Catholic Mass

Hey everyone! This week was a solid week. We had some way good lessons, went to Catholic Mass and it was way fun. This just goes through the highlights of the week! 

 So on Tuesday I went to Amarillo to do an exchange with one of the Zone leaders. It was super awesome! We taught two really cool member lessons. We taught about trusting in God, and used the stories of Nephi retrieving the plates and Peter walking on the water to demonstrate that. I love that Nephi and his brothers failed twice to get the plates, and Nephi still put his trust in the Lord, "not knowing beforehand the things which he should do." Even though the odds were against him, he put his trust in the Lord. The same goes for Peter, who could walk on the water when he was focused and trusted on Christ. But sank when he focused on the "wind and storms." BUT, the best part is, Christ immediately saved him when he started to sink, and he will do the same for us! Anyway that was a lot but I felt like I should share. Afterwards the members asked me to share my testimony with them before I had to go back to Dalhart, so that was cool. 

 On Wednesday, all of our appointments and lessons fell through so that was rough. We still were pushing and trying though. 

 On Thursday, we had another lesson with the Meekers. They used to live in Utah and they were taught there. They LOVE our church. I don't know if I have written about th before, but they do Come Follow Me and watch Conference talks and said they like our church better than their Catholic Church. But they're still holding back. We had an amazing lesson with them. They were confused why most churches teach similar things, so we explained the Apostasy and the patterns of Apostasy in the Old Testament again. Then we went into super deep detail about the story of Joseph Smith. The spirit was so incredibly strong and it strengthened my testimony again of the Restoration. They loved it but they're still skeptical about The Book of Mormon. They want to prove it logically and with stats and stuff and we tried to explain that you'll never find the truth of it through that. You can only find the truth through reading it and asking God. Hopefully they do it! 

 That experience also strengthened my testimony of the necessity of the Book of mormon. They love our church, and participate in almost everything except the book of mormon. It truly shows that you cannot come to full faith in this church without accepting and gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

 On Friday we taught an English class to Bertha, who afterward we asked if she had the chance to read. She said she forgot what chapter we told her to read, so she just picked a random one. She happened to pick 2 Nephi 31 which literally outlines the gospel and doctrine of christ. So that was a miracle. She said she wants to be baptized, but not quite ready right now. She also wants us to start teaching her kids, who are 15, 12 and 10! So exciting!!! 

 Saturday we had a hopeless English lesson, my friend Pedro was struggling hard. It was funny though haha. We also went to a Catholic Mass with the Meekers. It was wild. When they started giving the sermon the priest targeted it right at us. Literally there were about 200 people there, and every eye was on us the whole time. Everyone was staring at us I felt targeted haha. But I also felt weirdly confident because I actually have the spirit and the truth, and we felt almost like lights in there. It was a weird feeling haha. They also bowed and sung alleluia to a gold plated Bible. The priest absolutely guzzled wine it was hilarious. They talked how The Word of God is incarnate and can become Christ Himself and ya I didn't understand. Faithful people though haha. Afterwards we talked with the priest and they were curious as to why we were there. It was good to share our different beliefs and learn about each other. 

 On Sunday our Branch president canceled second hour class again haha. Then we had a lesson an inactive member, Ralph, who is actually a Jehovahs Witness now. He was a super nice guy but we talked back and forth for about an hour about our different beliefs. He ended up calling one of the other members of that church and he ended up trying to bash with us over the phone and told us to leave Ralph's house and stop corrupting him haha. We shared a super spiritual thought with Ralph about Jesus Christ and then left. Sorry for the longer email, but I hope yall had a great week! 

I love all of you! 

 Love, Elder Ryan

1. Outside the Catholic Church 2. Sports

Hard Week

So I think I definitely forgot to write an email last week. My bad. This week ended pretty good! It was a really hard week in the middle but all of us have hard weeks on the mission. 

On Tuesday we basically just contacted all week and didn't have too much success! On Wednesday we had a bunch of lessons set up and they all fell through. 

On Thursday we taught an English lesson and it was fun haha. I think I'm getting better at teaching English classes but I don't know. What drives me nuts is when the people we're teaching laugh at our Spanish pronunciation and they can't even say the word three haha. But we shared Helaman 5:12 with them at the end, and they wanna learn more about the Book of Mormon! So we'll meet with them more. 

Thursday and Friday were crazy because two elders close to us got Covid, and they don't have a car so we had to drive them around but we didn't get Covid so we're good. 

On Saturday we had Zone Conference and an area seventy named Art Rascon spoke to us. It was incredible! The spirit was seriously so strong and I swear he was glowing the whole time. He talked a lot about how we can't preach the gospel without living it. He talked about how missions are hard, but the very message of The Book of Mormon is come unto Christ and be strengthened in your afflictions. He talked about how Satan has twisted the world into believing that their are no consequences for our actions, and we should love and tolerate anything that anyone does. Love yes, but tolerate no. We don't tolerate sin! He also talked about how we have to Faith, and faith is something that shows. If you have faith you'll do something about it. So incredible! 

On Sunday he led Stake Conference as well. It was again incredible. He called all the missionaries to the stand along with the future missionaries, and sang called to serve and it was awesome! Then we taught a Spanish couple named Buddy and Liliana and it went way well! We both testified at the end of it and the spirit was so strong and they both loved it. We were able to relate Gods relationship to us through their relationship with their children and family. It went really really well! 

To end it with a spiritual thought, because this email was rough and not much happened this week, it's a quote by Elder Holland. "If we love God enough to try to be fully faithful to Him, He will give us the ability, the capacity, the will and the way to love our neighbors and ourselves." I know that God can and will get us through hard times if we turn to Him! I know that if we love God, he will help us love and forgive others around us, and he will help us to love ourselves even with our faults. 

I love you all! 

Love, Elder Ryan

Dreamcatcher & -11 Degrees

Hey everyone! So this last week I got transferred to Dalhart, Texas. It's a small town of about 8,000 people in the Texas Panhandle. I'm super pumped! Our branch has the tiniest building to meet in, and we have to translate English to Spanish every week. So that's fun haha. Our teaching pool is a little rough but we'll get it going! It also happened to be -11 degrees one day so that's always fun. 

 So on Tuesday I had to drive from Roswell to Hobbs, NM which was 2 hours, then from Hobbs to Lubbock, which was 2 hours, then I drove a car from Lubbock to Amarillo which was 2 hours, and then a car from Amarillo to Dalhart which was 2 hours. So that was a long day. Only highlight was I got to see the goat Elder Nordquist and my trainer Elder Alvey. 

 On Wednesday we had District council in Dumas, Texas. Then after we were in Walmart, and we ran into this member who speaks Spanish and she looked real scared and told us to come by the next day and bless her house so we told her we would. 

 On Thursday we spent some time contacting in the streets. We found two new people! One was named Angel, and he's a 16 year old kid who attends a Catholic church everyweek and wants to do anything to learn about Jesus. He's pretty cool. The other is named Isaac, and we started talking about Jesus Christ and his Atonement, and he said he understood God's sacrifice better when he had his own kids, and he watched them grow up. It was a super cool experience to relate to the gospel! 

 Okay so then we went to the Spanish members house. This was WILD. This is about a haunted dreamcatcher so you've been warned. So we got in there and just started talking to her. She started to explain that in the backroom of her trailer they see things. And she said her kids won't use the bathroom by themselves, they don't sleep, and they talk to something in the closet they can't see. Freaky. So we tell them we can bless the house, and they say okay good and they tell us to go back in the room. The room is locked and has a chair blocking it. I was like uh I can bless the whole house from here haha but they insisted. So, we went back there and the second I walked in the room I noticed a dreamcatcher on the wall that had some creepy imagery and the spirit immediately told me that was the problem. So we blessed the house, and then after we explained to the family what we felt about the dreamcatcher. They said it's not even theirs, but it just gets randomly passed around from trailer to trailer. Super creepy haha but I think all is well now. 

 After, we were able to gave every single family member a priesthood blessing. All 7 of them. It was super amazing to see the anxiety and fear they all had melt away, and to feel the spirit just flood that house. It went from a scary, lonely feeling to just an insane amount of peace and comfort. So I didn't love telling the creepy story but it was such a cool experience to see how powerful Jesus Christ is, and how much peace He can truly bring into people's lives. 

 On Friday we visited an inactive member and their family who aren't members. It got wild, they have 7 dogs, 4 cats, and they brought out a duck and a chicken on their kitchen table haha. But in the end, we shared a spiritual thought and the spirit was way strong. They said they'd like us to come back and share more messages!! 

 On Saturday it snowed and it was -11 degrees so nothing was awesome about that. We drove around in the morning to help anyone shovel their driveway but I guess Texans don't do that. We taught an awesome lesson to Bertha who wants to be baptized! She just wants to get the answer for herself so pray for her! 

 Sunday wasn't too crazy, it was a lot of contacting and not too much success! Our branch building is tiny though haha I love it. And every Sunday we have to translate! 

 So for my spiritual thought I loved the talk "Ministry of Angels" by Jeffrey R. Holland. He talked about how Angels are still sent to help us everyday, and his help is always near. He said, "I testify that angels are still sent to help us, even as they were sent to help Adam and Eve, to help the prophets, and indeed to help the Savior of the world Himself" and then later in the talk he told us how we can receive that divine help. He said "it is by Faith that Angels appear and minister unto men." So amazing! I know that through Faith we can all receive that angelic help that we all need during our lives. I testify that God still sends angels and will send them to you! 

I love you all! 

 Love, Elder Ryan

1. The Elder's 2. Elder Checketts 3. Elder Nordquist 4. The District 5. Chicken 6. Nuestra pequeña capilla 7. -11 and Snow