January 8, 2014

I have not been called in for work today, but my work to promote the MormonYSA.blogspot.com is going well. I like to say the MormonYSA.blogspot.com, for it is a Mormon YSA Blog Spot, a blog spot for young single adults. Surprisingly the Filipino people are most active, and willing to write. We have 5 authors already. I have been trying to recruit bloggers individually, looking for YSA bloggers, and inviting large Mormon Facebook groups to join. My success so far has come from talking to individuals that 'like' my posts.

Today has been special somewhat because I have had chores given to me and getting outside. Writing in my journal as I walk around, I saw a homeless sister. Mormons call each other brother and sister. I always think of the scripture in Mosiah chapter 4, when going through life, seeing homeless people and service opportunities. The following sentences are the verses, starting at 16:

“16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.

26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.”

I usually don't have money on me because I just use my card to buy things, but I did have money. I approached the sister and spoke to her, asking what I could do to help. I listened a lot, and she said that she ponders, making a sign that says 'Reality is that you can be standing here homeless.' Her husband has lost work. He used to own a construction business, but one of his employees did not secure a ladder or platform well, and he fell off, falling through the second floor, landing on his back. He broke both his back and neck. Suffering from a nerve problem, he is losing use of a limb. I gave her what money that I had, and offered dinner to them, if my parents are willing.

My parents aren't really into my charity. Mormons use the word 'charity' interchangeably with doing charity work or acts of love. When people ask for change and things, I share what I can. Early in 2012 my mom gave me a bunch of change for my travels to San Francisco, and she rebuked me for giving it to a homeless person.

I spoke to another homeless guy named John, who lost his shelter early in December, and I invited him to join our family for dinner as I did the sister and a homeless veteran. John warned me that some people are dangerous to invite in a home.

I look forward to the day, when I can live as charitable as I can.

If you would like to help these homeless people, you can contact me. I have their contact information.

Meet Hermana Joanna Salas

Hermana Joanna Salas is a sister missionary, serving in the Scottsdale Arizona mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am a good friend of hers, and she is having me run her blog. This is her latest letter home, which are her blog posts.

Hi everyone!

Interesting week this week
so we prayed for inspiration on what to teach one of our investigators, she is the one with 6 children and a husband in jail. We went over to help her clean the house and then taught her about tithing and read Elder Bednar's talk on "The Windows of Heaven" and it was a bit strange. we thought that it would strengthen her faith and she will have the desire to live it, but she isn't putting her trust in God as much as she should , plus she would talk over me and  talk to her daughter as my companion bore her testimony, and towards the end of the lesson she went out to answer a call, we waited and waited, turns out she ended up watering her plants outside, leaving us inside. we know she has a lot on her mind and its sort of hard to focus, we love her but sometimes we feel she is not interested. She did however, said she wanted to wait for her husband so they can get baptized together, but she isn't coming to church, she is still going to the catholic one and after she goes to sell things. We did invite her daughters to come to church and she said that she wanted to so we will have a member pick her up and hopefully through her kids we get Erica to come and really see. ( i am also realizing that we cant do this alone the member need to go and offer a helping hand as well) I am learning a lot from this women. just how simple gospel principles bless our lives and how we need to put God first above all things and that faith will keep us strong and dedicated to work hard for a brighter future, plus showing children to love Heavenly Father and live his commandments, under any circumstance, is super important so we may receive those blessings poured out from heaven.

We are starting a Preach my gospel class every Thursday night that we are all super excited about. We need to prepare these members to know what the lessons are and how to be more involved.
WE had the best lesson in the whole wide world!!!!!!!
we have another family that we are working with they are perfect the mom always invites us over for food and loves us and we love her, her two daughters and son are so reverent during lessons and they loved church, they went on fast and testimony meeting and those testimonies we so powerful! i loved loved loved them.
there is a blind sister in our branch, she talked about how imperfect she was and how she is so grateful for the gift of repentance and the atonement because through that she can take off her loads and be happier, and she i will one day be able to see her Father in Heaven and hug him, she knows it takes a lot of work to be worthy for that honor. I think she had everyone crying. before sacrament meeting started we asked her kids how they liked class, they said they loved it and looked so excited, momma loved it too and she even offered to come clean the chapel on Friday! and she also saw our other investigator at church with her 7 children her name is Blanca and she was moved with compassion towards her, she told me that if she ever needed anything that she would love to help and even come out when we visit her, wow she is already feeling the missionary spirit. her charity impressed me!
anyway about he lesson we taught them all The Plan that Heavenly Father has for the Salvation/happiness of his children and her husband was there because he works a lot so that was a miracle. The Orozco's came out with us he is the young mens president and she is the Relief society president , the lesson was so sweet, they did a great job. i loved what that brother said at the end, that if if the sisters say that what they are teaching you comes from God, who better to ask if this is true than God himself? i loved how eager they looked and the spirit of gratitude that was felt in the room. We invited them to follow the example of the Savior by going down to the waters of baptism. she looked at her husband and then looked at us and responded "well don't we need to be married first?"
we all giggled and the family  that came with us talked about how after his mission he went to go pick her up in Chile and two days later on a  Thursday picked out a dress and got married on Saturday at the Mesa Temple. she said that all she want is her loved ones there and have a simple wedding, we told her that can be arranged, so we are feeling a wedding coming on soon!!! she did look really excited. the one thing that planted a seed in her heart about the church was the example of a friend and how she is so strong and she wants to be like her. What a blessing ! 

I love you all thank you very much bye

January 7, 2014

After posting my last journal entry, Trevor said that he initially had no intention to develop a romantic relationship in Bolivia, but a good friendship turned romantic before he knew it, confirming nothing was hidden from me and he has full trust in me. His spontaneity is not my style, and he knows that.

Anyhow… (That is a made up word that my mom says.) Today is special because I had my first day, practicing AutoCAD. Learning AutoCAD is my new year's resolution. I am surprised how many people don't know what AutoCAD is. It is a 3D modeling program for used in many professions. The holidays were hectic for me, so I finally got to it today. I have been attempting to read an article for a couple weeks now. They first advised me to practicing navigating the 3D space. Practicing without an actual sample project was completely different, but I learned the basics. After getting used to it, I downloaded a condominium model and navigated around it. That was just as difficult as the previous practice; then, I was advised to experiment and learn the tools in making things. I made a cube with twelve lines, and that was easy. Using the command line is interesting. I was trying to put a dome on a side of my cube with arcing lines, but I could not make them attach to opposite corners diagonal from each other. I was feeling tired, so I took a break from that, preparing for a jog.

One thing about me that I would like the family and friends of mine that read this to know about me is that I am a long distance runner. Last year about May, I tried to run track, for I did in high school. I got injured before the end of the second week of the season. I realized that I got injured because I was an avid blogger, following the world news very closely on Twitter and retweeting every development that I can. The investment of time was hours a day to publish daily tweets at ReadtheStoryoftheWorld.blogspot.com. Sitting and laying around each day to keep up with the news made me weak to my knee injury that I found myself with. I blogged the story of the world for more than two years, but I had to quit. I attend Brigham Young University in Idaho, and, seeing that the cross country championship times of the school were slow, I knew that I could win. This was a new goal in my life. I trained over the summer, overcoming my injury, and I won the championship race of Brigham Young University Idaho's 2013 cross country. My goal now is to continue my high school goal to break the 10 minute barrier in the two mile. I focused on the two mile in high school. My friends are scared to train with me now that I win 5Ks in Rexburg, the small town that has little competition.

I tell them that I even went on a run with my mother a couple weeks ago, and we had a good time. I have been running for about ten years, and mom finally started running on her own will this past year. She worked up to running about 30 minutes on the treadmill and was confident enough to run with me. That moment a couple weeks ago was the first time that we ran together. She may have gone out too fast. If you don't know running lingo, that means she started the run too fast. I thought that she was not use to running on the road because she just runs on the treadmill, not being used to propelling herself forward. We jogged for a good 10 minutes, and walked the last 20 minutes. We had a good time, talking.

Last week was also fun because I watched a movie while I was preparing for a jog. It takes about an hour after eating before I feel good to run. Looking for a good animated film, I foundThe Girl Who Leapt Through Time. After watching that movie, I was so inspired that I decided that it is my favorite movie, and I am not one to have a favorite movie. The story is so good. The characters are well developed, and the fun is not the usual stuff. The main character's attribute to travel into the unknown inspired me to run in a way that I have never done.

On my run I felt like running in the opposite ways of my intentions. I am from Santa Cruz, California, and my first direction was towards Pleasure Point. Since that run would be to short, I turned to run to the Capitola Village. There was traffic in the road, so for an odd reason I ran in the road next to the cars outside of the biking lane. Running through the village, I usually just go straight up the hill out of it, but I ran up the stairs and around towards the New Brighton beach. I usually run this direction, so I went down a trail, going down to the railroad. I thought that I could run on the beach. I have not done that in years. At the New Brighton beach, I saw a trail that said no trespassing, so I didn't go through. Running along the beach on a dirt road, I saw some stairs, going up to the campgrounds, which was a good hill to run up. I explored the grounds and found a road, leading to a neighborhood. The streets had the railroad tracks, which lead to a state park that I never seen or heard of before. I even checked on Google, and they don't have much information on it. It has a plaque dedicated to Senator Henry J. Mello and Vicki Powell for preserving the land. I explored those trails until I returned to the street that I began at. I didn't want to run on roads or train tracks, so I found a trail going through the woods. The trail was nice. I even saw a deer, and I have not seen a deer on one of my runs for years. This trail got iffy, but it existed. There were many trails in the woods. One led to a fallen tree that I crossed. I wondered if they were drug trafficking trails. I felt like I might get lost in the trails. I was led to a den type area. Homeless people might live there. I saw two tunnel like trails that I didn't want to crawl through. I thought that animals may live here too. I felt a little lost and that it was time to go home, so I found a trail that led me to the railroad, which goes toward my home. My friend's mother saw me, walking on the side of the street, so she drove me home. I was picking at a sliver in my neck, and my shirt was scraped, which I thought were signs of a good adventure. I checked out the trail of my adventure today, finding some more trails to explore tomorrow.

Our family received a new Brazilian foreign English student last Friday. A friend of mine, which I should identify, Jossy Reyes, thought that she may be trouble. We never hosted a teenage girl, nor did we ever have any sisters in my family. We were a little worried, but we are down for whatever she brings though. Her name is Nathalia. 

I joked that Jossy thought that she was trouble because her Facebook cover photo is of her laying on the beach with two parrots, standing on her feet and head. She is super cool like all the other Brazilians that I met, and she is more fragile than expected, having Asthma. We played Pokemon Monopoly on Sunday night. We decide that the houses of the orange property should cost double because, if you have them you are almost guaranteed to win. The game was never completed. Since I was having bad luck, I had to play more aggressively, and dad was worth the most, winning the game. Nathalia likes hanging out and exploring the town until late, so we miss her at dinner.