Mission log 1.27.14

Dylan has started a Mission Log that many of you probably receive but I decided that I'll post his logs plus excerpts from his letters to us too.

Mission log 1.27.14:

This was a fairly normal week. What I love about Texas is that every single member you visit will give you food. What I hate about Texas is that every single member you visit will give you food. Some of it's really good, like chorizo con huevo (sausage and eggs with tortillas). Some of it not so much, like menudo (cow intestine soup). But we get by.

I love how for the fifteen minutes we were biking home Thursday night, it was pouring rain. Only those fifteen minutes. When I took off my backpack to look for my sweater (only to realize it wasn't there,) I could feel my back get completely drenched in three seconds flat.

We took a 17 year old out with us to help with a lesson we had planned. It went really well, he has a super strong testimony in the power of baptism and the changes it can bring to the home. As we were leaving, he told us that he recognized their teenage daughter. She's had a crush on him since 1st grade. Flirt to convert!

The mission is wonderful though. It really helps us see everything in such a bigger perspective, especially our own lives. We're out here to serve the Lord with all our "heart, might, mind and strength." These 2 years (or 18 months) are for us to give all our will to the Lord. Every day we should look for things we can give up, or things we can change, in order to become more like Christ. Because when we give everything to the Lord, He can in turn shape us into the people He knows we can be. And if we let Christ help us to reach our full potential, that's when we'll find true joy and happiness knowing we've done and become all we were meant to.

Les quiero mucho!!! <3

Agent Elder Young, over and out.

Love those Texas downpours!

Hola Familia!

The lds.org Bible videos are awesome, they really bring the scriptures to life. You can send as many copies as you want. We've been using the mormon messages and the mensajes mormones a ton, and we've started to get a lot more referrals from members. All it takes is to feel the Spirit and people will realize how much they want to share the Spirit with others.

The Parable of the Talents is a great Family Home Evening lesson. Actually, just this morning I was studying my patriarchal blessing and thinking about talents. Part of it was I left my backpack in a member's car and didn't have my scriptures, but I also like to go through my patriarchal blessing once every week or two. It's super powerful and just helps me find more motivation and spiritual strength. I think I have found some of my missionary talents like maybe organization and knowing scripture references. What I've learned even more, though, is that we need to "seek ye earnestly the best gifts." The Lord wants us to pray and ask and strive to develop not only the talents we have but those we need. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them."

It's great to hear that you have some investigators in your ward! Man, if someone down here wanted to go pull a handcart for three days without being a member of the Church... well we probably would have baptized them by now. Nah, actually we have started finding more people who really put forth the effort to investigate. Including a golden family that are friends of some members who have been coming for weeks, and they're cool with us, but I guess kind of afraid of actually having the lessons. Pretty soon. Well, after all, like you said that Elder Oaks said, no one should get baptized without first receiving a spiritual confirmation that this church is true. I guess maybe the Mexican heritage is just super spiritual or something.

In other news, we had a baptism! Kinda. The family moved a couple weeks ago to the other side of the street which is our border. But we taught mostly everything, while the Sisters gave the final push. Manuel is 11, and he's super smart and super into the gospel, the scriptures, and everything churchy. We first found their older sister, who had been baptized years ago in Honduras and had recently moved here. So we started bringing the whole family to church. 

Well, that's about it. I love you all so much!!! Thanks for being the best family ever.
Elder Dylan Young