Week 87 - General Conference and Meetings

Hey Guys!

Well, this week was a rather weird one. We weren't able to get much done in the area because we had back-to-back meetings every single day. Monday was P-Day, Tuesday we had the Leaders' council, Wednesday was a zone meeting, Thursday we had a training meeting for Elder De Leon for New District and Zone Leaders, Friday we had Weekly Planning, and Saturday and Sunday we had conference. 

I haven't had to do so much traveling since I was in Puerto Barrios. 

One of the funny things we learned is that Zona Laguna, one of the neighboring zones in the mission, had hyped up their zone in a competition against us. We had no idea about this whatsoever, so it was kind of funny to talk to them. Poor guys. Competition is a good motivator sometimes, but many times, people can get a little too worked up over it. The zone leaders of the Laguna, Elder Clarke and Elder Lozano, are both competitive guys. Like they said in the conference, it's better not to correct with fear or shouting, but to correct with love and help the missionaries grow and become better, to behold them, and love them.

The conference was good too. I was able to watch the last conference I will ever see on the mission with a couple new gringo missionaries. Something that gave me great satisfaction was to see them writing, taking notes, and learning. As a member before the mission, I loved the conferences and I loved learning from the prophets and apostles, but I didn't get as much out of it as i do now. Now, I feel as if every conference is a flood of revelation and a flood of new things to be learned. It was cool to see new missionaries experience the same thing for the first time and to watch them take notes and afterwards talk about things that they liked. There was a wonderful spirit that accompanied the conference this week.

This month of April marks some pretty big events for me in the mission: the last general conference I will see while I am on my mission, the last Holy Week (week before Easter, for those who don't know), the last Easter, and my 2nd birthday while I'm on the mission. The mission has gone fast, but it has been full of spiritual experiences. Something interesting I have pondered is that while I have been out here on the mission, I have been able to go about with the same calling that the first group of Seventy received from the Savior (Luke 10:1-12) and now, at the end of my mission, I have seen blessings fulfilled, promises kept, and I feel as if I can return unto the Master and say, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us in thy name. (v. 17) I have seen blessings and promises fulfilled up to this point, and I have a little over 3 months left to enjoy the mantle of the calling I have been given. I honestly love being a missionary. When you dedicate yourself to this cause, the spirit of the work will forever change the people you meet and will forever change you. 

Love you all! See you soon!

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 86 - Zona La Esperanza's Performance

Hey Guys!

I'm super tired from this week.

We finished off the month with 10 baptisms. It wasn’t the goal of 15 that we had expected, but it's certainly a major improvement after the last few months.

In November, while I was still in Puerto Barrios, this zone had 6 baptisms.

In December, the zone had 5.

In January, the zone had 1.

In February, I got here and had to do some cleaning. The zone had 2.

In March, we finished up with 10. Now we're planning for April, and expecting great things.

This week was full of challenges and blessings. We spent all week almost in all of the areas, organizing different things, organizing interviews, making interviews, etc. We had 5 people ready to be baptized, but because of many different reasons (some went to the States, others were hospitalized) only 2 people were baptized. Not everything always goes exactly the way that you would expect or want it to, but you can feel good about your work if you know you did absolutely everything you could. We've seen new investigators start to appear out of nowhere, while older investigators have been losing interest. It's all part of the mission work.

I also finished reading the Book of Mormon this last week, too! This is the 3rd time I’ve read it on the mission, and for this last stretch, I'm gonna read it completely in Spanish, which is something I’ve never done before.

How much attention are we giving to our scriptural studies? As a missionary, I can tell you that there are mornings when I get up and I read and learn a ton, and there are other morning where I don't feel very edified. This almost always depends on our personal effort and preparation. Scripture study is a form of worship, and the more energy and focus we put into it, like any other form of worship, the more we get out of it. 

Love you all! Thanks for your prayers and your love! See you soon!

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 85 - Progress in the Zone

Hey Guys!

Got a couple of things to write about this week.

1) Changes

The zone had changes this week, and many of our best elders had to leave. In turn, the zone is going to receive replacement 4 elders who have had companionship problems or disobedience problems. We're trying to see if the zone can have at least 13, but we also want the elders to get along. We don't need elders breaking out into fights right now.

2) I was sent to Esperanza after a long period of disobedience from missionaries. I came like a shock to the ward: Missionaries no longer stay in members' houses chatting for about 3-4 hours, missionaries don’t go watch movies, etc. The bishopric LOVED that- but there were many members who enjoyed the disobedience, too. In my mission, I have suffered persecution of many kinds, but the worst kind comes from the members. It is NOT fun to have to live in a place where the people don't like you because you want to be righteous. But I dare to stand alone. I have done it before, and I will do it as long as I have to.

Never let your faith in Christ be shaken because of things that people do or the way that they treat you. Always remember that God's love is always available for you, and if you really want it, you can get to a point where you feel His love- real and tangible- every single day. How much do you want to know Him?

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 84 - New Companion!

Hey Guys!!

So, i have a companion again! His name is Elder De Leon, and he's from El Salvador. After about 3 days of trying to work solo, Elder Suman, one of the assistants called, and said, "Hey, have you heard from President that they assigned you another companion?" 

I hadn't. But he came, and I'm training him as a Zone Leader. He's a good, diligent missionary, and he's been out here quite a bit of time. (22 months, as opposed to my 20)

For me, that's not a problem; we work hard, and when we're not working, we're talking about what we're gonna do with life when we get home. He got to the area in good timing, too, because being a Zone Leader alone is very different from having a partner that helps you out. So we've been fighting harder than ever to help every single area baptize. Some are having difficulties, but we have the goal of baptizing 15 people throughout the zone and all the areas are working really hard.

SO... apart from that, we're gonna start having baptisms here in this area, which is super cool! There are people who we've been working on preparing, and everything, and it's great to see them make the final steps towards following Christ.

Just a couple thoughts on trials- there have been a lot. I have faced a few this change- unpredicted emergency changes, not having a companion, other issues- but really, every single one of those is an opportunity to grow. When we pass through these trials, we should thank the Lord for them- they help us to exercise our faith.

I've been thinking rather profoundly about that. Faith is a trust in the Lord. Exercising faith is like developing a relationship with a friend or a family member and keeping it strong. The idea of faith is knowing WHO it is that works miracles in our lives, and then trusting that He will work some miracle in our lives. We must trust Him enough to know that He knows what is best for us, and then we must trust Him enough to know that sometimes, He will do what we expect Him to do, and sometimes, He will do things His own way. He governs the universe and controls everything that happens. We are molded and shaped into the right form by His hands.

Love you lots! Thank you for writing!

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 83 - The Lone Missionary

Hey Guys!

Well, let me tell you about my crazy week. The zone I've been leading has been doing great. We have the highest number of fechas than out of any other zone, and we're going to baptize at least 15 people as a zone, which is more than anyone has baptized in any zone this month. 

Monday morning, as we were going out for P-Day, the mission president’s assistants called us and told us we had to go to the mission office as fast as possible, and that my companion had to pack all his things. We knew instantly that he was going to have changes. He got everything ready, rather sad while he was doing it, and pretty soon a taxi showed up, we hopped in, and it took us to zone 9, where the mission office is located. He was assigned to fill another position that had been vacated in the mission. So, we got lunch and laughed with the Assistants for a bit, and then he left for his new assignment.  And I looked at the assistants and said, "What now?" 

They said, "We're gonna find you a companion, don't worry." And so they went to go look while I chilled with the office elders for about 3-4 hours. So they came back and told me, "Umm, Elder Reed, we couldn't find a companion for you." There are very few missionaries in the zone right now, so there was basically no one who could replace Elder Lott as my companion. 

My new assignment is this: I am the only zone leader in Zona Esperanza. Right now I live in the house of the elders of the Maya (one of our districts) but migrate around to help out the missionaries in different areas.  The majority of my time is spent, whenever I can, getting a member to help me out and go cover visits in my area, to help the people who are still gonna get baptized here. I've never been alone in the mission before, so it feels really weird.

I don't know how I’m gonna be able to pull it off. It's actually kind of daunting, considering all the baptismal interviews I have to make and the fact that I don’t have another elder there by my side, but we will see what happens.

Something that's really been on my mind lately has been what I'm gonna do with my life when I get home. I'm one of the oldest missionaries now, and all the missionaries I knew before have gone home. I don't let thoughts about that ever get in the way of the work, but I'm starting to feel the time. Apart from the pressure of being a lone missionary and a lone Zone Leader. 

I was reading some of my old study journals a couple nights ago too. I'm not terribly good at keeping a journal, but I always take notes during my scripture study. I read the study journal I had started before the mission, and was quite surprised by the crazy ideas I found there. I also read my first mission study journal, while I was in Zacapa, and that also surprised me. It made me feel good to know that I have a record of changes in my attitude that have taken place in my life even though I haven't been able to notice them.

Health Report: Having some pretty painful back issues. Might be a slipped disk. But don't worry about it, the problem is fixed through exercise and quiropráctics.

Love you all! Hope you have an awesome week! 

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 82 - Continual Growth

Hey Guys!

I'm starting to feel really old now. But whatever. The misión that I knew at the beginning is not the same misión that I know now.

This week has been fairly good. We've been working more on getting every single área to have many fechas and prepare many of their investigators to be baptized. This week, I had the opportunity to go and do divisions with one of the áreas that don't normally get divisions from Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Mora, from Costa Rica, and we went and put some new fechas there. In the last visit of the night, I will remember that lesson as maybe one of the most powerful and spiritual moments of my misión. I simply shared my testimony and shared the thoughts that I had had about the Book of Mormon and our relationship with God. I have never seen a family pay attention to me or my words like they did.

We had a Stake Conference here as well, which was very special, because President Crapo came. There he shared a story about his father-in-law whose name was Max, who joined the Navy and very quickly noticed that the other boys who had joined the Navy used very bad language to try and appear more manly, etc. Max did not like that, so he talked to the other trainees about it one night and made a bet with them- they had a month to try and correct their language, and if they could do it, Max would make all their beds and clean up after them for a week. Every time they said a curse word they would mark the palm of their hand with a black pen. The other trainees liked the bet, so they accepted.

The first week passed by and many of the boys' hands were absolutely stained black. With the passing days, the boys would help each other to correct their language. Week 2 passed, and they didn't have as many marks. Week 3, even less. At last, the last day of the month came. All the boys presented their hands to Max perfectly clean, except one, whose name was Bob. Bob had his hands shamefully hidden in his pockets, and when the boys asked him how he had done, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, still stained black with marks.

Max won the bet, most of the boys cleaned up their language, and, after the training was finished, they were sent to different ship companies and to the war.

Bob was very affected by the experience of being the only boy who couldn’t stop swearing.  After a year passed, the war continued, but the Navy had a reunión so that all those who had trained together could reunite and talk a bit. While at the reunión, Bob saw Max and came running, shouting his name.  Max, surprised, gave him a hug and asked him how he was doing.  Bob pulled his hands out of his pockets and showed them to Max. There was not one mark left.

"Max, Look! My hands are clean!"

I personally loved that story. We are all here to change some part of our nature to prepare ourselves to meet God. Some may take more time than others, but a true sincerity of heart is what really matters in repentance.

Ask yourselves today, "How strong is your desire to change?" And also ask yourself, "What is the change that God wants me to make?"

Love you lots! 

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed

Week 81 - The Show Must Go On

Hey Guys!

Well, this week I'm SICK. :::::::::::::((((((((((((((((((((((((( and so is my companion. 

I've been sicker than a dog since Thursday, but this is game time so I haven't really taken any time to rest. So was my companion, but he hasn't rested either. So yesterday, while we were eating lunch with a member family, Elder Lott just crashed. So I let him rest there a little while before going out. Poor guy. I don't think he's quite as used to working at such a high pace or outputting as much energy as I do. Today we're gonna take a while to go rest so that we have strength for the rest of the week. Honestly, today I woke up and I just felt TIRED. Not sleepy-tired, like normal, but physically drained, like something was just wrong with me. It's not the most painful sickness I've suffered on the mission- if you guys look back in some of the earlier letters, you'll remember when I got Chikingunya. That was a nightmare. It's just annoying because it's slowed me down physically and it's even taken away my voice, which makes trying to sing hymns a rather unpleasant experience.

What's been interesting about this week is that even though we've been so sick, I've seen a lot of blessings. For example, this week after working hard to bring about 7 investigators to sacrament meeting, another girl showed up that we had never ever seen before. When we talked to her, we found out that she had been reading the Book of Mormon my herself and wanted to know more, so we've got the cita to visit her Wednesday.

Well, just an interesting thought as I was studying the scriptures. What do we do if we ever feel tempted? I like seeing the example of what Jesus did. When he as confronted by Satan on the Mount of Temptation, he cited the law. He focused as much as he could on what God had said (de hecho, what HE had said) to resist temptation. If we fill our minds with the ideas of God, we can very easiy cast out temptation, even if we are weak to that particular temptation. So remember, read the Scriptures when you feel tempted.

I have to go now! Love you bye!

-- 

Elder Jeffrey Reed