We either become slothful or great missionaries...

Hola Familia!

This week was probably one of the harder weeks on my mission so far. Everyone that we had with a baptismal date fell off so for the first time in my mission we don't have anyone that is ready to get baptized which is sad. We had some investigators who were progressing really well but for different reasons they couldn't get baptized yet. The one we had lined up for last Saturday had to get postponed so we are still waiting to hear on that.

Remember Mom when you would always do highs and lows during your Sunday School class for the week? Well that’s my low and my high was with one of our new convert’s mom. She watched the restoration movie and said that she could feel the Spirit very strong and that she knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. It was crazy to see the change within her in just one week. I really believe that the Lord is going to do whatever it takes to get this family to the temple so they can be sealed.

Because we are starting to have a hard time again finding investigators it is really important that we are relying on the Spirit all of the time. I know that the Lord wanted us to go back and talk to this lady again because He had been preparing her and we had no idea. All we thought we knew was that we had tried the week before and she wasn't very interested. The Lord however had a different plan and was preparing her through experiences. It was really important that we were instruments in the hands of the Lord so that we could go where He wanted us to go, even when it didn't really make that much sense. It was another witness that things rarely happen when we think they should or happen the way we think they will. The Lord has a timeline and because we don't know what it is, we have to be led by the Spirit so we can do what the Lord would have us do.

 Even though this was a really tough week and we didn't have too much success I know that we are given tests to strengthen us and to test our faith. So I think that the Lord will bless our companionship with success because we kept up our faith during this hard week. Right when the time comes that we want to give up and say that we did everything and didn't really see results is the point that we either become slothful or great missionaries. And I want to be the kind of missionary that the Lord wants me to be and that is definitely not a slothful one!.  So I am going to keep working and keep being obedient and I know that the Lord will bless me. Hope all is going well there, it is absolutely freezing here. Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

Focused on finding the one...

Hola Familia!

This week was full of miracles! We had two baptisms this week too. One was for a lady who has wanted to get baptized for some time now but the only thing that has been holding her back was that she needed to get married. Through the help of the Lord we were able to set up the wedding and reception and then the baptism for her. It was a cool experience to see her so happy.

Our other baptism this week was for a girl from Puerto Rico. The day of her baptism we got a call from her friend saying that she had changed her mind and she didn't want to get baptized. So Elder Flaquer and I prayed and studied in the scriptures for a little bit and then went over to her house to talk to her. She said that a whole bunch of people had been telling her all of these false things about the church and she said she wasn’t ready. We had a really spiritual lesson with her and she felt the Spirit testifying that she needed to get baptized. She followed through and was baptized. Everyone was happy! The Lord always will provide a way if we just trust in Him and I am continuing to see that over and over again.  Anything is possible with His help.

Another miracle this week was with a lady who was a referral from her friend.  We had searched and tried to find someone who was ready for baptism, but we couldn't find them. On Wednesday night I said a prayer and asked God to guide us to the person that He wanted to get baptized because we felt we had done all we could and couldn't find them. So the next day we got a phone call from a lady saying that she scheduled an appointment for us to visit her friend who wanted to speak with us. I remembered her name from my first transfer. She had been to church before in the past.  She told us that she wasn't ready for baptism yet.  So we told her that when she was ready to make this covenant with the Lord she should call us. She did last week and has decided to be baptized on the 10th of December!

It's crazy how the Lord has a plan for everything. Most of the times I have seen that at the time things happen I have no idea why, or I think I might have an idea and then I find out that the Lord has a totally different plan and that is when we need to be instruments in His hands. He knows what He is doing so we have to choose the right and then He can use us to complete His tasks.

The other miracle we had this week was yesterday at church. Every week we are challenged to bring five investigators to church. At the end of church we only had four. We had done all we could to get five investigators at church but we only knew of our four. I knew that if we did all we could, then the Lord would encourage five to come to church. We were walking around after church and we saw this lady whom we saw at Sacrament Meeting with her kids. (She was our fifth!)   She had come to church for two weeks in a row and isn't a member. We set up an appointment and she is progressing towards baptism. The way I look at it is maybe if some of our other investigators would have come, we wouldn't have been searching and found her at church, and we would not have been focused on finding the one.

It has been a big blessing to see how the Lord works. He always provides for us if we do what is right, we have to be willing to be instruments in His hands and do what He wants when He wants and then we will be blessed. So things are going really well with Elder Flaquer and me.

We ate the best tacos of my life again at the Hernandez family's house too so that's always nice.

Both of us are also getting a lot better with our singing, haha.  We only listen to Mormon Tab.  There is a Lion King song on one of the CDs so we sing that one a lot, and the Christmas ones too!...I would consider becoming a professional- buuut I am serving a mission so you'll have to miss out on that. :) 

I hope all is going well there and that you are all trusting in the Lord!

Love ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

Elder Flaquer

Prayer is real...

Hola familia!

This week went pretty good. I had 6 TD's and 3 picks in our Turkey Bowl and we won… haha. I got suuuuper sick this week because of something I ate and I thought I was going to die. I don't think that I have ever felt that sick in my whole life and I was thinking of what I should do and I thought I remembered Jase getting sick once and he drank a whole bottle of Pepto Bismol so I followed his example and OD'd on it. The next day I was perfectly better, haha.

We had baptisms on Saturday for a little kid whose older brother was baptized a year ago. His dad is not a member but he comes to church every week so he has good support at home. Things are going pretty good right now in the area but of course things always happen so some of the people we had ready with a baptism date fell and there is nothing we can do about it except for finding more people. It is kind of nice to have Elder Flaquer as a companion because we both know the area really well so he knows a lot of good formers that he taught and I know people that we have taught so things are going really good right now. He is super funny too, well at least in the car or in the apartment. Sometimes the members ask him why he is so serious all the time and tell him to have more fun. We are having a lot of fun together and the days are going by super fast.

I have loved serving in Downtown for almost 4 months now and have made some good friends. The area is continuing to grow, which is a testimony builder that anything is possible with the help of the Lord and as long as we have faith and are obedient the Lord will send his prepared children to us!

On the Spanish update, I am not completely fluent yet but I am way better than I was before. I can understand almost everything except for when they use some slang. Elder Flaquer says that I don't really have a gringo accent so that is good too! I am able to do more in the lessons and that has been nice because before it was just frustrating...I almost wanted to get changed to the English program, haha. I taught the Young Men and Young Women this Sunday and used the recipe for having a successful school year but I made all of the "ingredients" relate to the For Strength of Youth pamphlet.  I think it went well. Of course I brought cookies and they all think I am the best cook in the world, haha so thanks for teaching me how to make those Mom :)

Elder Flaquer also taught me a cool trick we can use in lessons to help people understand what faith is. We use a tea bag and empty all the tea out of it and then we stand it up so it is like a cylinder. Then we light it on fire; so you have a flaming tea bag in your hand.  As the flame gets closer and closer to your hand it gets hotter and hotter.  Eventually when the flame gets to the bottom of the tea bag it seems like it will burn your hand and then it lifts up into the air and doesn't burn you. So you liken that to faith. Christ has told us the things that we need to do and we have to have the faith to do them no matter what will happen to us or what the outcome might be. So as the temptations get stronger to lose the faith, or drop the burning tea bag, we need to exercise more faith and eventually Christ will lift us up.

Our teen convert is doing great and is passing the sacrament every week with his suit and his mom is coming when she gets off work.

We had a cool experience this week. The district leaders all went to a meeting on Wednesday and they came back at 6:00pm and they said that President Winn said that there was someone for every companionship that was ready to accept a baptism date that night. So Elder Flaquer and I took the challenge but we had set appointments with investigators that are already on date for baptism until 8:30pm...and we are supposed to be in our casa at 9pm, so we had half an hour to find the person that was prepared. So what do you do when you have a huge area with tons of houses and tons of potential people to visit to find the one person who is prepared but you only have time to visit one person...so no room for mistakes. The answer is prayer. So we said a prayer and we had the thought to go and check someone that was a former investigator. We drove 10 minutes to her house and knocked on the door and some lady answered and I had no clue who she was because she wasn't the person we were planning on visiting. We found out that the previous family had moved to Mexico and this family had moved in a few weeks before.  Then all of the little girls came to the door and recognized me as the candy man, haha. With the Spirit, we committed them for baptism and they all accepted. It was sweet!  Always trust in the Lord.   Prayer is real.  And God will always answer your prayers! So don't forget to pray!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

Our newest convert is doing great!

Hola Familia!

And this week was a week of changes…First off we had transfers on Wednesday.  My new companion is Elder Flaquer who was the trainer of Elder Blakley from the MTC. He is from Barcelona Spain. He only has 5 months left on his mission. We like the same music and have a lot in common except sports…he likes soccer, haha. Elder Flaquer was the companion of Elder Romero the transfer before I got there. We are still serving in the same area and Brother Wilson was super happy to see Elder Flaquer. Elder Flaquer likes to run so we are back to running every other day. It is freeeeeeeezing! So I am serving in the same area but we got moved zones which was a bummer because I was excited to serve by Elder Yancey again because he just became the new Zone Leader for the zone I was in but we got moved so now I’ll never see him.

Our new ZL's are really cool. They are Elder Tui and Elder McNees. Apparently this is a basketball zone which is always good news. In our district is all the same except Elder Flaquer and then Elder Yancey left.

Our newest convert, the 14 year old boy is doing great! He is working on his Duty to God right now and passed the sacrament for the first time this week in a suit, stud! He is doing really well and they are one of my favorite families! His little brother always cracks me up.

Our plans for Thanksgiving are turkey bowl for a few hours and then we have dinner with someone from an English ward and then at night we just visit recent converts and investigators and then Friday we are having dinner with Brother Wilson. Everything is going great now with Elder Flaquer and it will be an awesome transfer!  Hope everything is going good there. Love ya!

Siempre crean,

Elder Creer

In two weeks we had two sweet miracles...

Hola Familia!

This week was another good one. We had two baptisms this week. One was for a lady who is from Mexico and really wanted to change her life around. I think it was a blessing for me to see the changes she was willing to make in her life to come closer to Christ and I am sure that she will receive many blessings.

The other baptism was for the 14 year old boy we’ve been teaching. The week before he wasn't sure if he wanted to get baptized just yet but then he prayed a few times until he received the answer from God that this is what he should do at this time in his life. So we were planning to have his baptism this week but his mom is very protective of him-- which is a good thing! However, she was worried that her son wasn't old enough to make a life changing decision like getting baptized. I was on exchanges with Elder Yancey again and we went to their house to do the interview again and his mom said she didn't think he was ready. We tried assuring her that he passed the interview and had a solid testimony and that didn't work. So we asked the boy tell his mom what happened when he prayed and how God gave him an answer that this was true. His mom still wasn't convinced so we did the same thing with her. We told her that the only way she would know if her son needed to get baptized was that she had to ask God. So we all got on our knees, just like the week before. We asked the mom to pray and ask God if this is what her son needed to do. She prayed and then we sat there in silence for about 5 minutes.  She said that she knew this is what her son had to do and that she felt a lot of peace. Elder Yancey and I testified that she received her answer by the Holy Ghost. IT was crazy!

In two weeks we had two sweet miracles. It was a testimony builder to me that if we have faith- God can do anything. I remember a week ago when our 14 year old investigator was praying, I too, was praying- the whole time, that he would receive an answer, hoping he would. This time I KNEW that his mom would receive one without doubt- so we just waited until she did. They were both awesome experiences. This young man even showed up to the baptism in a suit! After his baptism we brought pizza to their house. Then on Sunday his mom came to church for the first time to see him receive the Holy Ghost!

The rest of the week was hard. It is getting harder and harder to find investigators and the ones we do find aren't really interested. And also transfers are Wednesday so I will probably have a new companion and hopefully I will be in this same area. We have been playing basketball still for the last couple weeks on p-day so that has been fun.   Two people got hurt last week so I don’t know if we will have enough to play this week.

The latest with the teen girl we’ve been teaching is that not everyone she sees who is Mormon sets a good example in doing the right thing.  So, we went back to Desiree, a young woman in the branch and asked her if she could help.  She did great and even invited her to mutual!

And Jessie, remember that she is 13! And she is an awesome missionary!

Hope you all have a good week. Love ya!

Siempre crean,

Elder Creer
The district:

He had it tied on him like a warrior...

Hola Familia!

We had interviews with President Winn this week and he just said he was proud of me and asked me how my Spanish was coming (which is improving) and then it was over. It took like one minute.

We had another baptism this week. It was the son of the lady who was baptized last week. He would have been baptized with his mom but he decided not to at the last minute because there were too many people. This week we had him make a list of people who he wanted to be there, and nobody else was invited. :)  So everything went well and he looked super happy.  I gave this kid who was baptized one of my ties with a message on it and the next day we saw him playing outside and he had it tied on him like a warrior- but at least he is using it.

Something cool about the baptisms of this mom and her son was that the person that referred us to them was Desiree.
Jessie- she is only 13 years old! So let her be an example to you on how to do missionary work at such a young age. She even came with us and shared her testimony with them. So help the missionaries out there and give them a name of one of your friends that they can go stop by!

We also got tons of snow this week. On Wednesday we woke up and there was like 6 inches and right outside our window there were 3 deer just sitting there, I tried to take a picture but as soon as I got my camera out they ran. The roads haven’t been bad at all because it just melted the next day.

We have another new investigator that we are teaching that is from Mexico. This week we got to go to temple square with her and also a tour of the conference center and she really liked it. She wants to be baptized this week! She is really nice and wants to change her life and start fresh and she know that she can do that with the church.

And the latest with our youth investigator we’ve been teaching is that he will probably get baptized this week too. We had his interview this week while I was on exchanges with Elder Yancey again. Normally the district leader just interviews the person one on one but there was nowhere for me to go that wasn't out of the sight of Elder Yancey so I just sat in the corner and listed. He passed the interview easy and knew all of the answers but said he wasn't sure if he wanted to get baptized anytime soon and that he wanted to wait until he knew more. Then Elder Yancey asked him if God told him right then that he was supposed to get baptized, would he do it. And he said he would. So Elder Yancey said okay you are going to say a prayer to God and ask Him if this is what He wants you to do right now in your life. So we all got on our knees and he prayed, and then we sat there in silence for about 5 minutes, the whole time I was praying that he would receive his answer. After the long silence he said that he didn't receive his answer. So Elder Yancey asked him to pray again. So he prayed again and asked if he should be baptized and if the church was true. Again we waited in silence and after 5-7 minutes of silence he said that he didn't get an answer. I couldn't believe it because the Spirit was so strong in the room! Elder Yancey then asked him if he really wanted to know if what he was praying for was true and he was sincere and said he did. So Elder Yancey asked him to pray again and he promised him that he would receive an answer. So he prayed again and the Spirit was super strong and after a little bit he said that he got his answer. He said that it was kind of hard to describe but that it was like his heart was getting bigger. Elder Yancey testified that the Holy Ghost gave him his answer and then he knew that God wanted him to get baptized. I consider that a MIRACLE! And I was really lucky to witness it because I wasn't even supposed to be there. It just shows you how if we have faith miracles are possible and will happen. I had never felt the Spirit so strong then when he was praying.

So never lose faith because with faith all things are possible! Love you all!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer

I sang 3 songs in front of the branch

Hola Familia!

This week went pretty good. Spanish is hard! I just want to be able to teach like I can in English so I can be the most effective as possible. We had some interesting stuff happen this week.  I am beginning to get a reputation with all of the little kids in one of the big apartment complexes. Kids that I don't even know come up to us when we are walking and they are saying look it's the candy guy! And then they ask if they can have a piece of candy. Everyone loves the missionaries now! We even had a miracle this week with two kids who are 11 and 10. I had remembered giving them candy in the past and one night we were on splits and I was with two other elders, Elder Retemal from Chile and Elder Dean who is a visa waiter from Oregon. And we knocked on the door and these two kids were there and of course I gave them candy and they asked what we do at church so I told them what we do and that it would be really fun. They both said they wanted to come and on Sunday they were both waiting for us when we got to the apartments. They said they had a blast at church and we lucked out because this past Sunday was the primary program so they just sat there and laughed at all the kids but they said they really liked church and they told their parents that they want to come back every week!

Also regarding the primary program, the primary president asked us last second if we could sing with one of the kids who is 10. So Elder Romero and I sang 3 songs in front of the branch with this little kid. It was cool though that these kids had fun at church and they will be coming from now on.

The 14 year old youth we are teaching came to church this week and is doing great. We love their family. He has a little brother  who is 7, who just had a birthday and a great mom.

Another family that is one of our favorites is the Hernandez Family. Every other Friday we have dinner with them and it is the best food ever! They are from Mexico City and they are really funny. They have two younger daughters named Brittany and Kimmy that help us teach the younger kids along with another girl named Desiree. It's cool because all three of them are converts so it is really helpful when they share their testimony with the other girls we are teaching that are their age. Sometimes it is nice for the younger kids to have someone their age tell them how the gospel will help their life.

This week we had a baptism! She is a valiant mom with 3 kids, 13, 9,  and 5. The 9 year old was supposed to get baptized with his mom on Saturday but he said there were too many people so he and his older sister are going to get baptized this week. I know the gospel is going to help their family out a lot!

We also just had someone move to our branch from the Tri-Cities. She is from Pasco, it’s kind of crazy! We keep praying to find new investigators that are prepared to hear the gospel so that we can continue to teach a lot. We are going to need a lot of help from the members to help give us referrals of people who might be interested. I think what  a lot of members don't realize is how much they can help the missionaries by just thinking of a name that we could go stop by or invite to an activity.

Well I hope all is going well there!

Love Ya!

Siempre Crean,

Elder Creer