9 Weeks Left and in Denial....

June 25, 2013

Hey Family and Friends,

Hope you have had a wonderful week. I know I have, we had lots of fun this week and another one of those moments that make the whole thing worth it. I don't really believe I have 9 weeks left, which just seems to close for me.

The Cruz family is one of the families who are in the process of waiting to be married for so legal reasons. Once they get married they know that they will be baptized immediately after. This week we went to do a temple tour with them and had a very special experience. Walking around the temple is always an amazing experience. But this time we were permitted to enter into the waiting room of the temple. There we sat down and talked about some of the rooms of the temple using the Temple ensign. While we were getting ready to leave we had a closing prayer there, which Javier Cruz gave. He prayed for a miracle to allow him and his family to be baptized. He is excited to be baptized as soon as possible, so that they could start the one year time limit to go back to the temple and be sealed.

Idk if I have talked about the PMG plan our stake is using now. After a visit from Elder Perry of the Quorum of the twelve, and his talk about the members of the stake needing to learn the first 3 lessons of PMG, the stake presidency asked us to make a plan out to be used for the stake. It’s a weird feeling to come up with a plan that is being used by an entire stake, but we did it and they loved it. We are starting to implement it now in the stake. How exciting!

This week we went with Magda and Osbaldo to get their marriage license. They were not able to get it at the time due to lack of identification, but this week coming up they should be able to go and get it. Then the next step will be their marriage and baptism this Saturday, Magda has such great faith and had an experience this week that increased my faith. She started a Job last week and had to go in on Sunday to be trained, and so she missed church. This week she came to church and said that at work she asked if she could have Sundays off and her boss said no. She responded by saying "ok well I wont able to work here anymore because Sundays are very important to the Lord and Me." she said that her boss told her to wait, and then figured a way out for her to have Sundays off. I have met very few people with faith enough to risk a job in order to obey the commandments, and have made up my mind that, that is the faith I want to have.

Well I love you all,

Elder Stewart

A Great Father's Day...

Dear Family and Friends,

First off I just wanted to say to all the fathers out there Happy Father’s Day. And a special one to my grandpas, my dad, and my Father in Heaven. I am so grateful for everything you do for me and the examples you are to me. It has been such a blessing to be in our family. Here I see a lot of dysfunctional fathers and so I know how lucky I am to have you.  Something that’s really cool is that Elder Keddington is a district leader and is training. I’m a mission grandfather now.

This week was an amazing week. Elder Marler is a champ! He has extended 3 baptismal invitations in his first week and they have all said yes. That brings our total to 18 with a baptismal date. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much and has answered our prayers. We found a family this week that is so prepared. They are a family of four. We first started out with just the mother and the two kids, after the first lesson, we met them at the church the next day for a tour of the chapel. They loved it and want to come to church this week. We were kind of worried about meeting the husband because there has been so many instances where they have wanted nothing to do with the church and we lose the family. Well to my surprise, her husband is one of the most humble people in the world. Turns out that his mother was baptized a few years ago 3 months before she died. He came up from Mexico for her funeral and that’s where he came in contact for the first time. He really wants to know more about the church his mother joined. At the end of the lesson, Elder Hunter said that the next time we would talk about a covenant that they come make to come closer to God, (because some of their family came in and he wasn’t sure if we should extend the invitation in that setting) When we turned to Elder Marler for him to share his testimony, he said "Will you be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood of God?" and they said yes, they would love to. What an act of faith. We are so proud of Elder Marler and the chance we have to serve with him. Here is a picture of Elder Marler on the left with his 2 Dads. Also the action figures are supposed to be us 3.

The work is going so well, the Zone is amazing, and is the hardest working zone in the mission. They are amazing, which makes it so easy to go to the SMCM meeting with President Miller and the Stake Presidency. We taught a record number of lessons for our zone and found a record number of new investigators. The best part is seeing their faith grow as we rely more and more on the Lord and his miracles.

Love you all,

Elder Stewart

Greenie going to Columbia....

June 11, 2013

Hey Family and Friends,

As always I hope everything is going well and that you are surviving the heat. Here in ABQ we have had over 100 degrees pretty consistently for the past week or so. We had a busy week this week and taught 28 lessons, a record for us considering MLC and the Zone training meeting we went to. This was President Miller's last MLC and he took all of us and the "Sister Trainer Leaders" to Tucanos. Elder Hunter and My 2nd time this month. Its super good.

We found 2 new investigators this week who are super awesome and prepared. The Lord is really blessing us for our patience with the investigators we have now and their legal problems. Sometimes I wonder why we have so many amazing people ready for baptism and that they are starting to just build up more and more. Like a dam ready to burst. I would much rather just have a steady stream. Anyway, I had a cool experience at the end of last week where we were walking in our investigators' trailer park or "The Diamond in the Ruff" as we like to call it due to the fact that we are currently teaching 8 families in a 30 foot radius. Almost all of which have a baptism date or have some serious potential. It’s called "Country Side Mobile Homes" but we hope to soon change it to "Zion Mobile Home Park" and just put an entire branch there. How easy home teaching would be! anyway, we were walking around and we have knock this one door maybe 3 times and each time we have found a different person there, almost all of them not living there, but still becoming investigators. Well I felt like we should knock the door again, and there we met Adan. He invited us right in and we taught all the way up to the apostasy. He loved it and invited us back, came to church and accepted a baptismal date in just 3 weeks. I couldn’t help but laugh relating this house to one of those bricks in the Mario games. One of the ones that you could keep hitting and it would keep giving you coins. I’m super excited for him and to seem him progress.

We also started to teach a close neighbor of his, a girl of 14 years old. While I was on exchanges, Elder Hunter and Elder Lish taught Angelica at a family home evening. She was a church the day before after only having to invite her one time to come. Then the young women in our ward really stepped up and figured out a way to allow her to go to girl’s camp. (In only one day) She had a blast. On Sunday she came to church again, on the ride home, her fellowshipper asked if she liked church, she said yes and then said, "I want to get baptized." the fellowshipper responded "So quick" and she said "yeah, because I have felt the spirit." Her date is in 2 weeks.

Well Elder Hunter and I are training again. It’s very interesting to be in a tri-companionship. His name is Elder Marler. He is from Escondido Cali, near San Diego. He has a 2nd degree black belt in Ti Quan Do and built robots in school for 6 years. He would really get along with Jared. He is waiting to get his visa to go to Columbia. How cool! His dad served in Columbia and his mother is Latina, so he has a good base in Spanish. He will learn to be fluent very quickly.

Love you All and talk to you next week.

Elder Stewart

A day among the Gadianton Robbers....

June 5, 2013

Hey Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing really well. I’m doing great, pretty tired but great. We had a very good week this week and I had some awesome experiences on the Navajo Indian Reservation this past Monday while I was on exchanges with a stud missionary there. The Navajo people on the reservation are a very special people. Once you get past all the word of wisdom problems you find people that I believe are more sensitive to the spirit than any other race or people. But with that comes a lot of evil spirits as well. There is a lot of talk about "Skin Walkers" who the natives say are modern day "Gadianton Robbers." These people are normal people during the day, people that you could not recognize from another Indian, but at night time they have meetings up in the hills in caves and the more forested areas where they do rituals. They are apparently able to shape shift and go through doors. I saw some interesting things that will have to wait till I got home. But on the bright side I did 4 baptismal interviews in 2 days and we are planning another trip down there to do 3 more the following week. Satan may have a strong hold on some of the people here but the power of repentance is a stronger force than anything else. Many of them are being convinced of Jesus Christ and believing in the BOM. Something interesting that I learned is that almost every Indian home has something called a Hogan. It’s a small circular building that looks like one of the houses of Star Wars where Anakin is found. They are very sacred places and must be entered a specific way, then in order to get out you have to walk all the way around in an orderly fashion to leave. The door of every Hogan is faced to the east.

We had some cool experiences this week. 9 investigators came to church and are progressing towards baptism. What a blessing it is to be able to be here at this time. The only thing that is stopping 12 people in our area from being baptized right now is the law. All of them are not legally married and are waiting for certain things in the law to arrive before they can be married. We have seen many miracles come in the last few weeks but it really is just a long waiting process for the Lord’s will and time for things to happen. Meanwhile we are focusing on receiving miracles through faith and prayer.

Well it looks like as of yesterday I have 3 months left in this journey. So much to do in so little time. But I’m happy, I’m blessed.

Love,
Elder Stewart

A Trial of Faith....

May 28, 2013

Hey Friends and Family,

We had a good trying of our faith this week, we as a mission are focusing on building or faith to meet our baptism goal of this year. To be honest we are quite behind in our goals and feel like it is because the mission lacks faith in miracles. Elder Hunter and I have been going so well, being so blessed that we couldn’t understand why the missionaries in our zone lacked faith. So this week I think the Lord humbled us. Instead of everything going perfectly, and falling into place this week, it really took a toll on us when things have not been going our way. Not that we have lost the investigators we have, but in the trying to find, and getting lessons with the investigators is what has been hard. Part way through the week we had a talk about how we need to have Faith, Hope, and Charity in order to see miracles coming on the horizon.

The biggest problem is the law of the land. We have 3 families that would be baptized right this second, but due to paper problems and not being able to be married, they will wait. The Lord seems to be taking his time to bless these people with the papers to be married and baptized, but we trust that he has his purposes and reasons. It’s just hard to see them have such great faith and desire to be baptized and have the law be standing in the way, but we want to help the zone and the mission complete the goals that we have set for this year.

We had zone Conference this week and setting up everything took so long. I had to wake up at 5:30 and be at the chapel by 6:30. Then with all the meetings, it ended at about 5 pm. I have never been so exhausted, but I always seem to have the strength to keep going. President Miller talked about faith and how to obtain and grow it. He gave 5 principles to faith. I’ll have to put them in next week because I don’t have my notes.

We were able to go to the temple this week with a family of investigators and walk around. That’s one of the best things about serving in Alb. The spirit was super strong and I felt such a desire to one day go in with them to be sealed as a family. They said that they are preparing to get married then baptized. I’m excited to watch their faith grow along with mine as they work on the goal of making it to the temple.

Well I have so much more I could say, but I don’t have time, so I will have to fill you all in, in about 3 months. I’m super happy, we are being so blessed.

Love you,

Elder Stewart

Another busy week here in ALB....

May 21, 2013

Hey Friends and Family,

How is everyone doing? I’m doing so well. We had such a busy week this week. But one that was so successful. We are receiving lots of blessings and are trying our best to get everything done. I don’t think I would be able to do it without Elder Hunter, he’s a superstar missionary.

This week we set 11 baptism dates. All of them being really solid. These families are families that you can see progressing and people that will bless the Lord's kingdom when they are members. I think I am starting to learn what faith is. Faith not as much meaning "Belief" but more like Faith and Hope combined when it comes to missionary work and living life. A have seen so many examples in life about "Taking the Leap of Faith" or the "Faith Fall", but I don’t think I ever learned what it meant to leave it all to the Lord. I have been having some really good experiences lately where even though I didn’t know what to say or do, I did my best and the Lord showed me what to say and do.

We had a really cool experience with Magda and Osbaldo. We went home on Sunday of last week and prayed for some dates that we could present to them for baptism. We came up with two dates that we feel they could be ready by and when the Lord wants them to be baptized. We gave them an envelope with the date in it and told them to pray for one of those days. On Saturday we met with them and Magda had received her answer. She said that before she even opened the envelope, she looked at a calendar and told her to pick a date and pray about it. When she prayed she said that she had this one date pop up in her head over and over again, to the point where she couldn’t get it out. When she opened the Envelope, to her surprise, it was the same date we had prayed about and received an answer. She and Osbaldo are going to be married now! And they are preparing for baptism.

We had a baptism on Saturday for Katysha. She is a young girl and didn’t really take a lot of work. She is already so smart and knew almost everything before we even gave her the lessons. Her family is being reactivated now and is progressing very well. One thing that I really like about her is that she has this enormous smile. And she is always smiling. Her baptism went really well and Magda and Osbaldo came to watch.

Anyway, hope all is good for you.

Love you,

Elder Stewart