Random Pictures from Ryan Posted June 29, 2015

June 29, 2015

Ok so before anything else I must inform you all that my time on the East side of Indianapolis is done. No mas. I honestly did not expect that. In fact most of the district didn't expect they would move me but yep I am out and gone. Which meant I had to pack, prepare the paper work and area books, and clean the house. Luckily though I got a good companion who took care of the house, leaving me with the paper work and packing. Its kind of a bummer because now we have more solid investigators and many of them that will get baptized in a few months but that's okay. Its how the mission roles out.

As to where I might go there are three possibilities. One is returning to Lafayette, the other is going up north to Goschen, and the last is going to the west side of the city. It seems impossible that they would send me back to Lafayette since that is where I started, going up north is a maybe, but I honestly believe that I will be sent to the west side of the city (Indianapolis).

But I wont find out till miercoles, and I won't be able to let you guys know till next week where I am at so for the time being don't send me anything.

Getting ready to leave has made me sad because I haven't had the chance to take some pictures with some of the families I have gotten to know. But that's okay I will get a chance later down the line as my mission goes on.

Nothing too exciting happened this week just work and a few trip around so Elder Thompson could say good bye to some families and people he has met on his mission. He is kind of in that state of shock that its finally over, but is also really ready to go.

So later today I will drop him off and then hang out with some other Spanish missionaries (Elderes Ryan y Porter) till Wednesday. We will be celebrating Elder Ryan's birthday tomorrow so that will be fun.

But on another note there are more pictures in the dropbox for you guys, and a video. Sorry its not a lot but it was all I could send at the time we had, but I have a lot more to send so I will work that out.

Um not much else left to say. Its been busy and fun here on the east side, but I am excited to see where I will go next, won't lie I am a little nervous about my new companion but so far I have been lucky.

So many exciting things happening. And from what I hear our ambassadors (Mom, Christy, Bob) are having a lot of fun in the land down under (Colombia). And have been making contact with our native relatives. That's awesome, I love the pictures, and hearing all that is happening.

But as always it comes to the time where I need to get going. So I close by saying I love you guys, and miss you. I will see you soon.

June 22, 2015

Hello everybody its another week full of fun adventures here in Indy. This week we had a lot of work though also a lot of cancelations. But that's all good.

So we have gotten back into contact with some less actives in the ward, and this week they fed us some food and such because they wanted us to give a blessing on the house and give the wife a blessing. The reasoning for it was because she had a recent experience while reading the BOM, and specifically the Joseph Smith first vision when the door started to open, and bags started to fall off from where they were. Just some creepy stuff. But I gave her a blessing and they seemed to feel better. We will see them this week.

We also taught a new couple who while the husband had a lot of reservations about the BOM and Joseph Smith the wife though was really interested and asked some very sincere questions about it. We will try to work with them though the husband may be a little hesitant.

We also had a fun lesson where we were just teaching about a story in the Bible, I think Naaman the leper, to a lady we met not to long ago when some of her friends stopped by to listen. Ya one was pretty drunk, and the other was high on some heroin (we know because he told us). But after that we decided to leave hahaha.

This upcoming week I have to give a talk in sacrament meeting about being a disciple of christ. I HATE TALKS, but oh well it was bound to happen.

Not to much else has been happening. I hope it has been a wonderful week for all of you guys and that Fathers day o la dia de padres was good.

A good video that you probably have seen is called "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" its a mormon message and its really pretty good.

But my time grows short so I need to wrap up by saying I love you guys and miss you. I want to share a talk from Larry M. Gibson a counselor in the Young Mens presidency to close up. Its my little spiritual thought for the day.

My father taught me a significant lesson when I was young. He sensed that I was becoming too enamored with temporal things. When I had money, I immediately spent it—almost always on myself.

One afternoon he took me to purchase some new shoes. On the second floor of the department store, he invited me to look out the window with him.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“Buildings, sky, people” was my response.

“How many?”

“A lot!”

He then pulled this coin from his pocket. As he handed it to me, he asked, “What is this?”

I immediately knew: “A silver dollar!”

Drawing on his knowledge of chemistry, he said, “If you melt that silver dollar and mix it with the right ingredients, you would have silver nitrate. If we coated this window with silver nitrate, what would you see?”

I had no idea, so he escorted me to a full-length mirror and asked, “Now what do you see?”

“I see me.”

“No,” he replied, “what you see is silver reflecting you. If you focus on the silver, all you will see is yourself, and like a veil, it will keep you from seeing clearly the eternal destiny Heavenly Father has prepared just for you.”

“Larry,” he continued, “‘seek not the things of this world but seek … first … the kingdom of God, and to establish [His] righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you’” (Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 6:38 [in Matthew 6:33, footnote a]).

He told me to keep the dollar and never lose it. Each time I looked at it, I was to think about the eternal destiny that Heavenly Father has for me.

I loved my father and how he taught. I wanted to be like him. He planted in my heart the desire to be a good father, and my deepest hope is that I am living up to his example.

 

June 15, 2015

Well another week has past and nothing to much to say on the eastern front here in Indy. There has been a few good things in terms of the work.

We have been teaching a lady by the name of Avalea who has interest in learning more about the church and we have been teaching her for a little while. She has interest of coming to sacrament but has some issues with getting a ride so we shall see how that works out.

We finally got back into contact with some less actives who keep saying they want to come back to church and have very powerful lessons but then don't come. They keep having trouble getting up on time to go and are honestly a little lazy about it. But that's okay we will keep on them and eventually they will get back in the groove.

And recently we got several referrals of families that have interest. We shall see what happens with them. Tonight we have a meeting with one of them and we are pretty excited to get to know them. Their names are Ricardo and Maria, they have a son and daughter roughly near are ages I believe.

We recently had a Zone Conference where we had a wonderful training concerning The Book of Mormon. In it they shared Elder Holland's talk "Safety for the Soul". It bears a powerful testimony of the divinity of The Book of Mormon and Im sure if you guys saw it you would recognize it. Perhaps as something you guys could do is check out the short Mormon message titled "Testimony of the Book of Mormon". Its incredibly powerful and a reminder for us concerning the sacred nature of this book that we have been blessed to have.

Well there is not much else to report on in approximately two weeks my companion Elder Thompson will go home and I will find out if I will stay for another transfer here on the East side, I have a impression that I might be transferred out but we shall see when the time comes.

As always I love you guys and miss you. I hope all is going great for you and that you guys are having fun in Oregon, Utah, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and if your elsewhere well I hope your having fun.

June 8, 2015

So this week was pretty standard in the many weeks that we have had so far. Always teaching but nothing to exciting going on as of this moment.

But that would be a boring email so here are some of the highlights.

This experience is the first time that I have ever been I guess somewhat outraged, or really angry at someone and there comments. I mean I was really polite and smiling with them but afterward I was on a rant and I think threw my companion off because this is the first time he would have seen me legitimately mad. So we are at the store getting some groceries for the week when a lady passes us by saying hi elders, obviously a member. We talked for a few and as we were about to pay for our food she stepped in and said she got it. We tried to tell her no but she insisted, and so we thanked her a million times and just as we are about to leave she tells us she is a excommunicated member. Which is not a big deal for us we meet them every once in awhile but then it turned ugly real quick. She began by kindly explaining how the church brain washes the kids from a young age to believe in its principles, and how if members knew the true history of the church there would be no members. She went into how the ordinances of the temple have changed, how Joseph Smith was a free mason, the massacre (in Utah from members, though she didnt mention the fact they were immediately excommunicated), how we use demonic symbols on are garments, how the bible is the only book of God and nothing can be added to it bla bla bla. And how she felt sorry we didnt know the true history of the church. I merely stood there listening and being polite, but boy I just about had a moses breaking the ten commandment moment from listening to her. Partly because unbeknownst to her I have read all about the claims and her version of facts and the fact was she didnt know what the crap she was talking about. It was as if she literally went to wikipedia or I Hate Mormons.com and got all her facts. I am not a strong scriptural person, I know them but I am not the greatest at quoting them. But when it comes down to the history of the church I am pretty well verse in all sides of the spectrum both the good and bad and boy I wanted to unleash on her some bashing myself and inform her what fact really was. But I knew immediately that wasnt going to help. So we thanked her for paying for the groceries (My comp wanted to ask the cash attendant if we could pay instead), and left her to her own little world. When we were in the car I went on a rant going through every subject and explaining to him how every comment she made was some of the stupidest comments I have ever heard.

Now I have heard similiar things from people, and I have never really been angry. Sometimes I get a laugh about it because in my mind they havent heard the true story, or were just told differently about are beliefs. And also I dont think badly for people with different beliefs. Everyone needs to choose there own belief and their experiences in their life lead them to choose what to believe. Thats why I dont bash on other religions because its their belief and the choice they have made for their family and that is great. But this lady was a endowed member of the church. I suppose in the scriptures we have numerous examples of people like this and numerous examples in the church own history. But I have never before felt anger before at someone for what they have said about the church. And just her opinion on things conteracted everything she said like how all churches are wrong and we can prove that through the bible, and how it is by facts NOT FEELINGS when basically the HOLY GHOST OR SPIRIT WORKS THROUGH FEELINGS TO TEACH TRUTH. By her own definition the bible, Jesus, and God cant exist because they are not based on facts. Gahhhhhhhhh. Sorry I got over it but just talking about her contradicting statements and stuff, because she believes in God and Jesus, but then said that sort of stuff and its like do you know what you are talking about. My final word on the matter and thought/impression was that she must of got butt hurt about something and then diliberately looked for things to break her testimony/faith and her attempts to cause me to doubt has honestly made it a stronger testimony that the church is true and people that look at the truth, not the made up stuff or twisted lies will find it is true.

But enough of that I am over it. Now here is a really happy and great story about less stupid people, and generally the good people.

 

So we were walking down the street to see if Paul (investigator) was available and unfortunately he wasn't. So we walked back to our car when a black man who had been kind of just staring at us the whole time (seems weird but is pretty normal in the ghetto) asked us how we were doing and if we were hungry. We were a little thrown back by this but with him encouraging us to eat some of the left overs we complied. Plus they were ribs with cole slaw so how could I say no to that. His name is Perry he has one son and grew up in Colorado so he was familiar with missionaries but had never really talked to them before. We talked for a long time about his family and about the basic beliefs of the church. 

 

Overall a fantastic encounter, we plan to stop by sometime again and he is pretty open to hear more about the church.

 

How amazing is it that we can find generally good people who show attributes of Christ though they are different. It is also great to remember that even with all the stuff that happens in this world all the bad, and all the trash we hear about that in there are still good people in the world or all different walks of life.

Ok so this email is vastly a rant about a annoying lady sorry about that. But the rest of the week was very good, we are still finding new people and we have been able to get in contact with more of our progressing investigators and less actives.

But I have to get going now. I hope you all were able to check out the video "Lift" its on LDS.org and youtube so its easy to find.

June 1, 2015

Its June. Officially the first day of summer or at least the first day of summer that I consider has begun. Though truth be told not to much excitement is happening here just the same old same old.

 

Work is mostly focusing on finding new people to teach. In other words lots of walking and knocking doors. The mission president has actually made it a goal for the mission to spend at least two hours each day "finding." We thought it was pretty funny since we already do that every day usually for like 3 or 4. But we have met a lot of people, whether they will progress or be interested in hearing more is the question.

 

But the work goes on. This week we had quite a string of really drunk people. One who told us not to drink because drinking is bad as he chugged more of his budweiser. And anouther who gave us a nice hug and a picture of the archangels fighting a dragon (naturally we hung it up in are apartment). And another who couldnt decide if he liked us or hated us, he seemed very confused.

 

But we also met some very nice people such as one named Angelica with her dozen or so kids. We are swinging back by her place on wednesday I believe.

 

Unfortunately some of the less actives we have seem to have disappeared or are just really busy, or sleeping. They have proven to be a tad difficult.

 

But overall while it has been slow it still has been a good week. But nothing to exciting.

 

A really big shocker was Elder Perry's death. That was really unexpected. But it was a blessing to have him for his years of service and his leadership will be missed.

 

I suppose I will end with a small request for all of you. At lds.org is a video called "Lift". If you have seen it good, if not it carries a powerful message for us as members and for the lives of those around us.

 

Well thats it. Not much left to say. It really was somewhat of a boring week. But I love guys and miss you all.

May 26, 2015

Well another week bites the dust and this is a important week because this is transfers week. As to be expected I will be staying and finishing out Elder Thompsons final transfer. We will also be getting two Spanish missionaries coming down here to fill in the gaps of where the other elders have left. Its weird to thing I am lucky to get another six weeks in East Indy because after that it will be up in the air if I will be allowed to stay longer. We shall see how things turn out.

 

But on to the news. We are knocking a lot of doors lately. Partly because we are trying to find a lot more people and the other part because some of our current investigators have fallen off the wagon and are showing signs that are beginning to worry us. But that happens with all investigators so its not a huge deal. Other than that as usual we have been working with the menos activos and have been trying to get them to come to church. We did a service project this last Saturday where we were volunteers for a "walk for arthritis". Its a organization that seeks to find the cure specifically for children. We ran the food table and near the end were literally giving boxes of food away because no one wanted the excess. Even after doing that though we still had 3 boxes of bananas, box of apples, and 2 boxes of assorted granola bars. After the event was over we helped take down all the tents and threw the trash away, basicly clean up. But it was fun and best of all I got a free t shirt from it.

 

But lets see what else. We visited a member for dinner friday, and got invited to his birthday party the next day so that was a lot of fun. He is a really good guy, very strong in the faith and is constantly trying to help the missionaries. Hermano Bello is his name or La Familia Bello.

 

We had a powerful lesson with mario again and he is continuing to progress though he has yet to come to church. In fairness he works three jobs every day of the week though he is trying to get sundays off so he can go to church. His baptism is set for June13th, so we shall see how things turn out.

 

Well besides all this the rest of the week was standard missionary work. I drove the car a bit for exchanges, that was weird.

 

But perhaps I could end now with a quick spiritual thought. There is a section in the Book of Mormon that lets face facts we forget about quite often because while it makes up three books it is only about three chapters long. But that is beside the point. In the book of Enos it begins with Enos talking about his desire for repentance and finding himself alone one day he kneels down and prays earnestly to recieve a remission of sins. According to the text he prays the entire day and well into the night never ceasing till finally a voice comes to him saying "Enos they sins be forgiven thee." The rest of the story is fantastic but I focused heavily on this portion. I shared this story with a less active sister who is going through trials right now. We talked about the importance of prayer and that what we put into prayer is what we will recieve. Enos put his full heart and soul seaking repentance, likewise we must do for repentance, recieving revelation, comfort, or help in some way. And he did not stop with just a quick 3 minute prayer but all day and late into the night he prayed. Heavenly Father is always willing to help us but we must in turn help ourselfs. It may or may not come all at once the help we need. For some it happens in a second, others like Enos a day, or for others years before it comes. But it always comes. Often times we recieve the help or answer and its not what we were expecting or even wanting. Often I think we say we have yet to recieve the blessing or answer because its not one we like or really want to do. But its what heavely father has given us in order to be happy in our lifes.

 

Well thats all I have for today, I love you all and miss you all I hope everything is going fantastic.