Weekly Challenge August 19th 2013

Be positive and wear a smile even when stuff sucks and I know the Lord can bless you. Even Job, "Never sinned with his lips." He took it all the best he knew how and trust me, Jobs life sucked.

August 19th, 2013

Man it is crazy to think that transfers are coming in hot. I can't believe it has been almost six weeks since I got to Raymondville, that is nuts to me. I get the feeling that I will be staying and that Elder Lloyd will be leaving which is a bit of a bummer considering he and I are getting along really well and we are ,"Going pretty Hard." as he likes to put it. Things started off super slow for us this transfer but as of right now we are looking to help Vanessa and her daughters and hopefully her son be baptized here in the month of September which will be huge because apparently the Zone I am in has been struggling to break 12 baptisms in a month for 2 years. We are hoping to change that and to up the faith and to make these areas some of the best ones ever.

I guess on a slightly unrelated yet strangely very related note, I talked with Edgar, a member from Mercedes and he took me out to eat and we talked about the work that is going on back there and it looks like they are about to go crazy and baptized like 17 this weekend. I also found out that about 5 of the people that I left there teaching are going to be baptized and truly that is the best news ever. It made me smile to know that the work is still going strong over there.

Things in Raymondville are moving, last week we had almost a perfect week in regards to the standard of Excellence set forth by the mission, the only issue we had was church. Everything was going great until Sunday morning our investigators boyfriend decided he wasn't going to let his son set foot in a Mormon church because we are evil and brainwash people and don't pray to God, so he fought with our investigator and she was unable to come. Also, we have been working with a guy I met on exchanges with one of the Zone leaders by the name of Domingo who at first I will be honest I didn't think much of. I feel terrible because I have come to realize that under it all and behind all the mistakes is a son of God, and a very humble one at that. He is a good man and we are trying to get him to church, problem is that he has no transportation and the member we had set up bailed Sunday Morning for no good reason. It was frustrating but it happened. We are hoping to help him this week get to church because we want to help him be better and find forgiveness.

The other areas are still struggling a bit, some of the Elders need more faith, some need to be more realistic and so I have been working to get that Equilibrium so that the District can flourish. The way I see it, who goes and preaches in a place and works in the hot sun and sweats and gets exhausted and dehydrated and does it all not expecting to succeed. That sucks, and I am trying to get my Elders to stop that because that is a miserable prospect. I feel like all of us get stuck in that rut though from time to time. We go through motions and work and do all sorts of stuff not really truly expecting any good to come from it. I have made the decision that I don't want my life the be lived that way. Sure things may be hard and sure the way is thorny but being negative or faithless just makes it a million times worse. So if any of you are being that way. Stop it. Be positive and wear a smile even when stuff sucks and I know the Lord can bless you. Even Job, "Never sinned with his lips." He took it all the best he knew how and trust me, Jobs life sucked.

I love you all and hope that things are going well for you, things here are moving right along and I am confident the Lord has me where he needs me and that someday soon this branch will be open and Raymondville will just pwn all noobs. Please have a good week.

Elder Bassett

Alfredo party pics



Elder Lloyd making Alfredo sauce 



Elder Lloyd and Elder Bassett enjoying Alfredo Pasta party



mmm.  Alfredo pasta

Weekly Challenge Aug 12, 2013

This week I learned about the importance of attitude in your life and how if we want to see miracles we have to be working for them and worthy of them and most importantly we have to be expecting them. We have to believe that they exist and if we truly do all of these things we will receive them.

My Challenge this week is to find one. Find a miracle, ask God to give you one and do all you can to live worthy of it. Then be sure to give him thanks. I love you all.

August 12, 2013

Pos, wow this week was a much better week than last week. I am glad last week ended and this week got to start because I was gonna lose it. This last week I got to see a lot of amazing things in the work and in my area.

I guess first of all we had a 3 day leadership training and it was amazing. I lost out on 3 days in my area but it meant having the spirit teach me how much I needed to change and that I wasn't really doing all I could to receive miracles from our heavenly Father and so I tried putting those things into practice this last week and man was it awesome. I realize the Lord has put me as a steward over this District and I need to do better of taking care of it. We have a ton of work to do but I feel like the Leader the Lord really needed is finally coming to be. Man I wish I could just share with you all the things I learned it was nuts. I learned how inept of a teacher I am and how much I suck at using the scriptures but more than that I found some ways to really change those things.

Also With a lot of time missed out on the Lord made up for it with all the Miracles he gave us. He showed us to one of the most prepared people I have ever met. Her name is Vanessa and she is the mother of 4, her youngest has something called Dandy Walkers which means he never developed the 3 major parts of his brain and as a result is bed ridden and a lot of other things. He is 5 which is a miracle in itself because the Doctors told her not to expect a month with her child. We were able to share with her the Plan of Salvation and it really touched her I think to know that one day her son will be able to walk and talk and that if she does what God asks, she can be there with him. She also has 3 other kids who are all old enough to join her and we are going to help them prepare and be baptized on the 8th of September.

We got to talk with a former by the name of Daniella and I guess the last missionaries that taught her never got to baptize her because she wasn't married. Well guess what happened the day before we found her? Her boyfriend proposed! Awww yeah the Lord is definitely preparing people even here in good Ol' Raymondville. Daniella is a really cool lady and so we are going to do all we can to really help her understand Baptism and take those steps she needs to. It has been a week of miracles for us and she is definitely one of them.

Now as I have explained one of the hardest things about the area is the distance to church. With 6000 churches here is Raymondville it is hard to tell someone they need to drive 30 minutes to go to church which means that we have to get some really good expectations set. Ultimately we feel as though the work is going so slowly because the Branch building got closed down. We are teaching these two ladies and their families and one of them really only lives like 3 houses away from the old building. We are trying to get the members here moving because so far they have been pretty lazy and we found out what it is going to take to get the branch open again. 12 melchezidek priesthood holders who pay tithing. We are currently at about 3 active priesthood holders which makes it seem pretty daunting but if we can get the less-actives going things will be much better. What we have started is holding a book of Mormon study class and this last week 17 people showed, that is awesome that is more than double the first week which is a good sign. We are just gonna have to do something in the way of translation for the Spanish speakers.

I guess the last good thing that happened this week that I found worth mentioning is our Alfredo Party and the Botana experience. So Elder Lloyd and I decided that we wanted to have an alfredo party or so he called it and really that just means we made some Alfredo sauce and ate Pasta. Elder Lloyd was like ridiculously excited for it so he made me take pictures, I will send them. Also he made me not smile for them so we would look somber just so you know. We also went to get a Botana, or a big plate of meat and it was delicious but ridiculous to get. We all decided as a district that we were going to go meet at this place and get this giant meal and split the cost. So we get to the place and the card machine is down so we need cash. So we call the other Elders that were just leaving and told them to go get cash. Well we ordered and then the rain came....It trapped the other Elders in their apartment parking lot. So Elder Lloyd and I were stuck there with no cash and a $40 botana to try to pay for. Luckily the guy let us go get some cash from a Target and we had to run in the rain but I had to withdraw a big ol' chunk of money and then get the botana to go. Then we were almost late to our own district meeting and I don't think the Zone Leaders would have liked to botana excuse but we made it. We also ate a giant botana so all ended well but it was a crazy day!!

This week I learned about the importance of attitude in your life and how if we want to see miracles we have to be working for them and worthy of them and most importantly we have to be expecting them. We have to believe that they exist and if we truly do all of these things we will receive them. My Challenge this week is to find one. Find a miracle, ask God to give you one and do all you can to live worthy of it. Then be sure to give him thanks. I love you all.

Elder Bassett

August 5, 2013

Okay, so there is not a whole ton this week to report on, it has been a really long, slow and pretty difficult week. I am working hard with Elder Lloyd to find some new people to teach and so far have some out of the box ideas. We are gonna go in our service clothes to find some new people to teach or help some less actives or something. We are gonna bake some cookies and have a member take them to a less active and invite them to church because one thing is for certain. Less Actives know non members and non members need to be baptized.

We have also started a Book of Mormon study class here in Raymondville. See what happened here is that there used to be a branch here and so there is a little chapel here and everything. What happened was the members weren't coming and paying their tithing and the Priesthood was lacking so they had to close it down. That means that all the 50+ members that were here now have to drive  30 minutes to church in Harlingen which is apparently the most difficult thing in this whole world to do and as a result many members have fallen away and many members have lost a great deal of the light they possessed. So there is a lot of work to be done here.

The highlight was definitely helping Alex get confirmed. Due to some trouble the Family we were working with kind of fell of the map we are working on that. Really though other than that we haven't done a whole lot else. I wish there were more to tell but there really isn't

I hope you all are being obedient and finding love for the Gospel. I would encourage you to study receiving personal revelation. I love you all. be good and have faith.

Elder Bassett