"Our Words, Works, and Thoughts will Save Us"

It means no worriessss for the rest of your dayyyyssssss, it's a problem freeeee philosophyyyyyy - akuna matadaaa!! I just sang that out loud so I could get the words straight and I have like four people coming up to me telling me I need to try out for American Idol. I always knew I should. Haha okay this week this week this week a lot of interesting things went down -- this week. 

We had to go to the library and fill out a couple of training forms cause ya boy here is still being trained but there's only 2 more weeks of that!!   Anyways I'm not sure if I shared this in a letter to someone yet but while I was sitting there I saw a guy walk in and he seemed to stick out to me a whole lot. So after 5 minutes of battling whether to go talk to him I gave myself a couple of chest thumps and went.  It was really awkward at first because I was just like "Hey man," and he didn't really know what to do but as we got to talking it turns out he was taking the lessons a few years ago but was on probation and couldn't get baptized. We had a good conversation and what came from it is he is going to take the lessons again with the Zone Leaders.  I've seen him a few times since and we're actually becoming pretty good friends. He is a huge Max Hall fan so when I told him we went to the same high school and all that jazz he was all pumped.  So mom, I think I had Max sign one of my letterman things... can you look and if it's there can you send it to me because I want to give it to this guy.

Oh update on Nancy, she has been out of town but she get's back this week so we are going to go visit her and invite her to take the lessons so I'll let you know how that goes! Here's another cool experience that happened this week-- There's a member of our ward who is super less active and our investigator lives with him. In the past he has been pretty mean to missionaries and apparently is the "sabotager" of the whole operation.  A lot of missionaries haven't visited them because of this guy, his name is Blake.   I was looking for a little crazier experience so Elder D. and I went to visit them.  Here's how it went down. Blake and Shayla (his investigator girlfriend) live at Blake's mom's...  Shayla's mom, a nonmember, was there visiting. They have a bunch of little girls in the house so here's how we got our foot through the door. Princess stickers!!! That's what I'm sayin.  One of the little girls opened the door and I  showed her the stickers and she got all excited and shared them with her other sisters.  There's 3 of them under 10 years old. We got to talking to everybody and had some really good conversations. We talked about ice carving and cheffing, if that's a word, as well as alpacha farms and garlic farms.  But here's what came from it.  Blake and Shayla and the kids are coming to the Timberline Ward Christmas Breakfast this Saturday.  Blake who is a chef is going to make some cinnamon roles.  After the breakfast we are going to teach Shayla and the funny thing about this was that Blake brought it up.  Shayla's mom lives in northern AZ so she received a Book of Mormon and she is going to read it as she rides the bus home today.  I gave her your cell phone mom so she can call you if she has any questions.  If you have a random number calling you then pick up!!! She is pretty interested so it'll be an awesome opportunity for her to have someone who she can go to as she tries to find out for herself. 

I went into the situation expecting to get chewed out ... and came away with something way better - progress towards coming unto Christ! It was incredible. This last week I have thought a lot about courage and here's a couple of things that I was enlightened by. There's a quote from the Princess Diaries that says, "Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the knowledge that there is something more important than fear."  I loved this because there has been a lot of times in which I am faced with a situation that is pretty intimidating or scary to me and I become fearful. I was worried that I wasn't being a good missionary since I had these feelings of fear. I love this because it shows that having fear is okay and we need to trust in the Lord. I think that is a big reason why we have fear, to give us an opportunity to grow in our relationship with our Savior. So going forth there are a lot of things that I have fear about but I will just go through it because I know that the results of what can come from proceeding out weigh holding back from fear by a ba-jillion times.  Bishop Knight's email was about courage and he quoted General Patton’s quote about courage and bravery. It was perfect so tell him thanks for his words!  

Another thing that really caught my attention was Alma 12:14 about how our words, works, and thoughts will condemn us.  At the same time our words, works, and thoughts will save us. It was just a good reminder to always be thinking and talking and working towards something that will draw us closer to Jesus Christ and becoming who we need to become. I also realized that as a missionary I am a tool in the Lord's hands.  If I ask to be used He WILL use me. That's something that I am figuring out real quick!  Same goes with members and we are working really hard with our Bishop, ward mission leader, and Stake President, to get members to realize they are the tools that Our Lord uses to build up his kingdom! 

This area is still really slow, but we are working with a few inactive priests and the results are starting to show so that's pretty rewarding to see.  Also we help teach a seminary class on Thursday Mornings at 6:00 am and that's been a blast. I didn't realize how effective we really can be as we ask for opportunities to help others and as we act on these opportunities. There are two more weeks left until transfer day, Dec 17th, so I don't know if I'll be in this area for Christmas or not and with that I don't know when I will be able to call home yet.  Thanks so much for sending the pictures! Without fail I get a couple giggles and chuckles every single time I flip through those.  Congrats on the coaching Austin and congrats on the playing and singing B-ray and Mom!  Thanks a ton for the EVMCO CD! It really makes a frustrating day a-okay as it plays during the journal writing time. Let me know if I can do anything for you guys! Thanks so much for all you do! Love you all. Like I LOVE you all!!! <------ I just realized I can switch up the size and colors and all that jazz so look for things to be spiced up in the future!! Haha Love ya! - Elder Twin Chin aka Elder Traasdahl (That's a new nickname that came up this week.. Oh geez...)