Monday, July 13, 2015

Missions. Rule.

Well hello there family! Glad to hear all about Cali and the great time you guys had! It does make me a tad jealous but the mission life is just a lil better. Sorry, haha. But for reals, I’m happy to hear everything went well out there and that Zacho could go through the temple. What a blessing.

Elder Chavez and I had a real quality week this week and were seriously so blessed in so many things. The first thing is that we were finally able to put an official date with Alfredo. He will be baptized this Saturday. Well at least we hope, haha. He was totally good to go but then yesterday in church a girl treated him super badly and that made him real mad. Hopefully we can cheer him up today so he’s good to go for Saturday. It’s gonna be so sweet because one of the priests here is gonna be the one that baptizes him and he’s super stoked. The changes that Alfredo has made with almost every commandment is just the most amazing thing ever!

Last week a kid named Diego went to church and this week we were able to put a date with him as well. It’s just insane how much of a blessing it was for us to be able to find him. He is already living all the commandments praying and going to church. We will just be focusing on the Book of Mormon this week and he will be good to go in a few weeks! The only thing he has to do is get his grades up, (I’m helping him with his two bad subjects that happen to be Math and English haha) and then his mom will give him permission to be baptized! Seeing their friends get baptized has been great to help motivate the teenagers here in the branch to get the mission fever and start preparing for their own missions.

The branch, for the first time in forever, had an assistance of more than 100!! Yippee!

We had quite the experience this week with my companion and I and obedience... My comp just one day shows me he has a smartphone and I’m like bro, you can have that! He’s like I know, I’m just gonna sell it.... So I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to take it because it would make him mad at me... I prayed a lot about what I needed to do, and simply enough I just called the ZLs, created a genius plan in which the ZL could get the phone and my comp would just hate the ZL and not me. It was perfect haha. So that was a grand relief to not have the phone in the house anymore.

Last Pday I was able to go to lunch with my first convert, Christian. He has been a little less active as of recent and so it was good to have lunch with him and his friend to keep him motivated in the church. It really is a blessing I have to be able to remain in contact with him because as I was thinking a lot this week, all this work I’m doing just to baptize, but if my converts don’t even stay in the church, what am I doing? So that just made me super happy to see him and share lunch together.

Last thing for the week is that last Wednesday I went to the area of the Hermanas in Refugio to do an interview for a 20 year old kid named Jonathon… So I’m just doing the interview, everything normal, and I asked him the question regarding the fact that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He just looks at me and is like, “Elder, to be totally honest, I’m not really sure if I know he is a prophet. It’s been so hard for me and it’s just been a trial.” I’m like, “Have you prayed?” He’s like “Ya, but I just don’t know. I want to believe but ... idk... I just need to like be there or something to know.” I told him, “Jonathon, I have been to the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith translated the BofM, in the Kirtland Temple and the jail where he died and guess what... even after all that I still didn’t have a testimony man.” He just stares at me... I tell him, “Only once I started testifying to others here in the mission is when I truly knew, without a doubt, that he was a prophet of God. You have to have the faith. So tell me, ‘I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet’, and then tell me how you feel.” He did it. And boy was the spirit so strong. He really did have a testimony of Joseph Smith. The faith he has is amazing. It was just such a testimony to me of the faith people can have. I had been blessed to go to so many places, grew up in the church and still didn’t have a testimony of the prophet and here this guy had heard the First Vision once and another missionary say they knew it was true and was already willing to believe, even if it meant a complete 180 degree change in his life. What a powerful example.

So that’s all for the week. The pics are interchanges with Elder Slack. He’s the grandson of the temple president that helped me when I got my endowments. He’s been with me like my entire mission and goes home this change. The other is when I had lunch with Christian. So yup, love you all, be obedient and you’ll be blessed! Have a fun week!

Elder Crump






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