Notes from when Elder Cook came!

Elder Villarreal

Mosiah 28:2-3 They were only trying to accomplish 1 thing, which was to bring them to a knowledge of the Lord their God.

He then told a story about how when he was a mission president in Bogota, Columbia, they would have him talk at the MTC every week.  One week an elder came up to him, and told him that Elder Villarreal's daughter had baptized him on his mission, and that he had promised her that he would serve a mission.  The elder then asked Elder Villarreal to tell his daughter that he had kept his promise.  

Elder Villarreal did call his daughter, but first he called the missionary who had baptized him.  He told him, "I met one of your converts today."  The missionary who had baptized Elder Villarreal did not recognize the young elder's name.  Then Elder Villarreall said, "You baptized me, I baptized my daughter, she baptized this young man, and now he is going to go to Ecuador and you are going to have converts there."

We don't often get the opportunity in this life to hear all of the stories, but when you get to heaven you will hear them all and meet all of the people that you have influenced in some way or another, and then you will see how far your efforts will reach.  

The living prophet does nothing that is not approved by the Lord.

Elder Valenzuela

This was his second talk in English!

Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach.

D&C 123:12

When you find someone to teach, teach them by the spirit and try to find more people to teach.

Elder Suares

It is a great privilege to be in the royal army of God.

Open your hearts and allow the new mission president to love and teach and embrace you.  Don't compare.  Just learn everything you can from everyone.

You are called by the Lord to be a missionary right now in this very historic moment. (the change in the age of missionary => the increased number of missionaries)

The Lord is hastening his work, what a great opportunity to serve at this time.

We are a gift to the church right now, so we need to better coordinate our efforts with the wards in which we serve.

What can we do to really to this work better?

Moses 3: introduction, verses 4-5

Planning

God is perfect and he took the time to create everything spiritually first.

It we don't plan, we plan to fail.

PMG page 147 Once you have set goals decide how you will achieve them.  We can not do anything unless we plan how to do it.  As you follow your plans, pray and ask for guidance.  Ask yourself what more can I do, after you have done everything on your side.

Accomplish the plans, even the plans that aren't planned by you, but that are planned by God.

Don't ask the Lord to help you, unless you do everything from your side.

Plan well to be more effective in your work.

Elder Cook

There used to be about 2 members of the 12 assigning about 250 missionaries each per week. (So about 500 total assigned each week.) Now there are between 5 to 6 members of the 12 assigning about 300 missionaries every week. (So about 1500 total per week).  I love that there are so many more missionaries.  This is so cool!

D&C 31

-verse 3

This is an incredible time in the history of the church.  The work is being hastened.  This is the greatest influx of missionaries the church has ever had.

This is the time to get rid of any foolishness.  Don't pass it on to the next wave of missionaries.  Hold on to the best practices so you can pass it on more quickly.

-verse 4

We teach Joseph Smith is the prophet.  In Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel, there are all of the principles that have been taught from the beginning of this dispensation.

There are 2 new things that are in Preach My Gospel that weren't in the previous missionary lessons (but were taught by the first missionaries of this dispensation):  Dispensations, and the Garden of Eden

-verse 7

God will establish the church by our hands.  The Lord can do his work, but he needs your hands to accomplish it.

Help the Lord establish his church.

You need to move the ward or branch to a higher level.  

You are not just the marketing arm of the church.

-help reactivate people

-encourage young people to go on missions

-help the mission

-help the leaders in their callings

Missionaries are by assignment warm.  They open their mouths and smile.  Being an ambassador for the savior is the be warm and gracious and loving.

-verse 11

It shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do and whither you shall go.

The Holy Ghost will direct your efforts if you will stay close to the Lord.

D&C 112

-verse 11

-verse 14

That is what missionaries do.  You feed his sheep and build up the church.  

-verse 19

that's us

-verse 28

We need to have pure hearts

-verse 30

-read verses 31-34 and realize how serious this work is that we are trying to accomplish.

Make the Joseph Smith account of the first vision powerful and strong, so that it will testify to them.  Because that is what they will remember.  

When they worked on PMG, Pres. Hinckley did not want those lessons to be memorized.  Now you have your own plan.  Put in an invitation to make a commitment in every lesson.

Because you invited commitments, and they follow, they will get an answer from heaven.  

Making commitments is repentance, but also leads to an opportunity to get an answer from heaven.  

We are doing what we ought to be doing.

Remember that there was a lot of rejection to the savior.  There has always been rejection.  

Promise from Elder Cook to us:

What you are doing at this time is not just important for you (and it is) but that you are blessing all the people you love.

-family

-future spouses and children and grandchildren

This is where you ought to be.  You are doing what you ought to be doing.

Our responsibility:

Be a witness of the Savior. Especially the atonement, and his peace.  On those that are worthy leave a blessing, leave your peace.  

Blessing from Elder Cook to us:

If you continue to be valiant  you will be inspired and guided by the spirit.  

Your relationships at home will be fine.

And a special blessing that your righteous desires of your heart will be achieved.

There's a meeting for that

Hola todos.  This has been a week full of meetings.  

We had a new missionary meeting on Tuesday in Hurst.  We drove our car, and put the GPS on shortest miles (somehow the highway avoidance box got checked, too, oops), so it took us straight through the heart of Fort Worth.  It was fabulous!  I loved seeing all of the tall buildings and whatnot.  

We also had our district meeting in Granbury on Wednesday.  

On Thursday, we met with our ward mission leader.  (And it was planning day)

On Friday, we had breakfast with the bishop.

And on Saturday, we went to Lewisville to learn from Elder Cook.  It was amazing!  He talked about how the Lord is hastening his work, and that there is no better time to be a missionary than now.  I will write more about this next week, because I didn't bring my study journal with me today.  

On top of that our car had a flat tire, and no one seems to be able to fix it.  We have been to 4 different shops at four different times.  Each one claiming to have fixed the tire, but in about two days, the tire is flat again.  

So, between all of our meetings and our car, we haven't had a ton of time to do missionary work.  But the work that we have done is amazing.  We have two super solid investigators right now who are both going to be baptized on May 18th.  It was both of their second time at church, and we are super excited for them.

The first one is Joslyn.  She is a spunky 12 year old.  She is actually a referral from a member and we have only taught her at the church or at the member's home.  Which is super cool!  :D  Joslyn wants nothing more than to be baptized, and has gotten a witness that Joseph Smith is a prophet.  

The other one is Anabel.  She is amazing.  She is super sensitive to the spirit and wants to make sure that she is ready for baptism, because she is afraid that she won't be perfect.  We keep emphasizing that baptism is just the door, and that the Lord doesn't expect us to be perfect, just to do our best, and repent when needed.  She loves the church and the bonds she feels there.  She has 2 little girls who love primary.

On Saturday, our ward had a Cinco de Mayo Party.  Both Anabel and Joslyn came.  Anabel loved it. I think she loves being around good people, and soon they will be her ward family!

Pues,  fue un semana buena.  Tenga un buen dia!

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

Hola Todos!

We have been doing a lot of finding this week.  Many of our appointments have punched on us, and so we have been having a lot of time to find new people to teach.  And we have been finding a lot of cool people as well.  Tracting is a great thing!

 

We had interviews with President this week.  I love meeting with him, I always come out of interviews ready to take on the world!

 

We also taught Anabel.  She has been doing her reading, and she had lots of questions about the atonement, so we tried to answer her questions.  I love talking about the atonement!

 

Pedro and Carlos came to church!  It was great to have some Spanish investigators at church!

 

Today, we went and saw all of Lindsey's horses.  (Well at least some of them, they have at least 130 horses).  The sad news is that Lindsey and Austin are going to be moving to Oklahoma soon, so we won't get to see her get baptized.  But we are still going to be friends for the rest of forever.

 

Nos vemos,

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

Baptists at our Barbeque

We have been doing a lot of tracting and finding a lot of good people. 

 

One of the people that we found this week is Annabelle.  She is an amazing women with a lot of faith.  We taught her the plan of salvation and she came to church!  She loved her experience at church, and really wants to learn more.

 

On Wednesday, we did a bike day, and we rode our bikes all over town.  It was a lot of fun!  We met the minister for the baptist church version of institute, something called Paradigm, and he wanted to bash with us so badly.  We were teaching two girls, telling them about the Book of Mormon and stuff, when he came up.  (They are in his congregation).  He asked us what we were talking about, and he told him.  I tried asking him some inspired questions, but he wouldn't answer any of them, but just turned them around, and asked the same question to me.  He was trying so hard to get me to say something that he could bash about, so we quickly excused ourselves, and left. 

 

We also met a great large hispanic family.  We met one of the daughter's on campus a few weeks ago, and we were just following up, and we met some more of her family.  There are 9 of them (only 2 younger than eight years), and there is a lot of potential.

 

We had to drop Crystal's baptism date, because she doesn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith.  :(

 

Tengan un buen semana!

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

Why have you not been baptized?

Hola todos!

 

We've been having a great week!  We met an amazing woman named Crystal on Tuesday night.  She is a college student in her last semester at Tarleton.  She has been wanting to come back to a church for a while, and she has been going with some of her friends and family to different churches, but nothing has felt right.  She has been praying and asking God for guidance, and that is where we come in!  :D

 

It was late Tuesday night (8:40 pm), and we had gone through all of our plans and backup plans and back up for our backups.  It had been one of those days. :|  So, we pulled over and prayed and asked God where we needed to go to find his elect.  We felt inspired to go and try to contact a referal we had gotten from a member.  But when we get to the referral's apartment complex, we decided to try a different door than the one we were looking for. 

 

So we knock on the door, and Crystal opens the door.  We start talking to her, and start teaching her.  It is a super powerful doorstep lesson, and everything is going great!  Crystal tells us her story, and we tell her ours, and the spirit was super strong.  I know that God answers prayers, both those of the missionaries, and those of the people looking for the truth.

 

We have met with Crystal 2 more times, and even though we haven't done everything right, Crystal is amazing.  We even forgot to bring an English Book of Mormon for her, so she didn't get her Book of Mormon until her 3rd lesson, and at that point she was practically begging for one.  She has been reading on mormon.org and reading the pamphlet we left her, and she can't wait to read this book!

 

She came to church, and brought her boyfriend, and she loved it!  We have set a baptismal date for Crystal, and she should be entering the waters of baptism soon. :D :D :D

 

Priscilla is also working towards baptism.  She is living the law of chastity now, so we should be setting a baptismal date with her soon.  She has been investigating the church for over 2 years, and has been trying to live the law of chastity for a really long time.  Her esposo is married in Mexico, and the divorce process has been taking many many months with tons of problems.  Right now, her esposo has moved 5 hours away to get another job.  Eventually Priscilla will be joining him, but right now she is completely ready for baptism.  It is only a temporary solution, and as soon as his divorce is finalized they will get married, but it means that Priscilla can finally get baptized!  We are so excited for her!

 

It has been a great week!  We know that the Lord is preparing more the hearts of more people to accept the gospel, and we are going to find them all!

 

Les quiero,

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

The Lord is hastening his work!

Howdy Y'all!

 

Spring has arrived, and everything is perfect!

 

Along with Spring, came my new companion.  Her name is Hermana Hunter.  She is straight out of the MTC, and super excited for the work.  She is from Saint George, UT, and graduated with an associate's in Culinary Arts.  She is 21 years old, although, there are some 19 year old missionaries out in the field as well.  She is super excited and super enthusiastic to be out on a mission. 

 

I had my first full-length dream in Spanish about a week and a half ago, and Spanish is coming along nicely.  I feel like I can finally communicate with the people we are teaching, and not just try really hard, and half-communicate.  There are still struggles, and I don't understand everything yet, but it is nice not to have to think about Spanish (most of the time).

 

Hermana Hunter and I have been having a lot of success in the last few days.  It is amazing how much a fresh set of eyes can change an area and help it grow.  There are people everywhere, and we are finding lots of people to teach.  It is a very exciting time to be a missionary.  I know that the Lord is hastening his work, and I am ready to see the miracles.  There is going to be so much growth here in little Stephenville, and I am so excited to be a part of it!

 

During dinner on our first day, we ate with Priscilla and Edna.  We got there a few minutes early to help Priscilla finish cooking and preparing everything.  We had Pasole!  My favorite.  And Priscilla doesn't serve hers with the bones still in, which is good!  But, even more exciting was that Priscilla had invited her boss and her husband, Francisca and Luis, over to dinner.  They aren't members, and we had a great first lesson.  They have a ton of potential!  I love it when members introduce us to their friends who are ready for the gospel, it is the best!  The only problem is that Luis works on a dairy, and they just changed his schedule so that he has to work Sundays, which means that it is going to be hard to get them to come to church. 

 

Hermana Hunter is amazing.  We went to campus on Friday, and we had 3 lessons, 2 new investigators, and 1 baptismal commitment within 10 minutes.  It was a great experience!  

 

We had to drop Kenny this week, because he has chosen his Baptist church and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry!  He is amazing and I know that one day he will get baptized.  But now is not his time.    He has such a strong testimony of repentance and of Jesus Christ, and it breaks my heart that he can not see past his repentance experience of a year ago with the Baptist Church (which was real) and realize that God is preparing  him for more.  There is so much more for him, and all I want is for him to partake of the fruit of the tree of life.

 

The exciting news is that Priscilla is probably going to be baptized soon.  Isaias moved out (it is a temporary arrangement, but I think that we can make it work), and it means that Priscilla is now living the law of chastity!

 

Missionary work is the best.  One of my favorite talk's was from Elder Anderson.  I really love his promise. "I promise you as you pray to know with whom to speak, names and faces will come into your mind. Words to speak will be given in the very moment you need them. Opportunities will open to you. Faith will overcome doubt and the Lord will bless you with your very own miracles."  Elder Neil L Andersen Its a Miracle  I know that this promise is true and that missionary work moves on the best when members invite their friends to come and see.  If every member of the church would apply this promise and seek the Lord's help in sharing the gospel with their friends, missionaries like me will not have to tract door to door.  (I don't mind tracting door to door, but there are far less fruits from tracting, then there are from member referrals.)

 

Y'all have a blessed day now,

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

Hermana Hunter and me.

 

 Generations of Missionaries.  Hermana Martinez trained me and Hermana Hansen!  Now we are each training as well!

Hola todos!

We finally got in contact with Allie.  She is a 14 year old, and she shows up on Ward Records, even though she has never been baptized.  We also met her friend, Tabby. We set a baptismal date with them, and are going to be helping them work towards it.  The hardest part is probably going to be getting parental permission for both of them. 

The most exciting news right now is that I am going to be training this week.  There is a flood of sister missionaries coming out in the field right now, and not enough sister missionaries to train them all, it is going to be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.  

We helped one of our members build a large dog pen for her dogs.  They keep getting out of their dogcage, and the neighbors have threatened to shoot them.  So, we helped her make a large pen, and hopefully the dogs won't be able to get out of it.  

We also helped another member plant her garden.  She has never gardened before, but she is super excited for her tomatoes and herbs and stuff.

Everything is going great!

Nos vemos,

Hermana Julie Anna Sanchez

 

 

Team Stephenville

  

 

  My District

 

Hermana Hansen.  She is my mission sister, because she was also trained by Hermana Martinez.