Dominic's Baptism!! (4/14/2014)

Hey everybody!

So this past week has been pretty busy!  I mean the numbers don't show it, but it was REALLY busy.  We were able to visit a couple of less active members in the ward. One of them (we'll call him Jim) has been less-active for about 40 years. We started sharing a message about faith.  All of a sudden he just started going off on us, asking us questions like, If we knew someone in the church that broke rules and flat out lied to everyone and did this and this and that... Would we still want to be a part of this church?  We told him yes, because we believe the church and it's doctrines to be true and we don't base the truthfulness of the church off of the actions of it members. We tried explaining this to him for over an hour.

Turns out that the reason Jim left the church was because the second counselor in his bishopric, (according to Jim), tried to cheat the system in order to get his son his Eagle Scout Award. When Jim went to the bishop about it, the bishop backed up the second counselor. So Jim has held a grudge against the church for over 40 years and has completely deemed the church false because of this perceived wrong.  Jim also kept going off about how "perfect" a member of the church he had been and how he had a stronger faith then everybody in that ward. Ha I really just wanted to say, "Well apparently not because look where you're at now!", but I didn't.  However, as you can tell it was a little frustrating.

Later, the week got much better. We had an awesome opportunity going to a Scouting group that was from the Methodist Church. At the pinewood derby that the ward held a couple of weeks ago, a woman came up to us and asked if we would be willing to go and teach their scout group about our religion and what we believe. Part of one of their achievements is to learn about another religion/culture.  So we had the awesome opportunity this past week to go there and teach 8 to 10-year-olds about the church. That is awesome to be able to plant the seeds in those little guys!  All of them were very interested in what we were teaching and paid a lot of attention to us. In the end we had a display table with all of our pass along cards and stuff on it and they all took some. We also found out at the lady who talked us at the pinewood derby (her name is Amy), is actually a member that went less active when she was 18 and moved to Maryland from Utah. I think she's probably in her late 30s early 40s now, so it's been quite a while. We're going to give her a bit of time and hopefully what we taught will sink in and then we'll give her a call to see if she would be interested in moving her records to this ward, and maybe even begin to meet with us. So we're pretty stoked about that.

Also this past week Dominic had his baptismal interview, was baptized and confirmed into the church!  It was so awesome! The interview went super long, but it was good and the district leader had some good insight to pass along to the members to help Dominic stay strong in the church. It was also really fun to be in the confirmation circle at church. It was really awesome to see the number of members that showed up for the baptism to support him. It was really good for him I think. It was a very powerful Confirmation and hopefully Dominic will recognize how the Spirit is helping him to change his life. We're pretty excited to see where it goes from here!  

Last big news of the week!  We found out yesterday, (being Sunday), that they are actually going to redo the ward boundaries for our ward and the Lexington Park Ward (which is our neighboring ward). We will most likely lose a lot of members and they will gain them. Lexington Park Ward is a much much smaller ward. I think we have twice the youth program that they do. So were pretty sure that they're going to put some of our members into their ward. It's going to be sad to lose a lot of the members that we've come to know and to love, but we know that is the Lords will and blessings will come from it.

Well that was our exciting week this week!  I hope you all had a wonderful week as well and I hope you have a wonderful week to come! I love you all and I will talk to all next week!

Love, 

Elder Gold

Dominic's Baptism

Dominic, Saundra and Family

General Conference brings such sweet blessings... (4/7/2014)

Hey everyone! 

This up coming week is Dominic's baptism!!!!!  Woohoo!!!!  We're all pretty excited about that :-) However, there may be a possible problem though. We asked Dominic who he would like to baptize him and today he told us who he would like.  Unfortunately, that person is going to be out of town the day of his baptism. So we have to figure out with the ward mission leader if we should just reschedule it so that person can be there to baptize him, or just tell Dominic at that person will not be in town so he will not be able to do it. Either way, he's super prepared and is completely ready to partake in the saving ordinance of baptism!  We're all excited for him, especially his wife. You can just see the glow about her now and how happy she is that she has the Gospel back in her life. When the baptism does happen though I will make sure to send some pictures home :-)

I can't remember if I told you guys or not, but not last Friday we had the chore of scrubbing down the other apartment. Previously, the other elders there had been taken out of the area suddenly during the middle of the week and had left their apartment a complete and utter disaster. So we spent Monday and Tuesday of last week just cleaning the apartment all day long so the apartment could be livable.  Well as it turns out, sisters ended up moving into the ward and they took our apartment. So we moved into the apartment that we spent so much time cleaning.  Good thing we did a good job!!  

Then Wednesday was transfers. We went up to the temple and that takes most of our day. When we got home from the temple we went to a members house for dinner. Then the next day being Thursday, we went back to the members house to help him move some stuff from another member's house. I guess she had given him a pool and then underneath the pool was a ton of dirt that he wanted. So we helped load up all the dirt into his truck and move it to his house. Afterwards he took us to what I thought was a really good Mexican restaurant called Monterrey's. I had a really really really good spinach burrito. It had spinach, chicken, cheese and this really good white sauce. However, the next day I regretted getting that burrito. Friday we spent inside all day because I don't know if it was a super mild case of food poisoning or if my body just completely rejected that burrito, but me and the bathroom became very good friends that day.  

Then Saturday and Sunday was an awesome General Conference. I really liked President Utchdorf's talk on being grateful. One of my favorite quotes was "Instead of looking at it as being grateful, look at it as being thankful for the situation that you're in.". I thought that was a really cool way of looking at it. I've never thought to be thankful for the situation I'm in. I've always just been grateful for things I received or that I've done. 

I can't remember who it was that talked about it, but I really liked the talk that put emphasis on Marriage.  Yes the man is the head of the household and the patriarch for the home, but the woman has just as much responsibility, input and say into what happens in the home. Couples should talk about and work things out for the bettering of their marriage and family relationship. I've always agreed with this and I've always thought that way, but it was great to hear an apostle of the Lord come out and say it. 

Another talk I liked a lot, was during the priesthood session.  He talked about the priesthood the role that women have in the church.  They may not hold the priesthood, but they can still act and do things under its authority, therefore they are able to use the priesthood. I really like the analogy that he used about the temple.  I thought it was cool and interesting way to look at things :-) 

Well I hope the rest of you enjoyed conferences much as I did! I'll let you all know next Monday how the baptism goes if it does happen this Saturday. I love you also much and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Gold

Splits with the Zone Leaders...(3/31/2014)

Hello everyone!

So this past week was kind of a slow week for missionary work, but was actually a pretty busy week altogether. 

Last Tuesday was pretty fun! We went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went into the zone leaders area and Elder Fisher stayed in our area with Elder Radford. I kind of figured that Elder Radford would be coming down into our area because a long time ago he used to serve here and would want to see members, former investigators and people that he taught. For those of you who serve missions, I don't know if it was the same way for you but here it always seems that when you go on exchanges, one area does really well and the other one kind of flops. Well on the exchange that we went on, Elder Bledso and I didn't have much luck. Our day was full of appointments, and they all ended up falling through. So we ended up knocking a lot of doors that day.   haha. 

It was great though because that night we had dinner with some members in their ward and it turns out that they were actually members from when I served back in the Capitol Ward. I had actually help them to pack up their storage unit back when they moved out. So it was good to see them again :-). I felt really bad though because by the end of dinner Elder Bledso got really sick. He was just having a lot of pains in his lower abdomen area and we thought that he had appendicitis! It was kind of a scary thing, but he talked to Sister Cooke and everything was alright in the end. He just had extremely bad stomach cramps.

Now Elder Fisher and Elder Radford on the other hand had a lot of success! They were able to check on some former investigators that we had tried to check on in previous months, and actually got somewhere with it. When we had tried to visit them, pretty much every former investigator we talked to said that they weren't interested anymore. When Elder Radford went to see them though, a lot of them remembered him and welcomed him and Elder Fisher into their home. They were also able to visit a couple of less active members that, again, we had tried to check on before, but they either weren't home and/or wouldn't answer the door for us, but Elder Radford and Fisher were able to get in. So they were able to set up a few appointments for us in the next couple of weeks and we're excited to go and visit them!

Then Wednesday we had, once again, the fantastic opportunity to go to the temple! I love and am so blessed to have the opportunity, each transfer, to go to the temple to do an Endowment Session. I mean the drive out there is kind of a pain in the butt, especially when traffic is horrible! It's entirely worth it though. It really is a special opportunity to go to the temple, especially when there are so many missionaries around the world who don't have that opportunity, because there is not a temple close to them.  I'm glad I'm serving here in Washington DC North Mission :).

So this past week we were able to meet with the Dominic and Saundra!  We taught them the 10 Commandments, the law of chastity, and tithing. Everything was going really well, and they were loving and accepting it all! Then when we went started the discussion on tithing, Saundra had a little bit of a concern. Like everyone who lives the gospel, her main concern was "how am I going to pay tithing when if I do it's going to take money away from our house payment, food for the kids, money for bills, and stuff that we need? I mean surely God doesn't want us to run short on money so we can't support ourselves and our family?".  When she brought up the concern, once again the room was filled with the spirit!  Both Elder Fisher and I were able to bear testimony of paying tithing and where we have seen the blessings that come from doing so. Then we had brother Watson, who was joining us for the lesson, also bear his testimony of how paying tithing has helped him and his family. We then explained to her that yes, while it may seem hard and that paying tithing seems like it will be taking money away for things that you need it for, however by paying tithing it would show God that she's willing to follow his Commandments.  And, that if we do pay tithing you're given a promise which is "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." (Malachi 3:10). So as far as we know from teaching that to her she was okay with paying tithing afterwards and committed to live the law of tithing.

Then last Friday they had a super fun time with the Teachers Quorum in the ward! The previous Sunday the Teachers quorum president and the adult leader invited us to go on a biking trip with them last Friday. Well all of us love biking so we thought, "Heck why not!  It'll be a good relationship building experience with young men." So we got ourselves are prepared with our bikes and went to the activity. We were told that the trail was pretty simple and that it would be really fun. Well the second part of that was true. The first part not so much!  I don't think I've ever been on a biking trail that had so many routes in my lifetime. We were going up super steep hills and trying to climb over these routes as stay on the pathway as well. In all it was about seven and a half miles of that. By the 6 mile mark, my quads were giving out going uphill!   haha I was trying to peddle and my legs just stopped working, so I had to stop the bike, and sit there for a second, so I could get strength back, and then had to get off my bike and walk up the hill. I hadn't realized how out of shape I was until I went on that bike ride!

Something not too good happened though, during the bike ride. Brother Utzinger, Elder He, and I were the last three in the group on the trail. While I was biking, Brother Utzinger came up behind me and so we started biking together. When he got to me though, I asked where Elder He was and he responded that at first he thought I was him, but that when he caught up to me he thought that Elder He was ahead of me. I told him I thought he was behind us because he hadn't passed me. So we kept riding hoping and thinking that Elder He was just way ahead of us. Well we finally got back to the head of the trail and everyone was there.... but Elder He, and it was starting to get dark. So the leaders that were there sent Elder Manning and Elder Fisher and one of the young men to go back onto the trail with their bikes and look for him. They thought he might've taken a different trail that the park had just opened up. So about half an hour after they sent those guys out, I suggested that we start in the opposite direction and look for him on that side of the trail in hopes that we could catch him after he possibly turned around when you couldn't find any of us. Before we started out to search for him though, Brother Utzinger said "Let's say a prayer before we go.". So he offered the prayer, and I think it was one of the most faith filled prayers I've heard on my mission. The prayer was simply this, "Heavenly Father, please bless that as we search for Elder He now, that we will be able to find him before it gets too dark. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." And then off we went. 

About 20 minutes to a half hour later we got a call from the three guys we sent earlier saying that they had found him. There was still plenty of light left. To me it was such a testimony builder of the power of prayer and how our prayers were answered with a miracle of finding Elder He before it got too dark. I felt so bad for him!  When he got back he was just so tired and worn out. I think he was pretty brave to be someplace he was not familiar with and could barely speak the language and then to be so calm and collected and just keep moving on when he knew he had to even though he was so tired. Needless to say we are all happy to see him safe and well :-)

Alrighty, now about transfers!  Elder Manning is completely leaving the area and Elder He has been moved to the Lexington Park Ward and is moving to the apartment just down the road. Elder Fisher and I are staying together, but we're moving apartments. We were kind of confused about us moving to a different apartment. So the plan is that each ward is going to have one set of each Elders.  We had to spend most of the day today though going to the other apartment and cleaning it out. The previous missionaries who lived there before didn't take very good care of it and it's a huge mess. So we are having to go and clean it out so it's actually livable. It's not very fun, but the work will be well appreciated.

Well that is our week! Hope you all enjoyed my letter and that you are also doing super well!  Remember to open your mouth and to be that instrument the Lord would have you be in his hands. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Gold

Birthday Stories Continued...(3/24/2014)

Hey Everyone!

So this past week a lot and a little happened. The week started out great! On my birthday I was able to go over to two family's homes. The first family was the McComb family! They had just gotten a pool table from one of their neighbors, and so Sister McComb invited us over for my birthday and said that she would cook me a birthday meal. So while we were downstairs playing pool and having a wonderful time, she was upstairs and made what's called cheesy loaf. Cheesy loaf is like meatloaf, but it has a lot of cheese in it so it's extra delicious! I also don't think I've played so much pool in my life in one day! It was a ton of fun and me and the other three elders had a blast playing with their kids.

While we were playing though, one of her sons, named Joseph, came up to me and said "I know something you don't know!". I tried getting him to tell me, but he wouldn't. So when dinner was ready, we went  and ate and had a good time talking and had some good laughs. Well I then asked Sister McComb what Joseph was talking about because I still had no idea. She told me that she had no idea what they were talking about and that they were crazy. Which is partly true, they are pretty crazy kids haha. I took it as that and then forgot about it. 

Then we headed over to the Watsons. I felt pretty bad because we ended up being kind of late. I mean it wasn't too late, it was probably like 5-10 minutes late. We got to the door, I was the first one there, and I knocked on it. I heard some shuffling around and some people talking.  Then Brother Watson open the door. When he opened the door to my surprise there was Monsters University party decorations everywhere and a group of about 10 people yelled "SURPRISE!!". Through the efforts of my wonderful family back home and a few of the ward members here in the Patuxent ward, I was able to have my very first surprise party! :).

It really was probably the best birthday that I've ever had! It was awesome to see the love and support that I receive while I'm on my mission both from the members here and my family back at home. It was awesome because I was, later on in the party, able to talk about why I came on a mission and bear my testimony of the atonement and importance of missionary work. It was really awesome because there were a couple of non-members there who were able to listen to my testimony. So I'm hoping that that touched them in someway and planted a seed that will be able to grow later on and spark their interest in the restored gospel :). 

I also got to wear a sash that said "It's My Birthday!" Ha it was pretty interesting :). Then at the end of the party, everybody went outside except for me and a couple other people. Everyone started telling me that it was time to go. I was curious as to why everybody was in such a rush.  haha I soon found out why. I get to the door and everybody is standing outside with cans of silly string ready and aimed towards me! I knew what I was in for, so I sucked it up like a man and walked through the veil of silly string!  haha I was absolutely covered in the stuff! Overall I had a wonderful birthday and I could not thank everyone who participated enough. I am so grateful for the love, support and generosity that they showed me that day :-)

Also, this past week, we had a lesson with Dominic and Saundra! That was a pretty good lesson :). We taught them about obedience, the need to pray often, read the Scriptures, keep the Sabbath day holy, the word of wisdom, and following the prophet. Well yes, you may be thinking, "Wow! That's a lot to teach someone in one lesson!"  It actually didn't take that long to teach al of those things. The first few, being obedience, pray often, and read the Scriptures, we knew that they were already doing, but we're supposed to teach it anyways. So we just kind of mentioned it and taught a little bit about it and continued on. The rest of the topics took a little bit more time. We thought it went really well though and they both committed to living all of the commandments that they were taught :-). 

We also had to discuss changing the baptismal date for Dominic. We didn't realize this, but when we set the baptismal date for April 6, we forgot that that that day was general conference. So we talked to him about it and we have it set for the 13th.

 

Then last but not least, we had zone activity! Like always we just played sports, but it was still a ton of fun!  We played basketball, capture the flag with flour bombs (sections of nylon filled with flour and tied off at the ends), skater ball (it's a little harder to explain, but just know it's like dodge ball), and then more basketball.  Then for lunch, they fed us steak!  They were huge steaks!  And they were absolutely delicious :)

Another one of the activities was a eating contest.  It was a tin full of chocolate pudding and Ho-Hos from Hostess along with like five marshmallows.  The object was to down it with your hands tied behind your back.  Well I was one of the lucky ones chosen to do that!  Here is a picture of what it looked like!  Ha!

Well that was our fantastic week! I hope everyone had an awesome one as well! I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Gold

Chocolate Pudding, Ho-Hos and Marshmallows. Look Ma!  No hands!

Memories from the high chair....

 Ward Members and Investigators at Chance's Party

Birthday Cupcakes!

Birthday Wishes!

Sharing his Testimony

 
 
Final Birthday Prank!

 Here!  You Missed some!

A Birthday Wish Come True...Dominic Accepted his Baptismal Invitation (3/17/2014)

Hey everyone!

Thank you to all who have wished me Happy Birthday! It's so very much appreciated.  I don't feel like it has been forgotten :-)  Today is going to be a fun one! 

So first of all, let me tell you about the previous week. This past week we had two wonderful lessons. One of them was with Dominic & Saundra and the other was with Lauren.

So the first one was with Lauren. We had a really wonderful lesson because the Relief Society president and her newly returned missionary daughter came with us. They were such a great help! There were a couple of times where I spaced some scriptures were and her daughter was able to jump in and help me out :-)   It was awesome!  We began by teaching her about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. She doesn't really like answering questions face-to-face because she says that she doesn't know really how to answer them. So the lesson was a lot of us talking, but we got her to talk a little bit more than usual which was good :-)

At the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized on June 22nd. The reason that we set it so far out was so that it could be a goal for her to progress towards. She's only been to church once so far.  We were hoping that this goal of baptism might motivate her to come to church more. At first she was like "I'll think about it", but then we explained to her that it was a goal for her to work towards and in the end said "sure" which kind of makes me wonder if she really is even interested in joining the church. I mean we have it on good authority that she might possibly be doing all of this just to join a group.

Then the next lesson we had was with the Aragon's! It was such a fantastically spiritual lesson, it was truly amazing! We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is that through Jesus Christ we can become cleansed from sin.  We need to have faith in Jesus Christ, we need to repent, we to be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. On quite a few of the points we ended up taking too long, you know kind of beating a dead horse type of the thing. The lesson though was still very spiritual and we are able to, at the very beginning, let Dominic know that first off we would be teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then at the end of the lesson or sometime during, as directed by the Spirit, it would invite him to be baptized. When we said that his eyes kind of lit up like "oh great", but we were able to explain that as we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ we wanted him to pay attention to the things that would point out to him why it would be important for him to receive the saving ordinance of baptism.

It was also really cool because Brother Watson, one of the members, was able to come with us. We had him talk about the symbolism of baptism and also the gift of the Holy Ghost and what the difference is between that and the feeling the power of the Holy Ghost. He did a wonderful job of explaining both! At the end of the lesson I kind of… Connected all the lesson together, basically a quick run through, and asked him, "Now knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the importance of baptism and how it can help you in your life come closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?". He sat there for a while.  You tell he was actually thinking about it pondering, deciding what good could come from it. After a little while Elder Fisher shared a scripture in Mosiah that basically stated,  "The fact is, that you have come to know these things are true, so what is it stopping you from being baptized?"

After he shared the scripture, Dominic sat there again for a little while, still pondering, still thinking what his decision would be. After little while longer he looked up at us and said with a smile on his face "yeah I will.". The spirit in the room was so strong and it was so amazing to watch the spirit work in Dominic teaching him.

Sandra also shared a spiritual experience about what it was that made her realize that what she was missing in her life most was the church. Her story really lit up the room even more with the spirit! I mean, this was probably the most, if not the second most spiritual lesson I've been in on my mission. It really was truly amazing. So we let Dominic know that we were going to have a baptismal service on April 6,(which we totally forgot was general conference haha). So we're going to let him know that and then tell him we can do it either the week before or the week after.

I also can't thank Brother Watson enough for being there for the lesson. He really was such a great addition to the discussion and he really helped the spirit to more strongly testify to Dominic, the truthfulness of the message that we shared. So thank you Brother Watson! 

This past week really was awesome! :-)

So then for my birthday, the wonderful McComb family is having us over so we can play some pool and have, what Sister McComb called, a "unofficial birthday party" haha. It's going to be a lot of fun! I love that family so much! And it's going to be fun dominating them at pool!  ha ha just kidding. I'm not very good but it will still be fun :-). 

Well that has been our wonderful amazing past week and again I just want to thank you all for the Birthday wishes that you given to me! I hope you all have a wonderful week full of blessings and miracles!

Love, 

Elder Gold

St. Patrick's Day Zone Conference

Service by Snow Shovel - Elder Fisher

Service by Snow Shovel - Elder Gold