From: Braydon Carter <braydon.carter@missionary.org>
Date: Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 10:15 PM
Subject: Church is 随时随地 02/18/2019
Hello Everyone!
This week has just been full of surprises and awesome things going on as missionaries, as well as just the church in general! For all of you that haven't caught the wind yet, if missionaries would like, they are able to call their families every week now! It's seriously so incredible. I was able to call and talk to my family this morning and I have a strong testimony that this was an inspired thing. Not only did it help me share lovingly with them and talk with them, but it almost helped me more so realize that I'm not home anymore. That as far as testimony and beliefs go, it's all me now. I'm an adult now, and as scary as that sounds, it was cool to see how the family will never lose their love for each other. It was amazing to hear their testimonies as well as hear their sweet voices! It was even cooler because as we talked we discussed how we will probably run out of things to talk about over time, so I decided we would all do "Come follow Me" together every week which I am very excited for. With that being said, I know we have a prophet today that is called and set apart by God. As we may be confused in what's going on or the changes, pray to God, and I promise that you will also get a confirmation that it is His will.
Besides that amazing change we also had a lot of other really cool things happen this week that I am so excited to share.
First, we ran into the coolest guy this week, Juan. He is from Indonesia and he can speak just a little bit of English and almost no Chinese. We were eating at our favorite place during the week and we ran into Juan. It was actually my companion who struck up a conversation with him. We gave him our number and didn't really think anything of it until that night he just started texting us like CRAZY. I was kind of worried for a minute, but my companion and I gave it a shot and told him that we would meet him at his lunch break! From there, it has just been so amazing. We haven't really been able to communicate too well but every time we share a little bit, he just loves it. We invited some of the YSA [Young Single Adults] in our branch to help us do translations and it has just been going so so good. In fact, when we taught him the lesson about Joseph Smith and the First Vision, after he had read it to himself, he said, " I'm ready to follow ". Then, he was getting excited to be baptized!! What was even cooler is because he is here as a worker he has to work most days for 12 hours a day. But when we told him about church he went straight to his manager and asked if he could switch his off day! It was so so cool! Here is a picture of all of us and our YSA translator Eunice :)
Funny story of the week, and not to go into much detail, but as we were out finding people in a mall, my companion and I quickly needed to run into the restroom to clear the gallons of water we drink a day. As we were going about our business, I was making up songs in Chinese as I was well doing what I needed to do. As I was singing, this a man came up to me (again, as I was taking care of my business) and asked if I could speak Chinese. I laughed and told him yes. To make a long story short, I asked if he had an interest in coming to church, and he came! It just goes to show that there are people all over the world that are looking for the gospel.
Man... I have a lot of things I want to share this week.. Hehe...
TO CONTINUE:
Something else that has been really special for Elder Taylor and I is working with the YSA. Elder Taylor and I had long, pondering discussions on how we could grow the branch through the YSA. Not so we could be with people our age, but we knew that they could really help the church grow. We decided little by little to work with these young people and start having little family home evenings, as well as activities, and it has been building the branch SO much. Not only that, but just helped us with the relationships with these people. As we have gotten closer to them, it has made it special when they invite their friends to things, or ask us about gospel things. Like, for example, we had 3 of the YSA ask us to come over and give them blessings. They were all so stressed and sick, and they wanted nothing more than to just follow Jesus Christ.
It made it special because, as we were able to visit and work with these young people, it really helped me see that the church itself is never ending. It's not something that is just on Sundays, and we shouldn't feel like we need to put a church face on. As I've been a missionary and worked with these people, I see more and more that church is very much everyday. We don't read our scriptures because it is an assignment from church, and we don't pray twice a day to check it off, but for earnestly seeking for guidance and help in our life. Once we take the things we learn at church and apply it, it is incredible the relationship we have with God, and really just the way we look at life.
It was even more cool to me to see those little things in life and then really be able to apply it into doing my own weekly things to apply the gospel in my life. Like something that I came upon this week is that the Book of Mormon is never a page thing, or really even a time thing. I feel like growing up it was always like 'read a chapter a day', or 'spend at least 10 minutes'. But this week I have found myself spending days on chapters. Not because I am reading slow, or even not understanding, but it's just so cool to read for example about Nephi, and then think about how you have Nephi experience in your life. Or are we ever like Laman and Lemuel?
My last story for the week is about an awesome man named Gabriel. Man I love him and he is just the coolest dude in the world!
As we have been meeting with Gabriel, I have more and more seen my self in him. He is a hard worker that is stressed most of the time, and really just wants happiness in his life. But he also wants to almost have a formula and results to come with this plan of happiness. It has been really cool as we have been able to teach him to see that as we teach with the spirit and explain these things to him, that he understood. Although some of the times he would make comments like, "Man why do we have to do that? " Or " Man we really can't do that?" As he would ask these things, it really helped me see that I think we can all have these attitudes in our life, especially towards church. It seems like a lot, especially if you really think about it. But what I realized is the things God has us do isn't for control, or just because we shouldn't do them, but it's literally a man for happiness in our life no matter what. God knows us perfectly. Now I know that everyone says that, but it's true. He knows that in order to have a happy life, we need to be living a certain way. For example, if you want to be healthy you've gotta work out and eat right. What God did for us is give us this road map with many trails, and He has told us Exactly how to get there in 1 straight line. If we were exactly obedient, and followed Him perfectly, we would have no problem. But on this map, there are also millions of different roads that will get to the same location, we just have to go through different things, and routes to get there. Most of us, if we were driving, would just take the straight path. But it's not that easy on the road trip of life we are in. In fact, the straight path is always there, but a lot of times the Map Maker knows which trail we need to take as individuals. There might be bumps in the road, or maybe even take the wrong turns, but the Map Maker knows the way to get to our destination. The commandments and church isn't there to restrict us, but to guide us. The straight road will be the most quick and smooth ride there, but all of us will end up taking different paths. God knows this, and that's why He isn't a forceful God. He knows we need to take our own different ways to have the surety and calmness that the first path was right. He knows that we will get distracted by the scenery along the way and pull over, but the main road is always there. It's the easiest and happiest road that is guided by the prinicples and ordinances of the gospel.
I testify that God has a plan for all of us. He loves us, He cares about us and He wants to hear from us!
I love you all so much! I hope you had an amazing week! Send me emails I want to read all about it.
Love,
Elder Carter
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From Ranes
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