Weekly Letter: September 7-13, 2010

Another week. I won´t bore you guys in talking about...again...how the time really flies. Unfortunately, I wasn´t able to have the opportunity to enjoy many fruits this week. The ones I did have I will try to talk about, but I think this week was a week of learning more than anything. I want to tell you guys that I´m not down on myself, never had been. If I sound like I´m a little disappointed in my letters, it probably means that I am a little disappointed, but I´ve never felt like this isn´t where I should be or that I´m wasting time. In fact, everyday, I realize that this is exactly where I need to be, and that time is short and should make the most of it, because for these two years, none of it is mine.

This week, I received a great testimony about the revelation of the Mission President and his Assistants. In our Zone Conference in the las Change, another Model Lesson was introduced. This lesson was designed by the Assistants and the president in order to receive more referrals. It includes a letter with a talk by L. Tom Perry called "Bring Souls to Me"(from April 2009 conference)and other short quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley and Joseph Smith about the necesity of missionary work with the members. At first, I, knowing much of the members thought about each one of them and thought, "I don´t know who would have references." We didn´t teach it very well.

Then came Elder Gamez who already tried and had a testimony about this. We read the letter with several members this week and had more fruits than I thought we would get. One person after the final prayer gave us the list. It had 18 names on it! This came as a surprise because whenever we passed by her house we asked for references and she would say: "I think the other Elders have knocked on all the doors around here and no one has accepted." But this conference talk brought in the right spirit and she chose to give us the references.

I´ve also learned a lot about my teaching. I mentioned in my other letter about an experience with a confirmation after almost "Bible bashing" them. What I have come realize more and more that it wasn´t that at all. It was pure doctrine explained with clarity. We weren´t apologists for the doctrine, the doctrine is black and white. I´ve come to realize that I have been a sort of apologist in the past for the doctrine. I thought I was expressing love to the investigators, but I wasn´t doing that. I was trying to explain the doctrine for something that I saw they were having troubles with in a way that didn´t hurt their feelings...and what do I see? People who love having us around because we talk pretty, but don´t complete their commitments.

So I realized a little bit too late what I was doing. I also tried to spoon feed doctrine to some people. I would take a scripture and try to apply every part of it to their lives exactly....what ended up happening was I ended up blabbing on for a long time, and they just looked at me. That isn´t how the work should be. They need to teach themselves. We explain the doctrine cleanly, purely, plainly, and then let them apply it to their lives....let them see what they need to do in order to apply to their lives.

I continue to marvel at the patience of my companion Elder Gamez with me. I had one such lesson on Saturday where I basically blabbed and blabbed. Afterwards, I realized what I was doing, and tried to get him to save the lesson. He simply bore his testimony on what I said and set another appointment. After the appointment he told me quickly, quietly, but clear as ever that I need to study the doctrine and teach it clear and pure. He said that I would learn soon enough as senior companion(he believes that I´m going to transfer to another area as senior comp....I think it´s wishful-thinking because he doesn´t want to be transferred and become District Leader like everyone says he will be.) that I can´t always rely on my companion to know what to say. I need to study the doctrine to know for myself what I need to say.

Anyway, I think that he´s completely right, and I´m going to take care to study not only from the Book of Mormon, but also from Preach My Gospel and the pamphlets for the lessons that we have.

So I have no time, but thank you all for your prayers and support. Love you all!

Cariños,

Elder Thomas Blackham

Weekly Letter: May 11-18

Para todos uds:

Another week in Mexico! I don´t think I´ll ever get tired of saying that! Some times I can´t believe that I´m here on my mission, in Mexico City! Tomorrow morning is the ¨cambios¨ or changes in the mission. I´ve already found out that I´m going to stay in the area of Plateros with my companion, not only for this cambio (which is the final cambio of my mission president, President Fuentes) but for the next one as well, and maybe longer. So I´m pretty excited that I didn´t get changed, I didn´t expect that I would be, because I´ve only been here in this area for like four weeks or so.

This week for P-day was pretty cool. Because tomorrow is the cambio, we don´t have district meetings, so we were able to get permission to spend today in another area and take pictures of some places in the Mixcoac-Olivar area. My companion and I, with the two Elders posted in Mixcoac-Olivar, were able to travel to furthest reaches of their area, our zone, and our mission, which is the plaza at Zocalo, the central-most point of both the Modern and Ancient Aztec City. I´ve attached a few pictures of the Church at Zocalo, as well as some less-than-impressive ruins of what used to be the Aztec pyramids in Central Tenochitlan. (There are other, more impressive pyramids in the city, but, unfortunately, they are not in our mission, let alone our zone, so we weren´t able to visit them.) So I hope you enjoy are able to see these pictures and enjoy them!

This week was up and down for us. There were some unbelievable highs, and some unbelievable lows. The thing is, whenever we experienced a low, whether it be an appointment falling through or something like that, we would stop what we were doing, read in El Libro de Mormón outloud and pray to know where we needed to go. One of these times, after praying, I told my companion that we were going to pass the house of some family that we contacted before but never were there when we passed by. My companion questioned why we were going to pass by them, saying they were ¨Chafa¨ or unreliable....or slackers. I told him, with slight tongue in cheek (but all the while hoping that it was true) that all was well, that we were going to find una persona escogida (chosen person) that was ready to receive us.

When we finally passed by that family, they, once again, weren´t there, but on the way to this family we encountered this lady, gave her a picture of Christ coming to the Americas and explained a little bit about our message. When we asked her if she was willing to listen to this message, she asked us quite frankly ¨Are you mormons?¨ As a missionary, at least in this area, you pretty much brace yourself to hear all about the rumors about the mormons as soon as the word ¨Mormon¨ is mentioned. This time, however, she told us that she had a brother in the United States, who had just been baptized recently and who had told her to look up the Mormon church. She told us that she had already tried to visit the chapel several times, but that it was never open. We told her that our worship services were on Sundays at 10:00am, and she said she would be there. We also taught her two lessons, unfortunately, she has a daughter with many doubts and a propensity to ¨planchar¨ or bible bash. In both of our appointments, she just contradicted pretty much everything we said, and we got a little discouraged because the mother didn´t say anything during any of our lessons, so we have know idea how she is receiving it. On friday, she told us again that she would go to church on Sunday, but she never showed(that was one of the lows) so we´re going to try to contact her again this week, because we were going to set another appointment with her in the chapel.

Another high of this week was when we contacted a referral from another group of missionaries. We were able to contact them and teach them the first lesson in the same visit, and we´re going to contact them again as soon as the husband knows what his work schedule is. We also received a member referral from a family who has a son on a mission right now. We also contacted them and taught them the plan of salvation, we set another appointment with them for Saturday, but when passed by, they weren´t there. We called the husband´s cellular and he told us that he was in the hospital with his grandmother who is deathly ill(one of the reasons we taught him the Plan of Salvation), and told us to call him back this week to set another appointment. To add to the list of referral miracles, when we went to the chapel Sunday, we encountered a mother and her teenage sons at the chapel. We had contacted them the week before, and she had told us that she lived in Queso (yes that´s a name of neighborhood) and that she was interested in our message, we told her that Queso was not in our area, but that there were missionaries in Puerta Grande, who would contact her. We then sent her name and address to Elder Fajardo and Elder Mendoza, the Elders in Puerta Grande (and our Zone and District Leader, respectively) and really didn´t think much about her....until we encountered her again in the chapel. She told us that she and her three sons all have a baptismal date set for this next Sunday!

All these "Referral miracles" really strengthened my testimony in the power and the efficacy of working with the members, with missionaries in our zone, and in our mission. Surely, the Lord is working miracles in this area. I only hope that we can do the Lord´s will.

Well, I´m about out of time, so I better go. Thank you all for your love and support. Thank you for your prayers, they really do help!

Con Amor,

Elder Blackham