'Twas the Week Before Christmas

December 24, 2019

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the town,

Not a creature was stirring, so the Elders did frown.

"Who could we visit who might actually be home?" 

That was the question, but no answer was known.

But the Elders kept trying, knocking on doors like the Feds,

As visions of teaching people danced through their heads. 

Many people were busy spending time with their families,

And others were out of town, also with their families.

But every once in a while, through the last several days,

We'd find someone home who'd be willing to say:

"Hey Elders, come in" or something like that

And we'd visit the person we had wanted to contact.

So that's been so nice, when people give of their time,

And invite us to join with their families, something rhyme.

When what to our wondering eyes should appear, 

A whole bunch of presents, how thoughtful and dear!

So we've found that while many of the people of St. Johns

Are away with their families or are otherwise gone,

There are still many people who are here for the season,

And these people are kind and they're giving and sneezin'.

Just kidding, they're not actually really that sick

Well some people are, but now I'm off topic.

But in other news, things have been going real well.

Steve's being baptized next week, if that name rings a bell.

We've also been finding more people to teach,

Like Tricia and Sarah and her favorite fruit is peach.

Just kidding I don't know that I just ran out of words,

So that's why that line just sounds so absurd.

Anyway, Christmas as a missionary is surely quite fun,

With the parties and food in the quantity of a ton.

There are so many cookies and treats and cookies,

And toffee and cookies and cocoa and cookies.

But the best most enjoyable part of it all, 

Is teaching others of the Child who was born in a stall. 

He is our Savior, "the light and the life."

He strengthens us, carries us, through trials and strife.

I know that He lives and He loves me and you,

That His peace and His strength and His Gospel are true. 

This is the reason for this time of year,

It's Christ who gives us happiness, and also Christmas cheer.

He brings tidings of joy, even when things look bleak,

So Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good week!

~Elder Oswald

It's the Most Trunkiest Time of the Year

December 16, 2019

With missionary coordination meetings, and no family greetings, because loved ones aren't near, it's the most trunkiest time of the year. 

But while there is no place like home for the holidays, the mission field comes as a pretty close second. In all seriousness, I'm not at all trunky, or in other words, I don't want to go home. I just thought it was a funny title. 

It can be a difficult time of the year though, being away from home and not being with family, however as much as I miss my family, I am so grateful for everything I've learned and everything I'm doing. I wouldn't trade that for anything. And besides, we actually have a lot of families here who we get to spend time with for the holidays and I'm grateful for those people who show their love to us as well. So it really is the most wonderful time of the year, even being away from home. And while the weather outside is (relatively) frightful, the (Gospel) is so delightful. 

Okay I'm done with the Christmas song references. 

Now I'll quickly update you on the week:

Thursday we had Zone Conference/Christmas Devotional. So that was a fun-filled, inspiration-infused, spiritual-stuffed day. 

Saturday we helped assemble a cabinet and then unloaded a literal ton of wood pellets. 

Sunday, at Church, someone named Steve who's been coming to church for months but who hasn't felt like he could be a "good Mormon" approached us and said "I'm ready to be baptized." So that's super exciting! We're meeting with him soon and we're gonna get the ball rolling with him. I just think it's so cool because it isn't that all of a sudden he feels like he can be a "good Mormon" now. There's no such thing as a "good Mormon." In fact there's no such thing as a "Mormon" because the correct name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. But beyond that, the idea of a member of the Church being so seemingly perfect, is so false. It seems like many people have that perception of these perfect families walking into church on Sunday and they just have everything together and everything's just awesome. But that's not the truth, even if there are some members of the Church who try to give that appearance. And that's not the point of coming to church either. If everyone were perfect we wouldn't even need to go to Church. But none of us are perfect and so we go, not to show off to each other about how great of Christians we are, but to come humbly to worship the Savior and strengthen our faith in Him and receive the spiritual help we need in a atmosphere of fellowship where we can gain strength and support from each other. Its as Ephesians 4:12 says "For the perfecting of the saints..." not for the already perfect saints. I've heard it described as an auto shop. Cars go there not because they're showroom quality, but so that they can eventually become showroom quality. And to carry this analogy farther than necessary, Jesus Christ is the ultimate mechanic. And through Him our dents will be repaired, our tires will be as good as new, and our scratches will be painted over by a fresh coat of forgiveness.  And beyond just going to Church, as we do all kinds of other things that help us strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ such as praying and studying from the scriptures, and truly doing our best to follow Jesus Christ by living the Gospel and serving and loving those around us, we can be forgiven and strengthened and eventually He will make us perfect in Christ. 

Til next time. Have a happy pre-Christmas week!

~Elder Oswald

(Chicken) Tender Mercies

December 9, 2019

Hello everyone,

It's been a good 4 days since I last emailed. 

So December 7th was a special day. It was Pearl Harbor day. And other than that it was the day that we had the youth service project for the community that we've been planning and organizing for the last few weeks. It was super cool. We had gathered a list of names of people in the community who needed firewood and/or Christmas cheer. And we divided those names into smaller groups of names. And Saturday morning after picking up our order of 200 donuts we went to the church building and set up just as many tables as we had groups of names. And as the youth filed into the room we split them off into the various tables, each of which was assigned a slip of paper with one of the small groupings of names on it, and they decorated sugar cookies and prepared plates to be taken to the people on their list. So they split up and went their separate ways to deliver wood and cookies to people. And with only a few minor hiccups, in about an hour or so we showed "The Christ Child" video to everyone on a big projector when they got back. After which, we ate donuts. It was a really fun day.

So ever since a conversation I had with the other Elders this morning, something on my mind today has to do with the title of this email. In the Bible a lot of the Psalms mention "tender mercies." For example Psalm 145 verse 9 says: "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." And there are a few other vague mentions of the phrase "tender mercies" throughout Psalms that I should probably try and study harder about. But the way I think of tender mercies is how the Lord is always mindful of us and from time to time He gives us simple little blessings that are really meaningful to us. And there have been some tender mercies this week. 

One example, I'll start with it because it's humorous and I don't want to ruin this spiritual thought by ending it with a joke. But so today, true story, we went to KFC and I ordered the 3 chicken tender meal. And I realized that I got not 3 but 4 chicken tenders on my plate. So that's a tender mercy of I ever did see one. 

Anyway though, joking aside, when I start looking for little blessings and tender mercies from the Lord in my life, I can't stop seeing them. My birthday happened this week, and being a missionary, the day wasn't all about me like it might have seemed to be when I was a little kid. And it was honestly kind of nice to not be selfishly focusing on myself and on presents and whatnot all day. I really liked that. But a tender mercy I recognized was that as silly as a birthday might seem, it is always nice to know people care about you, and there were a couple times that people went out of their way to help me feel that love and care. One specific thing that happened not even on my birthday, but the day after was a family who found out it was my birthday and made a cheesecake for me. I just thought that was so nice and unexpected. Another thing, also on my birthday, we went to a baptism, and the refreshments: cupcakes. Coincidence? Probably. But in hindsight, cause I didn't think anything of it at the time, it was still really nice that I got to have cake on my birthday. Another thing was that our friend Tyler is going to be heading back to his family in Ohio for the holidays and also for a few months to work and get some money, and our schedules lined up just perfect to see him one last time and help him out with stuff before he left. So that was cool too.

But the coolest thing is that we got to help out so many different families in the community with that service project and be a light in their lives. And who knows how many of those people are recognizing that service as "tender mercies" in their lives. And that's just such a blessing that we can be involved in helping other people and that we can help bring the light of Jesus Christ to others by loving and ministering to people around us. So I just really like that.

But anyway. That's my thought for the day. I might be misunderstanding what exactly tender mercies are and some of my examples might not be the best examples but I think I'm at least close and so I'm sticking to it. But I do know that the Lord is mindful of all of us and He does bless us with things, we just sometimes need to open our eyes a little more to recognize them.

Well, I hope you all have another great week!

Bye!

~Elder Oswald

P.S. -Pictures 

1. Our Christmas tree we got from Dollar General that we can tell is from Dollar General

2. Our Dollar General Christmas tree after we decorated it. We were limited on Christmas ornaments if you can tell. 

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Coat

December 4, 2019

Hello everyone, as you can tell from this email being sent on Wednesday rather than on Monday, p-day this week is on Wednesday rather than on Monday.

Also, it snowed last week! Granted when it snows here its usually gone by noon, but it has been pretty cold. Luckily I have acquired a jacket since being on my mission so I have a little more than just the two sweaters I came out here with. Even that jacket though sometimes just doesn't stand a chance with the wind blowing, which makes me grateful we have a truck rather than just bikes. 

In other news, Thanksgiving was this past week as you may have heard. It was quite a day. We ate. And that was pretty much it. 

In more exciting news, two people were baptized on Saturday! Ladonna was baptized in the morning, and then Jarom, a 9 year old kid who knows the scriptures better than I do, was baptized in the afternoon. And Jarom's wish has always been to be baptized in a river. So his parents were like sure, we have a river on our property, we can do that. So that is what they all planned on even though it was the end of November. And as I said before, it had snowed last week and it was like 30 degrees on Saturday afternoon. But sure enough they did it. 

But that was a really awesome day. I'm just so grateful to have gotten to know them and to be there for their decisions to be baptized and follow Jesus Christ. Its always a spiritual and uplifting and inspiring time to be at people's baptisms. 

And there's a scripture I really like that talks about baptism and it's in the Book of Mormon, in the book of Mosiah, in the 18th chapter, from the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses.

"...and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?"

And I could go into the context of this story, and explain the background and what not, because it is a really great story. But I won't take that time to do that today. I just want to focus on those verses and how they talks really simply about how if we are trying to be a good person and follow Jesus Christ, then baptism can help us with that. When we're baptized we can feel God's presence more abundantly and constantly because that's what He promises us when we promise Him that we will take Christ's name upon us and strive to do all those good things that scripture talks about.

Til next p day,

~Elder Oswald

Ladonna's baptism

Jarom (the day after the baptism because in all the freezing-ness of a baptism in the river, a picture didn't happen the day of)

The river where Jarom was baptized

The Joy of Making Others Cry

November 25, 2019

Like the sun that rises every morning, or like that faithful old geyser that goes off every hour who's name I can never remember, Transfers are something you can always count on. Wherever you are as a missionary, whatever success you may be having, Transfers will come, filling the souls of any missionary with inexpressible feelings of suspense, curiosity, and a fear of the unknown. And once more, Transfers have again knocked on the door of the Arizona Scottsdale Mission.

So you may be asking yourself: "Well, has changed then?" 

And the answer is:

Nothing!  

That's right, Elder Fonnesbeck and I are staying together for yet another transfer! 

Also, this will be a quick email as I am short on time today. So I will immediately address the title of this email. To save you from having to scroll back up to the top of this page, I will remind you of the the title. It is "The Joy of Making Others Cry".

Now let's break this down. The reason why I said this is not because I enjoy seeing other people sad. In fact that's not even the kind of crying I was talking about. I'm talking about the kind of crying that happens when people get so happy and emotional they just can't even control their tear ducts. And my email was misleading also because it is not us who "makes" people cry. In the context I'm referencing, it is as I said that people experience powerful, happy, emotional feelings, that are most often feelings that come from the Spirit of the Lord. And it isn't always that people cry when feeling the Spirit. I want to make it clear that everyone feels the Spirit differently. But crying does happen sometimes. 

And the reason I have been thinking of all this is because the last couple weeks we have been sharing with people the new "Light the World" video the Church made. And its a really awesome video. Its about 17 minutes long, it's in a language called Aramaic, and it tells the whole Nativity story in probably the most historically accurate way I've ever seen. But most importantly, it's just a great video that allows us to ponder on the birth of Jesus Christ and what our Savior means to us. And I have seen it about 26 times now with all the times I've shown it with people. And every time something sticks out to me in the video or just in what someone said after the video. And that's one of my favorite parts, when people share their thoughts after they see the video. And many times they cry as they share their own personal testimonies of Jesus Christ, which, to paraphrase Jeffrey R. Holland, is "a more eloquent sermon than I could ever give." And that's what got me thinking about crying. Because I've seen a lot of it lately. 

But before I sign off for the week, I would invite you all to watch the new Light the World video, because they finally released it to the public. It's called "the Christ Child" and you can find it on churchofjesuschrist.org, or lighttheworld.org, but most conveniently you can find it on YouTube. And just really think about it all and what it means to you.

I know that Jesus Christ did come to earth. And He lived His life to show us the way to live, and to experience the struggles and trials of life, not just as a blanket thing for everyone, but He knows us now and He knew us then when he atoned for our sins and shortcomings. And He felt what we feel on a personal and individual level. 

And I am so grateful for this.

#gratitude #tistheseasontobethankful #notgonnatotallyskipoverthanksgiving #neverusinghastagsagain #emailruined

Well I'll write again next week. Merry Christmas and a happy thanksgiving! 

A Tiring Amount of Service

November 18, 2019

Well everyone, here we are again. I hope the last 7 days have treated you well, as they have me.

We did a whole bunch of service this week, which was great. Tuesday we helped someone with wood. Wednesday we helped someone else with wood. Thursday we raked someone's leaves. Friday we raked someone else's leaves. And Saturday we helped someone load stuff, such as broken down 4 wheelers and lawn mowers and dirt bikes and car parts and other miscellaneous junk into a trailer, which we then unloaded after it was moved to its destination. That service also included moving several stacks of tires from one area of a dirt lot to another. And the only sensible way to do that is by rolling them one by one of course. So that was a fun time. It was pretty tiring though. Luckily we were wearing appropriate attire for the job. 

Other than that we were able to visit with lots of people, both members of the Church and people who aren't members of the Church alike. We talked to someone out in Concho, who told us that she has a grandson who is not a member of the Church and who potentially had some interest in learning about the Gospel. And his name is Joel, not to be confused with Joel's dad who is also named Joel, but who also goes by Tim. Well so we talked to Joel (grandson Joel not Tim Joel) and he said he would be interested in us teaching him. So that'll be cool.

I really just love all the opportunities there are to teach about Jesus Christ and bear testimony of Him. Sometimes I look back on my day and realize that I have missed some opportunities to share what I know, and I feel bad about that. But something I've learned is seriously that no one is perfect. And the Savior wants us to follow Him and be His disciple and to participate in His work, which means more than just serving a full time mission. And He doesn't expect that we will be perfect as we strive to do that, or as we strive to live any aspect of the Gospel. That's why the Savior came to earth in the first place. Because we aren't perfect and without Him we never would be, and since no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God, we would all be hopelessly doomed to be cut off from God's presence forever. But because Jesus Christ atoned for our sins and weaknesses, we can overcome those things and become clean and we ultimately will be able to return to God's presence. So when we feel like we're trying our best but we keep falling short, and we feel like we keep falling back into old fears and weaknesses, we can take those things to the Savior and He can make our weak things strong. He wants us to follow Him and live His Gospel and He wants us to be a part of His work, and it is possible for us to do that even when we might feel incapable. In the Book of Mormon there's a story of a person named Nephi, who was asked by the Lord to go and get this record of scripture. He couldn't see at that moment why it was so important and the impact it would have on so many of God's children down the road, but Nephi knew it was important that he followed this command. So he and his brothers had tried twice to obtain that record, the second time they returned unsuccessfully their lives were put into serious danger, and there was no foreseeable way they could be successful if they tried again. So they had every reason to be afraid and to give up. They had already shown a lot of faith just by trying a second time, and so it is no wonder that at this point two of the brothers had decided they had trusted the Lord enough but that now they wanted to not go and get themselves killed by trying a third time. Nephi however, had the faith beyond what his brothers had, and beyond what most people have. It wasn't conditional upon what circumstances would come up, how dangerous it got, or how reasonably afraid he was. His faith was centered on Jesus Christ and he knew "that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." (1 Nephi 3:7) So Nephi went and did what the Lord commanded him to do, even though he had those fears and he couldn't do it on his own. He had the faith to go and do even though he didn't know how it would be done. This story just stood out to me recently, even though I've heard it many times before, and I had a personal experience of how true that principle is. I know that following the Savior is not an easy road. I know that we have things in our lives that are difficult. But I know that the struggles we have, all of which are different from everyone else's, we have them so that we can be humble and so we can recognize the need we have for a Redeemer. And I know that Jesus Christ has experienced every one of the struggles we have, for each one of us personally. And because of that we can come unto Him with those struggles, and if we have the faith to follow Him despite the struggles that keep us from where we want to be, He will strengthen us and give us peace and give us the assurance that He will provide a way to accomplish the thing He has commanded us to do, that we could never do on our own. 

I just want you to know that this is something I've learned to be true. I love my Savior and His Gospel. I know that our Father in Heaven has a plan for us to be happy both in this life and in the life after. And I'm so grateful for all of this.

And that is my email for the week. 

See you laters alligators,

~Elder Oswald

A (Not So) Historically Short Email

November 11,2019

Well my friends, I'm about to make history. 

This will be the shortest email you've ever seen written by Elder Oswald.

I'll start by saying it was a great week as always. We served people. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people. We got free food from people. The usual. 

Something really cool from the last couple months, is that there is this lady we stop by every once and a while just to see how she's doing and to see what we can do to help her out. And it has been really amazing because literally every time we stop by, she's doing something she needs our help with, and we show up just in time. We've got there while she's unloading groceries from her car a couple times, when she needs things moved from one place to another, and just the other day we stopped by while she was planting tulips and another flower I can't remember. So we were able to help her dig some holes to plant the flowers. 

It's just so awesome how we always show up at the perfect moment. And she has said so herself how she is so grateful that we always come right when she needs our help. And it's just so amazing to me. The Lord really is mindful of every one of His children. And He blesses us, many times through other people. He can make us instruments in His hands to touch other people's lives. He will place us in the paths of those who need help. And He can inspire us with what to say and do to help His children. And I just love that so much. I know that it isn't an accident or a coincidence that we think to stop by that lady's house when we do. And neither is it a coincidence any of the other times we cross paths with people and have opportunities to share God's love with them and be a light in people's lives. I've seen it so many times where I have met people, it doesn't matter who they are, what religion they belong to, or anything like that, where they have made a positive impact in my life. It's no coincidence that there are so many good things that come into our lives. 

"And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is." (Moroni 10:6, the Book of Mormon)

I know that all of the good things, the things that make us happy, the things that brighten our day, all of the people we meet and the families and friendships and relationships we get to have with others in our lives, all of these we have for a reason and a purpose. God has blessed us with these things so that we can be happy, and so that we can learn to acknowledge His hand in our lives.

Well, we've come to the end of yet another email. And it turns out it wasn't as short as I thought it would be. Anyhow, tune in next week for more exciting adventures.

~Elder Oswald 

Round Valley Zone 

Got to reconnect with my first companion in the field, Elder Bess.

Lyman Lake