Life is good

So I'm just going to write one story and it will be good and then I'll be done.

We have this less active lady with a nonmember husband who came to church for the Christmas service and it was great. We've been trying to set an appointment with her since then and it's never worked out. Well her home teacher is awesome and invited us to go with him to a lesson at her house. So we're there and she's talking all about health issues and surgeries and how she's recovering which is great. Well she mentioned that she was at the Massachusetts General Hospital which happens to be in the Boston first ward. I thought about it more and I realized that she had a really good chance of being there while I was serving there and I knew that we had only ever given one lady a blessing at that hospital and she also had a nonmember husband. So the home-teacher asks if we have anything we wanted to add so I said "this is weird but were you in the hospital during late May or June?" to which she says yes how did you know? and I responded with "because Im the one who gave you a blessing while you were there" to which all the dots started to connect and we had a joyous reunion. I was happy to see that things have gone well for her and thankfully we're best friends now. We've been having a hard time with establishing a good relationship with her but neither of us realized that we already had one so I think from now on things will go better there.

Also the assistants in the mission are finally getting there own area and it's the Boston first ward so I'm excited to go on exchanges there. :) 

Life is good!
-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

Winter is here

We had a good week. Some highlights were

Interviews with President Miller

Stake Conference

Teaching people

Our Stake President, Pres. Holland, is amazing. He is just everyone's best friend. The theme of Stake Conference was developing Christlike relationships with those around us. At the adult session of Stake Conference he got up and said "well for the first time I'm in the uncomfortable situation of literally having nothing to add" so he had the tech guy set up a mic and for the last fifteen minutes the 2 counselors walked around with the mic and gave it to people as they felt inspired. Although Pres. Holland did pose theses two questions 1.What blessings come from a Christlike relationship? 2.If this is something we want what gets in the way of us having them? It was cool, I've never really seen that before but that was only the second time I'd been to the adult session of stake conference so who knows maybe it's a little more regular.

For the general session we sat on the stage with lots of crying children and I couldn't really hear even though I was trying. The reason we sat back there is because we had invited a less active man named bro. Comella that week to come and he said he might but he wanted to sit with us in the back so we took the furthest back we could find. He's a train guy that works for Amtrak and he's like the equivalent of lead flight attendant in an airplane.  He showed up 45 minutes late in his train outfit which was super cool and he joined us in the back. Now I've read lots of stories of people unjustly being agitated by noisy children and for the first time I was annoyed by them too. We had promised lots of blessings to this brother if he came to Stake Conference and the children were really throwing that off track. It certainly didn't go unnoticed to our friend and he got up and left quite unexpectedly which really derailed me and I couldn't help but get frustrated with all the little kids. After a short time though Bro. Comella came back with a stack of amtrack junior conductor hats and gave them to all the little kids. At first they didn't pay any mind to it but after some time they figured out what they were and it was a hot topic. I'm not too sure how it worked out but they stayed quiet for the better part of 45 minutes after that which is all the time Bro. Comella had before he had to get back to work. I was grateful for Bro. Comella's patience when I wasn't and hopefully we'll be able to help him have more spiritual experiences at church.

This is Sis Favey. Her mom is pretty old & sick. She's forgotten how to speak English so she just speaks French. I like them. 

It's been cold. Winter is here. 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

The resurrection

This week was hard balancing everything. We had a lot of mission meetings which took up over half of our week but we did what we could to cram everything into half of a week.

Our good friend Steve is progressing well. He's still on track to be baptized on Jan. 30, it's super exciting. Although he still has some gaps he will be ready by then. He lives out of our area but he's dating a member in our area so hopefully we'll get it all worked out for him to be baptized in the Nashua ward. He has great faith and it's cool to see him make connections in the gospel. He's getting more out of the scriptures and his prayers are much more personal and he's always at church so with that combo his conversion has been steady. It's great to be a part of it. 

I gave a talk last Sunday on the resurrection. It went well and I think most people liked it. here's the talk

Through the merits of Jesus Christ we will all be resurrected. “both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame,” (Alma 11:44).  This is a gift promised to all of us and it accomplishes the first half of God’s work and glory to bring to pass the immortality of man” (Moses 1:39). We receive this gift because of Jesus Christ, all of the works of God are accomplished through Jesus Christ even that of the resurrection. Jesus Christ had power over death because of his divine sonship and he also had the capability to die because of his mortal mother. With this he paved the way for the resurrection of all. We see Jesus testify of this in John 10:17 when He says “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” This simple statement testifies that Jesus knew and understood his role in the resurrection, Jesus knew that he had the ability not only to die but also to rise again in triumphant glory. Jesus was the first one to be resurrected with a perfected and immortal body, although others had been raised from the dead no one had been resurrected. He was our example in that regard and perhaps some of the most reassuring verses of scripture teach us of this when Mary seeking Jesus in the tomb hears the words of an angel saying “He is not here for he is risen” (Matt. 28:6).

We have other examples of this in the scriptures which paint for us a wonderful image of how glorious the resurrection will be. One such example revolves around the story of Lazarus. Lazarus was a sick man who had had some exposure to the ministry of Jesus Christ, we don’t know too much about him before this story but we know that Jesus loved him and his sisters Mary and Martha. Upon hearing that Lazarus was sick Jesus testified among his disciples that “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby,” (John 11:4). Still, Jesus knew that Lazarus would die and he even foretold this to his Apostles. Upon arriving at Bethany, the town in which Lazarus resided, he found out that Lazarus had lain in the grave for four days. As soon as Martha, Lazarus’ sister, heard that her savior was near the town she ran out to meet him saying that if he had been there her brother Lazarus would not have died. Nevertheless she humbly accepted that her brother Lazarus would rise in the resurrection. To this Jesus comforted her by saying “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25-26). To this Martha again testified that she knew Jesus was the Christ, the son of God knowing that with those credentials all things are possible. With that miraculous setting Jesus made his way to the tomb of Lazarus with a procession of many people anxious to see what the outcome would be. Upon having the stone removed from the tomb he commanded Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. As the scriptures say in John 11 “and he that was dead came forth” (John 11:44).  I know that Jesus Christ brought back Lazarus from the dead and that the same power used to accomplish that miracle will be exercised at the time of our resurrection.

I also know that our actions today are very important in regards to the resurrection. Speaking of this Alma said to his son Corianton “If he hath repented of his sins, and desired righteousness until the end of his days, even so he shall be rewarded unto righteousness….Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness,” (Alma 41:6,10). We cannot suppose that at the time of our resurrection that all of our mistakes will be forgotten or that we will magically be perfect. In fact we will be even more burdened with our sins at the time of our resurrection if we do not repent in this life, “even a perfect knowledge of our guilt and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment” (2 Nephi 9:14). Fortunately God loves us and has promised that as “we repent we will be forgiven and the Lord will remember them no more,” (D&C 58:42).

May we all live our lives in such a way that we can look forward to the resurrection. Where we will be filled with the knowledge of enjoyment and will rejoice with God and all of our loved ones. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

There was a bit more to it but this is the condensed version. I hope you like it. 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley

Kinda a big deal

We've been cooking this week and that's been fun. It's been great to go out and do stuff even though it snowed quite a bit. We've been able to use it to help us. The day after it snowed we walked around with shovels and just shoveled peoples driveways and gave them our cards telling them to give us a call next time it snows. We also invited them to learn more about Christ but we have yet to have someone take us up on that offer. However, we saw a lot of miracles and we're in a great place to see more this upcoming week. We're accomplishing work in many different ways whether it be through finding, teaching or baptizing. It's a great thing! 

One of the miracle stories this week was with a man named James. Last Sunday he was at church with his girlfriend Cindy. Cindy is a member of the Boston Spanish Branch but James is not a member at all. Well when James would spend the weekend with Cindy they would go to church in Boston and they would go to the English ward. Which means that I knew James and Cindy already, in fact I'd taught James a few times in Boston during church. I didn't know that he lived up here in Nashua but we had a wonderful reunion and recognized each other. We were able to set up an appointment for Saturday finally and we taught him the Restoration with Cindy! It was a great lesson and we all felt the Spirit. When we asked him to be baptized on Jan. 30 he said he wasn't going to say yes or no but he wanted to ask God. Great! We set an appointment for Monday and committed him to come to church again. Unfortunately he doesn't actually live within our ward boundaries so we needed to hand him off to the Merrimack Elders. We had him go to their sacrament meeting and made sure the Ward Mission Leader in their ward made contact. Well the hand off went wonderful and the Merrimack Elders are going over tonight to talk with James about the chapters that we asked him to read (Alma 32 and Moroni 10). He's one that's been prepared for the Gospel for a long time and it's something that I could see when I first met him in Boston but I never got to see his conversion through because life got in the way. Thankfully I'll be able to witness his conversion now even though I won't be the one teaching him form now on.  It's pretty exciting. 

Elder Franca and I hgave set some goals for us that we think will really help us focus on the work. I'm going to tell them to you now in an effort to make myself more accountable.

They are: 

find 3 new investigators per week

through personal contacting get one persons contact info every day

extend an invitation to be baptized every week

We had it in our minds last week but it wasn't official yet and we found 6 new investigators and invited three people to be baptized so we started off well. 

I know the church is true and that this work we're doing is much greater than we often treat it. As we do missionary work we fulfill covenants that we made to gather the house of Israel and prepare the earth for the second coming which is kinda a big deal. 

-- 

Elder Trevon Turley