Temple Trip and Homemade Oreos

Dear family and friends,

                    WOW! This week was amazing! I'm so excited to share some of the wonderful things that happened! I just came back from the Mesa Temple visitor's center with one of my investigators: Angelica. Angelica was one of the first people I've met when I came into this area and she holds the record now for "Investigator That I've Worked With For the Longest Time" (Whoa Whoa Whoa for the longest... Who can name the song?). Seriously everyone else I've worked with either gets baptized or dropped. Anyway she's been going through A LOT of struggles in her life and the progress that she's made since I've met her is INSURMOUNTABLY HUGE! This is why I came on a mission: Changing lives and bringing people to Christ. Speaking of changing lives I have a funny story to share with you:

                     This week Elder Adona and I introduced Angelica to a 15 step stop smoking program. One of the steps in the program is that the participant crushes a pack of cigarettes. Well Angelica doesn't have a pack, she just gets it from someone else so we were trying to come up with ideas about getting her a pack. Angelica's mom also smokes, and she knows that Angelica's trying to quit, so she's not going to give her pack to Angelica so we're in a tough position. This is also a really important part of the program so we weren't going to skip it if we could. We decided to have Angelica buy the pack because it's going to look REALLY bad (and really weird too) if one of us buys it but she forgot to bring her wallet when our ride came to pick us up (we had the lesson in a member's home). We're almost at the member's home when I brought it up and Brother Greer pulled over. Brother Greer didn't have his wallet with him and Angelica didn't have her wallet with her so now one of us had to buy it. I was quivering. Talk about a moral dilemma. As a member of the church one does not naturally encourage people to break the Word of Wisdom. Even if you don't smoke you still don't want to encourage the cigarette companies by buying their stuff. It's even weirder when you're a missionary and it's blatantly obvious what you believe in. At the same time though you want to do everything you can to help your investigators too. So my companion bought Angelica a pack of cigarettes. Yeah that definitely ranks on the Top 10 Most Awkward experiences of my life. I felt so evil and unclean afterwards. Brother Greer gave us a hard time too. He was joking of course and understood the situation but still... Anyway the program gets the person to quit smoking in a week (and it actually works too. The sisters who also work in the ward I'm working in got two of their investigators to quit in a week using that program) and so far this is Day 4 for her. So far the program's working so it was for a good cause. 

 

                    So more about the temple: We drove down there with a recent convert who just got the Melchiezedek Priesthood yesterday and we drove Angelica down there. We (meaning me, Elder Adona and James, the recent convert who drove us to the temple) were pretty excited to go, Angelica being ho-hum about it. We got there and watched the new Joseph Smith movie and that was a pretty amazing experience! The Spirit was so strong there! After that we saw the family walk-through which melted my heart away and totally affected Angelica too. She loved it. When all was said and done she told us that she wanted to go back! That made my day! We took pictures in front of the Christus which was awesome! Overall I feel very spiritually refreshed and excited about going to work this upcoming week. On the way here Elder Adona, James and I busted out with "Amish Paradise". It was too epic for mortal tongue to describe.  

                We also made homemade Oreo's. Ask Dad for the pictures because I send them to him. These things were as big as your face I guarantee it. They also taste a MILLION times better. There's no way that I would want an oreo from the store. The homemade ones are cheaper, better and bigger. I'm sold. One of the missionaries that I live with is trying to lose weight and Elder Adona and I act like food devils and we tempt him ALL THE TIME. It was hilarious watching him succumb each and every time. I still get a really big kick out of it. This week I'm going to try making some thing I haven't had in a while: Funeral Potatoes. I love Elder Adona's cookbooks. They're awesome!   

                The sister missionaries who have been working in the same ward as us are leaving which is sad. By Wednesday we'll be taking over their area again. Brother Torres and the bishop cried about it. Half the ward's in mourning. Well our work is about to double as will be our area. I'm looking forward to it although the sisters had a lot of weirdo's in their area. Still, I love working and I love you.

Love,

Elder Boothe

Spiritual Insights and Making Good Lasagna

Dear family and friends,

 

            This has been another week in the life of Elder Boothe. There hasn't been a whole lot that's happened. 

 

            I've ventured out a little bit in terms of cooking: I made lasagna by myself for the first time ever. I used a recipe from Elder Adona's cookbook. It was delicious and I shared a lot of it with a bunch of different missionaries. They liked it and I liked it so I consider the recipe a success. I also made a chicken alfredo fettucini which was delicious! I actually ventured out and bought a chicken. Elder Adona helped me make the chicken and cook it. It smelled really good and the chicken came apart very easily. Elder Sheets' birthday is coming up this week (Elder Sheets is a missionary I live with. He's one of the zone leaders) and Elder Adona said he was going to make him oreo cookies from scratch. I said I'd help Elder Adona so this should be fun. 

 

            So I'd like you to ponder these questions personally that were asked to me:

1. What is an area in your life that you feel that you need to improve on the most?
2. If your companion (sibling,spouse,parent etc.) were here right beside you and we asked him/her on what area you need to improve on what would they say?
3. If the Savior Himself were right beside you and He has His arm around, He's telling you that He loves you but there's just one thing...what would that one thing be?

And what are you doing now to work on these things?

 

I figured that this would be helpful for all of you because I've found these same questions helpful for me as well. I've just been too impatient with my investigators lately as I've been caught up too much on the techincal mechanics of the mission but the mission is really all about the spiritual progess that our investigators are making, the invitations that will lead them to come unto Christ and the joy that comes from gospel living. As we consecrate our lives more fully to the Lord He in turn blesses us by consecrating everything we go through to the welfare and benefit of His children. The scriptures repeatedly tell us that the Lord consecrates our afflictions for our gain.

 

2 Nephi 2:2 - "Nevertheless, Jacob, my first-born in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain."

 

2 Nephi 2:25 - "And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction." (The entire Nephite-Lamanite conflicts are consecrated so that when the Nephites forget the Lord their afflictions bring them back to Him. To look unto God is everlasting life.)

 

Alma 32:6 -  "And now when Alma heard this, he turned him about, his face immediately towards him, and he beheld with great joy; for he beheld that their afflictions had truly humbled them, and that they were in a preparation to hear the word." (Here the poor people among the Zoramites are being prepared to hear Alma and Amulek and how are they being prepared? Through being cast out of a synagogue.)

 

So there are a few examples of how the Lord consecrates our trials for our gain but there are more examples. Right now our teaching pool's shrunk again but Elder Adona and I are making plans to change that.

 

Anyway that's all for now folks. Good to hear from you all. I love you and pray for you.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

A Better Week

Dear family and friends,

 

           My last e-mail spoke of us being humbled. This past week Elder Adona and I recovered and found two new people this week! They both have baptismal dates: One for the 11th and the other one for the 18th. They both seem solid, even though one of them just cancelled right before I came and e-mailed you. Last week was transfer week and Elder Adona and I are both staying! YEAH! I really didn't want to leave this area. The work is progressing so much! We had three investigators come to church this past Sunday and as of now we have five investigators with baptismal dates! Like I said we recovered greatly, now our focus is solidifying these people. 

 

                  The gospel blesses people's lives the best when they actually live it. Most of the time they don't read the Book of Mormon until we read it with them but when they do read it on their own they progress so much faster! The same is true when they go to church or live any other principle. When they live these priniciples that seed mentioned in Alma 32 starts growing. Usually it looks like it takes a lot of work before that seed takes a hold and sometimes it feels like we have to jam that seed into the ground before there's any growth. Fortunately though if we keep at it they actually do learn and grow. That's something Elder Adona taught me. I've learned a lot about faith and persistence since I've been with him. He's taught me to never give up and to always have at least a little bit of faith in people, even if they don't deserve it.

 

            Recently we've been coordinating our efforts with the sister missionaries in our ward. It's been a lot of fun talking about the member missionary program and tonight we're going to be discussing it with the bishopric. Within a few months we plan on getting the ward missionaries to teach the lesson and to get other people to start setting a date by which time they can find someone who's ready to take the lessons. It's a program Elder Ballard started and supposedly it's pretty good. We've also been trying to make our coordination meetings run more effectively and we've been improving our efforts to work with Brother Torres, our ward mission leader. This coordination should yield a greater harvest of souls and it should cause the South Mountain ward to explode! 

 

              Also, in case you've been wondering why my last two e-mails came in on Tuesdays rather than Mondays it's because:

 

(a) Last week was transfer week. P-day gets moved to Tuesday on transfer week

(b) Martin Luther King Jr. day is celebrated by the library which means that it's closed.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

The Bone Fide Ghetto and Pride

Dear family and friends,

 

         This past week was unusually slow. We had four investigators with baptismal dates, now we only have one, for March 3rd. I'm not going to complain or vent as I've done in the past I'm just here to report the facts. Elder Adona and I think this week is meant to be a humbling week. We've had a lot of success until recently and I think it's gone to my head so Heavenly Father's giving me a wake up call. There's a scripture that comes to mind that I just recently read during my personal study. 

 

            Helaman 12:3: "And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him."

 

         I felt this hit me pretty hard and a light bulb went of in my head. People are lazy and forgetful and we're quick to cry unto the Lord when we're hurting but when the pain is over we quickly forget about it and move on to our old ways. There's no lasting change. The purpose of trials and afflictions can strengthen us, if we let it. Trials frequently require us to put the important things in perspective and require us to give up whatever we need to give up. However if we have a hardened heart we'll just go back to our old ways once the trial has passed. That leads us to verse 4:

 

          "O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!" 

 

           So like I said right now things are going pretty slow. Our biggest struggle right now is finding people to teach. That's been a struggle for me my entire mission usually because there's no golden bullet to finding. Every finding method has a flaw to it and generally speaking all the solid investigators I've found usually come when I don't expect it. We're praying hard right now and I know it's a matter of "when" not "if" we get new investigators. The important thing that I've learned while I've been with Elder Adona is that YOU NEVER GIVE UP and you always have just a little hope left for people, even if they flake out on you 500 times. 

 

          This week I've been in a major smoothie phase and I've learned how to make some good smoothies too. The zone leaders (a.k.a the other missionaries that I live with) coined the phrase a few weeks ago "smooth as a boothe" and now they even mentioned "smoothie boothie". I laugh because it's all in good fun.

 

           So have you ever thought about or wondered what we do in our spare time when we're bored? I bet most of you have a good idea since you've been on missions yourselves but if not here's a few things we do. We had an appointment earlier today with Henry (speaking of which he gave me a fancy Charles Raymond watch when we were last over. It was really nice.)  that cancelled and while we were waiting for the bus Elder Adona and I talked about what the world would be like if everybody lived the word of wisdom. Well Elder Adona had an investigator back in his last area who smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day. Elder Adona said he calculated that that man spent $55,000 on cigarettes his entire life. So we asked ourselves what if half of the people in the United States smoked and those people spent that much money on cigarettes. We roughly estimated that there were 12 million people so half of that would be about 6 million people. So:

 

                  6,000,000 x 55,000 = 3.3 x 10 to the eleventh power. Basically two threes with eleven zeros. That's A TON of money! And that's assuming that everyone who smokes smokes that much. I'm sure the number's bigger but you get the point. Heber J. Grant did say that if the entire world lived the word of wisdom there would be no poverty or debt. 

 

Anyway I love you all,

 

Elder Boothe

P.S. I said earlier that I didn't live in a ghetto. This is not true. I have been corrected by the other missionaries that I live with. I live in a true bona fide ghetto. There is A LOT of weed here. Haven't heard any gun shots though, thank goodness.

First post of 2012‏

Dear family and friends,

 

              2012 had an awesome beginning with Elder Adona and I baptizing Henry! It was a magnificent start and it was a very spiritual experience to be sure. There were no massive hick-ups or last minute stunts pulled by the adversary which helped my nerves A LOT! For once I was actually calm right before the baptism started. Elder Adona and I are getting more organized with our baptisms the more we keep doing them. We had the pianist play music as Henry and Brother Faas (the member who baptized him) entered the water, (we actually called our pianist in advance this time as well as our chorister which for us is a HUGE achievement), the members showed up on time (because we told them that it was half an hour before it actually started) and we got a pretty good turn out too. Two members of the bishopric and the Elders quorum presidency showed up, we had a progressing investigator there plus a bunch of other really cool members too. The program came at the last second although in comparison to our other baptisms this was actually pretty early, probably because our ward mission leader didn't do it. Henry said that he felt like he was part of the family which he most totally is now. I only wish that I'd brought my camera to the event. Oh well, at least I have a program. 

 

              Since our ward mission leader's out of town he forgot to assign someone to teach the Gospel Principles class so Elder Adona and I took charge at the last minute and once again we kicked the new year off right by teaching about missionary work. It was a very good lesson although I still feel like it's awkward to teach about missionary work in front of investigators but it's always fine. The lesson went great considering that Elder Adona and I did NOT prepare it in advance. Most of the class is made up of recent converts. I think the South Mountain ward's had like 14 baptisms this year. Yeah no wonder the members are excited about missionary work. Now that we have a list of their schedules getting member present lessons should be a cake walk even though we still do pretty well at getting those. 

 

               We recently met a guy by the name of Obed-Omar Escamilla. He's a middle-eastern guy who's not much older than us even though he won't tell us his age because he believes that "there's a difference between the age of the mind and the age that man counts" or some other old-people jargon. Anyway this guy's golder than the golden plates. He has a baptismal date for the 21st of January, he loves meeting with us and wants to meet everyday (hee hee hee "ask and ye shall receive right?), and he soaks up everything we say. Then again almost all of our investigators since I've been here are basically a few steps away from jumping in the water. It's amazing to see how the Lord prepares people. Elder Adona and I are very grateful for the work and the success. 

 

              We love you all and hope that you're all doing fantastically.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe