Week Six

If you have not got my mission plaque yet I know what I want to put on it, if you have already done it don't worry about it. But I have come to love 2 Nephi 31:19-21 because that's is what I am trying to get people to do, to endure to the end and to come closer to Christ.

First off I am not getting fat... yet, and yes we did get two diners again this Sunday night which is super nice. 

This week was alright, kinda the same as all the past weeks, we wake up do study then lunch then we'll have some lesson's hopefully planed, but if we don't or they are not home we pick a town (because every town is really small) and go see all of our investigators, knock on doors, go home to get dinner, and go back out to see some families in the ward or less actives, or to see some more investigators or knock on more doors. For the most part we drive around trying to get to our less actives or new/newly active members. One of my goals here in Marksville is to strengthen our ward, have the members that do come, become temple worthy members, and be members that will come for the rest of there life, and be members that will seek out opportunity's  to teach and preach the gospel. Then I want to bring more people into the church. Because if we don't strengthen our foundation it will be all pointless. One of the ways that I am doing that is to go see a different member at less twice a week to get to know them and to teach them something new and teach them something to strengthen their testimony and faith. There is this one family in the branch and every Monday they fast just for that,  so me and my comp started to do that as well except we fast on Wednesday, so ya every Wednesday we fast to grow and strengthen our branch and to get more investigators. And let me tell you that last Thursday was the best day yet, because everyone was home, we were feed dinner by a less active family that has been dodging us for  the past month or so, and we got two new and strong investigators. We ended up teaching 5 lesions between 2pm and 8pm, which is way good for around here. 

Other then that we had stake conference which is always fun especially when there are like 16 missionary's there to get to know.  Yes the time is flying by. And I hope your hand is going to be ok. 

Love and miss you all,

Love Elder Gordon

Week Five

Hello everyone,

 First off,  I am either cool or a little warm, because it has been super nice here with a little rain, I have had one day without rain so far. The AC in our apartment is always on (because we would rather be cold then hot) so in the morning after I get out of the shower I throw on that blue Arcteryx jacket  so I don't freeze, then I get breakfast which is a bagel with a banana, or life cereal with a banana, or banana pancakes or just two bananas, depends what I am feeling up to. Then I start my personal studding which is usually reading out of the Book of Mormon for a chapter or two then read out of a different book like True to The Faith, or Our Heritage, or Our Search For Happiness or Jesus the Christ, so far I am half way through True to The Faith which is an awesome book because it brakes down doctrine from the church into more understanding info, which is very helpful the majority of the time. Friday I started Our Search For Happiness by M. Russell Ballard, and I finished it last night (Sunday), So yay for me for reading a book. But if you have not read this book, it does not matter if you are Mormon,  if you are a less active Mormon, or not a Mormon at all, whoever you are this book will change the way you look at life and at the LDS Church forever! It's a good, small book with a strong and powerful message about what we as a church believe in and why we believe in it and where the info came from. Trust me this book it incredible so please read it. I know I am going to read it again and again. But any who, after I read for a little bit I jump into the Preach my Gospel ( a book/manual that help us as missionaries teach the Gospel better and more effectively) and I study out of that and the Book of Mormon for the rest of the hour. Then at 9 in the morning, having been up since 6:30 already, we start Comp study for an hour, and in comp study we talk about what we learned during personal study, we read out of the missionary handbook then out of Preach my Gospel then talk about what we learned in the two books, after that we go through our day and where we are going and who and what we are teaching. Then we go about our day. So that's my morning every day, it probably sounds quit boring but if you know me at all, it's so nice to have time like that just to study.

 I am not aloud to help the with the flood efforts because it out of our zone, but there are a ton of helpers from the church all around Louisiana and more are planing to come down from South Carolina and Georgia, which is so cool. It's kinda funny, but not really, our mission office, which is in one of the stake center buildings down there is still under water like up to its roof.

 

Anyway, this week we was quit interesting. I had my first Gumbo experience ( pics are attached) and for anyone that does not know what Gumbo is, it was accident in the kitchen. There is some sorta broth looking soup and a ton of shrimp, chicken, eggs, sausage, crab ,and other meats fell into the broth and they were like o-darn, we will add some rice to this and call it... Gumbo! But it was super good. Other then that last night (Sunday) we had set up two dinner appointments on the same night, which sounds like a problem, but it just meant that we had two dinners which was awesome. So down here people don't drink the water so everyone buys water from the store and I did not want to keep buying water so I bought a self-filtering water battle from Kor-Nova and this water battle enhances the tastes of the water, so I am super exited about it, it came Saturday from Amazon. Oh and me and my comp we made a Jesus wall there will be pictures. Other then that I am doing good just keep sending me pictures and updates on the family, if anyone wants to email me, I will be happy to read it and respond. 

Love you all,

Love Elder Gordon.

 

 

Week Four

 Last Sunday at the MTC was fast Sunday and it was not bad at all I did not get sick like usual, I felt hungry but not too bad, I guess if you pray with real intent it helps. The day getting to LA was probably the longest day of my life I had to wake up at 3 AM get to the bus that took us straight to the airport, once there we found out that our plane was two hours late which meant we were going to miss our flight from Atlanta GA to Baton Rouge LA but we all made it with our stuff at some point in the night. I arrived at 7 PM and some arrived at 12 Pm the next day.

OK. So I am here in LA, I am serving in the Marksville area, I got a new companion his name is elder D. he is form Tremonton UTAH, he has been out here for almost a year now. its pretty cool because he had 4 older brothers and one of them served in Bellingham WA a while ago.  It is super flat here not a mountain in site, which is sad but o-well, so its been 7 days so far and its rained every one of those day and one of those days it stared raining at 12am and did stop raining until after 3 or so in the afternoon. When it rains here it really rains. There were a ton of roads closed because there was 2 feet of water on them and every where you look every yard and ever field you can see looks like a lake. It is kinda funny. So the night we had all of the rain we also had a lighting/thunder storm and holy cow that was by far the loudest thunder/anything I had ever heard in my entire life and it went on for hours, but it was super cool. 

Here in Marksville we have a small branch of around 30 people who attend regularly.  It is pretty cool, there are some members that are super awesome and they feed us at lest twice a week. We have a senior couple that is from Utah but that love the branch/ people so much that they bought  a house down here and when they get off there mission they are moving here, which I mean is dedication. It's funny when we were driving (o-ya we have a car) back to the apartment elder D. told me that we were speaking Sunday he said that we are the program,  so ya I had two days notice to speak on priesthood I felt like I did OK, I still speak to fast especially for the people down here,  but o-well. It was fun-ish. It was fun to finally get out here. We knock on about 5 doors a day and try to teach 3-4 lessons a day.  Tell ever one at church that I miss them and tell them that our ward is huge because it kinda is.

Other then that I am loving life. 

Love, Elder Gordon

A few Pictures

The mission home posted some pictures of the new missionaries and Ryan was in three of them, so happy to see pictures of him, it looks like he is being his normal goofy self when it comes to pictures, I am sure it is his way of saying it is hot here and I am dying....

Week Three

Ryan made it to Louisiana Tuesday evening after a long day of delays. Apparently Delta had a major computer malfunction yesterday and to messed up all their flights. Their first flight out of Salt Lake City to Atlanta was delayed by 2 hours and they all missed their connecting flight to Louisiana. They spent 5 hours in the Atlanta airport waiting for standby flights and finally made it out and to Louisiana about 7 pm.
We had two phone calls from Ryan today the first at 5 am, he sounded happy and excited and glad to be done with the MTC. The second time he called from Atlanta to let us know about the delays and how most of the guys he was traveling with had never flown or didn't know how to navigate an airport. His companion from the MTC and Ryan took charge, Ryan had half the group and his companion took the other half and since they were flying standby they had to keep checking in making sure they were where they were supposed to be. Then we got a text from Ryan that he arrived in Louisiana, his text was short...it is hot but fun! I think he will be having a good time and make the most out of this adventure! Then he sent us a picture from a strangers phone.

   I think he looks happy and like he is having a good time!

Week Two

Hey mom and whoever else loves me enough to follow me,

 I am doing good here at the MTC but it's hard. It's hard work here, we sit in class for most of the day, have dinner way too early, but the food is good. The temple food is the best food (just fyi) I am getting really good at volleyball and 4-square. It's crazy to believe that it has been two weeks, it feels like I have been here for two years, no I mean two days. Like I said last week every day feels like a week, and every weeks feels like a day and it true. But soon (less then 6 days) I will be in LA  as a full time missionary, which will be awesome.
Crazy story, Elder Park and I were teaching a guy nicknamed Bubba, and Bubba like actually grew up a gangster in the streets.  He got sent to prison for pistol whipping three guys, so he is an intense guy and he didn't trust us at all so it was really hard to get to know him or his needs. It was really hard to teach him because he didn't really want to listen. (he was kinda made to be there by his lds wife) So he was not happy, he was making us uncomfortable and the contention was getting higher and higher until he was just about to snap, but it was ok because I was too. Once we had almost every thing figured out we walked out of there with a little bit of trust. But I was really kicking myself right after the meeting because I was thinking of what I could have said differently. Then I took it as a learning moment and I pondered about what I am supposed to learn/get form this experience. That was kinda nice, because I will probably come across many people like that (not trusting) so last week I learned a lot about enduring to the end. For me I always kinda just thought it meant to grit your teeth and just try to last, but that's not necessarily true.  Enduring to the end means to continually grow spiritually and grow closer your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Beacuse this gospel has never ending knowledge which is awesome.
 In (1 Nephi chapter 8:10,19,24) it talks about the tree of life it says in 10: And it came to pass that I beheld a tree,whose fruit was desirable to make one happy. And the fruit represents the gospel and the gospel does make one happy in the long run. In verse 19 it says, And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. The rod of iron is the same as the word of God. So if you hold onto the word of God you will reach the tree of life. And in 24 it just states that it's not easy to hold onto the path or the rod of iron but the tree of life is everything and that's why I am here serving a mission, I am out here in an uncomfortable world where it's hard right now, but this time next week it will be a lot harder. But the fruit (the gospel) does make one happy and that's why I am here to help spread the fruit.  Love you all so much and miss you more!

Love Elder Gordon

 

 P.S. thanks Johnathan and Sarah Riley  a ton for the hangers.  I enjoy all the letters form everyone. Tell Tia thanks for the letter and enjoy the hammock!  Love you mom and love you dad and tell Avrie I love her a lot.