Fear Not, Little Flock; Do Good

4/28/14

Since we emailed Tuesday afternoon last week, not as much happened between now and then. I'm still wearing my Sonic the Hedgehog watch.

I forgot to mention that last Monday we celebrated Elder S's birthday at the M's House. We ate Mole ("moe-lay, it's chicken marinaded in chocolate. I think I like it...) and played a few rounds of that game where you put cards on your forehead and try to guess who you are. It was a Disney version. It was fun.

We got to have a five-man slumber party on Tuesday night with the missionaries from Rio since there was a big meeting all the way in McAllen the next morning. Good times.

We caught a little camel spider (I think that's what it is) outside our apartment and named him Spider Bro. We tried feeding him a dragonfly, an ant, and a beetle, but he wasn't hungry I guess. Then he starved to death.

Quote of the day:

33 Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.
34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

Here's the link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/6?lang=eng#

The moral of the story: Just keep swimming.

High school's ending, and I heard that BYU finals just finished. Pretty soon I'll have been out for a year. AAH.

I can't believe you went to Video Games Live without me. Just living my dream, huh? Which Chrono Trigger song was it?


Will I even recognize Spencer when we Skype?

I bet the Peanut Streusel Pie will be the best. Prom's gonna be awesome! Make sure to get a ton of pictures!

This week was kind of tough. We've been sitting down with a lot of people and having good first lessons, with them, and then having them suddenly cancel the return appointments and we can never see them again. Basically there are many who will hear but few who will listen, and even less who will be doers of the word. But we know we can grow from the hard times to become more powerful witnesses of the truth, and even if some people wouldn't accept the gospel no matter what, they at least can prepare us for those who will.

But in the meeting with Stake President C that we had this week, he talked about the Plan of Salvation as well, specifically the Atonement. In order to enjoy the blessings of the Atonement, we need to participate in ordinances like the Sacrament as well as the ordinances of the temple. There was a random lady at Ross who told us about how she had gone up to the temple in San Antonio all day Saturday and is going back this next weekend and about how awesome it was. We're trying to help the members here get that kind of enthusiasm for the gospel, to bring less actives back and get everyone involved in missionary work. 

I loooooooooove you all!
~Elder Young



P.S: I held a kitten! Yay!

Yep, still a missionary

4/22/14

Yep, still a missionary.

The good news is, we were super busy this week! It kinda seems like it's been a super long week, partly because we're emailing today because the libraries were closed yesterday for Easter.

In our spare time before bed each night we worked on our La Joya district flag to bring to Zone Meeting for 2nd bimonthly Mission Olympics (which we won again.) 
We even made up a song for it this morning:

"Blue! The diamond on this flag!
Brown! The words on the flag!
Blue! The hashtag on the flag!
Brown! The lines on the flaaaag!"

Try to guess the tune!

And we wore matching blue and brown ties to show our district spirit.

Other District Flags
On Saturday I went over to the other apartment for exchanges. I had eaten a lot that day, and my tortilla tummy was feeling especially bloated. So we may or may not have drawn a basketball on it, and I may or may not be sending the pictures out...

My companion was deaf in one ear all week, so he had to get an earwax removal kit from Walmart. It foams up in his ear all funny.

We got matching Spider-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog watches at Walmart as well, which are each of our favorite superheroes. (I don't care what they say, Sonic's a superhero to me).


Easter was super-special-awesome, obviously, and not just because I got to eat a bunch of Easter candy. We missionaries went to the Bishop's home and had a real Easter dinner: honey baked ham and funeral potatoes. Mmm-mmm. We had a good time. We also smashed eggs full of confetti on each other, since that's what we do during Easter.


It was great being able to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Well, as missionaries we kind of do it all the time, but it actually helped having a whole day dedicated to really thinking about what it all means. The Atonement of Jesus Christ made it possible that everything wrong, weak, broken, sad, or unfair in the world can be made right again. Because of Him, we have hope of a better future. We can all overcome the world and all the negativity it throws at us knowing that there's so much more waiting for us. We just need to keep our chins up and bear with patience the trials we have, knowing that it's all just going to make us stronger. I know that God really is our loving Heavenly Father, and that Jesus Christ willingly suffered more than we can imagine so we wouldn't have to.

I love you all!
"Now that we're men, we have facial hair…"




Life is good

4/14/14

The guy sitting next to me in the library is blasting music through his headphones really loud... and singing along.

Last P-day we barbecued a rooster. We barbecued a rooster because Elder E had cut its head off with an ax earlier in the week for the Bishop's wife. It was tough and weird but pretty good.

On Tuesday we had interviews with Presidente Maluenda! Those were super cool and inspired. I went last. Afterward one of the zone leaders, Elder M, came with us. We had a blast, played some 4-man pros-baseball. The member who works at Church's Chicken gave us the "LDS Discount" so we had fried chicken and honey-butter biscuits for days.

Wednesday nothing particularly exciting happened, though we did stop for malts at Whataburger.

On Thursday we helped someone dig a stump out of his yard and found a crazy underground spider trying to kill us. We showed it who's boss. Then we barbecued a little bit while listening to general conference since he was out of town that weekend. And then my companion decapitated me before we left.


On Friday I napped during lunch hour. It was nice.

On Saturday we stopped by a Welcome Back thing for a missionary who just returned from serving in California. When he talked about when the Stake President told him to take of his name tag, we the missionaries collectively shivered.

Sunday was great.

Favorite fun-time activity: watch Elder Zivic's talk on lds.org in American Sign Language. You won't be disappointed:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/lets-not-take-the-wrong-way?lang=eng

This morning right as P-day was starting, the one and only Eloy knocked on our door and took us for breakfast tacos. Then we helped him feed his goats. I forgot how funny goats are when they yell. Now I have all those YouTube videos with the Taylor Swift song and the yelling goats going through my head.

So basically you're all my favorites, I don't care if the dictionary says that's not how the word "favorite" works.

Con mucho cariƱo,

Elder Young

One of the advantages of having two mattresses!
¡Hola familia!

Tortilla Recipe!

Thanks for the Easter Box! I already ate all the candy. The 12 Eggs of Easter are awesome, we open one every night before we go to bed.

I forgot to bring my notes from conference, so I can't remember which talks these were, but I do remember that some of the Apostles gave 2 super specific commitments for everyone, and being a missionary, commitments really stick.

1) That every member should invite someone to talk with the missionaries at least 4 times a year, once a quarter.

2) Everyone should be reading and studying Preach My Gospel, especially the families with missionaries, so that they can be more familiar with how the work of the Lord is being done.

Other than that, I know that just about everyone talked a lot about love. What it means to love, what love can do, and how much more God loves us than we can understand.

Life's going good. Thank you all for working so hard to follow the Lord. You're all such a great example for me! Love you!!!

~Elder Young

GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! WOO-HOO!!!

04/07/2014

MISSION LOG: GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! WOO-HOO!!!

There is nothing else this week nearly as exciting as listening to the prophet and the Apostles share God's word with us. Zone meeting was kinda fun though. We had an Olympics competition (I'm still not sure why) but our district won. Then Elder Pope and I performed the missionary rap song we wrote earlier in the week. It was awesome, I'll try to send our professional recording to y'all.

While organizing all of the old church magazines we have laying around the apartment, we stumbled across a gem in the Extra Laugh: "My kids and their cousins were having a play marriage in the back yard. My son performed the ceremony something like this: 'Do you take this man to be your awful wedded husband, as far as he is translated correctly?'"

Heh heh. Mormon humor.

I don't even know what to say about general conference other than that everything they told us is absolutely true. Trusting on the Lord Jesus Christ and relying on His wisdom, always striving to live worthy of His blessings, is the only way to find true and lasting peace in life as well as find the strength to cheerfully overcome any kind of trial or hard time life throws at us. And the true and complete gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to us by Joseph Smith. Read the Book of Mormon; it honestly is the most powerful, life changing book in the world. If anyone reading this hasn't watched conference yet, do it! We just sit all day on our computers anyway, right? Here it is for your convenience: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2014/04?lang=eng&vid=3431596667001 
I promise you'll like it.

Basically I love you all.

Questions and comments from watching the Book of Mormon seminary videos:
"Is that Bobba Fett?"
"Were teenagers older in the 90's?"
"Is she eating a beet?"
"Why is she wearing mom-jeans?" "Well she IS a mom by now." "...aaah!"

Until next week,

~Elder Dylan Young

Hola familia!
Or should I say, Aloha ohana!

I can't believe you're all in Hawaii without me. It's okay though. It'd be super hard being a missionary in Hawaii since the ocean is always there. Even the little lake here in La Joya is super tempting. 

Speaking of getting married, I found out that one of my BYU friends is engaged. I guess it was going to happen eventually. As soon as I found out, I just assumed that everyone I know back home must be engaged or married. Have there been any other wedding announcements on Facebook that I missed?

I can't believe Spencer likes tacos!!! He better like them because if he gets sent down here that's all he'll eat. There's one taco stand that a member takes us to ALL THE TIME. It's called "El Jefe" and it's suuuuper good. Did he like the Roast Beef too?

I'm excited for Macadamia nuts!!! I saw some plain ones at Walmart in the baking aisle and my mouth starting watering.

I love you so much!!! Have fun in Hawaii for me!!!