January 20, 2014

Things are doing great:) We have been having tons of success. We have a few new families that we are now teaching consistently and are progressing and its so so so amazing:) I love it so much:)

I love to see people question and wonder and ask to know things. THis one family just had so many questions about the plan of salvation in our first lesson so we decided to start teaching that instead of normally teaching the restoration first, it all goes together anyway. Their questions were like "how will I know if I can see my husband in the next life? or my children? What is the purpose of life? Where did we really come from? How do you pray?" I just can't stop smiling when people are excited and ask  the perfect questions ever:) Haha I almost had palpitations in my heart again!  Haha, joke, but seriously I get so happy to teach :)

The best thing ever too is to help some one discover true repentance for the first time. Repentance really touched some of our investigators this week :) They are so amazing:) They poured out the their heart in understanding to us this week. We taught the Plan of Salvation also to a sister who had a baby and then her child died three days later. 

We are just having the time of our lives out here, my e-mails must sound unreal and stuff because of all that happens and all the great things like every week but that's just really how it is going right now. I know it's because we are trying our best to be exactly obedient and to do all we can to help these people:) All blessings come from obedience to the law in which those blessings are predicated:) We aren't special or anything this is the same priesthood and Church as in the time of Christ so we can expect these things to happen if we obey:)

Love,

Elder Blackham

January 13, 2014

The beginning of the letter is a reply to Elder Blackham's Mom regarding the problem he has been having getting sleep due to the fact he lives next door to pig slaughtering house and can hear the pig screams throughout the night.  The italics is what Mom wrote to Elder Blackham: (I am really concerned about your lack of sleep and exhaustion.  I am still studying about prayer.   I have learned that I need to be specific in my prayers.  So, this week I have been specifically praying that you can get sleep and be rested and that you will not be woken up by the screaming pigs.  That is a pretty specific prayer for me.  I am working on my faith, so I am not sure that I have enough faith to make this happen.  But, I am daily praying that you can get rest and not be woken by screaming pigs.  Has it been any better?)

BRET'S RESPONSE TO THIS QUESTION:

I actually have been getting more sleep and I have been surprised why I haven't heard the pigs for a while. SO your prayers are working :)

It's just so fun to be a missionary.  The baptism of the Nebit family will be next Saturday and we have quite a few lined up for the next two months. This really has been a miracle because when my companion and I got here and whitewashed the area we had no one to teach and the history of the area was not good either.  But, we prayed and fasted and believed that if the Lord could do anything, why not His work? :) SO, we just put our nose to the grinder and it's just so amazing what the Lord can do if you just put your trust in Him:) 

This last week we had a lot of great experiences with investigators. One investigator had a dream about the temple and His dead father was in there waiting for Him. He said he saw workers there dressed in all white and it was so cool. This investigator had never been to the temple and did not understand his dream.   We then explained his dream to him.  He said he had asked many different people about the dream.  They had tried to explain this dream but he new their explanations were wrong.  He told us that he knew and felt that what we said was right. We explained about temple work and work for the dead and it was cool to see His face light up.  Wow that was just a really cool spiritual experience:) 

We also taught another lesson to this family who wasn't taking the lessons so serious. I just got super upfront with them and was constrained by the spirit to just pour my heart in explanation and pure testimony. I love this family so much, I explained the Plan of Salvation and our purpose on earth and the requirements for the 3 kingdoms. I explained if they want the lowest kingdom, they don't have to do anything.  I told them if they want the second kingdom, they just need to be good and follow some of Christs teachings. But, if they want to make it to the Highest kingdom and be together as a family they must have faith in Christ, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end. I explained that is why we are here as missionaries in their home.  I told them we aren't there just to visit because it's fun.  We are there to change their lives through the gospel and that they can't make it to the happiest and best kingdom (which is the kingdom of God) without the gospel.  But, that with the gospel they can be together forever:) It was amazing!  They went to church as a family the next day for the first time without us even asking them to come to church. They just really wanted to do so. I was just amazed at the change that happened to them. The next day we saw them, they were so engaged in the gospel and I feel and could see they set the goal in their hearts to be a forever family:) They now ask us to come back and remind us instead of us reminding them:) 

I learned a lot this last week about how to love others and how to love the Lord and to give more of my heart to Him. It's hard to explain as a missionary when these changes you feel in your heart happen. It's just I see things differently and feel about things differently and understand things differently as I am striving to give my all. I feel more calm and more peace. I feel it when I testify with the power of the spirit and my heart and there is no greater feeling. The Holy Ghost is guiding us in everything, and I know that the happiest and most successful missionary is just the missionary who has the Holy Ghost with Him. That comes as we give up our desires and just desire what the Lord wants, as we constantly align our life with Him, and are constantly accountable for our covenants and everything we learn and feel what we must change to be more accepted by Him. I guess this week I was blessed to feel the change in my heart that I am searching for and trying to obtain, and that the Lord though His spirit is telling me that He is pleased:) 

Love,

Elder Blackham

January 6, 2014

Things are great!  It was kinda a rough week or just a slow start this week but then it turned out all right in the end. Elder Montejo and I are really trying to rise up and step it up. 

I am just so absolutely exhausted, haha. But its so much fun. The Lord has been quite literally been my strength this week. Even though I am exhausted, as I submit to His will, things and stress just seem to go away and I am encircled in the arms of His love. I am just the luckiest Elder ever because I have a temple inside of my mission, very spoiled as a missionary. I can't imagine going through the mission without the strength help and revelation that I feel when I go through the temple:) 

I really like what it says in 2 Nephi 4:32 about how when we have a broken heart and contrite spirit that the gates of Hell are closed to us. I am really trying to learn how to have that all the time.  I am understanding that it doesn't mean that you are super hard on yourself;  it means that you are just really trying and willing to change. The sorrow that brings discouragement comes from satan and is not Godly sorrow.  The sorrow that leads to action and renewed commitment is Godly sorrow:) 

I really like how the gospel is the answer for everything and is the key to accessing the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, and I love how families can be together forever:) I love finding new people to teach because it allows us to open up a whole new world to them. We get to find out what they want, what their dreams are,  what's important to them.  Then we let them know that they can access the atonement of Jesus Christ through the Gospel and that they can be healed and that they are loved more than they know. I love to see the look in their eyes:)

I know this is true, I have had undeniable experiences and blessings from the Holy Ghost. The gift of testimony is a key to getting the gift of eternal life which is the greatest of all gifts of God. Even if I didn't know this was true I would want to know.  The blessings are so amazing, the feelings are undeniable and the love is so great:) 

Love, Elder Blackham

January 28, 2013

So basically I have been sick this whole last week and its been a total bummer but I learned a lot and have read and studied a lot. The day I was able to go out was the most beautiful day ever!!!!! I am just so amazed about how important this work is. I read about Abinadi and the apostles and I was reading Jesus the Christ and just everything was screaming out that nothing else really matters but the Gospel.  There is nothing more valuable and more precious or more beautiful. When people say I am too busy to listen, if it wasn't rude, I would say back, "This is eternal life, this is a forever family, no matter what you are doing now no matter what you're thinking; the message we have to share is more valuable than it all, this message is for you and we are the ministers to bring unto you salvation, is that not worth your time?" But that's rude and unless the spirit prompts me to I am not going to be over bearing, and that would be overbearing especially in this culture. But I just wish people would understand, and just open up and hear and let the spirit touch their lives. I wish I could speak with the tongue of angels, I can when the Lord permits through my faith but it is a very foreign thing to me naturally to do so. Basically what I learned this week is even more the importance of this work and a new-found deeper and more powerful conviction and desire to teach and share the gospel:) I feel the spirit enter my heart as I go out without doubt or fear and just go:) Its so amazing!! I love the answers to prayer, I love that I can communicate with God:) Its something so amazing that the King and Creator of all takes time to talk to me personally and every one of us really:) The gospel is for everyone and yet it is so personally powerful to each individual person. It is the power the answer to every problem every heart ache every sin, and is life eternal, and I get to give it to people:) WOW now that's awesome:)

Oh and yea there are tons of mangoes here and they are the best tasting things in the world, I miss milk more than anything but Its all good:)

 

Love,
Elder Blackham

January 21, 2013

I got letters this week from Dear Elder, anyone who sends dear elder, just to let them know it does get to me and I am grateful:) 

So this week I have been pretty sick, we were on splits and I was taken to this families house and I was pretty sick.  They layed me down on this wooden bench and gave me a pillow, then they anointed my head with their oil and also my feet and treated me like a king, I was so blessed by them, and learned a great lesson from this family about charity. They then cooked and fed me and I was just amazed at their love. They gave me the best of all they could, I know its not a lot as far as the world goes but it was all they had and wow, I am just so grateful for them it touched my heart to the center:) 

We had a vietnamese person show up to church he doesn't speak Tagolog and his English is less than a two year old child, but he just smiles super huge to everything. It will be interesting to teach him, I am requesting a Vietnamese dictionary and Book of Mormon so that we can teach him:) 

Also another investigator showed up to church, his name is Omar and he is awesome, I see him being a great Father some day, he is listening because of how much he heard the gospel blesses families even though he is 21 and doesn't have a family of his own yet. We taught him the restoration and he was really receptive, the spirit was so strong while we were there. I have been reading about Abinadi in the Book of Mormon and I am so amazed at how he layed out such beautiful and simple doctrine about the plan of salvation and the atonement, no other book has this amazing doctrine about Jesus Christ:)

I am understanding the language a lot more, there was a rap Tagolog song on the radio on a Jeepnee and it was going super fast and I understood it all, and I am able to engage anyone in conversation now and its super fun, Gods children truly are amazing, and its such a blessing that every day of my life can be about them:) I am learning so much about satan and the things he does to try to prevent me from being the best I can, if he can just get me to not open my mouth about this truth then he has succeeded, I love to just prove him wrong and rise up and whenever I have a thought that I can't or something, I just simply do it anyways to prove him wrong and be the best I can, it makes it kinda fun :) I love this work:) Shall we not go on in such a great cause?

 

Love, Elder Blackham

January 14, 2013

The tender mercies of the Lord are amazing.  One of the greatest lessons I am learning is the blessing of partaking of the Sacrament and the strength and change I feel when I partake of the Sacrament worthily and renew my covenants. I make it a point to read and study about the atonement every Sunday and ponder on all that my Savior carries for me and all the burdens He frees me from:)

I was recently reading Mosiah 14 and I love the verses 4 and 5 so much:) As I read those verses over and over I replaced every time it says our or we with my and I:) The atonement is so personal and I would challenge anyone to read that chapter and to replace the 3rd Person with the First Person let the spirit fill your heart with the Love God has for you.  We can receive so much strength from the Savior:) As I would repeat these scriptures in my mind through out the day I couldn't help but tap into a real power beyond my own, and speak and love with more energy and love and joy:) 

The Savior truly is our personal and loving friend, and we are perfectly understood and he knows our pains and has bore them.We can never ever say, no one understands me, no one knows how I feel, because there is the One who does; the One who is there, the One that can free us from all those feelings if we allow Him to comfort us and carry our burdens and give our heart to Him :) 

The greatest battles of Faith I am finding are with our own selves and our unwillingness to give our all to the Savior. If ever we feel discouraged or we feel down and we are tearing ourselves down more- that is satan trying to tell us we are not good enough or deserving of the Love of God, we are not worth the time.  But I promise and assure everyone, myself included, that we are worth the time, we are worth the atonement of Jesus Christ, His perfect life, His love, His all and everything for us to come back to Heavenly Father, clean, and like Him:) 

To everyone who feels down, that is what the atonement is for.  To anyone who wants to give up, don't; the Savior has never and will never give up on you and Heavenly Father wants to see you again:) Let his peace and grace enter into your hearts, through exercising your faith, repenting always to change and become, renewing your covenants constantly and letting Him bless you by doing so, listening and receiving the Holy Ghost more in your life by doing so:) Then strive harder and harder even unto the end of your lives that ye do not shrink and finish the race and forsake the prize even eternal life:) I Love this gospel and I am so grateful I can be a missionary for the Lord in bringing to pass his great purposes and I cannot help but to smile and be filled with joy even to overflow in my trials, that they allow me to be more humble and rely more on the Savior and use His strength because I am so weak.

 

Right now it's really just so much fun!  We talk to almost everyone we see about the gospel and I just love people.  How boring it is to just pass by others without getting to know them and how you might help them in their life. We are getting about 4 or 5 new investigators every week.  But all of their only available times for discussions are on Saturday or Sundays so we just spend the whole week finding people and then go on splits and do all we can to fit tons of lessons on Saturday and Sunday. 

Eric (the investigator, not my brother)  is still progressing really well. He is so awesome and I know he will go on to do amazing things, he is just so amazing. Something funny is that in his house they don't have clocks and go off the position of the sun.  Haha. That's wierd but cool, he just looks at the sun and then goes to school or anything that he has be at at a certain time. 

This week was pretty awesome, many many adventures haha.

 

Love, 

Elder Blackham

January 7, 2013

We are teaching a boy named Eric thats sixteen and he loves the gospel. Its so awesome, he says he feels so so happy at church and I just love his simple acceptance and understanding of the gospel. He is getting baptized on the 16th of Feb. He asked if he can be mormon and catholic and basically I said we are adding to his knowledge of Catholicism but essentially no you cant. He said that thats not what he wanted to hear but thats totally okay with him and that that's what God wants for him. We also found a less active this week as we prayed and found inspiration to go to a specific street. We were just walking when someone yelled out "Mormons"  which actually happens a lot but we went up and talked to him. He said he was baptized in the ocean and he loves the church but didnt know where the church was when he moved here and that he has been here five years and hasnt gone to church. He said he prayed just the other night if mormon was the right church and to send missionaries to him if it is. Then the next thing he knew we showed up and now he has gone to church and is baring his testimony to everyone he meets haha. So things are going so great!! The Lord is lifting me up in every way:) So yea basically this is the best ever!!

 

I also have been studying diligence and have been loving it!!! It really is the way we show the Lord our true desires and give him our whole heart. It is really the secret to achieving anything we ever want whether it's serving the Lord or getting good at basketball  But serving the Lord is the best no matter what. I love to show Him that I love Him. That I am grateful and no matter how tired I am or whatever it will keep going on in the greatest cause ever:) The focus this year is establishing the priesthood here in the Philippines because establishing the priesthood establishes the church. SO now every time I see anyone that could hold the priesthood I go and talk to them and share our message. Its so much fun finding people:) It truly is an adventure:) So that's whats up this week. OH and our less actives are going to church now so that's awesome too!!

 

Love, Elder Blackham