Farewell Rose Park

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Well hello from Rose Park for what I think will be the last time.  On Wednesday we will be having transfers so I think I'll probably be leaving here.  

 

This week, a lot of stories and experiences come to mind as I'm writing my email.  Examples: a marriage followed by a baptism the next day for Eugenia, a baptism for Candido (his wife was baptized 14 years ago and has been looking forward to his baptism since that day), and helping a girl who was sexually abused as a kid meet with our ward's bishop so she can begin sorting out her life (similar to a pastor or preacher except that he's not paid). 

 

But all I want to share this week is my general feelings about my mission so far.  Describing exactly how I feel isn't possible.  It's been hard.  Trying to communicate with people when they speak another language is hard.  Trying to learn how to teach something that will change people's life is hard.  Spending literally 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for a minimum of 6 weeks with another person who you've never met before is hard.  Having people continually tell you to go away when you have no desire except to help them is hard.  Leaving your family is hard.  But, it's worth it.  In spanish we say "vale la pena."  In five months, people's lives have been changed in ways that neither I nor they fully understand.  In five months, I've learned that there is so much more good in this world than bad.  Watching a family go from misery to happiness in a matter of days or weeks doesn't have a price.  Feeling the Spirit of God lead to you particular verse in the scriptures that then answers perfectly a question that someone asks later that day is just special.  People trusting a bunch of nineteen year olds to lead them to a better life shouldn't happen logically.  Yet it does.  It does because this isn't the work of men.  It's the work of God.  I know that to be true.

 

I thought I would give an update on the magic tricks.  For anyone planning on serving a mission, learn magic tricks.  Kids love them.  As of right now, the kids' favorites are: making a pen disappear (behind my ear), making a tie disappear in my fist (my dad's personal favorite), moving a ring up a cut rubber band, lifting up a pen in the flat of my palm (thanks Melanie), and a few others.  Thanks to everyone who sent tricks through emails (some of the names got cut off on the emails so I don't know exactly who sent me them).  But today, Grammie and Granddad took the prize.  They sent me a little magic kit.  My companion has already had his mind blown this morning with the first trick I learned.

 

Love you all,

-Elder Colton

A Miracle for Luz

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

A little bit of administrative stuff first. If you plan on sending a package or letter anytime soon, wait. On Wednesday, June 13th, we're having our next transfers and our mission is also splitting into two different missions, so I may have a different mission address and then it would take awhile for mail to get to me. On my first P-day (Preparation Day, or the day we email) after transfers I'll include which mission I'll be staying in (either Utah Salt Lake City or Utah Salt Lake City West) and the address that packages and mail goes to.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way...

I know someone who is famous. Kind of. I don't know her well, but it's still cool. On mormon.org, there is a video profile of Anita Sthalasayee (hopefully I spelled that correctly). It's one of the third box on the right of the little profile pictures of people on the home page. She used to be in my ward (congregation) in Georgia and her mom still lives there. Apparently she's living in New York now as a journalist. Cool.

So here is the story of the week:

I don't know if I've told all of you about Luz yet. Four months ago, Luz hated missionaries because her son in law was a member of our church and then left his wife, who is Luz's oldest daugther. (Every religion has it's bad people, I won't even make an attempt at denying that). But then something changed. About three months ago, she had a dream about my last companion, Elder Torres. After she woke up, she remembered his face very clearly in the dream. That in and of itself doesn't seem very crazy, until you include the idea that Elder Torres and Luz had never met before. Elder Torres had never been to her house, only been in the area for a brief time, and she works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in a restaurant far from us. And then the next day he knocked on her door. The problem is that Luz works on Sundays so she can't go to church. She hasn't been able to find another job (she's 65 and can't move very quickly so there aren't a lot of options for her). So for three months, Luz hasn't been able to come to church despite the fact that she wants to go extremely badly. We went on a tour of the chapel with her on a weeknight and she felt a warmth in the chapel that made her want to come back. But...work. And then something changed again. She had surgery last week because she had a kidney stone. Her doctor told her she couldn't work and her boss found a replacement for two weeks. But (and as I write this I'm smiling) her doctor said nothing about church. So Luz decided that she would come to church. And she loved it. She wants to come back. She wants to be baptized. She wants to start this new life that she knows will help her. But, next Sunday she has to go back to work.

And once again, this is the point that I need your help with prayer. Just do it. Please pray that Heavenly Father will soften the heart of Luz's boss and allow her to talk Sunday morning's off. I know it will work. Prayer has that power.

I love all of you,

-Elder Colton

The Power of Prayer

Hola mi familia y mis amigos,

So first things first, starting on June 13th, our mission will be changing our mail system.  Instead of sending mail to the mission office (which is the address that anyone who has sent mail has used), it will be sent directly to our apartments or houses where we live.  So, in the week before June 13th, it would probably be a good idea to just not send any mail and wait until I can send out the update of my new address.

And on the topic of mail, thank you Johns Creek Ward (aka...my church congregation back home in Georgia) for the package with all sorts of goodies and letters.  The candies are a nice treat for us and for the people we're teaching.  But mostly thanks for the letters.  It's always nice to know that people back home support us even they we can't communicate back too much. 

And on the topic of thanking people, thank you everyone who sent magic tricks.  We've already blown the minds of some of the little kids in the area.  They were all tired of my tie magic trick (sorry dad...it's only fun for them 15 or so times before they want something new) and now I have a half dozen tricks to show them. 

Today, we're going to start something new.  Each week, I'll explain a problem or experience that we had in the preceding week.  And then the important part...I'm going to ask for people to include help for those problems in their prayers.  If you don't like to pray, continue reading this and hopefully you'll understand why prayer is so important.

God is our Father in Heaven.  He loves us and wants nothing more than for us to be happy.  So picture your own dad (unless you had a bad dad who doesn't bring up good memories, then picture your grandpa or someone who served as a father-figure).  Now picture your dad or father figure having an absolute and complete knowledge of everything you've ever gone though.  A lot of dads think they know everything about us, but they don't (hopefully I'm not crushing the hopes of any Dad thinking he actually knows his teeenage daughters feelings).  He knows how you felt when your boyfriend broke up with you.  He knows how you felt when your dog died.  He knows how you felt when you lost you job.  Get the picture?  He knows you and knows how you feel.  Next, think about how happy your dad/father-figure is when you talk with him.  When you're happy and you give him a call, he feels happy for you and thus, you normally end up feeling happier than when you started off.  When you're sad or mad and you give him a call, he knows how to help you out.  And thankfully Heavenly Father is perfect, so we don't need to worry about Him making a situation worse.  And that is where prayer comes in.  When we pray, we show Heavenly Father that we love Him and want to talk with him.  We show him that we're remembering Him.  And like the perfect Father that He is, He will answer our prayers as long as we pray with a sincerity and work as hard as we can to accomplish the things we pray for. 

Story time: last night at 8:00, Elder Moczygemba and I met with a married couple.  They have two kids, a 19 year old daughter and an 18 year old son.  The daughter had a baby with her boyfriend when she was 17 (they're married now).  The son had a baby with his girlfriend last year.  Long story short, the mom and dad's worlds were rocked.  The couple needed help and needed to know that Heavenly Father is there for them.  In a forty-five minute conversation with them, their entire outlooks changed, not because of us, but because they felt God's love for them.  After we left, Elder Moczygemba and I said a prayer of gratitude.  Right afterwards, we felt like we should pray again and ask Heavenly Father to guide us to where ever there is another family in our area who needs help and is ready to hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I said the prayer.  During the prayer, I felt like I should ask Heavenly Father to guide us to the family of four people that he wants us to speak with.  As missionaries, we are required to be home at 9:00 (with very, very few exceptions).  So we had one hour to find this family of four which we knew were waiting for us.  So we starting walking.  And we found them at 8:50.  A mom, dad, and two sons.  Tomorrow we're going to their home to meet them a little better and begin working with them.  That is the power of prayer.  Try it.  Try kneeling down in your room alone and praying aloud.  If you do it sincerely and specifically, like you're talking to your dad or father-figure, you'll know that God is listening to you.

And when you offer that prayer, also ask Heavenly Father to help this family.  Ask him to bless the Sanchez Family with the strength they need.  Ask Him to give us the guidance we need to help them.  Prayer is real.

-Elder Colton

MTC Teachers

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

So this week I have almost no time to write.  Hopefully I won't get any hate mail or howlers in response.  One thing I do want to do in the very short letter though is give a shout out to my MTC teachers again.  Pretty much all that you said would be hard has been hard.  All that you said would be easy has been easy.  And many of the ideas and feedback that you gave me during my months in the MTC have have me immensely here in Salt Lake City.  So thank you.

 

-Elder Colton

Magic Tricks

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Greetings from Salt Lake City. 

 

Highlight of my week:  Elena's baptism.  We met Elena through her best friend, Rita, who was baptized a few weeks ago (she was part of the huge family that was baptized together).  This past weekend, Elena, who is the most amazing 10 year old girl in the world, was also baptized.  Her words when I talked with her afterwards: "I forgot all the bad things that I ever did."  Her faith is incredible.  She invited all her friends and her teacher at school to her baptism.  She reads the scriptures because she knows that what Christ wants her to do, even though she has trouble understanding very much of it.  And one of the most amazing parts of the baptismal service was when Aracely offered the closing prayer.  Aracely wants to be baptized and knows that it is the right thing for herself and her family, but her "husband"/partner doesn't want to get married (even though they've been together for 15 years).  In the prayer, she said, "...and I pray that both me and Horacio can be baptized as soon as possible."  It killed me to see her want to do this so badly but have Horacio hold her back. 

 

Second highlight of me week: Yesterday, on Mother's Day, I got to call home and talk with my family for a little while.  It felt more like 5 minutes than 45 minutes, but when you haven't talked with them for four months, I guess that's what it feels like.  Next time it will probably feel like 2 minutes instead of 5.  Thanks to technology,  Meredith, who is in Spain, Jared, who is in Utah, Mom, Dad, and Kevin, who are in Georiga, and I were all able to talk on a conference call.

 

So, I need you to help me.  And by "you" I mean each person who spends 3 minutes a week reading these letters, whether or not they are Mormon.  I'm going to ask you to double your efforts this week and use six minutes of your time.  I have a magic trick that involves a tie that my dad taught me from his long gone days as a missionary in the Phillipine Islands (by the way dad, I use the tie trick probably 5 times a day).  But here's the problem.  I don't know any other magic tricks. But a kid who is 5 years old typically won't accept that all I can do is make a tie disappear into my fist.  They want more.  And I've got nothing.  So here is where you come in.  Spend 3 minutes sending my mom an email with any magic tricks you know.  If you don't know any, google it (I'm not too lazy to do it myself, we just aren't allowed on google).  My mom's email is jericolton@comcast.net (mom, if you don't want anyone emailing you then just use my old one).  If you decide not to do this, then picture a 5 year old beating me up because I can't make a coin disappear.  (And after you picture that, send my mom an email anyways because I know there are some of you ***cough cough Mike Rettker *** who would simply refuse to send a magic trick just because they would want a five year old to beat me up).

 

Love you all,

-Elder Colton

Spanish 101

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

Greetings from Rose Park.  We had transfers this past week (transfers
are every 6 weeks and it is when our mission president assigns us to
change areas and/companions if he feels it will help us) and Elder
Torres, my last companion, is now sitting on a beach in Tampico,
Mexico.  Maybe he's even engaged by now.  He's had 4 whole days after
all.  (I hope he reads this).

My new companion is Elder Moczygemba from San Antonion, Texas.  We get
along great.  We speak almost only in spanish and my spanish has
improved more in 5 days than it did in half of last transfer.  I feel
comfortable (most of the time) talking to people on the phone now in
spanish.  The only people I still can't understand are the Puerto
Ricans.  They must have lungs to rival Lance Armstrong.  It's like
it's a race to see who can pass out first from talking so fast.  But
thankfully there are hardly any Puerto Ricans here.

So this week I decided I would send a list of things I've learned from
learning spanish:
1. You can understand absolutely nothing of a language and still be
able to understand what someone is saying.  For the first week or so,
my understanding came almost completely from body language and what I
thought they would say based on the situation, and typically it was
right.

2. People appreciate you trying to learn to talk with them in their
native language.  No-one that I've talked with has expressed any
frustrations either in word or body language that I can't understand
everything or can't reply to them without taking 10 minutes.

3. It's really funny when you don't know any of the bad words in a
language.  We had a 10 minute conversation with a man and the entire
time I couldn't undertstand a lot of the words, which typically
doesn't happen much anymore.  When I asked Elder Torres afterwards
what some of the words were, he recommended that I just not worry
about learning those ones. Oops.

4. A smile can say a thousand words in any language.  You can't fake a smile.

5. Before my mission (and still now) I've had a tendancy to want to do
everything myself.  Unfortunately, the language kept me from doing
that for the first few weeks and I realized how to rely on my
companion to help me.

6. Humility.  Ha.  Yes.  I can admit it.  It make me realize that as
great as I like to think I am sometimes, I'm not much without help
from my companion, other people, and Christ.

7. The Holy Ghost, or the third member of the Godhead (along with
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) absolutely exists and can touch the
hearts of people.  I would try to testify of something I know to be
true and it probably sounded as grammatically poor to the hispanics as
Uncle Brad does trying to sing sounds like to us (Love you Uncle
Brad).  But they could still feel something.  It isn't because I can
explain it eloquently.  It isn't because I know that what I say is
true.  It's because the Holy Ghost makes them feel something in side
that many of them haven't felt in their life.

I love you all
-Elder Colton

No Bad Words

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

Well, this week definitely marks one of the most special baptisms I've ever been to.  A few months ago, a member from the ward (local congregation) mentioned to my companion, Elder Torres, that a new family had moved in to the apartment next to them.  Elder Torres and his companion stopped by and the family invited them in.  There are nine of them total, two sisters and their 7 children (one has six and the other has one).  This past weekend all seven that were old enough for baptism (over the age of eight) were baptized.  The best moment for me was when after the baptisms, during a talk about the Gift of the Holy Ghost (go to mormon.org if you don't know what I mean by that), the 11 year old daughter started to cry.  And she is not the type of girl to cry.  She is a tough tom-boy.  But, she leaned over to me and said "I can't remember any bad words."  She had literally forgotten every bad word she knew (which were quite a few).  A few minutes later, while still crying, she leaned over and said, "I feel like a whole new person."  Wow.  This is a family with no husbands, only one job between the nine of them, but now has this gospel and this happiness in their lives.

 

Unfortunately I don't have much time this week.  My companion leaves to go home to Mexico on Wednesday so we've been running around trying to get last minute things done all day.

 

Love all of you,

-Elder Colton