March 6, 2013

Hola Everyone!

 

I am doing so great here in la CCM this week! I truly love it here but of course with everything going so well you will have the things that do not go so well. I have been struggling a lot lately with all the responisbility that has been put upon me. I know that this experience is not going to be easy one bit if it was then anyone could do it. I have been gaining a stronger testimony of the power of prayer and thank you for that comment Andi. I know that I just need to trun to him when I am feeling down at all because as I saw in PMG today the world sees only part of you which is the top of a iceberg. But the Lord and Heavenly Father can see the mojority of you that is underneath the water. I love know that there are people in my life that know me, ALL OF ME.

 

But on a more happy note 5 minutes before sacrament meeting on Sunday my Branch President, President Wilkins came over to me and my companion and asked us if we could come outside for a second to talk with him real quick. So we proceeded to go outside and speak to him wondering what he could possibly want with two Elders that have only been here for 1 1/2 weeks. He goes on to say that the oldest district is leaving tomorrow night and that they have a calling that is needing to be fulfilled. He goes on to ask my companion and I if we would be able to step into the calling of Zone Leaders! I was taken back and ingulfed in the Spirit thinking to myself that I have only been here for such a short time and that now I am having to step into a position and be called of God to lead our zone. How amazing these days have been following this calling. I am not going to lie and say they have been perfect because yesterday was the hardest day that I have had so far and I was really putting myself down. But I went the newest district and asked them if they could while studying the scriptures they could find something that could possibly help me and so they did and I was truly comforted by the Spirit to know that I must put my faith in Him and give him all that I have for if I do not then that is when the adversary comes into my mind and tries to corrupt me.

 

I have praying a lot lately in Spanish and am still having a really rough time with the language but I know now that as long as the Lord is on my side that I have concords of angels and fiery chariots fighting with me the battle agains Satan. (2 Kings 6) I love how much I am able to grow here and all the amazing testimonies I am able to hear every day as I am able to get to know more personaly every missionary in my zone as a zone leader. The responisblity ways heavy but that is not the bad thing I would be not helping myself if I thought that this was going to be easy or if that when it gets hard I give up. I HAVE BEEN CALLED OF GOD! No evil spirit can control me or what I think for if he could than where would be my agency to follow God for that is the path that I have chosen and would hope that is the path that you have chosen also. The Celestial Kingdom awaits us and it is our desicion if we want to go there or not and I don't know if you have already answered this question but if you have not find an answer for it is truly your choice which Kingdom you want to be in, in the next life.

Love Elder Marse

First week in the MTC

February 27, 2013

Hola Everyone! I have been doing to amazing this past week and am progressing a lot in the Gospel and the understanding of how I need to teach investigators and by Esiritu Santos es the only way. (Spanglish) My companions name is Elder Rich he es from Pheonix, Arizona but has lived all over the south. He is way cool and we really know how to feed off of eachothers spiritual thoughts. We were able to teach an investigator (member I think but I have no clue he for sure does not act like he is a member) this past week. If you can try to imagine how much you can feel the Espiritu in your daily life imagine being engulfed in it 24/7! It is such a blessing to be able to completely forget about myself and dive head first into el Evangelio. I truly love el Evangelio y se verdadero. Now I am not going to say this past week has not been hard because it truly has been a challange understanding the language and being the only Elder that has not taken spanish before coming to la CCM in my distrito. (MTC) You might be wondering why I am saying spanglish and it's because I know that this is just one simple way to practice the language and to become familiar with the words of el Evangelio. (Gospel)

 

I want you all to know that in my first devotional I was able to hear M. Russel Ballard!!!! How great is that?! An Apostle! One of my branch presidency members is also the nephew of our prophet which is pretty sweet he tells us a lot of stories and has such a strong testimony and espiritu about him. In the devotional by Ballard he stated that we need to keep all of what we do SIMPLE as through simplicity we can express the espiritu just as well. We also were able to understand a lot more about the amazing youth that we have in this chruch today and the strength that we need to keep this going and to know that God wants us to spread el Evangelio to all his children.

 

My distrito is so amazing and we all get together very well and have had the opportunity to bare our testimonies multiple times already to eachother. My distrito was able to give me a blessing last night as I pulled my hamstring the other day at gym and restrained my abdonminals lifting weights. (still accident prone) So now I am embarking on the journey of becoming a street baller and all I do in gym is drain the hoops. I drained 9 3 pointers in a row yesterday! So ya my muscle memory of back in the day is coming back and now I am getting way good. So soccer might be out of the picture NBA here I come! (Kobe Bryant)

 

This is such and amazing time to be at la CCM. There are more missionaries than ever and we are getting a new distrito hoy. But on more of a serious note I would like to end with something me and my companion learned yesterday in la clase. We were in companion study trying to figure out how we can teach our investigator Alexis better next time. We have already committed him to a baptism date and are so excited we had the courage to do that. But as we were studying Preach My Gospel we went into an empty room and I grabbed a marker and started to write out our outline on the board. As we got a generic outline mi companero came up and started to draw his impressions and draw arrows to what he wrote. Then I would think of something and write it down and draw arrows. As we were developing the amazing elaborate mess of doctrine. ( I will send pictures) We realized we wanted to teach him why our church is the true church. And is the true chruch because we have the POWER OF GOD. Now we were relating this to el Espiritu Santos y Bautizmo and realized that only through the spirit can we be baptized because of the feeling we get to know it's true. But only through bautizmo can we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and we can only be baptized through the POWER OF GOD. Now how do we relate this to our investigator our favorite teacher Hermano Boluch asked us. And this is the most amazing thing ever is that in this huge mess the one thing that always stayed on the board that we had never erased and we erased a lot of stuff and rewrote things. Was the simple word ORAR meaning to pray. What a humbling experience that was for mi companero y Yo know that in this huge scheme of learning doctrine and planning the lesson was a simple word that we needed to focus on which is orar (to pray). There is only one way you can sincerely know the Power of God and to udnerstand its amazing powers is through feeling the spirit and coming to know him personally through prayer you can receive answer to questions about life, about doctrine, and about eternal happiness. You can truly speak to your Eternal Father in heaven who loves you unconditionaly. For Love is the True Power of God.

 

Yo se que el Evangelio es verdadero y Jose Smith translated El Libro De Mormon. Yo se que El Salvador suffered a trevas el Expiacion. Yo se que soy hijo del Dios.