Email from Elder Lofthouse 5/28/13

Well, it's been an interesting week.  And I forgot my memory card, so no pictures again this week.  Sorry. 

 

I miss my old area.  I miss my trainer and the other missionaries I served with.  I miss my recent converts and investigators.  I think I'm more area-sick than I ever was homesick.  But I know I'm here for a reason.  I just need to figure out what that is. 

 

I had a family pull a prank on me at our dinner appointment on Friday.  It was pretty great.  They're named the Kreisels.  Brother Kreisel had a bandana on his head, there was a pack of cigarettes out, he had a bottle of Budweiser next to his plates, there were some beer cans tucked away in the kitchen I saw, They had a "wine" bottle in a bowl of ice, and he was being super rude to his family and was saying all sorts of crazy things.  In the opening prayer he said, "And please bless us with strength that we may be able to push anyone who gets in our way."  At first I was just super confused, but I started to catch on after a few minutes.  Brother Kreisel finally took his bandana off and said, "Sorry, let me start again properly." 

 

I don't have much else to report.  We have a pretty solid baptism for June 8.  His name is M and he's really good friends with some young men who are recent converts named K and L.  He was supposed to get baptized a couple weeks ago, but a member his age from the church told him at school that she regrets being baptized every day.  There were several other investigators in that group who also got scared away by her.  We're trying to do damage control with them, because they were all ready to be baptized.  We talked with M a bunch and L shared his testimony about how much his life has been blessed since he was baptized, and Mario really wants to again.

 

Well, hopefully I'll have more to say next week.  Thank you for all your love and support.  I hope you all have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Lofthouse  

Email from Elder Lofthouse 5/21/13

This has been quite a week!  First off, super good news:  D got baptized!!!   Yes!!!  She is so amazing.  Her dad kicked her out after that though.  She's been going through a lot but she's still trusting in Heavenly Father and hoping that things will all work out in the end.  I'm so excited for her!  And the other day she called herself a future missionary even though she keeps giving us tons of reasons why she shouldn't go on a mission.  She'll get there.

 

More good news:  I ate an habenero yesterday!  Woo!  Those are something else.  Actually almost our whole district ate one. 

 

And more news:  I got transferred!  I'm leaving tomorrow morning to a little town of about 10,000 people called Lindsay that's about 2 1/2 hours south of here.  It was one of Elder Hernandez's favorite areas and he keeps telling me all about it.  Apparently it's really hot there.  I'm super excited!  My companion will be Elder Morales and we will be co-senior companions.  If it's who we think it is, then he just finished his training, so we're both fairly new missionaries.

 

We're getting 30 new missionaries this transfer.  8 of them are actually going to Argentina and Denmark and are waiting for Visas, but that's still a lot of missionaries.  There has been a big wave of missionaries already, and graduation hasn't even happened yet.  I'm excited for this summer.  This church truly is the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that rolled forth to fill the earth that Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar saw.  This is the Kingdom that will never be destroyed.  Christ is at the head of this church.  This is His work.  

Presdient Gelwix included this quote in his weekly letter: “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life.” -Presdient Ezra Taft Benson

I know that this is true.  God can only bless us as much as we will let Him.  Whenever we receive ANY blessing it is by OBEDIENCE to the law upon which that blessing is predicated.  President Benson also said, "When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, then God will endow us with power from on high."  As a missionary you are always being talked to about obedience.  We strive every day to be more and more obedient.  We must turn our entire will over to God if we are to have any success and that is true for all of us.

So examine your life, think about something you know you need to work on and make an effort to do so.  Trust that God will help you as you come unto him (see Ether 12:27).   

 

I love you all so much!  Never give up!  No regrets!  Keep your hope burning bright!  One day we will all enter in together into the Celestial Kingdom of our God.  How glorious that day will be!

 

Love,

Elder Lofthouse  

Email from Elder Lofthouse 5/14/13

Well, today is my six month mark.  How crazy is that?  I feel like I left home just last month.  But it sure has been a good six months.  I'm so excited to hear about all the people getting their mission calls, because a mission is really the best thing you could possibly be doing.  It is so difficult, and can be so frustrating at times, but it is completely worth it.

 

D has been doing great.  Yesterday she sent us a text saying she only had 42 pages left in the Book of Mormon.  Woohoo!  We did hit one little snag though.  We met with Dianna on Saturday, and then after that she ended up going to a party with her old friends.  She shared some cigarettes and had a sip of a margarita.  She felt horrible.  And then she couldn't come to church on Sunday because her family was going somewhere for Mother's Day.  She really wanted to stay and go to church, but her dad probably would of kicked her out.  She seriously considered coming anyway, but she didn't.  We had 0 investigators at church.  That was a first.  Anyway, we had a baptismal interview set up with her this Thursday with President McAndrews (1st counselor in the Mission Presidency) and we called him and asked if we should still do the interview.  We feel that she is ready and that she's not going to make choices like that again, so he said he's still going to interview her and then we'll see about when she can get baptized.  But she still might be able to this Saturday.  And she is literally planning out her baptism, calling the people she wants to give talks, following up with me to make sure I've chosen a closing hymn, etc.  I'm so excited for her!  

     We mentioned to her that she should serve a mission and she said, "No, no!  I'd just angry at people who didn't want to listen or were rude, and I take forever to get ready in the morning," etc.  However, when we met with heron Saturday she told us about an experience she had where she was playing something online and she starting talking with her opponent and they ended up talking about the church and how it has helped her and how she has changed and she encouraged him to find the missionaries and listen to him.  And then the thought popped into her mind, "You should be a missionary," and she got that weird feeling again (a.k.a. the Spirit).  So, I'm really hoping she goes on a mission in a year and I get to go through the temple with her.  That would be so awesome!

     

Transfers are this next week.  We get our calls Saturday night.  I really have no idea what's going to happen.  Elder Hernandez is mostly likely staying as District Leader here (though President is notorious for moving missionaries for their last transfer).  So either I'm going to go somewhere else, or we'll get to stay together one more transfer.  Our district has been completely untouched for the last couple trasnfers though (except for Sister Poston replacing Sister Scott) so chances are things are going to be changing.  Our zone hasn't even really changed that much since I got here.  So it will be interesting to see what happens this week.

 

Well, we're about to go see Dianna.  Please pray for her!  She's going to be a great member.  Thank you for all your love and support!  This really is God's work.  I know that this is His church and that everyone needs this gospel!  So don't be afraid to boldy share it with those who don't have it yet!  So, "forget yourself and go to work" because "perfect love casteth out all fear."  I love you all!

 

-Elder Lofthouse  

Email from Elder Lofthouse 5/7/13

Time sure flies when you're having fun.  Since last week I wrote a really great e-mail, you can probably guess that this weeks won't be so great.  Sorry.

 

Cinco de Mayo wasn't all that exciting here. I kept hearing about how crazy Cinco de Mayo could be, but it was a very quiet night.  We didn't have a very productive night, but I guess it's because everybody went other places to party.  We did have a baptism on Saturday though.  And D is super excited for hers and when we were talking to her about how we've never really had a completely perfect baptism (something ALWAYS happens) she started asking what all the most common problems are and figuring out how she can make sure they don't happen.  Sounds like she's going to be planning her baptism for us.  However, we did get a worrisome text from her yesterday.  She was running into some temptation and she was so worried she was going to mess up.  We called her and encouraged her, but I don't know what happened.  Hopefully she's alright!

 

Oh, I got the birthday package.  I have no idea when I'm going to be able to make cake, but we'll see about next preperation day.  And thanks for the music!  And tell Tiffany thanks for the camera (and everything else). 

 

We have a lot of new investigators with great interest and great potential.  Our members seem to be getting more engaged in the work (we got 4 refferals from one member), and our ward mission leader, who was previously less-active, seems to be coming back.  I'm pretty sure he still has a testimony, we just need to get him excited about the ward mission and to take responsibility for it.  He could be a great ward mission leader.  I think he just needs a little training.

 

Anyway, sorry I don't have much to say this week.  Thanks for your love, support, and especially for your letters!

Have a great week!

-Elder Lofthouse  

Email from Elder Lofthouse 5/1/13

Hello again everyone!  I'm e-mailing today because we went to the temple this morning, so today is our preperation day.  It was great!  I love the temple so much.  We are so blessed to have the gospel!

 

Oh dear, I haven't been giving you updates on D.  She is so amazing!  She hasn't missed a week of church since we met her (the first or second week of March), she's read the Book of Mormon every day (she's half-way through Alma) and she prays every day too.  Last week she gave us her cigarrettes with a note that said, "I'm pleased to tell you that I smoked my last cigarrette today and that I will never smoke one again.  Thank you so much for helping me kick this unhealthy habit."  She used to smoke a pack a week before she met us.  She was able to cut back a ton, and that last cigarrette tasted absolutely awful to her.  She's also stopped drinking and made lots of other great changes in her life.  And yet she would still never commit to a baptismal date.  She never really felt ready and she never felt like she'd received an actual answer as to whether or not the Book of Mormon is true (even though she can recognize the Spirit and feels it all the time when she reads and goes to church).  So we've been praying and praying that she'd receive that Spiritual witness she's looking for and stop putting off the blessings of baptism that she's so ready for.  

 

Well, after zone conference on Friday my companions and I (Elder Peacock, Elder Vera, and Elder Hernandez) each met briefly with President.  In the course of his talking with Elder Peacock he discovered that we didn't have a model home (that's the mission's standard of cleanliness for our apartments).  He was not very happy as the last time he'd visited our apartment he'd asked us to make sure we did (we're usually pretty close).  He'd also asked that we speak Spanish as much as possible to each other, but for Elder Vera's benefit, because he's learning English, we were to speak English in the apartment with him.  Well, all of us had been speaking a whole lot of English.  So we got chastised by him (we'd already been chastised by the Spirit for those things during the conference) and were determined to do better.  And we have been!  And as they say, "Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles."  So, I come to yesterday's miracle.

 

I was on exchanges with Elder Peacock in Winton (Elder Vera was here in Atwater with Elder Hernandez).  On our way back to the apartment, we got a text from the other elders.  They'd forwarded a text that just said, "I'm getting baptized."  We were confused.  Elder Peacock asked, "Who would text you in English and be dramatic like that?" 

"D, maybe?"  

"Oh, my gosh!  What if it's D!  Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

We hurried in to the apartment, and sure enough, it was D!  Elder Hernandez and I called her after we were done planning and asked her what had changed.  She said, "There are 642 pages in the Book of Mormon (the Spanish verison) and I got to page 321 today.  That's half-way through!  And I thought, 'Wow, I've come so far in less than two months!'  And I got this feeling.  It's hard to describe.  And suddenly I thought about baptism.  I wasn't even reading about baptism!  But for some reason I thought of it, and it felt right.  So I'm super nervous, but I want to do it." 

Woohoo!!!!  I'm so excited for her!!  Her date is May 18th.  We asked if she wanted to get baptized earlier (she's completely ready) but she said, "No, no, no, no. no!  The 18th is fine!"  Yeah!  And I really do believe that a part of the reason she finally receieved her answer was because my companions and I were trying to be exactly obedient this week. 

 

We also have a "mana" baptism this weekend, a man named J.  He kind of lives in the middle of nowhere and so Elders from Turlock (the city just north of us) taught him pretty much everything.  On top of that, the member from that branch who introduced him to the gospel has been reading the Book of Mormon with him every day on the phone and bringing him to church every week.  She's amazing!  She's pretty much led him herself to the baptismal font.  It turns out that he lives in our boundaries, so we get to baptize him, even though we've only taught him twice and one of those times was just to review the baptismal interview questions with him.  This should be a good month!  Our inspired area goal is 5 baptisms.  We have two solid ones right now, and I'm sure we can get three more if we work hard and be exactly obedient!  Pray for us and our investigators!

 

 

Sounds like things are going well back home!  I love you all!  Thanks for your love and support!

 

Love,

Elder Lofthouse