder Nelson and I started to plan for our day so that he would have more of an idea of what was going on and so that I would know more or less what our goal was in this division. It was really fun to walk around with Elder Nelson again. I had forgotten how much people stare and ask how tall he is. Upon leaving the house there was a man cleaning some tires, our neighbor who has nice cars. Elder Nelson said, "Let's talk to this guy." I had been thinking that since last week and just hadn't done it yet. So we started talking about the tires and then cars and he said, "Come inside." and we learned his name is Raul. He is 56 years old and is a widower. He has two children at home: a 16 year old daughter named Grecia and a 13 year old son named Emanuel. We hope to see a lot of progress with them.

"We proceeded on to familia Morataya where Elder Nelson met Olga and Reyna and learned more about Reyna's story. After almost 7 years of investigating the church, after our lesson Reyna decided to get married and baptized and accepted the date of the 14th of July. (Reyna wasn't withholding from baptism for a lack of desire or testimony, but other things).  It was a a great experience to walk around with Elder Nelson again and see how he has changed, and hopefully he has noticed positive changes in me as well."

On Thursday we had a lesson with Max and Xiumara, who came to church last Sunday and again yesterday! They said they really enjoyed church and felt very comfortabel and were glad their 2 year old son had a place to be. They had some great questions about church and they very much enjoyed the lesson that our Ward Mission Leader gave yesterday. I feel like the Lord has truly blessed us again this week! And I feel that Max and Xiumara will progress a lot.

On Friday morning we had another visit with Marian and Gilda. After the normal questions from their reading, we mentioned the baptism, and Gilda said, "If those are the interview questions, do you think I'm ready to be baptized too?" We both said "Yes!!" We promised her that she is ready and Gilda and Marian have decided to be baptized tomorrow! I'm so excited for them both! They will be the first convert baptisms the ward has seen all year. I'm so so SO excited!!!

I have more that I want to write... but my time is running out and I still have to write president! But I love this work and I know that the Lord is working with us and that this area is built for success! Oh, FYI, changes are this Wednesday, but Elder Hatch and I will be together for another 6 weeks!

Love,

Elder Andrew A. LaPray

June 11, 2012

¡3 People Want to Get Baptized!

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Now, I don't want to ruin the title of the email so early... but I also don't want to lead you on through the whole email with the title leaving you hanging... so I'll tell you right now. Yesterday Elder Hatch and I had 3 different people come up to us and say "I/We want to be baptized!" And we were stoked, obviously! Now, on the downside, not a single one of these people live in our area. 2 of them live in our stake and the sisters in my district have been teaching them and yesterday out of nowhere they showed up to church and told us that they want to be baptized, so the sisters are going to be working hard with her and her 14 year old daughter for the next few weeks getting them ready for baptism! As for the other one. She lives in a part of Guatemala called Santa Rosa... which is in the South Mission. The closest chapel is about 2 and a half hours away from them. Her parents are members, but they only go once a month when they come to their grandmother's house, who happens to live in our ward! So... we're trying to figure out how we can get this girl baptized, because she must fulfill the Lord's requirements for baptism... but it should definitely happen! I just don't know when or where.

This week has been a little hard on Elder Hatch and I. We haven't quite had all the success for which we have been hoping and praying. On Wednesday we were supposed to have a visit with Gilda and Marian and they were going to tell us when they want to be baptized, but they had to cancel the visit and we didn't see them again until Sunday. The good news is, that they still came to church! Which was a huge blessing! We are hoping in this week to be able to talk to them about a date for baptism. So I'll keep you posted on that.

As for another huge blessing of investigators coming to church... As I said last week we talked to Max and Xiumara who have the crazy religious backgrounds... well last Sunday when we had our lesson, we invited them to come to church the next week and they said they weren't sure, but they might try. Well, on Friday night we saw them going out to get tortillas for dinner or something like that and so we talked to them and they said that they were planning on coming to church with us! And, THEY DID!!! They are some of few investigators who have come to church without me passing by to get them! Max has always seemed very interested in our message, and Sunday was no different. They were there for the majority of Sacrament meeting, and stayed for our Principles of the Gospel class, the class for investigators, and they seemed very interested! More than anything, Max. We have another cita scheduled with them for this Thursday and we hope to hear great things with them! I think that they are also a definite possibility for baptism! We'll hope and pray!

Well... I think that's pretty much all I have to say about this week. In my personal study the last few weeks I've been pretty focused on the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I'm almost done with the book of Mosiah. On Saturday I was reading Mosiah 27 and marveling at the story of the conversion of Alma the younger. I only have my scriptures in Spanish, so my translation won't be scripturally perfect, but you'll get the point. 24-26 "I have repented of my sins, and the Lord hath redeemed me; behold, I have been born of the Spirit.   And the Lord said unto me: Marvel thou not that all mankind... should be born again; yea, be born of God, be changed from their carnal and fallen state to a state of righteousness, being redeemed by God, becoming his sons and daughters.   and thus they become new creatures..." I love the way they look at "to be born again". There is a scripture reference to Moses 6:59 which mentions rebirth. As we are born physically, we are born with water, blood, and spirit. Likewise, as we are "born again", we must be born of water, the spirit, and blood. The waters of baptism, the reception of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and cleansed through the atoning blood of Christ. As we follow this process, we truly are "born again". Baptism is not in and of itself the spiritual rebirth, but rather when we allow are ourselves to be converted, "becoming (God's) sons and daughters". When we decide to let this change take effect and become even "new creatures" we are then born again and apply the redeeming blood of Christ into our lives and can "inherit the kingdom of God". Just something to think about :)

Love,
Elder Andrew A. LaPray

June 4, 2012

Anti-Knee-Hi-Levis 3

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I am running out of titles every week. There just aren't that many creative titles to come up with for missionary work. Although, I was thinking about a joke that my college Book of Mormon professor told us back at BYU. After the city of Ammon was converted to the gospel, they had a protest for modesty and changed their name to the Anti-Knee-Hi-Levis. Bad joke, I know, but it's "punny", right? Anyways...

This last week has gone by in a flash! It's ridiculous! Elder Hatch and I have just been kept really busy going from lesson to lesson. On Tuesday alone we had 6 lessons! However, our weekly total was only 21. Had we averaged 6 every day, except P-day and Wednesday, and Sunday, we would have had more than 24 lessons! But, I'm thankful to the Lord for the 21 lessons we did have because they were very successful lessons!

On Tuesday morning we had a lesson with Gilda and Marian and as usual we answered their various questions, which are always GREAT! They are really understanding the Book of Mormon as they read and showing strong desires of continuing to learn about the Church and the Gospel. After that we had several other lessons that came out of the woodwork for which we were extremely grateful as well. That night we had a lesson with our investigator Rubén and we watched "The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd" to try to get him more interested in reading the Book of Mormon, and it worked! I lament to tell you that even at 6 p.m. I now get tired watching a movie for an hour. I don't know HOW I'll go back to a movie watching life after the mission. But that's a good thing, right?

On Thursday I went to another area in my district to do divisions. The divisions was kind of a way to kill two birds with one stone. It let Elder Hatch have the opportunity to be 100% senior comp in our area and see how to handle the situations, which I think probably helped him a lot. The other was to see how I could help the work in Parroquia and what kind of suggestions I could give to the area. I'm not a huge fan of divisions, but they went over really well on Thursday. It gave me a chance to get to meet some of the people I hear about every week and thus be able to give more constructive advice. They also have two investigators that live in our area, and now Elder Hatch and I can visit them as well.

On Friday we also had two great lessons and a lot of stuff fall through, but that's okay! We went to visit a part member family, Familia Morataya, and we were able to meet a young man named Esau, who is dating the daughter of that family. He had a lot of good questions for us and we were able to plant a seed with the Book of Mormon as we gave him a copy. He doesn't live in our area, but that's alright with us. The important thing is that he gets to know the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Saturday also consisted of a great day! It kind of went up really fasted and had some fallen plans, but three good lessons. We had a lesson with a young man named Neri who had a baptismal date back in February, but it fell the week before I came here and then he disappeared off the map. However, last week we found him again and we taught him on Saturday and just started over from the beginning, the Message of the Restoration. One of our other lessons was with a less-active and we shared with him Mosiah 21:15 and Mosiah 24:10-16. I like Mosiah 21:15... but it's kind of a little bit of cincho... verbal spanking... saying that the Lord was slow to respond to their prayers due to their lack of obedience, with a contrast in Mosiah 24 as we learn that the Lord does visit us in our trials and afflictions, but when we remember Him, rely on Him, and are obedient to his commandments.

Our last lesson on Saturday night was with Gilda and Marian. After we helped answer their questions about the Book of Mormon they asked us more about baptism... about who does it, who shows up, what kind of clothes you have to take, and all that kind of stuff. So at the end, half joking around, half serious, I asked, "So does that mean that you want to get baptized?" The answer was yes. They haven't told us a date yet, but they do want to get baptized and I think in this month! I am SO excited for them! They are really ready for baptism and they will be even more ready in a couple of weeks! This will be the first baptism in the ward, and they will be two, since November of 2011, so about 8 months, which is a very long drought.

On Sunday we had 5 investigators in church, which was absolutely awesome! And then we had a few visits later that afternoon. About 2 months ago exactly I told about how Elder Hatch and I had contacted a family that had quite the religious background with the reformed LDS and the Sabbatical Christians and what not... well, we were finally able to teach them again on Sunday afternoon! It was a great lesson! They even got the wife, Xiumara, a Book of Mormon so that they could read part of it together, which is absolutely awesome! They are very interested and then got the story line of the Book of Mormon very quickly! I'm so excited for the work here!

Now... this is something I wanted to save for the end... On Wednesday night Elder Hatch and I were sitting at our respective desks planning for the next day and out of the corner of my eye I saw something crawl out from under the shelf and make it's way over towards us and I looked and what was it... a TARANTULA!! So I yelled pretty loud, and it stopped moving. Then after about 5 minutes of freaking out and talking to Elder Hatch we put it in a plastic jug/jar... and then we killed it. I did NOT like that sucker. But it was't too bad. I'll attach pictures :)

Love,

Elder Andrew A. LaPray

Great Week - May 28, 2012

Great week!


On Tuesday we we out walking to pick up a member to go out with us and met this man, Juan (name changed). Juan was deported from the United States a few months ago for a few problems he had. Technically he is Guatemalan, but this is his first time in Guatemala since he was 1, and he is now 37 years old. He feels like a stranger and that no one wants him. So we started talking to Juan about life in general and were able to start talking with him about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon, and the guidance we receive in our most difficult times through the Book of Mormon, and thus directly from our Heavenly Father. It was a very interesting experience for which I am grateful. 


Wednesday was also a good day! I would like to focus on the lesson we had with Gilda and Marian. They are our 2 investigators that have really made a huge difference in my mission and made me realize how much of an impact this message truly has on the lives of those who let it. As we reviewed the Plan of Salvation they said they could feel the peace and comfort in knowing that one day they can seen their loved ones once again, and I know that this is true. They are quickly progressing towards the firm desire to be desired with a goal of a date to be baptized! I truly am grateful to be part of their gospel journey.


On Friday we had a lesson with a less-active woman named Lorgia and we talked with her about the importance of the Holy Ghost in our lives and how sometimes it can be difficult to recognize. I love the story of 1 Samuel 3 in which Samuel hears the voice of the Lord 3 times, and believes that Eli is calling him. At this 3rd hearing, Eli understands that it is the Lord calling Samuel, and tells him that the next time he hears the voice to respond, "Speak; for thy servant heareth". What greater thing could the Lord hear than to know that we are lovingly listening to his voice, waiting to respond to what He desires us to know! 


Saturday was another great day! We had another lesson with Gilda and Marian about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or in other words Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. They both agreed that they would like to be baptized and are going to pray to know WHEN they would like to be baptized. The Lord is truly blessing this area and these two women who are ready for the message of the Gospel.


Yesterday as Elder Hatch and I went to to do our proselyting in the afternoon we went to search two people we had contaced more than a month ago and we were waiting outside the door for quite a while before someone came out and said they would "look to see if they were there"... and we kept waiting. After another 3-5 minutes we were about to leave and I felt as though we should stay and someone came to the door. His name is Jonathan and he is 20 years old. It just so happens that he is related to the people for whom we were looking... and he is also a member. From there we began to talk to Jonathan and about things that have happened in the last several years since he has been baptized. We were later telling this story to a member and she said "What, a coincidence. No. It was God"... and I truly know that it was. I have told many stories of the way that Heavenly Father places us where we need to be and when, and I know that we will be able to help Jonathan come back to church.


I am so grateful every day to be serving a mission. These experiences are once in a life time. A couple of weeks ago we were talking to Hno. Jimenez and we were talking about movies, and he said that we are making the best movie in these two years, and we will spend the rest of our lives watching the movie of our missions over and over again in our minds. I hope I can make the movie the best it can be, and that there are no parts I am "ashamed" of watching again. 


Love,
Elder Andrew A. LaPray

May 21, 2012

The Best Day of My Mission


 "Today was probably one of the best days of my mission. Up there with the experience of Carla in Martí, when Ana María Salazar told me how much I had helped her family, knowing that Francisco Beltrán was able to be baptized, etc. Well, a few weeks ago, Olga Morataya gave us a referral of her friend Gilda, and in our second visit with Gilda (age 50ish) we met her daughter, Marian (22) who also wanted to start listening to us. We've visited them several times since then, and they have always had great questions for us and been very interested in our message.


"Ever since we gave her (Marian) a Book of Mormon, almost 2 weeks ago, (she) has started reading it. She has also read the pamphlets we leave for them. To top it all of, they also came to church on Sunday, the 13th. So that sets us up.


"Well, our previous visit with them was Friday, May 11th, and we had set up the visit for this upcoming Thursday, the 17th. Well, on Sunday night, Marian called us and asked if we could pass by on Tuesday instead, so we of course said, 'Yes!' Right, now we're all caught up to be able to talk about why today was so great.


"So this morning we stopped by to pick up Olga, and then went to Gilda and Marian's house, and there they were, waiting for us. They had several questions about what happened in church and some other little questions. Now, I don't remember exactly how the conversation was brought up, but there was a silence, and Marian became very pensive and looked like she was about to cry.


"She started to tell us that for the last little while, (months), she hasn't been sleeping well, but ever since we started visiting them, she has slept well. Even more, she is afraid of the dark and sleeps with a little light in her room. But she has been reading the Book of Mormon right before going to bed and then sleeping with the Book of Mormon next to her pillow and she can now turn of the light. She also told us that the other night she went to lock the front door, and it was extremely dark. Usually when this is the case she turns the lights on all the way down the hall, but she didn't, and when she got to the front room, she wasn't afraid, and she felt as if we were sitting there on the couch, watching out for her. She said she could feel our presence. 


"This sounds unreal. But it is true, and I know it. When Marian turned 15, she changed schools from a catholic school to a "normal" one, where those who wanted to search for God could, and those who didn't, didn't. Every once in a while she has had friends invite her to different churches, but she never went. She told us, however, that listening to us, reading the Book of Mormon, and the pamphlets has filled an emptiness in her life and is making her very happy and giving her a new sense of peace. It is such an incredible feeling to know that our message is making such a difference in someone's life."


I know that this gospel is true, and that is truly does change lives. The Plan of Salvation has been given to us for our own eternal happiness. 


Love,
Elder Andrew A. LaPray

Not What Happened Last Week - May 14, 2012


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I'm not going to let the same thing happen this week as did last week! I'm going to get my stories out there! Because last week I had a lot.


So, about a week and a half ago now, one morning I woke up, got showered, ate breakfast, and went outside to our "sink" to clean my bowl. As I got down to the "sink" I looked into the water and saw... A dead raven. So I go back up and shout to Elder Hatch (who is showering), "Elder Hatch, there's a raven in our "sink"" "A what?" "A DEAD raven in our "sink". So... after Elder Hatch gets out of the showered and dressed, he goes down to see the dead raven... and we then tell our land lady "Doña Hilda, did you know there is a dead raven in our sink?"  "A what?"  "A dead bird in our sink. Did you know?"  "Oh, goodness, no! I'll have my "maid" clean that out really well with bleach and everything and then you'll have nice clean water to wash your dishes with!"   Not exactly why we told her... but ok. It works. Funny story for the day. 


This last week was a pretty good week. We had several great citas with some good people. One of the best citas we had with with two investigators named Gilda and her daughter Marian. They are referrals from a member named Olga. Anyways, they have always had great questions for us, and they read the Book of Mormon, and the pamphlets we leave behind. Anyways, this week we were finally able to teach Marian about the Message of the Restoration! And she said that she believes that it is very possible that Joseph Smith saw God, the Father, and Jesus Christ and that he was a prophet and everything. It was a great lesson and they are progressing a lot! Even better, they came to church with us on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours and they really liked it! 


On Friday we were walking around, looking for someone to teach, and as we were walking around we saw this 22ish year old kid say goodbye to his girlfriend and watch her walk away... he was of a "rougher" look... long hair, skater, lip ring, ear gauge, etc... as we walked by we said "Buenas tardes (good afternoon)" and he said "Hey guys, how's it going?(in english)" So we decided to stop and start talking to him. It turns out his name is André and his mom started teaching him english about 11 years ago and he speaks with a very good accent. So, we talked for a second and then he asked if we were going to talk to him about Jesus, and we said yes. So then we started walking and talking to this kid. He was a really nice guy, with some good questions, and we ended up giving him 2 copies of the Book of Mormon, one in english and one in spanish, and gave him our phone number in case he has any questions or wants to learn more. He was a great guy. Unfortunately, he doesn't live in our mission, but that's ok! We got a little seed planted for the future :)


Obviously, as my family knows, I got to talk to my family yesterday, and those are always great/special days. A little over a year ago, when Elder Nelson and I were companions, he mentioned that he liked to say family prayer when he talked to his family on Christmas and Mothers' Day... and I always forgot to mention it until yesterday, when I finally remembered. Having a family prayer was absolutely wonderful! It reminded me of all those times that we did prayers when my dad was in Utah, or in other places studying or doing clinicals, or anything like that. It just brings a sense of warmth and unity to do a family prayer, even when your thousands of miles apart.


Love,
Elder Andrew A. LaPray

"Tender Mercies of the Lord"       April 30, 2012

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This week has truly been a "tender mercy of the Lord" in the life of Elder Hatch and I. We have felt as though we have been working very hard and diligently in our missionary efforts, but we haven't had the success that we have been so desperately working towards. We have had great weeks and difficult weeks as well. But, as I said, this week has truly been a blessing straight from our Heavenly Father.

It all starts with Monday night. We had a lesson with an investigator named Carolina. Her son and daughter-in-law were baptized back in 2010, but she is now listening to us. She started listening to the missionaries back in January, a month before I got to the area. Elder Hatch and I felt like we should go over the first lesson once again with her. We taught her one of the most powerful first lessons of my mission with a very strong Spirit. As we taught there was complete unity between our companionship and the whole lesson just flowed from point to point and I felt the Spirit testify that the things we were sharing are true. Carolina was also very interactive in the lesson, expresses her ideas and opinions. At the end of the lesson we asked her if, upon knowing these things are true, she would be willing to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she said, "yes". It was a very strong, spiritual lesson. Afterwards we had a lesson with a less active man named Alex. My companion asked me if that would be the best use of our time, considering that we had a member with us and we could look for an investigator, but I felt that we were supposed to be with Alex. It was also a very powerful lesson we had with him, and he helped himself realize how he can help his friend Ruben truly start to accept the gospel and make the small changes in his life to come to a full realization of the truthfulness of the gospel.

Tuesday was likewise blessed. We had lots of lessons, but I wanted to to mention more specifically the lesson we had with Stuardo Polanco. They just moved out of our area on Saturday, but we had 3 great lessons with them this week. This first one on Tuesday we were able to talk a little bit about families and the temples. Stuardo had the opportunity to go to the open house of the Quetzaltenango Temple and he mentioned to us that it was absolutely beautiful and that it was without a doubt the closest someone could get to God on earth. He also said that he hopes to be able to go back there one day, and we testified to him that he can. It was wonderful.

On Wednesday we had our zone conference, combined with Elder Llewelyn's zone, so I got to spend the day with him. However, the best part in all honesty was the conference. We had a lot of great inspired words and received lots of instruction on how to help improve our areas and Elder Hatch and I received some great revelation for our own area. It was absolutely fantastic!

Thursday was another killer day! In the morning we had a lesson with a woman named Sonja that I contacted with Elder Richins on divisions 5 weeks ago, and we were finally able to teach her. It was a short lesson, but it was really good. At first I didn't think that she was really going to listen to us, but as we kept teaching her the message of the Restoration she opened up more and more and accepted a return visit from us next week! Another awesome lesson we had was with a young woman named Gabi, who is 18 and a referral from a member named Ulises. She is a really sweet girl who was very intrested in listening to us (no, not just cause I'm so good looking ;) JK. But really, it was a fantastic lesson and you can tell that she is really interested in actually knowing what our message is for her. I also conducted a baptismal interview for an 8 year old who was baptized on Saturday. Smart little kid. And we had another lesson with Stuardo, probably the best one we have ever had with him! I don't remember what all we said or how we said it or anything, but I remember that we testified of the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it has completely changed our lives, and Stuardo said "hasta hoy me convincieron que debo leer el libro" which is like "until today you finally convinced me to read the book"... But it sounded a lot cooler in Spanish. After listening to the missionaries for a while, some little thing in our testimonies convinced him of the necessity to read the Book of Mormon. It was another powerful lesson. And the coolest part, is he read the very next day! The Title Page, the Intro, and all 3 testimonies! And then on Saturday he moved out of the area, which was the hardest part.

Saturday and Sunday were also great blessings of the Lord, but not with long stories. However, I know that this work is absolutely true! Today I received an email from a woman in my old area "I helped reactivate" and whose son "I helped baptized". But it was extremely touching to hear from her and know that something I did, or said, to help bring the Spirit into their home helped to change their lives. These are the moments and days that every missionary hopes and loves to have.

Love,

Elder Andrew Anderson LaPray