If the Savior Stood beside me? What would I be saying or doing?

Letter #21

January 13, 2014

Area: Broadway 2 East

Companion: Galvez

Hey guys! This week has been pretty good for me too, but sadly we are going to stop teaching some people for a while because they are not all that interested anymore... :( But you all sound like you had a pretty good week :) And by the way, I think the best wedding picture was the Brothers-in-law :P Carolyn, they knew it was you having the reception, so they had to have that counseling on a different floor the same night :P

Carolyn, did you go? ;)

 Mom, the funniest thing happened when I went to get the flu shot today, they need the information that you sent me, but I didn't have it, so I just have to go back a different day...

Kimmie, glad that you are having a son...I am excited that the boys are really taking over in this family :P adding a couple more :)  Being outnumbered with sisters growing up...this is pay-back!

Well, now on to the week... We had a really fun week, we had interviews/training with President Crawford on Thursday, and we found out on Friday that we are doing a mission-wide 40-day fast. We aren't fasting from food for 40 days, we are fasting from habits and behaviors that detract from missionary work and the spirit. We started this yesterday, and I am excited to show the Lord my willingness to follow his will and give up some of my ways for His ways.  There is an article that would be good to read (it is really long, but really packed full of good information)....it talks about "Come Unto Me" by Jeffrey R. Holland..."I say, Come unto him(Christ) and lay down your burden. Let him lift the load. Let him give peace to your soul. "   https://www.lds.org/ensign/1998/04/come-unto-me?lang=eng

We saw a couple of miracles happen this week, and the biggest one happened during Hour of Power. We knocked a street right next to a less-active's house after we shared a short message with them, and the second door we knocked was opened by this really nice lady. She was talking to us for a little bit and when we asked if we could share our message with her, she invited us in (which isn't very common...). I was super excited until we asked if there was a man inside and she said that there wasn't.(keeping to our mission rules that if there is no male in the home, then we, as males, are not to enter.  The sisters would have been fine, since they are female, anyway rules keep everyone safe, and we will remain obedient).... so, We set up a time to come back the next day and then continued down the street knocking doors. We knocked one more door but this person told us to go away, so we knocked another door and a couple of girls answered it. We talked to them and they were super fun.  When we asked them if we could share our message they pulled a couple of chairs onto the porch and we taught them. .We had been super sad that we weren't going to get our Hour of Power lesson, but we followed the rules, and because we followed the rules, God blessed us with the chance of getting 3 new investigators instead of just 1.   I guess the moral of this story is that obedience really does bring blessings, so as we continue in obedience to the things that God has asked us to do, he will bless us in more ways than we can imagine :)

When we went back yesterday to teach those 2 girls again, we found their family on the porch and talked to them. Their uncle ended up being really interested, so we got his information to give to the elders in the area where he lives :) We were blessed in finding the girls, then blessed even more in finding their uncle for the other elders.

Bye, until next week....

New Year brings New Commitment to do our Best

Letter #20
January 6, 2014
Area: Broadway 2 East
Companion:  Galvez
 
       Hey guys, this week has felt like forever, but at the same time it went by really really fast... It seems like my companion and I weren't the only ones that got a little sick :P My companion woke up on New Years Day at about 2am and threw up (thankfully in the toilet), then he had some kind of illness that day that made him feel really bad.  I texted our district leader telling him the symptoms and he said that he and one other missionary had that before. He told me that Elder Galvez just needed some rest. So I let him rest, and rest, and rest...he was asleep until 1pm... I was so bored! I had studied, read through all of the records of the investigators, read some of the book for Elder's quorum (in spanish), and I even accidentally fell asleep a couple of times. Then I decided to pop some popcorn and read the talk "His Grace is Sufficient", THEN he finally woke up. While reading that talk,  I ended up thinking of one of the recent converts that we have been teaching.  I decided to share that with my companion, and then I told him that he can read the rest of that talk because we didn't cover the whole thing :)

1) we aren't on bikes 100% of the time and actually recently Elder Galvez and I have been driving the car a lot because we have had appointments really close together in time, but all the way across the area, so we haven't had the chance to really ride bikes.

2) My companion's has been out 6 months, but has been in the mission field almost his whole mission instead of spending time in the Missionary Training Center because he didn't have to learn spanish (Peruvian).

3) We don't knock doors or tract every day.  We have district meetings each Friday, and zone meetings once a month.

4) On New Years Eve we didn't actually get in until about 8:30 because the members we were with kept talking to us and then when we were leaving they gave us a lot of food, then we had to pick up Elder Galvez's laundry from a member's house because he forgot to pick it up.  Kept us busy!

This week was pretty awesome, except for the sickness in my stomach.. I started feeling sick the day that Elder Galvez started getting better and then I ended getting sicker 1-2 days after. We surprisingly had a lot of lessons this week, despite our illnesses.  We will be calendaring baptismal dates this week because they are really interested and they believe all that we are teaching.  One of them has been taught by missionaries for a while and he knows the stuff.   He hasn't been baptized yet because he has work every day and he couldn't come to 1pm church very often. 

       We had a lot of success this week :) Especially Saturday, we had a completely planned day, except maybe 1 hour.  We ended up getting 6 lessons with people, 1 with a member, 3 without, and 2 with less-actives :) We were so tired, but it was so fun to have that many lessons in one day! We ended up teaching 15 total lessons, 6 of them being on Saturday, which is kinda funny to think about. I know it isn't about the numbers, but each number represents people who have been touched and recognize that something might be missing from their busy lives.

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to attend the baptism of one of the investigators of a sister from my Mexico City MTC district, which was great because the investigator was a guy that Elder Galvez found. Elder Galvez stopped teaching that guy about a month ago when the guy moved to the sisters' area, and now just a few weeks later he gets baptized! His old companion and I keep making the joke that he just needed the Sisters to come :)

I really can't think of much else that happened this week other than me realizing how real it is that I, and other missionaries, can receive revelation for the people in our area. We helped a few people open up more to us by just sharing short messages that we felt would benefit them.  This work is amazing.  Heavenly Father really does know His children, and if we, as missionaries, are close to the spirit, He can help us understand those to whom we teach!

I love you guys and good luck, Carolyn, on the whole being old thing :P I can't believe that you are married!

Families Can Be Together Forever

Letter #19
December 30, 2013
Area: Broadway 2 East
Companion: Galvez

I personally am still trying to get used to the fact that it's December...and now it's almost January!. I definitely had a lot of fun talking to you all Christmas Morning and I had a lot of fun on Friday guessing what the gifts were from my sisters' package.  I read the scripture associated with the gift, and then guessed and opened them, I sadly only guessed a few right, but of course I guessed the Swedish Fish right :) I am glad to say that I did wear my ties from you on the 27th and the 28th and I kept in mind that my "little" sister is now married...(2 ties:  one for when Carolyn was entering the temple for the 1st time, and the 2nd tie was to remember that Carolyn became Ryan's bride in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

1) My companion is Elder Galvez and he's from Northern Peru, but he lived in New York for a year and Utah for 3 years.

2) Yes Mom, we are doing Spanish study, so actually recently I've been reading the Life and Teachings of the Prophets: Joseph Fielding Smith for Sunday School and it is really fun! But when the New Year comes, I'm going to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish all the way through, starting with the front cover all the way to the last page of Moroni

3) My new ward is Broadway 2 and it is in the same building, so the Sunday after the transfer I surprised some of my good friends in that ward by showing up at the end of their meeting time before I went to my meetings :) and there are a ton of helpful members, one lives basically behind us and he has gone to at least 3-4 lessons with us in the little amount of time we've been in the ward.

4) I had breakfast with the member that we went to for the video chat, on Christmas Day, and we ended up going to a different member in Elder Galvez's old area for a good amount of the day. But we got to play volleyball with the single-adults and it was really fun and I even saved the game for one game to 10, it was 7-1 with the other team winning and we got it to 9-8 and then almost won, but they got the ball in the right place to get it past us... :(

5) yeah I liked all of my Christmas gifts, and thought that my sisters' package was super cool, but I thought one of the scriptures was different because I read it wrong.  But in defense of myself:) the one I read could have worked for it... I think it was like Mosiah 4:16 or something and I went to 4:6 and it was for the tootsie pops.  Thanks for all of the gifts.  Talking with you all was the best gift.

This week was amazing! surprisingly we found 6 new people to teach even with 2 less days and we got 2 part-member families to church and everything :) we definitely had the Christmas spirit with us and the people were open. one of the most memorable experiences was actually yesterday, we had found a guy on Saturday who lives with a person that the English sisters gave us a referral for and he didn't seem very interested. He was 18 and was going to go to a club with an older friend of his and he said we could come by at 6pm yesterday. We pull up at 6pm and he is with a couple of other guys and they were drinking and we were just talking to them, then we said something about Oriel (the 18 year old that we talked to before) saying we could come by at 6. Oriel started looking for his phone and said "what? it's 6 already?" so he invited us into his house and offered us a beer, but we obviously declined. We talked to him about God being our father and how we are all brothers and sisters and how the gospel can bless our families and we found out that he has a lot of faith in Jesus and he believes God is our father and he accepted it completely. We didn't have much time, but after we told him that we are all siblings, when he called over his uncle, he introduced us as his brothers :) When we said we had to go he ask "already? can you come back tomorrow?". He is super interested and when we met him we thought he didn't care about the Lord at all...

Looking forward to this new area...

Love you all,
Elder Stanley Scott Dye

Christmas Call Details

Letter # 18
December  24, 2013
Area: Broadway 2 East
Companion:  Galvez

Well, since transfers were announced on the 17th, and I'm the one that was being transferred, I had to get all of my belongings packed up.  I'm surprised that I was able to easily get all together.  Sis. Mercedes is the person that took us up to are transfer assignment area.  We were even able to get my bike into her car, which really amazed me.  After getting there, it was kind of funny, because I was being transferred back to the same general area, but in Broadway 2 East.  So, before that car trip up and back, Elder Thomas and I had the opportunity to go and say bye to a couple of members from my old ward.  We had 2 dinners on Monday before my transfer, but then we found out, the next day, that I was staying in the same church building, so I'lll see all of them every Sunday. One scripture that I found this week that I really like is Jacob 6:12 and it says "O be wise, what can I say more?" and I thought of it as something Dad would say :P
    Looking forward to talking with all of you tomorrow.  Will be setting up a time to chat, but I'll call around 8 am (your time) to set that up.

Until tomorrow,
Elder Dye