Happy 4th of July Weekend!!

HElLo Everyone!!! how was everyones fourth of july weekend? cool story we got to stay out and watch fireworks till 10:30 and talk to people as we watched them! it was the best!! that day we also had a zone BBQ at the apartment  complex we all live at.  here are some pictures: and don't make fun of how much heavier I've gotten





hey sorry I didn't have time to write ya'll but here is what I wrote to our Mission President

the good thing is that it was only 100 degress outside

hey President

this week has been rough. I am not as happy because people keep letting us down. We have been doing our best to bring members out with us to confirmed appointments and we show up and people aren't home. WE had this referral that we contacted and she had a baby who died after being a month old and so we thought of the Canales family who is going through a very difficult trial, their 12 year old daughter has cancer and so we thought they would be the perfect family for them. but they weren't home. and so it has happened a few times this week with different members and potentials. WE have been talking to everyone and even teaching on the spot if they aren't to busy, but when we go back they aren't home. We honestly feel like we are working so hard and yet we aren't seeing any fruits. I know love plus patience will bring about miracles, I don't mean to be a downer President but I just don't want you to think we aren't working as hard because of what our numbers show. I know that Heavenly Father is aware of me and my efforts and I pray that he can let me know what more I can do in his vineyard, I just need a bit more faith and trust in the lords promises. We've also been doing facebook finding, I wish you can be there for some of those getting our members to do it is so hard and we literally have to ask the same question about if we can look at their page several times in less than a minute. Because before they even look at their page they automatically say they don't know anyone, and all you know all the classic excuses. But we are being persistent.

Other than that we had a miracle happen my recent convert Rey Dominguez is being the best member missionary I have met. He has been sharing the gospel with all his friends and acquaintances, he even took us to a family that said would like to learn more and he set up the appointment for us, and he was present for the lesson and bore a sincere humble testimony on how the gospel has changed his perspective on life and is now a much more positive person, and treat others with more kindness and patience especially his own family, he also talks about how The Book of Mormon helps him get nearer to God. They looked fascinated by his testimony. We told you that we fell in love with them. then the elders called us and apparently changed their mind and asked us if they can teach them. I did express my feelings in how I felt that we had put in the work by teaching the importance of sharing the gospel, even though it was natural for him, and how I wanted to be a part of his missionary efforts. and how we felt it was a blessing for us for all the work we've done, to be able to teach this family. But my companion and I talked about it, and since he really wanted to teach them we decided it was better to let them, since all we really do care about is that this family progresses in the gospel and find the joy therein. We know the Lord will bless us for it and continue to help the other members do the same.

Thank you so much for all you both do for all of us! we love you!

 

Church News!

President Sweeney:

this makes me angry, which means I wont be able to use an I-pad  as a missionary. it would've been so much easier. everything else makes me happy tho :)

SALT LAKE CITY — Though the record number of LDS missionaries serving around the world will peak in the fall and then recede somewhat, convert baptisms are increasing and more missionaries soon will be using digital devices to help with their work.

A pilot program has shown that use of iPad Minis by missionaries improved their work and study, and the devices will be used in all missions in North America, Japan and western Europe beginning this fall, the executive director of the LDS Missionary Department said Wednesday in a wide-ranging, videotaped interview released by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder David F. Evans, also a member of the faith's First Quorum of the Seventy, said the devices will be used by about 32,000 Mormon missionaries in 162 of the church's 405 missions.

The church will ask missionaries in those areas to pay for their iPads, which will be their property during and after their missions, at a cost of $400 apiece.

Evans said the church, as of Wednesday, had 85,593 missionaries serving, up from the previously publicized record of 85,039 in April.

He said the missionary department anticipates the number to rise to 88,000 this fall before starting to decrease.

LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson precipitated the dramatic two-year surge in missionary numbers when in October 2012 he lowered the age requirement from 19 to 18 years old for male missionaries and from 21 to 19 for women

Elder Evans, who called the surge "one of the greatest faith-inspiring things I've ever seen," said the church expects the number of missionaries will eventually settle somewhere in the high 70,000s, well above the 58,000 serving at the time of President Monson's announcement.

"We don't believe we're ever going back to the 50,000s," Elder Evans said.

About 64 percent of the church's full-time missionaries are young adult men, 28 percent are women and 8 percent are senior missionaries.

"We believe the young people of this church will continue to say yes to missionary service, and they'll continue to choose to become young disciples of Christ," Elder Evans said. "For them it's an absolute free-will offering to the Lord and to their fellow man."

He also spoke about convert baptisms and missionary safety.

"Every month, if you compare month over month, the baptisms are up," Elder Evans said. "Right now for this year, there's about an overall 15 percent increase in the number of convert baptisms this year compared to a comparable period last year."

Elder Evans said missionaries now are being asked to have a "safety moment" at the beginning of each day, an effort to increase their sensitivity to safety issues after several injuries and deaths among missionaries made news, particularly last year.

Those incidents remain few compared to the general U.S. population of 18- to 21-year-olds.

"It is by far the safest place for any young single adult to be that I'm aware of," Elder Evans said. "I've read statistics that suggest being on a mission may be as many as 20 times safer than being generally out in the population."

A pilot program put iPad Minis in the hands of about 6,500 missionaries in 30 missions in the United States and Japan, as well as with sister missionaries in most LDS visitors centers. Elder Evans described four lessons learned by church leaders.

First, missionaries were very comfortable and capable using the devices. Second, the devices increased the reading and studying done by the missionaries. Third, they were effective planning tools. Fourth, they helped missionaries communicate better with local church leaders, mission leaders and investigators. 

June 29, 2014

     Track is over at Brigham Young University - Idaho. Again it is disappointing. The disappointment came by rain and thunderstorms, for the championship meet was canceled. Another disappointment that had to do the BYUI competitive long distance running program was that I was not offered the position to coordinate cross country in the Fall semester of 2014. I explained to the interviewer many of my ideas to make the program thrive, hoping to create a culture of fitness throughout the school.

A couple career exploration assignments have been making my life stressful the past couple weeks. I don't believe that career exploration assignments should be curriculum in a class because people are always doing that. When I realized this, the assignment was simple. I did not have to research careers because it is a natural activity. I have researched many careers in my life already, so I just wrote about the careers that I have explored in my life. Many people may not have the time to explore careers because there are many obligations that distract people from pondering the career paths possible. These two assignments were stressful because they were side projects, and they were both forgotten and procrastinated. The assignment was for my Business 101 class.

     A classmate in my Business 101 class has come to really enjoy my sense of humor. People; who observe me such as peers, instructors, and family; has noticed that I have a unique sense of humor. My favorite high school physics teacher pointed out to my special education teacher that I had a good sense of humor. I laugh at many of the teacher’s jokes and things that are not even jokes but humorous things. My classmate even recommended that I be a professional laugher this past week. Occasionally people ask me why are you laughing, and I don't know how to explain it.

     A minuscule way that I do missionary work is I run a Mormon YSA Blog Spot, sharing the blog articles of many single adult bloggers on several social media sites. I got to meet one of the bloggers that I found this week. I would say that it is a date. The way that I found her was interesting. It was inspired a BYU Idaho devotional. The speaker is on the leading edge of education. His name is Chris Wilson, and he invited us to create a community in his speech by discovering or making a way out of the world by using the hashtag BYUIExodus on Twitter. For those in the future or present that don't know what hashtags are on internet social networks, you can join a global audience, when you click or post a hashtag, seeing all the posts with that hashtag. Brother Chris Wilson invited us to write two chapter titles of our personal Book of Exodus out of the world and traditions of man. My chapter titles were ‘Growing toward Fatherly Leadership’ and ‘Family Life.’ I would also say that another good chapter title is ‘Claiming my Agency.’ The girl that I went out with favorited my chapter titles tweet, and I saw that she was a blogger. I asked her, if I could share her articles on my blog spot, and she gave me permission. I asked her if she knows other YSA bloggers, and she did. Since she was local, I decided that I might as well ask her out. She had not published an article in about half a year, so I asked if she will publish an article soon. She published one as we conversed on Twitter, saying that she has been working on a couple recently. We casually went out for frozen yogurt. She seems amazing, but our personalities expression was limited because I believe that we were not comfortable. The conversation was very slow. I plan to ask her out again.

     Yesterday was an unnecessarily busy day. I have an important deadline tomorrow for my Building Information Modeling class. I signed up for a 10K, and my friends went to go shooting in the evening. The 10K was interesting because it was organized by a very small group of students. The participation was small, and only a few runners came. The majority of the participants were the organizers. It was a fourth of July theme. We all had flags, and we ran with them around town. Some people may have felt awkward because they were walking or running alone with the flag, but I felt that if I lead the run with person that invited me to join the event. It would be a signal to people that is not just one weird person, running around with flags. The leader has a broad agenda in this act. I don't really understand if he had a specific reason for his activism. He said that the politics in America are a mess, and we need to become a more united society. He encouraged an national movement of service in the community with a hashtag and twitter of OldGlory. Running with the United States flag for about 6 miles, I felt that I was participating in a uniting cause. The leader was not impressed by the turnout or the reaction of the community, but I feel that people saw the broad message that he hoped. I saw a construction worker pause to watch us, and people ponder and react.

In the evening I went shooting with Jesse and a few of his married friend couples. This is the first time that I had shot shotguns and pistols, so my actions were a little rookie. The sister's husband of Jesse's friend's wife was good to be patient, instructing on proper etiquette; although, my actions were dangerous. His urgency was good. I shot a clay pidgin in my first round of five, and I shot two in a row on my second round. Shooting with a shotgun is easy compared to pistols and the other guns that they had. Afterward we had a bonfire, and the wives made a couple peach cobblers in a Dutch oven. I basically had two 4th of Julys.

     Today is now the 6th of July. This past week was somewhat stressful with due dates and tests. I didn't do very well on them because I had many assignments to do, and I was not able to put enough time into them. If I had one superpower, I would wish that it was controlling time. I would mainly slow down time. I only ran twice this week because my load is so demanding. I am putting my time in preparing some resubmittals, practicing my building plan document skills. One of my final assignments for my Building Information Technology class is to prepare a cover sheet. This requires a rendered image of my modeled building. Rendering takes a long time. A rendering is the program producing an image from virtual light. I have not completely done a real one. I prematurely tried to load one, and it takes a hours. That is what I heard. I want to post my first rendering on this journal entry. I designed my first coffered ceiling. It is not an average coffered ceiling. Coffered ceilings are usually just recessed panel in a ceiling in a square pattern. My ceiling has a curved edge on it, so I had some interesting angles and curves in my coffers. The image is thirteen percent done with twelve minutes. My perspective of rendering is that it takes a lot of skill. As you can see my first two renderings are very lousy. The van and truck look so bad. I found seamless tiles images for the brick, but it still looks fake. I look forward to making my buildings look real. My teacher always rags on us because we are not amazed by the graphics, but this is like Nintendo 64 graphics. Our video games are way better. Some renderings look impressive, and some look like old video game graphics.

A couple other things that happened that I don't feel like writing about is Jesse's birthday and a 4th of July. We just went exploring in the hills of Rexburg for Jesse's birthday, enjoying the Hickory restaurant, and we went to Idaho Falls for the 4th of July. 

     During sacrament meeting today I had a sacred experience that I wanted to relate to you. Praying to feel the spirit can be a witness that God loves us, and the plan of salvation is true. The knowledge of the Plan of Salvation comes from many different witnesses of the spirit in each aspect. A meditation on it can bring a witness of it too. The Plan of Salvation are 'things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.' In this testimony meeting, my testimony that I felt like communicating would make sense, but I felt that the simplicity of the precept that it needs explanation. The explanation is personal. Before I get into the explanation, I will review the topic. It is to pray to feel the spirit.

     Before my mission I don't recall feeling the spirit as taught in the word of God, a burning in the bosom. I never stressed it too much because the spirit can be felt in other ways. I knew that the fullness of the Gospel is only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When my second mission president took reins, he came with a powerful belief that God gives revelation according to the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 9:8. "But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right." I was out on my mission about eighteen months, and my mission president expected us to confirm every plan with God by these instructions. My mission president was named President Graff. Since I never felt burning in my bosom, I needed to call my mission president, since he was enforcing the new policy. He had me pray to feel the Holy Ghost by this burning sensation in my bosom, and I prayed for more than an hour with no result. President Graff also had a powerful testimony of gifts of the spirit by the laying on of hands. President Graff served a mission just previously since becoming a mission president. On his mission, he worked on learning Spanish for many months, but he couldn't. His mission president was counseling him on learning the language, and he decided to give him the gift of tongues by the laying on of hands. Ever since that blessing President Graff was able to speak Spanish. He blessed me similarly, but he had my companion bless me to feel the spirit as a burning in my bosom. Ever since that blessing, I have been able to feel the Holy Ghost as a burning in my bosom.

     The sensation comes rarely as I am use to. I felt it powerfully during sacrament meeting today, and it came because I was prompted to pray to feel the spirit in my morning prayer. I encourage you to pray to feel the spirit of God. The request for this broad revelation is complex though. One can pray to feel the comforter, but it will rarely visit you without a purpose. It mainly visits people to testify of Jesus Christ as the Savior of all men, and it may also abide within us to let us be a witness of Christ. Praying to feel the spirit without a purpose can be tricky because the purpose of his presence is uncertain. I felt that the spirit testified of the Plan of Salvation, the Atonement, and the Godhead today, but how can the Holy Ghost strengthen our testimony of our knowledge without having a knowledge of the fullness of the Gospel. It can testify of each aspect of the Plan of Salvation, the Atonement, and the Godhead as the individual knows it; although, it may not be whole yet. Many people testified of the relationship of the Holy Spirit with man in today's fast and testimony sacrament meeting. Prayer without a specific meaning rarely works. Praying to know the truth is so broad that one's relationship with God and his guidance would have to be very deep to have sequential revelations. A knowledge of the fullness of the Gospel is hard to come by without reading the word of God. The Book of Mormon is essential to obtaining the knowledge of the fullness of the Gospel, since it contains the fullness of the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation. This book is unique for its ability to be a witness of the truth. The truth has many names such as the fullness of the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation. The Plan of Salvation are 'things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come' as I said before. The Book of Mormon is unique because the words therein were directed to be written by God by prophets. It was abridged by Mormon and translated by Joseph Smith by the direct guidance of God. Praying to know whether this book is true without a complete know of the content therein is realistic because these unique characteristics that it has. Knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is designed by God to also be a witness that the all the prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are true because Joseph Smith is the founding prophet of this church, and he translated the book only by the gift and power of God.

     Writing my testimony in this journal entry is not an excuse for not telling my testimony in fast and testimony meeting, and I had a trust issue in the guidance of the spirit that these complex relationships can be related well with my words, teaching my simple concept that a singular prayer can testify of all truth. The sensation of the burning in my bosom enlivened my intelligence, reminding me of the truthfulness of the Gospel. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is the uniting means of learning, communicating to everyone's souls. I should have gone up to teach my revelation in fast and testimony session because I can be the conduit of the God, speaking the words prompted to say to relate the concept that I was led to feel and teach because the Holy Ghost is the universal means of learning and revelation.