Goodbye Paradise Valley

Well, this week is proof that you truly never know what is going to happen in life. 

As I have described in previous emails, every six weeks we have what is called "transfers" in which missionaries are subject to be transferred from the area in which the serve to another area. Well transfers is still about two weeks away. So I thought I was at least safe until then. As I said in the first sentence of this email however, you truly never know what is going to happen. 

I received a surprise phone call on Wednesday that I was leaving the Granite Reef and Shadow Mountain Wards in Paradise Valley and I'd be going to the Eldorado Ward in Scottsdale. Even though it wasn't the usual transfer week. I was super surprised and sad to leave my area. I've just come to love the people there so much. I will miss everyone so much. 

My new companion is Elder Bess and he's awesome. The Eldorado Ward is really cool too. Also, this is a bike area. Which means that our only mode of transportation is a bike. Just in time for the summer too. 

Well, with it having been Easter yesterday, I thought I'd share something related to that. To keep it short and simple, I'll share one of my favorite scriptures. It's Corinthians 15:20-21. 

"21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Because of Jesus Christ we all will live again one day after we die. And because of Jesus Christ we all can be made alive spiritually as well if we have faith in Him and turn to Him continually. We can be forgiven, no matter what we've done. We can overcome any weakness we have and it can be made into a strength. And because of Jesus Christ we can find so much joy and peace and happiness in our lives. And Because of Jesus Christ that joy and peace and happiness never has to end. 

I hope you all had a really great Easter and I hope you all can remember our Savior every day of the year including Easter. 

Til next week,

~Elder Oswald

Kendall sent this picture just to make me jealous! Eegee's (as it was spelled when we lived in Arizona) was our favorite way to cool off on a hot Tucson day. Apparently some members in the Granite Reef ward in Paradise Valley had just returned from Tucson right before Kendall and his companion stopped by and they had brought back eg's to share! 

Elder Oswald in an old VW Bug.

Cupcakes that Kendall and his companion made with Doug--a guy they're teaching. Kendall says they turned out great "except the frosting looks like poop."

P-day golfing in Scottsdale.

As Short as Short Can Be

In case you are wondering, this title refers to the length of the email and not the height of its author. You see, it has been what many might consider a busy day, and so it is for this reason that I will keep this email short, and therefore it is for this reason that I titled this email what I titled it. 

So most importantly this week, Ron, the person that we've been teaching, was baptized on Saturday. 

There was an extremely long and crazy adventure leading up to it, but for the sake of time and my sanity I will spare those details in this particular email and save that story for another time.

I just wish you all could have witnessed what I witnessed during the process of teaching Ron. And I wish I had witnessed what others witnessed during the years leading up to us teaching him to see even more of the change that has happened in his life.

Ron has been through so much in his life and has such a powerful testimony of God and how absolutely important He is for our happiness. Even after beginning to grow that faith however, he wasn't all of a sudden ready to be baptized. Just a year ago, he wouldn't even let missionaries in his house, and neither would his wife Nanci who is a member who hadn't been to Church in many years. 

But the thing that I learned is that things take time. In just that year, after a lot of love from a couple members of the congregation, not being pushy or annoying or things like that, just showing that family that they were there for them, they finally accepted an invitation to come to the Christmas party this last December and they were just overwhelmed with the love the members of the congregation showed for them. Then it was soon after that they decided that Ron was ready to learn from the missionaries and that his wife was ready to start coming back to Church and to really gain her own testimony of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. And that is what happened. But it didn't all happen in just the 4-ish months we've been teaching them. It took their entire lives! And it took so many small little things for them to grow their faith into what it is now. They shared their testimonies in front of the congregation  yesterday and it was one of the most powerful things I've ever heard. I wish you all could have been there.

I'm out of time today, but before I go I just want to share that I know how powerful the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. And I know He can change our lives when we live His Gospel. I've seen it happen with Ron and Nanci. I've watched their faith in Jesus Christ grow and I've been able to watch my own faith in Jesus Christ grow as well. I want you all to know how much happiness I am blessed with as I strive to strengthen my faith and my testimony of the Savior. He lives and He loves us so much. And I don't fully understand everything, but I believe it is true. And I have seen so much good and so many blessings and so many miracles and so much joy and peace come into mine and others lives, all of which testify that we have a Father who lives in heaven who loves us and cares about us and the small little details of our lives so much that He has put families and friendships and so many wonderful things in our lives. And because He loves us He doesn't ever want those wonderful things to end for us, and so He sent His Son Jesus Christ to come here to earth to make it possible for us to have forgiveness and peace and joy and strength in our lives and also never-ending happiness and Eternal Life with our families and with God in the next life. I have no reason not to believe these things. In fact I have every reason to believe them.

So before I go, I would just invite you to think about your own personal faith in Jesus Christ. Whether you've been Christian your whole life, for only a little bit, or if you have no faith in Jesus Christ whatsoever, just think about it. What you chose to do is completely up to you of course. But I can promise that if you do things to develop your own faith in the Savior, your faith in Him will grow. 

Have a great week everyone, til I write again next week!

~Elder Oswald

Ron's baptism.

Yet Another Email with Yet Another Lame Title

Well everyone, another week has come to pass. Full of all kinds of exciting twists and turns and adventures.

We went on exchanges this week with our Zone Leaders. And Zone Leaders, are the missionaries who are appointed as leaders of a Zone. Our Zone consists of two Districts, one of which Elder Ellis and I belong to, it being our District, of which Elder Ellis is the leader, or District Leader as he is formally referred to as. 

So anyway, exchanges is when one missionary in a companionship is exchanged for one missionary in another companionship. So one of the Zone Leaders was my companion for a day. That was fun. We found a really cool lady we'll be able to teach. She was a referral from some other missionaries, and the only information that was sent to us was that she was from Canada. And so we used that information the best we could and we said something clever like, "So you're from Canada?" And she was actually really touched that we knew that. So it just goes to show that you never know how much the little things might mean to people, even if we think it's useless information at first. 

General Conference was also this weekend. And General Conference, for those of you who may not know, is where all of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all around the world are invited to listen to the words of the current Apostles and Prophets which God has called to lead His Church. Listening to their words this weekend has strengthened my personal testimony that those men really have been called of God. And that the words they have for us are the words that God wants us to hear right now. And I know how true that is because of the comfort and the knowledge and the insight that I gained and also the peace and the truth which I felt while listening to them. Because of that my testimony has also been strengthened that Jesus Christ's Church really has been restored to the earth, with the same organization that was used when Christ first established His Church while he was on the Earth. Ephesians 4:11-14 says:

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

That same authority and blessings and miracles and doctrines and organization and everything is on the earth today just as it was before. God truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so it makes so much sense to me that He would call prophets today to guide us and keep us spiritually protected in today's world of spiritually destructive influences all around us. Verse 14 up there is really accurate. We're surrounded by "cunning craftiness" and "the sleight of men" and it can be overwhelming to think about "every wind of doctrine" without knowing what is true and what isn't true. That is why I am so grateful that we have a living Prophet and living Apostles to help us.

On my mission I've been able to see how true it is that Jesus Christ's Church and His Gospel have been restored to the Earth. I've seen Christ's Gospel change people's lives and their families lives. And I've seen how Jesus Christ and His teachings have blessed and shaped me and my family's life. 

If I had more time I would explain things a little better and I could go into more detail about what it really means that Christ's Church has been "restored." But unfortunately time is something that I don't have in abundance. And so if you have any questions you can email them to me and I'll do my best to answer them. Or you can ask someone else you know who is a member of the Church. You can also browse around on the website "comeuntochrist.org" and learn more about various questions you might have. But my invitation for you is, if you haven't watched it already, to get on the handy dandy internet and find General Conference and watch it. Or at least some of it. The messages that they shared are just really inspiring and uplifting, which is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. It's a message of hope and peace and of the blessings that we get when we follow Jesus Christ. 

But anyway, that's what I've got for you this week. 

It's been a pleasure as always.

~Elder Oswald

No Food, No Money, No Miles

So this has been one interesting week.

Interesting because on top of recovering from being sick, as this week's catchy title suggests, we ran out of food, and money to buy more food with. And we also ran out of our allotted miles for the month and so we were on bike all week. It's also been like 90 degrees and sunny. And so I learned quickly the importance of being hydrated while biking. Especially when trying to recover from being sick. I do like to think I am getting a nice tan though. It's probably more like a burn cause it's kind of got a red tint to it and it doesn't feel super great, but I'm gonna say it's a tan. That's the other thing, sunscreen is also important.

So yeah. Many good lessons learned.

It was a good week though. We didn't teach a ton of people this week unfortunately, but we did meet with Ron a couple of times. Ron is just so great. He always has these really funny and surprisingly profound comments. We might be the ones teaching him the principles and the doctrine and stuff. But he has so much wisdom just from life experience that he's constantly teaching us almost as much as we're teaching him. He gets baptized in about two weeks now, so that's really exciting. He's super excited about it.

A lot of our week was spent biking and trying to contact people to set up lessons. There are a couple of mystery people we have as well, for example James and Maria, who seem like super solid people, but their address doesn't exist. Fun stuff like that.

Well, as I mentioned, I learned many valuable lessons about budgeting and planning and being prepared. Last month I wasn't prepared and I didn't plan grocery lists or anything which led to impulse buys like cheese balls and a box of 56 taquitos, which came in really handy this week actually. Similarly with our miles, we really just didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it, and so we went over.

Well as I thought of this, I figured that there is probably a spiritual lesson in here too. And I think you can look at that kind of planning and preparation in a spiritual sense. We need to be spiritually prepared for the trials and hardships that come our way in life. And we do that by building ourselves on a strong foundation. And the only truly strong foundation we can have is Jesus Christ. In the Book of Mormon, in Helaman chapter 5 verse 11 it says, "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

This scripture also reminds me of the story in the New Testament when Peter goes out onto the water towards the Savior. It's because of his faith in Christ that he is able to walk on the water. But it's when he takes his focus off of the Savior and he starts worrying about the storm around him that he begins to sink.

We all have our own winds and storms in life that come at us. And they could be things like fears, doubts, worldly things, heartache, and other challenges we face. But no matter what it is that the devil sends forth at us, if we have our faith firmly centered on Jesus Christ, not on anyone or on anything else but Him, then "we cannot fall." No matter what happens, we cannot fall if our faith is in Jesus Christ.

I promise you that that is true. And that you can find out it is true for yourself if you really put it to the test. If you honestly seek to develop your own faith in the Savior, and you do what is necessary to help that faith grow, then it will grow. I've been able to see that in people that I've taught and also in myself as I am constantly trying to strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ.

I hope you all have another fantastic week,

~Elder Oswald