December 16, 2013

I had a great week this week haha. I keep saying I am so happy and eventually I had to go to the hospital this last week because I was so happy haha:) At the Christmas conference I started to have heart palpitations and my heart was beating like 200 beats per minute. I blacked out for a bit and went to the Hospital. They heard I came from a Christmas party and thought it happened from too much alcohol and stuff like that and immorality and everything, haha.  Little did they know that we were just singing Hymns earlier and that we teach people not to do all that bad stuff. They then asked me what I was feeling before I had heart palpitations, I told them I was just feeling really happy and just moments before I was explaining to a sister that I feel really happy and then I stood up and then my heart started beating super fast. 

Heart palpitations can be caused by too much stress, too little sleep and things all adding up, they can also be caused by extreme emotions.  We were celebrating Christmas and all missionaries are tired so maybe that is it, haha.  But the medical diagnosis was that I was too happy and my heart couldn't take the happiness, haha. The emotional force of my joy was too great and created a hyped level of heart beats. So that's a pretty awesome story:)

I hope that will convince someone to share the gospel more because that's just what happens, haha. You get too happy. They also told me not to drink coffee, or alcohol and stay away from women for a while to help me heal and I laughed because they don't really have to worry about that. 

The family we are teaching and I have been sharing about is so amazing. They just keep coming to church and loving it more and more. They are really excited for Baptism and are working hard together. They stopped drinking coffee and alcohol and tea and I am just amazed how every principle we teach they accept openly and lovingly, excited for the blessings that we promise them. They keep reminding us about their Baptism. We were teaching a new investigator yesterday and we asked Him why is it important to know that the Gospel is true. He then opened up and shared how He really wanted to know who Jesus Christ was:) Then my companion and I looked at each other and smiled and said in our minds "Yes!! He is ready!"  and then continued teaching and shared John 17:3 and that by knowing Him He will also find Eternal life. WE explained how to get to know Him and how to pray and it was just so awesome. All missionaries need or actually all the Lord needs is that we ask a sincere question, just like Joseph Smith and it allows the whole gospel to be unfolded unto us:)

We know that all it takes is a sincere desire to know and that eventually He will find His answer:) 

Love, Elder Blackham

December 9, 2013

 THis week was great:) The blessings and success just keep coming, sometimes we have no idea how we are going to reach the goal but we just say to ourselves, that it doesn't matter the odds, what matters is the faith:) We just put the nose to the grinder and it all works out in the end:) 

There is a family we are teaching that is so incredible, every time we teach a lesson everything goes wrong. The baby starts crying, neighbors are yelling and partying and its so hard to focus and so loud. But no matter how bad it goes in my view it goes so great to the family and when we come back they remembered everything and are keeping the commitments and testifying on how it is changing their family. They came to church as a whole family and brought friends and extended family and loved it. It just shows how powerful the spirit is:) It is the spirit that touches peoples hearts as they strive to live the gospel and keep commitments.

It doesn't really matter how good the lesson went as long as they read, or pray as a family they will receive the blessings of the gospel. The gospel will have no effect on you until you begin to live it. So no matter the principles we teach or how we teach;  the more important is that they act and try it, then they will know. The blessings of the gospel are not something taught they are things and experiences that are caught through living it and having the Holy Ghost testify of its truthfulness to us. No one will ever be converted to the gospel without living it. That's why if you try to convince someone the gospel is true through telling someone, they can just say, "No its not, haha. But once they try it,you don't even really need to say anything because they will know it. As missionaries we just need to get out of the way of the spirit. Plan commitments first and then plan on what to teach to help them keep commitments, and you might see a lot more conversion:) 

In my gospel studies I was studying about charity in the 7th chapter of Moroni. I was wondering why all things must fail except for charity. I was thinking, "what that's not fair to virtue or to other good things." So I pondered it and thought about it and I realized that charity is the motive behind the other principles, and the sincerity of it. In Romans 13:10 it says that love is the fulfillment of the law. We cant just keep Gods laws, we also have to keep Gods laws and be happy about it and sincere and do it because we love. Other wise it wont benefit us and it will fail. For example if everything went Satan's way we would be forced to do everything and we could not choose to follow God out of Love and freedom and choice. All of our obedience means nothing and we wouldn't learn anything.  We couldn't prove anything or grow. In God's plan we learn to obey because we love Him, then we truly gain the blessings, because it is an act of our own agency and free will. We must learn to do what Christ does while thinking and feeling the way He thinks and feels. That is what charity is. That is why in verse 48 it says we will be like Him because we have not only acted like Him and obeyed but we learned to feel like He does and think Like Him. :) This does not mean that we shouldn't obey any commandment we don't want to, it means we obey them because we Love God. As we live the commandments out of our own free will and choice our love will increase and we will learn that only when we obey can we gain that thinking, and feeling that Christ has:) 

Love, Elder Blackham

December 2, 2013

Over here we had an amazing thanksgiving:) We taught really great lessons and were able to help people come closer to the Savior. We are just having the time of our lives preaching the gospel here:) Just giving it our 100% all.

We had a couple families we are teaching show up to church and it was so amazing! They loved it and we taught them later that day and they thanked us for sharing the gospel with them. I am so grateful too and I looked at their whole family smiling at Elder Montejo and me and I couldn't help but to tear up:) The spirit was so strong as we testified of the restoration and they are reading and praying as a family and it just doesn't get any better than that. 

This man that came up to us on the street is so cool too and is so excited to be baptized and change his life:) All these things are just miracles in my eyes and I love to serve the Lord, there really isn't anyone else worth serving, because when you serve others you are also serving the Lord:) 

As far as things that I learned this week I learned a lot about the gift of discernment by reading a talk by Elder Bednar called "Quick to Observe". It really expounds on the blessings of this gift and how it can be used and how there are 4 main things or ways we use discernment. The most valuable ones are the ways we recognize good and evil within ourselves. I learned how to better recognize my thoughts and feelings to realize if my perspectives or very thoughts were in line with God or not. It really helped me feel the spirit in greater measure and recognize the things I can do better. I am really trying to learn to use it so I can recognize and help bring about the good in others and in myself. He said that this is the highest form of discernment and not just recognizing the hidden concern in statements or distinguishing the falsehood in something but to recognize truthfulness in a testimony, or in our own testimony. We need to see the good intents of others or in ourselves:) It really helped me teach and listen better:) The church is true:) 

Love Elder Blackham

December 31, 2012

Here in the PHilippines World War 3 just happened over New Years and it was crazy, ha ha! It sounded insane and fireworks go off from everywhere 4 hours before and after New Years, we even saw a ton when we were out yesterday. They really know how to party it up here in the pines:) We haven't been able to get a lot of work done this last week because I was sick and we had zone conference and the Holidays we weren't allowed to proselyte that much for safety reasons. But I am happy as ever and learning tons and tons of amazing things!!:) I am about half way through Jesus The Christ but I started a couple months before I left on my mission. I am just taking it slow and I don't move on till I know how I might apply it to my life. 

I am going to be with my comp another transfer and he said I would be his longest companion, haha. So that's interesting. I feel a great amount of hope and excitement in my heart for this new year and it is so amazing:) I am so excited to just keep on workin and that the Holiday season is over so that we can work a ton more and people won't be gone and it will just be sweet!!!  I am so grateful for the power of the atonement to free us from not only our sins and guilt but also our weaknesses and shortcomings to help us become more than we are:) 

 Its so simple:) Matt. 11:28-30:) Faith makes the whole world beautiful and hope anchors us to the gospel and to good works:) As we use the atonement we gain a personal realtionship with our Savior and come to know Him personally and as our friend and Savior:) The more personal experiences you have with Him and the more you allow Him to be in your life and help you, the better your relationship will be. I know that through Him all things are possible and we can overcome all and become what we came here to be:) In the name of Jesus Christ Amen:)

Love, Elder Blackham

December 24, 2012

This Christmas was amazing!! I wish we could have gotten more work in, the mission rules at this time is to not work so much and be home at 7:30 every night because its dangerous, haha. People are so giving and wonderful here in the Philippines, if you are their guest you are given all they have without asking anything in return. That is the culture here and its so humbling to be in it. Lately I have just been learning a ton about Charity and how charity truly is the greatest:) I think to have charity is to think and feel as Christ does:) If we do that then we would of course act and be like him. You can act like him but to be him is greater and I think that starts in the true fabrics of our thoughts and feeling and love for Christ and submission of our will to his:) We cant just give we must love to do it to be like Christ and we do that by giving our heart to the Lord and allowing to change us. Its so so so hard but oh it is so so so so worth it. Notice how there is one more so on the worth it part:) Any ways I ate so much I feel sick, haha and I definitely feel the Love of the Lord and all who love me during this Christmas season.

 

Love, Elder BLackham

December 17, 2012

This week has been so amazing!! Once again super hard, but suer totally mazing!! My tagalog is getting a ton better, to where I dont have to translate in my head so much when I speak but I still cant understand what people say haha. So I will just keep workin at it and it will get better and better:)

II want to say thank you to everyone who has sent letters and such.  I have gotten letters this week and I really appreciate them I will write back but it will take 3 weeks or 4 to actually get to your house the letters I got were from October and November so if anyone sent letters at that time they made me happier:) Haha Oh and Mom thank you so much for the packge I started opening the gifts and I love the music, if you want to send more church music please do because my mp3 plyer is bawal here, that means forbidden. 

Oh my gosh I love music!!! I love to sing Christmas songs everywhere. I am really feelin the Christmas spirit and I make oatmeal every morning here and its so good and so cheap!! :) I feel like a pioneer every time I eat it:) 

I established a rule with my comp that we don,t end planning session at the end of the day until we resolve all conflicts or any feelings of anger or anything that bothered one of us to each other and fix whatever it was. This has blessed our companionship so much. Also just being as the apostles when Christ said one would betray Him. They all said Lord is it I? I read a talk called the 4th missionary this week and that was amazing!! It talked about the 2 ways to serve in the church the hard way or the easy way. They both do the almost the same benefit to the people they serve but one of them actually becomes a better person while the other is sad and doesnt change. The key is to give the Lord your heart. Some people serve but their mind and heart are somewhere else they can serve whole mission and do a lot of good and never actually benefit themselves from it because they didn't give the Lord their heart and therefore the Lord couldnot change them. 

I will send you the talk:) To summarize it its like the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. You can do all things but if you have not charity it proffiteth you nothing. Because of our agency the lord cant change our heart unless we give it to him:) Its like being obedient but not letting yourself receive the blessings thereof:) 

 

This week we taught a girl that was cast out from other churches for sinning. We taught that the atonement can heal and that the weight and sins that are hard to carry can be swept away through living the gospel of Jesus Christ and using His atonement. It was so beautiful. She started crying and smiling, then as we taught her to pray the spirit came so strong that there was no doubt she felt it. It was one of the most sincere payers I have heard in my life, asking for healing and help:) Oh how beautiful it was. It reminded me of the story in the New testament where a woman washed the Saviors feet with her tears and annointed oil of great price, and came to him with  broken heart and a contrite spirit and then the savior said to her, "your sins are forgiven thee" I think that he says this over and over again in the scriptures so that we 2000 years later can truly believe that He can forgive us of our sins. His atonement truly is infinite in every way:) Every time He says this there was always someone who said that He didn't have that power, but that's satan telling us that we cant be forgiven. Oh the miracle and the amazing gift of forgiveness:) It touched my heart so much and I feel so blessed I cant explain how grateful I am that I was able to teach that. She has excepted baptism too.

 

This work is so amazing!!!!!!!!!! I saw a family get sealed too that was also incredible:) Any ways thanks for everything and all that you do and those that send letters or dear elders I get them and thank you:) You are all a strength to me and I feel blessed to have known you:)

 

Love,

Elder Blackham

December 10, 2012

I AM SAFE haha:) The tropical storm didn't even cause rain here in dusty and polluted Pasig City.  But it still is so beautiful:) It gets even more beautiful every day and more fun and the spirit of this word and the Lord sinks deeper and deeper in my heart to where no matter what happens I can't help but to feel like flying and yelling to all that this is the true gospel:) That God loves us more than we can comprehend, that through the gospel we use the atonement to become clean and return to God. That through the prophet Joseph Smith we know that now and have all power and authority to carry out and administer the Gospel and that The Book of Mormon is evidence that all that I just said is true and you will get closer to your Savior Jesus Christ through reading and pondering these words than any other book!!:)

 This week was another hard week but also a totally amazing and wonderful week that I am so grateful for:) I consider it such  blessing to go through hardships in this life, it must mean the Lord loves me a lot and is just giving me opportunities to be better. We have about 9 new investigators right now so that's pretty awesome:) I love to be out teaching people, to even say to someone that God loves them is pretty darn amazing:)!!! 

My companion was sick for 4 days this last week and I was sick for one. Its pretty stinkin hard to stay home but I use the best of my time to study and prepare for the days when we don't. We went out yesterday and it felt so good, everything looked even more beautiful than it did before:) As I thought about it and we were teaching repentance to someone I realized a connection to sickness and repentance. When we experience a sickness for even a day or a few days the day we feel better is amazing and we see more clearly and can't help but  be grateful and smile.  It's the same with repentance; every single time we truly repent we become more like Christ and more changed and freed from the natural man and every day looks so much more amazing and our joy and capacity to love increases. 

Some people do not recognize the importance of sincere and deep repentance every day. As we sincerely strive to be like Christ repentance should be a natural result. Understanding always leads to repentance and repentance is change:) Repenting every day is seeing a more clean and beautiful world the next day, because your perception and Character is changing to be more like Christ. That really is the central purpose of this life, to become like our Savior and return to God's presence. You can't do one without the other and you can't do either without repentance. I am so happy I can change, I need only look at the example of my Savior and then I am lead to rejoice in the gift of repentance he gave me to become like Him:) He even paid for it all, the pain I cause to others which I could never pay for, when we sin it effects so much that I am so amazed at the Saviors ability to pay for the little sins, but he paid for it all, he descended below it all, there is no point too low that He can not reach down and lift us up. Repenting every day is just choosing to be lifted higher every day:) 

I wish I could share all that I am learning, I love the sacrament:) I am getting witnesses from the spirit every time I read The Book of Mormon that it's true as long as I sincerely read:) I cannot deny those witnesses and I love telling others I know it's true. Saying that covers saying that the gospel is restored and Joseph Smith is a prophet and this is the true church!:) 

Right now I am addicted to this drink called buko shakes.  It's like the closest thing to milk here in the Philippines:) 

We finally got the ensign conference talks and I love them!!!! Wow modern revelation is just always so amazing!! Choosing to live the Gospel is really honestly choosing happiness, I know that, its simply the fact of life haha:) 

I totally miss Christmas music. I try to be like Buddy the Elf and sing a Christmas song at every lesson we teach and just as we are walking. MY companion always I'm too happy, or that I'm working him too hard like its a disease, haha,  If it's a disease may I never recover haha:)

 

Love Elder Blackham,

December 3, 2012

I am so grateful for the quote from Winnie the Pooh:) I put the quotes you and Nonnie send me and put them above my studying desk:)

 This week was probably the hardest week so far of my whole mission and life haha. I saw weaknesses I didn't know I had and was brought to my knees for help and comfort and strength. I got discouraged, really discouraged on Saturday.  That's probably the hardest day and one that's in the journal books, haha. It's just a really hard situation for me to be in and I wish I was stronger but I am not. But that's okay I don't need to be, I just need to be humble and submissive. I swear every thing good inside me has been stretched to its limit, haha, but that just means the beginning of a lot of growth. 

Then after working so hard this week and not wasting any time; our numbers were not very good and the zone goal was raised. However on Sunday when I took the sacrament and basically was saying to myself " whatever it takes I will do it:) There is a reason I am here."   I just felt like I was not making a difference, but honestly it's nothing I really do.  I am not the one making a difference, the Lord is. 

Other than all the trials that come with my companion, he really is hilarious  I really just don't know how to react to many of the things that he does, haha.  When I took the sacrament all my pains and worries from the last week went away, I felt so clean and so good and everything after that has just been filled with strength and with the spirit. Taking the sacrament worthily means more when you give the Lord your all during the week. I understand a lot more what it means to "offer up your sacraments".   For me it means you do all you absolutely can during the week and all you can in life and repent and just really give living the gospel your all.  Then when you take the sacrament you kinda offer up all you have done and ask forgiveness and say, "Thy will be done Lord :)"

 Its so strengthening and amazing:) !!  I feel so free!!  

So funny things that have happened is my companion and I when we tract a street we make up stories for each house about why they are ready to hear the gospel and always make a point to say this is the one:) It's really been a roller coaster of ups and downs. We taught one person who was saying there are no prophets and there is no true church and that Joseph Smith isn't a prophet but we bore testimony that he is. Then when I got home I was reading the Book of Mormon and I felt so close to Christ that I knew without a doubt and the spirit touched my heart that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. The man who said it wasn't said that you just need faith and the Bible but I have faith and I have read the Bible and I feel closest when I read the Book of Mormon that says so simply the doctrines of Jesus Christ. Its all about Christ every bit of it:)

 

So Christmas is coming up and its still hot outside.

We have 3 new investigators we found this week going door to door. It's hard in the Philippines because people will let you in even if they are not wanting or ready to hear because its culture to be polite to let people in. You really really need discernment if you are really going to find those who are prepared and want to listen. I know this next week will be amazing and we will have even more success because of all that we have learned this week. This Filipino guy scared us half to death when we knocked on his gate he popped his head over the wall and really loudly said what!! It was really dark and all we saw was a little face without very many teeth yelling at us.  Haha, I sing at houses Christmas songs to get into them but that doesn't work haha. Anyway life is the best and I am the happiest ever:) !!!! Love you:)