11.17.14 - Un sin casa con una casa

Hi! I hope you had a great week!

Dave Brook is an army vet living off of veterans assitance and social security in an apartment by himself. There was a confusion that caused his social security to be turned off. He didn't know why he couldn't pay the rent, he just knew he was behind from all the notices he'd received and his moderate case of paranoid schizophrenia led him to deduce that the bank was skimming money from his checks. He's been a member of the church for 8 years, he attended for little of that time, but has an excellent home teacher and elders quorum president. We were meeting with him regularly in our early afternoon hours to help build the faith he'd once had and in the process he told us about his accusations toward the bank. While leaving one day we saw a constable walking up to his door and knew that it had been going on far longer than he'd led us on to beleive and reported to the bishop what we knew. I say all this just to conclude that if it weren't for that home teacher and elder quorum president Brother Brooks would be homeless and very confused. They figured out his finances, made a cummulative 100 phone calls or so to find a new apartment, organized his legal team between him and his apartment complex and after we'd packed up his house (FULL of stuff - Elder Dewitt said he was just a homeless man who happened to have a house) 10 men from the elders quorum came and moved him on thursday night in 40 degree weather out of his 3rd floor apartment and then into his new apartment saturday morning. Kudos to the ward.

This contrasts with Rob who Elder Dewitt met on exchanges who graduated from Texas A&M but is living out of his car in the park. He asked the missionaries for some help, we told him to come to chruch sunday and meet with the bishop to see what could be done. He said he didn't want to hear a speech from anyone, he just wanted food shelter and money. We hooked him up with our employment specialist and he said he didn't want to go to a career workshop, he just wanted a good lead to a job.. although apparantly none of the leads which our specialist had to offer were satisfactory. We said our organization would help him become self sufficient, although he seemed more inclined to accepting hand-outs. After we told him our procedures were set in place although we'd be happy to do what we could, he denounced our church as evil for not conforming to his needs. There is God's way of happiness as taught to us by the will of the spirit, and their is our own way, which leads to misery according to the will of the flesh. Unless he's happy in the park, I hope he realizes what he'd doing now isn't really working for him.

We had a good experience contacting in an apartment complex the other day. We had 30 minutes before dinner, so looked around and decided which building we'd go to. We walked to one, knocked on a door that had indications of a new born baby around it, and before leaving, there was no answer, I found myself walking to the door right above it. There we found German. He was looking for truth that would fulfill his spiritual needs.

We also started teaching Matt and Evan this week. They both have accepted baptism but we haven't set them with a date yet.

I went on an exchange with Elder Ware. It was hilarious to work in an all spanish area with him again. His area covers 3 missionary areas, but he's only called to teach spanish speakers. So we looked for houses that had evidences of spanish speakers living there, hahaha, it was just silly how accurate his clues were for to finding the hispanos. It was great to speak the language again, i'm on my 3rd transfer in an english area.

Acts Chapter 4 gives an example of christ's apostle's prayers concerning a political problem they had encountered. They did not pray to have the problem removed, nor did they pray that they could in the strength of the lord overcome the problem at hand. They prayed for the blessings which were promised to them concerning their calling as apostles of the Lord. They then received the boldness to speak the word of God as they had asked, and the power to do miracles in the name of Jesus. The heavens answered by shaking the walls of building they prayed in, and giving them according to their desires. By going out and acting, and by magnifying their callings, "the multitude of them that believed were of one‍ heart and of one soul." The effect they hoped for was still attained, and it was done in the Lord's ways. Pray specifically, according to your duty, and it will be given to you.

I love you!

Stay Salty,

Elder Tyler Meidell

11.10.14 - Las carpetas de area

We're still all talking about the council Elder Hamula left with the mission. One point his wife stressed to us were the area books. My thoughts are the conversion of every soul goes through a life long process, and the spirit manages that conversion. In the area books we have ( 1 nephi 9) "an account engraven of the ministry‍ of my people." We record them and contact and teach them as it pertains to the Lord's planned preogression for them. (1 Nephi 9) 5 Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise‍ purpose in him, which purpose I know not. It has brought me a lot of success to organize my contact with the people who have worked with missionaries since the ward started in 2009.

In light of that I trained in district meeting on the use of the area book. I bought everyone muffins to lighten the blow because no one likes paper work, and we'll follow up this wednesday to see if anyone is taking advantage of that resource. Sisters Bills and Leiter i'm sure are all over it, Elders Diaz and Wright may require more prodding. 

One of my Zone Leaders is Elder Ware, who trained me. When I see him he brings up all of the dumb things I did with him my first transfer. Dang it - I can't get away from that. 

I went on an exchange with Elder Wright this week. I was Emergency Transfered here in part for Elder Dewitt and in part for him, for essentially the same underlying reason. The 2 are really good friends and kind of feed off eachother. Elder Wright is from Provo, Utah. He went home for 6 months on a medical release and I figure that is a hard transition to make back into the field. He's been back about 4 months now. We had a really productive day. Their area is booming with work. The Shoal Creek ward works largely with African Immigrants who all seem to know to move from Liberia to Austin, Texas. I think Elder Diaz is starting his 4th transfer here and I think he's baptized some 25 people there. There was a senior couple who just went home who was called to teach all of these people how to read. They had a cool mission.

I don't know if I already said Elder Dewitt has gone home twice for medical purposes, and now we just have the occasional doctors visit while he's out. He is planning on going back to the army after his mission and wants to fly helicopters. 

Brother Furst in our ward manages the royalties from earth to outerspace for some big names. So I guess He's rubbed shoulders working for JZ and lady Gaga and some MLB teams and the like. He and his wife paid for us to go out to some great barbecue this week. No complaints here. It was super good.

We started working a little more closely with the priests in this ward. They all made the commitment to become more converted before their missions so we offered to call them throughout the week to see what they're reading in their scriptures and to suggest other places they can read to learn more, and discuss with them how it applies to their lives. They're crazy. We brought them a huge bowl of candy that we'd procured as people dumped off their extra halloween candy on us during the week. I'm afraid it destroyed the focus of the lesson.

In reading the words of the prophet spencer w kimball he talked about the crucial moments and minutes we should spend meditating and listening after talking openly with God. He may give us additional ideas or simply confirming feelings for having correctly chosen to discuss our trials and successes with him. He will always listen. He knows and love you.

Thanks for all of your support!

I love you!

Stay Salty!

Elder Tyler Meidell

11.3.14 - Segunda de las brujas

This halloween on the mission was a lot different from the one last year in the Mexico City MTC. Last time we had Mexican candy, and there were a lot of fireworks and police sirens. This year, the Barneys had invited us over to dinner, and invited us to get to know some of their neighbors afterwards. The Barneys served missions in Russia and Washington State, so they were a really cool young couple. Their friends were even more interesting. The man was from the Chzek Republic and is finishing up his PhD at UTSA, his wife was from the Congo and managed a bank somewhere in Austin. They were both Catholic, and were just really open to talking about it. They said, so you have 88,000 missionaries serving 2 year missions. So what's the mission, what's the goal? They seemed to know their books pretty well, so I said, We believe Christ leads our church through revelation just as he did through his apostles shortly following his earthly ministry, we also believe in the prophecies of the gathering of israel in the last days; we have been called by Christ to gather Israel from all parts of the earth in preparation for his second coming as testified in the introduction to the Book of Mormon.


They thought that made sense. I love that it just makes such good sense. Another neighbor came halfway through who was from Germany and asked us for a book of Mormon in German she could have before she went back to the mother land. It was great that we had that appointment because otherwise we would've had to have been in our aprtment by 6 on halloween.

 

There was a confusion with some of the transfers (oh yeah, it was real transfers last week and Elder Dewitt and I are staying in Anderson Mill) as 3 companionships were doubled out of the zone. The sisters in the McNeil ward passed off an investigator to us who was attending their ward named John. He has a lot of qualms with the church. He believes God wants him to keep studying and learning about it, he's reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, but there are a lot of things he feels he can't fully assimilate to, not out of physical disability, but out of the principle. One such being the Word of Wisdom. Why would that be a requirement for baptism if it was not given by way of commandment? Another is, Why are people so irreverent in the chapel - and not in the catholic chapel? Things like that. So he's getting nit-picky, but it is making me study more thoroughly. I think he has a point about irreverence. The Word of Wisdom is a calibrater to determine how willing a person is to become a desciple of Jesus Christ, since we've also been taught that God gives us no temporal but only spiritual commandmentes, and that were are commanded to live by every word that comes form the mouth of God and whether it comes by the mouth of God or his servants it is the same.


We taught 4 female college roommates from Concordia Lutheran School with a recently returned missionary named Paul. We said, paul, we won't say anything, just smile at them and everything will work out alright. He did great.


They actually did have a lot of really good questions for us and all accepted reading and praying about the Book of Mormon so we'll check back in on that this Tuesday. When we transfer them over to the sister missionaries we'll see how interested they really are.


I interviewed 2 people for baptism for the Mt Bonnell ward. One was really ready, the other was not. It was the first time i'd had to indicate that, and help a person to take additional time and preparation to accept the baptismal covenant. She was really angry at me, but it sounds like she's had some good experiences this week in continuing to prepare.


I appreciate your prayers!

I love you!
Stay Salty!

Elder Tyler Meidell

10.27.14 - No hay ninguna bolsa

My beef with Austin right now is two fold. It's the capitol of Texas, it is very forward thinking, liberal, go green, and techy. So, when going to the grocery store, bring your own bags from home, because no one will provide you with plastic bags to take your groceries home in. They are saving the environment, without telling people. They just wait for you to show up at Walmart and look around like an idiot for someway to carry your milk and bread and eggs and meat and fruit home all at the same time. The other beef I had doesn't actually influence me because we wash our car (2014 Ford Fusion - so smooth) every week at a public, wash your own car, stop. If I had the desire to wash my car at home though, that would be an offense against the city of Austin. They are saving water.

The Anderson Mill Ward is fun. The priests are funny guys, and they come out to lessons with us when they can. The members all have a lot of experience in the church, so we're just trying to keep things new and interesting for them. They had the haloween party and trunk or treat this last saturday. It was very well decorated, and they had a pretty good turnout. I took one picture, but I forgot my camera so i'll get you that another day.

This week, we taught sister sutton, a returning less active, the stop smoking program. She has a good friend that is helping her through it, and so far she's doing good! Really proud of herself. Elder Cunningham texted me and said James did get baptized, so that's awesome! We met a cool black guy named David, and a really spiritual earthy kind of fellow named Collin who we're teaching now.

The big highlight was a visit Friday from Elder Hamula from the 70. We talked about how conversion is just as much a requirement to enter Heaven as baptism is. He reviewed some statistics from our mission, told us to do a better job updating our area books, opening our mouths and reaching out to everyone we meet, amongst other things.

As a part of his remarks, we listened to speakers for 5 hours, he talked about consecration. It's very evident that love is the complete giving of oneself for another, In that sense Christ loved his Father perfectly, he fulfilled every part of his plan, he lived to obey him. Christ also loves us perfectly, he gave himself as a sacrifice in place of us. We, to become one with Christ and the father must do likewise. Love is consecration. In Acts 5 annonias dies after holding back a small portion of his wealth for himself, the rich prince is turned away even after obeying all of the commandments because he could not sell all he had and give to the poor and follow Christ.

Every one must individually kneel down before God, and pray to know how to return to be with him again just as Adam and Eve. He is the only one who can reveal that to us. We must ask, ready to act on the answer we will receive, and then listen. He will talk to us in his scripture, through his annointed servants, and by the power of the spirit to our hearts and minds.

From D&C 101 in regards to the fulfilling of blessings. Even the blessing of a testimony of the truthfulness of these things.

59 And the servant said unto his lord: When shall these things be?

60 And he said unto his servant: When I will; go ye straightway, and do all things whatsoever I have commanded you;
61 And this shall be my seal and blessing‍ upon you—a faithful and wise‍ steward in the midst of mine house, a ruler‍ in my kingdom.
62 And his servant went straightway, and did all things whatsoever his lord commanded him; and after‍ many days all things were fulfilled.

I bear testimony of a God who governs perfectly with justice and mercy. Because he is perfect we can exercise our faith perfectly in him.

I love you

Stay Salty

Elder Tyler Meidell

10.20.14 - Una Emergencia!

There was a big bloody emergency this week!

Ha! well it turned out to not be that big of a deal.

I was so excited in the Canyon Lake Ward last Monday, because we'd met with James, he was ready to be baptized, we also met with Rebekkah Vidal, worked with her and prepared her to be baptized. I felt like, aaah, finally all of the hard work is bearing fruit (side note: we'd contacted the mission president in bakers field to see if he would let James Son skype into the baptism, he said it was cool, that's going to be awesome) now I can enjoy it for a little bit. Jokes on me! at 10:25 Monday night the assistants called us and said I would be Emergency Transfered to Anderson Mill Ward, English Speaking (not that big of a deal, Canyon Lake was English speaking too) in Austin, Texas, with the preface that an Elder needed some extra encouragment there. So we stayed up late, I packed up my stuff and we headed out early to meet the other Elders in San Antonio who were also asked to make a mid transfer change. We sat in the parking lot for 3 hours while one Elder complained to president that he didn't want to leave his area, it was his last transfer and he was serving with his best friends, plus his new are was full bike. After he was pacified we drove up to Austin, stopped at Buccees, the biggest gas station of all time. I bought a T-Shirt there, and a burrito.. and then met our new companions.

I'm serving with Elder Dewitt! Great guy, love him to pieces. I was transfered because he and his last companion really didn't get along. So that was a lame reason. We've been working on some stuff together and it's been a long but interesting week. I've been asked to call president Slaughter every few days to update him on how we're doing, so there is quite a bit of emotional tension that goes on, but we've managed fine.

In the Anderson Mill Ward, it's a whole new beast. The area is really wealthy, so tracting feels like.. why would you ever want to do that? A Reno comparison would be like covering the neighborhood off Mayberry, combined with the Galena Ward. People get really irked when you knock on the door, and apprehensive like I want to sell something. I've been told to stop soliciting so many times. I don't solicit. We have been doing a lot of brainstorming to find more effective ways to work through the members, and encourage and support them as they contact their friends. Let me just say, I am not a huge fan of white people lately. My bias lies with the Hispanics. It's a fun ward though, the members are very strong.

The Shoal Creek ward in my district had 6 baptisms this weekend, so it was a really good experience to go on an exchange with Elder Diaz and interview 3 African American Families to say they were good to go. They were all good to go!

I love you! I hope you have a sweet week!

Stay Salty!

Elder Tyler Meidell

10.13.14 - Nivel 3!

James Richard is a non-smoker! Boom. There were a few close calls. He decided to buy a house this week, and a bunch of work equipment was damaged in some accident (of course it was) so he was getting really anxious with all of the financial struggles with his bank and from getting behind with work. He says though, "I've made a promise to God to not smoke another cigarette, i'll sooner cut my left hand off than break that promise." So it hasn't been easy, but he says he's proud of himself. He hasn't stopped drinking coffee all the way, down from 3 pots to 1 cup a day so that'll be the objective tomorrow and then baptism on the 25th.

He's realizing he has kind of a temper problem without cigarettes, haha. He said he's got some serious road rage and he got mad at the news a few nights ago. Whatever Ebola related decision made him yell, "you bunch of idiots!" and storm out of the house to go do some work in his garage. Now he's really having to put the atonement into work in his life to put off the natural man so he can be more like the gentleman he wants to be. I'd  never looked at cigarettes, or any drug for that manner, in that way before. They depress your nature, and simultaneously kill you. You don't realize you need Christ's help because you've drugged yourself into becoming a false identity. It'll be better, when the same spirit which has power to posses your body in it's mortal frame, will take it back up in the resurrection, and your true nature has been changed when drugs will no longer be able to supplement your personality.

Monique helped us teach the Acosta family. She did a great job. She actually knew their oldest daughter from high school. He got a promotion at work, and so he worked through the weekend and they didn't make it out to church. We tried to explain, yes God has answered your prayers to be able to provide well for your family. Yes, this is a test to see if you'll obey the commandments when you no longer feel wholly reliant on the Lord to provide for you, because whether you feel like it are or not, you are wholly dependent on him for your sustenance. We all are.

All of the spanish speakers in the mission had a meeting on Tuesday. We talked about making spanish study plans. It was a big help to me, I was getting disoriented with my study hour. I had been translating conference talks or ensigns into spanish by hand, and would then study my mistakes to learn a new phrase or grammer principle; but I didn't have a goal or a purpose to it, so my retention and application of those principles was poor. I have.. a little bit more direction now, and some new ideas of ways I can study to mix things up a little bit. To give guidance to missionary's studies they set up a a 3 tier system with requirements to pass each tier that will guide missionary's to learn and apply spanish so they're more successful in teaching situations. I passed the third tier this last transfer, There was a translating, common errors, and sentence correction test you needed to score an 85 on, a few pamphlets you had to translate, and a number of scriptures to memorize. I still feel like my understanding is really shallow. It's hard to really get into it in an english area. My heart goes out to the Spanish called Elders that still haven't served in a Spanish area.

Taking the invitation from conference to re-study joseph smith history I was impressed by the clarity of the explanation of what was being restored in the last dispensation through joseph smith. When Moroni appeared to him he clearly related from scripture the components of the priesthood keys, gathering of israel, the work of the dead, and on, that needed to be given to man in order for a fulness of Christ's Gospel to exist on the earth. Study the footnotes and see how God unfolded his great plan of the restoration from the very beginning!

I love you and I miss you!

Stay Salty!

Elder Tyler Meidell

10.6.14 - Que tan larga esta la vida?

I done did it. I done lived for 20 years. That is way more than I was planning on. I hit 20 and then realized.. I need to start figuring what to do for the rest of my life. I mean how long am I supposed to hang around on this earth for? People live for what.. 40, 50 years? Modern medicine and sanitation standards have increased life expectancy to 76?! The word of wisdom keeps you around another 3 years?! The more I live the gospel, the more I have to keep figuring what to do to keep myself busy.

Luckily for me! 10 hours of General Conference with the help of the Holy Ghost saying, "yup you need to work on that," "yup you could do that better," created a good list of things that i'll need many years to make a dent in. The question was raised to myself, how am i preparing to receive the last saving ordinance - a temple marriage? As I worked to set a few specific goals that would help me allow all of the blessings of my patriarchal blessing be fulfilled, I felt prompted to make a few reasonable changes in the way I was focusing efforts on developing christlike attributes, studying the scriptures, magnifying my priesthood calling and so on. I was happy to see that a few actions could bring big results in several different categories of my life.

On October the 2nd, we had a normal day. We woke up and worked at. I at some cereal. We studied for an hour. studied together another 2 hours, studied Spanish for an hour, made some chicken Alfredo, finished half of our weekly planning session and then took off to help Sister Sebastian put some wooden siding on her house. After an hour and a half we taught a lesson to a man named chico, then our dinner appointment fell through so I took the cake mom mailed me to the Haight's house and they were nice enough to let me blow out some candles they had. We then taught the Acosta family about prophets and prepped them for conference, and we had a quick pump up visit with James Richard. A few other visits fell through during the day but we stayed really busy. As far as missionary work goes, i'd do it again.

Brother Richard stopped smoking! Boom!! Well, almost, he hasn't smoked in 5 days. He has had nicotine in him since he was 4, so we're waiting for him to complete the 7 day program before we can say he's got most of it out of his system, but so far he said, "If I knew quitting was going to be this easy, I would have quit 20 years ago!" That is the result of many prayers from many people and the power of God. Last week he was getting anxious if he didn't smoke for an hour or two. He has been really excited, more than anything I think,  to email his son on a mission and to tell him he finally quit! The part that got him through the first few hard days was this contract we made him sign as a part of the program saying in conclusion that he was making a promise to quit to himself, his family, and to God. He saw that he was promising God to quit and his eyes got big, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then exhaled really long and slow. He then bent over and signed the paper and from that moment he just said, "I can't smoke, I promised God." I think he had a good experience at priesthood session and Sunday Morning session too.

Brother Acosta said he watched an hour of Sunday morning session on his computer at home. He won't read the Book of Mormon very consistently, but he has replaced coffee in his diet with smoothies. So, little by little i guess.

Our leaders are called of God. I love our living prophet Thomas S. Monson and sustain him.

I love you!

Stay Salty!

Elder Tyler Meidell