What's up everyone! I can't believe I've been set apart as a missionary for two months! Time truly moves so fast out here yet at the same it can move so slow haha. Also I'd like to apologize to my mom because I've been terrible at taking pictures so I'll do better this week. So this week was interesting! We did a lot and a lot went wrong but a lot of lessons were learned haha.
So my comp and I decided we wanted to be more normal and natural so we bought skateboards to ride and street contact on. I'm really terrible and we get chased by dogs on them and I've almost died several times but we're getting there haha. Just like we should in the Gospel, I'm improving on my board every day. And it has surprisingly worked. There's been multiple times when we're riding alone and people from backyards will call out to us and then we strike up good conversation. So my testimony of skate contacting has increased haha.
This week we met this super awesome dude who lives on a Pistachio tree orchard and he built his own house (mansion) all out of clay! Its the sickest thing. He's building more houses out of clay on his property so we're gonna go help him!
We had some awesome opportunities this week to give a few different blessings! Each one was a pretty serious circumstance. One guy needed help in his marriage, another was leaving her house with her kid for safety, and another had family issues. Before we gave the blessings, all of these people were very stressed, anxious and scared. But it was so cool to hear what was said and promised in the blessings and then to see how happy and calm all of them were after. Their problems hadn't gone away, but now they had the spirit and christ with them. Its awesome to see the difference Christ makes in all of us!
So this week I went on an exchange for one lesson with my ZL Elder Karras. He needed an elder who spoke Spanish so I kinda laughed when he picked me haha. I'm still not great at Spanish but I'm able to understand pretty well. Anyway, the man we taught was named Patricio and it was awesome! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he was engaged and loved our message. So we were both super excited about him!
And then this week we did lots of skate and street contacting. We found lots of cool potential people! But this week was rough. It felt like no one wanted to talk to us and no one was interested which is pretty usual around here haha but this week we had a lot of solid people that we've been teaching just randomly drop us. So it was hard and I was just confused and sad and then I listened to a talk called "Missionary work and the Atonement" and if you haven't heard it i would highly recommend it! Theres a part where he specifically talks about missionaries struggling and why and he says that missionary work and bringing others to salvation is not easy because salvation was not an easy experience. Christ suffered more than we can ever imagine for us, so we're gonna suffer a bit here too. And that line gave me hope and helped me realize why I'm out here!
Another awesome thing this week has been my studies of the Book of Mormon and my testimony of it has improved so much! I've started to love reading it and I've been understanding it better than ever. One of my favorite scriptures this week was from Alma 17 and it talks about the Sons of Mosiah and how they got their success, and I think it's a good pattern for modern missionary work.
2 Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.
3 But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God.
I love those verses! They offer guidance about ways you can increase our ability to feel the spirit and be effective missionaries! I love you all!
Love, Elder Ryan
-Standing on top of this guys home at a pistachio plantation
-The skateboard came
-Nature
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