The things that can help my investigators I can apply to my own life...

Hola familia!

This week went pretty good except for the fact that I got news that my Broncos got destroyed by the Patriots, haha. A member who is a Patriots fan rubbed it in my face.

This week we had Zone Conference, which is the second one that I have been too. We got trainings from the Mission Presidency and the AP's. The focus of the trainings was the Book of Mormon. Something that I learned in the training that has already been helping me out a lot is how to use the Book of Mormon when teaching. I have gotten pretty good at using specific scriptures to help people and have been somewhat successful with that but after Zone Conference I found a different way to start using it which is helping me to read the Book of Mormon in a different way.

Before training, when I would read I would just look for good scriptures that would help our investigators with what they were going through. After the training I have been reading the Book of Mormon more. Trying to really understand what is happening and not just looking for scriptures. They taught us that it would be good for investigators to have a person or a story in the Book of Mormon that they could relate too. I think this is perfect because instead of just using a scripture to help the people we are teaching, we can teach them a story of a person who had a similar experience and then show them how they dealt with that experience. President Winn promised us that they (the investigators) would get a testimony of the Book of Mormon if they did this and I can already see it working. It is also helping me learn a lot more from my personal study because the things that I can apply to help my investigators I can also apply to my own life.

We got snow twice this week, which was kind of a surprise because it got up to 50 something earlier this week and then we woke up one morning and there was snow. Then the next day it was like 50 something again so it all melted and started getting warmer and warmer and then we woke up this morning and there was snow again, haha.  So the weather here is definitely unpredictable.

We had two baptisms this week. They were for a single mom and her daughter. It was kind of crazy how we found her at first. There was a returned missionary from Mexico who decided to pray one day before he went into the store to buy some food that he would find someone that the missionaries could teach. So he prayed and went into the store and found this mother. Then she and her daughter were baptized 3 weeks later. Cool story huh! They are a really nice family, we are still teaching the teenage son to try and help get him prepared too.

Hope all is going well there and love ya much!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

He will only give them to us if we are prepared...

Hola Familia!

I really like this area. There are some pretty cool recent converts that are younger.  The miracle baptism that we had last week is doing great. He told us this week that we were the best thing that the Lord had ever given to him in his life. So if I wouldn't have come on my mission there is no way that I could've been an instrument in the Lord's hands and help His children come back to Him. It makes me want to continue to be exactly obedient and work as hard as I can because I really don't know where I am supposed to be going or who we are supposed to find. But the Lord knows and He puts them in our paths just like this man who was baptized last week. He puts them in our paths if we are ready for them. He has prepared people but He will only give them to us if we are prepared.

Every day I am trying to become more like Jesus Christ. I was called by a prophet of God to represent Jesus Christ. I was thinking a little about that this week too. I thought what does it mean to represent Him? So far I think that if I was called to represent Jesus Christ it is because He can't be here. If He could be here teaching these people and performing miracles He would be, but He's not. He can't be here so I was called to represent Him. That means that I should try my best to be like Him and represent Him, do the things that He would do if He was here.

I also think that being senior companion is helping me become a better leader.  I am learning how to positively motivate my comp and others and I think it is helping me out a lot.

 That is pretty much it for this week; we spent most of the week contacting referrals without much luck.

Hope all is going well. Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

I knew without a doubt that God was there...

Hola Famila!

So transfers were this Wednesday which involved a couple new changes.  I got to go over to the Hernandez’s house for dinner on Tuesday for my requested last time, haha.  We had the best tacos ever. So Wednesday came around and we drove to the transfer building. We got talked to a little from President Winn about the goals for 2012 and then we found out where we were going. I got shipped to Rose Park which is the farthest north in the mission. My new companion is Elder Lopez.   He has only been out for one transfer and I am supposed to help him with training still. I was a little surprised that I was chosen to help train him because that is pretty important but maybe since I trust in the Lord, He is going to trust in me now too…

 The first night in my new area was kind of no bueno. All I could think about was my last area and the people and I wanted to go back. I think it's kind of funny now because sometimes missionaries feel homesick and want to go home and I felt area sick and wanted to go back. Guess that means I am loving the people! So after the first night things got a little better.

Thursday and Friday we did work. We put people on date to be baptized and added a lot of new investigators and had a really sweet miracle!

We were going to have a lesson with this guy on Thursday but he canceled and then we planned it for Friday. So the lesson came around on Friday and we brought a member with us which ended up being perfect. The guy we were teaching went on to tell us that he was having a hard time in his life right now. We had planned a lesson but the Spirit said “no” to that and the member shared his testimony of God's love. He shared a personal experience of a tragedy in his life.  He talked about how he was really lonely and that is when he found and felt God's love in his life. He said that even after that horrible experience he knew without a doubt that God loved him and whenever he felt lonely he knew he could talk to God. So right after that I shared with him my experience when I was diagnosed with a tumor and how I felt with that and even though it was a really hard experience not knowing if I was going to die or not, I knew without a doubt that God was there and He was always ready to talk to me. We promised him that God loved him too and knew exactly what he was going through and knew exactly how he felt. We testified of the Atonement and how Christ literally felt every ounce of pain that he was feeling. We promised that he wasn't alone and God was ready to help him. The Spirit was suuuuuuper strong and we asked him to be baptized and he said yes and guess what?   He was baptized yesterday!! Pretty crazy huh!

I think that this was definitely a miracle and just added to my testimony that God is really there and he really loves us. Hope you all are looking for God's love everyday in your lives, we can always recognize His hand in our lives. God loves you, and I love you too!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer