Monday, September 29, 2014

WEEK 9 OKEMOS (WEEK 69 OF MISSION)

Parker and his comp, Elder Elwood at lunch at "Tacos E' Mas"

"Why so serious?"

Parker, Sister Pawson, Elder Elwood


hey everybody! 

another great week in meridian! we are working hard and talking to loads of people trying to find those who are prepared to receive the fulness of the gospel! we have had miracles and seen miracles in teaching and finding. now we just need a few more to get these people to church and to baptism! here is one of them: two weeks back we went to go try and find a Less active member who was on the roster. it was probably about 130 in the afternoon or so. as we were approaching the apartment complex, a lady was walking by. she stopped and asked if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. we said no. she told us she had some questions for us. so she started asking us about the movie Noah and how biblical it was (hard to say because i have never seen the movie and rarely study the biblical account of noah so i hope i didnt give her false information by saying everything in the movie is 100% true? just kidding). we scheduled a day to meet with her. we showed up, she was gone. rescheduled. we showed up again, she was gone again. darn. 

then on thursday, elder elwood and i were in the neighborhood and decided to pop in. she was in the backyard cutting up some trees and we started to help her. she began asking questions, we sat down and taught her the restoration. she LOVED it. she was so excited! we scheduled to come back the next day and teach her the plan of salvation. we did. she read the bom chapter we left her and understood it so well. we taught her the plan of salvation and she loved that too. she was wondering why no other church has ever taught her this stuff. we asked her to be baptized on the 18th of october and she said cant we do it sooner? haha we explained we had lots to teach her and things, but she is awesome! she had to work and couldnt make church this week, so we have some more things we have to take care of to get her to baptism but she is a miracle! 

remember, repentance IS the plan of salvation for every person. it is not the back-up plan. never be afraid to repent. it is an incredible opportunity to repent. when you repent, BE SPECIFIC. don't just say, "please forgive me for my mistakes." say, "i really am sorry for being short and rude to my friend. please help me to do better next time i am in that situation. forgive me. help my friend to forgive me." i promise that as you do this, you will feel the Spirit testifying to you that what you are doing is good and is cleansing. of course, we cannot do that for all of our sins, otherwise we would spend the rest of our lives praying for forgiveness. but pray to have your most critical offenses brought to your attention, and then repent of them specifically! do this throughout the week, especially before you attend church to partake of the sacrament. go in repentant, and leave knowing that last week is behind you. ask that through the Atonement of Christ your weaknesses of this past week may "become strong unto you.” (ether 12:27) 

We all need to repent. we all need to be more Christlike! be patient with everybody else's mistakes because you make them too. the perfectionist is far from perfect because not only is he or she not perfect, but they hold everybody else to their standard, so in their eyes, nobody is good enough, including themselves! 


love you all! have a great week! 
ps we are getting to watch meet the mormons thursday morning before zone training! awesome huh?? listen to prophets and apostles this week!! prayerfully and repentantly! 

Monday, September 22, 2014

WEEK 8 OKEMOS (WEEK 68 OF MISSION)

hey everybody! awesome week here! please go to meetthemormons.com and hit the red button in the top corner to request a showing. in the zip code type 48864! we need that movie here! please do that right now! thank you!!

We had a good week this week. we are hoping to begin teaching a few of the families we have found this week. not a ton of time this week to update you! i had trade offs in portland this week and we saw miracles! found some ultra prepared people! it was so cool! we need some of that magic here in lansing! 

why do we need to have faith in Jesus Christ? why is that a necessary principle in our salvation? God wants us all to come back to Him. He sent us a perfect example of how to do that in Jesus Christ. He is the prototype of a saved person. if anyone desires salvation, they must be as Jesus Christ. now luckily we dont have to be immediately perfect as He was, thanks to His Atonement. We must have faith in Him because He is the way. We must believe that He was who He said He was so we have motivation to follow Him and do as He did. We must also believe that He unlocked forgiveness for our sins when He performed the Atonement. I am grateful He was my perfect example and that I know I must follow Him. He is the only one who teaches the true purpose of life. He loves us perfectly. some people choose to pattern their lives after celebrities, sports stars, or others they know. When you are thinking about your role models, ask yourself does this person care about me? do they want whats best for me? what are they willing to do to help me? The Savior knows you, cares about you, and wants to help you. he is the only one we can place our trust in without reservation. He alone can ask us to do as He did, because He was the greatest and only perfect Being to ever live on this earth. FOLLOW HIM!


elder green

Monday, September 15, 2014

WEEK 7 OKEMOS (WEEK 67 OF MISSION)

awesome week, too many miracles!! not a ton of time!

we fasted and prayed for families and wow! we found an awesome couple named rudy and elaine this past week, and  a few other potential families. one of them is soo awesome. we had door knocked forever this day, looking for families. it was getting late. literally the last door we knocked (it always happens that way). a dad and his little son open the door. we talked to the dad and he was really cool. he was pretty open to hearing our message and said he wanted his sons to be taught more about God and His standards. turns out this guy played baseball for msu years ago. then his wife comes downstairs and meets us and she was awesome too, said she followed some mormon moms fashion blogs! haha awesome right?? hopefully we will begin to teach them this week! 

Me and Kevin. One of my favorite people ever! Check out his huge bible!! haha Love him!

we talk to a lot of atheists here. i always ask them how the universe began. they say the big bang. i ask them to explain it. they cant. then we usually explain it to them. here is my point: no matter what, you HAVE TO HAVE FAITH. if you dont have faith in God, then you have to have faith in the big bang THEORY, or stephen hawkings, or evolution, but you have to have faith! you are just having faith in something different. if you believe in evolution or the big bang, you have loads of faith. you believe in miracles! you believe in something that nobody has ever seen and that we have never replicated. you believe in an evolutionary miracle. if you believe in God, you believe in someone that thousands of holy men testify they have seen and spoken with face to face. you believe in records kept by ancient civilizations describing the ministrations of the Son of God on the earth. you believe in evidence and you believe in proof. Now, that is not to say that we have all the answers, nor do we need to. like nephi, we can respond that, "we know that God loves His children, nevertheless we do not know the meaning of all things." like alma speaking to korihor, we can show that we have evidence, while those who oppose God have no evidence, save their word only. I love all people, or at least i try to. God our Father loves all people. He wants us to know Him. He will manifest Himself to you if you put forth sincere effort and display your faith. read alma 32. it is about more than faith growing. really read it. 

have a great week! 

elder green


ps julie had an epiphany this week! still not over all her hurdles, but doing soo well! huge miracle! also, got a message from sue nelson (convert from kalkaska) saying that she is getting married and wants me to go through the temple with her on february 7th! awesome!!!!! miracle!!! what a saint!!! kevin came to church yesterday and really loved it!! awesome!! 

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

WEEK 6 OKEMOS (WEEK 66 OF MISSION)

hey everyone! sorry! not a lot of time! it was transfer week this week and we became mini assistants to the president and helped the real assistants out a ton! so we have been crazy busy! things have been good here! 

we fasted for families and prayed to be able to find them. yesterday we received a referral for a family and we are going to receive more from some other members today! what awesome miracles! God is good! 

quick tip: dont door knock in okemos when there is an msu game on. especially when they are playing oregon haha our whole area is just HUGE msu fans. all the professors live in our area. so we were door knocking all day saturday looking for families and long story short, people dont want to talk during the day of the game. or even the weekend of the game haha. the only time someone gave us the time of day was during half time. no joke. but this week will be better! !

julie came to church! it went ok haha you never really know what you are going to get at a testimony meeting. we are going to see her right after this. we had a great lesson with another one of our investigators named dave. he has been somewhat interested, but not totally. we hadnt seen him for a while. we had taught him the restoration and the gospel of Jesus Christ and he was doing alright with it. wouldnt accept a baptismal invite. but then we taught him the Plan of Salvation and it all clicked. he loved it! he was saying it all made so much sense and that it changed everything! he accepted a baptismal invite and said that now he really was pondering if he should be baptized in our church! he said he would come to church, didn't show up. but this week itll happen! what a miracle. 

things are going well with kevin. he is so awesome. made some huge strides in our lesson yesterday. 

alma 28:8 is a good summary of a mission. its the perfect summary of a mission. “And this is the account of Ammon and his brethren, their journeyings in the land of Nephi, their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy, and the reception and safety of the brethren in the land of Jershon. And now may the Lord, the redeemer of all men, bless their souls forever.” the Book of Mormon is wonderful. I know that if you have gospel questions and you pray about it, ponder it, and search the words of the prophets, the Lord will reveal the answer to you. I love learning. there is nothing like learning. here is a quick thought to end the letter. everybody has needs. some of these needs fall into basic categories. here are four of them from maslow’s heirarchy of needs: belonging, validation, physical needs, and knowledge. think about how the Gospel fulfills those needs. That is one reason why the Gospel is so powerful. it tells us we BELONG to God's family and have the potential to belong to an eternal family. we belong to a huge church family as well! eph 2:19-20. it VALIDATES us because it teaches that each of us are of infinite worth, and that the only Holy and perfect Being to ever walk this earth laid down His life for each of us! we are all of infinite worth, and no matter what we have done, there is still hope. God cares much more about where we are going then where we have been. 1 ne 11: 17. romans 8: 16-17.  there are PHYSICAL and TEMPORAL blessings given for living the commandments. mosiah 2:41. and if you want KNOWLEDGE all you have to do is come and get it. there is an infinity of knowledge waiting in the Gospel for everybody who seeks it. alma 12: 9-11

love you all! have a great week!

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

WEEK 5 OKEMOS (WEEK 65 0F MISSION)

I received a text with this pic Sunday. 
This is Amanda Rogers Voyles who went to Bingham 
and played on the tennis team.  She and her husband 
are in Parker's ward and had him over for dinner! 
What a small, small world!!!
hey everyone!! what an awesome week! there is nothing quite like being a missionary! 

we were blessed to find some awesome new investigators this week! we are still looking for a family to teach and baptize. that is our ultimate goal. kevin is doing alright. every lesson with him is a real battle haha but then the spirit hits him and he calms down. julie is doing well, hopefully she will be at church this weekend. 

i have done a terrible job talking about my mission and where i am serving in these emails so i really am sorry about that! yesterday for labor day we had a lot of the elders from the zone get together at the lansing stake center and we had a bbq and played bball for about 5 hours. it was awesome!! haha such a great day. pictures to come next week. 
 
Mission Leadership Conference
What a happy group :)
here is a miracle that i just found out about today from elder williams (my comp in wyoming who is still serving there). remember those 4 pages of referrals we got from a former missionary when i was in wyoming? well, one of the people we found from those papers was named hawa. hawa is a woman from sierre leone. she used to be muslim but converted to christianity. she is  a single mother with 4 little african children. she was really nice, but was never a big fan of what we taught because she got anti'd by her other church when she told them she was meeting with us. we did service for her a few times and softened her heart. well anyway, i got transferred and she was still learning, but not super interested. elder williams continued to teach her. a member named vincent moved into the wyoming ward. he was from sierre leon. he had just moved from new jersey where he had joined the church a few months back. he had studied with 7th day adventists for 22 years and never felt it was true. he met the elders and was baptized 3 weeks later. well anyway, they took vincent to hawa's next lesson. hawa wasnt there. they called her. she said she would be there in a few minutes. she later told the elders that she almost told them right then to leave and just not come back cuz she didnt want to learn anymore. but something stopped her. when she arrived she got out of the car and saw vincent. "vincent??!!" she says. "Hawa?!" says vincent. turns out, vincent is her brother-in -law who she hadnt seen in years. they taught her, vincent testified of everything, and now hawa is going to get baptized. she loves the bom and her children love church. what??!! isnt that crazy?? that shows that this is God's work. that is incredible!! 


we have had miracles here too. we are teaching some wonderful people. i love learning more and more from the scriptures. the Holy Ghost feels good. faith is more of a mental process than anything else. it requires effort. you become what you think. preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. whenever you participate in an activity, ask yourself if there is any light in it. is there anything uplifting or edifying or spiritual or virtuous or noble about that activity? if not, probably dont do it! its not worth your time. darkness is the absence of light. no one can walk into a room filled with light and turn darkness on. you can only turn light off. fill your life with the literal light of the gospel. it is an actual tangible power. it comes from doing things that bring light and from avoiding the darkness. reading your scriptures, attending church and praying. choose good friends. make good decisions. think good thoughts. sorry this is so scattered, i am in a hurry haha. hope you got something from that mess!! if your eye be single to God's glory, then shall your whole body be filled with light, and a body filled with light comprehendeth all things! alma 19:6. READ IT. 

love you! 
With one of Elder Elwood's converts at Temple for first time!