October 22, 2012

Dear Family,

  Thanks for the birthday boxes! All that winter clothing will come in handy. It hasn't gotten too cold yet for thick clothing but it'll get there.
  I didn't do anything very special for my birthday, but I did have lunch with my first district leader. We both have the same birthday just a year apart so we just had lunch and stuff.
  I wanna talk about this family we are teaching and how prepared they are. This family accepted to be baptized the first lesson. They read the Book of Mormon the first day. When we invited them to repent of their sins, they repented in the closing prayer. The wife straight up told us that she wants to be baptized. The father falsed his sister over the phone about how the mormon religion doesn't worship Jesus. The father called us one morning asking us how he could donate his house in mexico to the missionaries so he could save the church some money. The wife told us that she'll take anything that Satan can throw at her and will still be baptized. The father already invited us to his sealing at this time next year. He also told us that his beach house in mexico is ours whenever we want. IT'S RIDICULOUS!!!!!! So yeah I'm excited for their baptism (the parents and their 2 eligible kids).
  So I'm kinda short on time today, but thank you so much for all the packages and the support from home. I hope that someday I can somehow make it up.

Love,
Elder Parks

October 15, 2012

Dear Family,

  So this past week has been pretty busy! I did 5 baptism interviews this past week for Elders in my district! As a district we are projecting 19 baptisms for this month! That accounts for more than half the zone! We have a family right now who are super prepared! When we were having our lesson with them this past week, the wife told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true, she knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that she can´t wait to be baptized! I have no clue how some people are so prepared but they somehow are!
  As for an embarrassing story, yesterday at Church, we didn´t have someone that could translate the meeting into english. So they decided to call me up from the stand to do it! Speaking another language, you have your on and off days, and yesterday was a really off day! Then to add insult to injury, an RM was giving a talk but he didn´t speak spanish! So I translated for him and it was horrible! He was quoting scriptures left and right, along with preach my gospel. So yeah it was quite an experience.
  Taylor, we´re going to the temple this week actually so I´ll ask about the plates. However, my mission president said he´d never heard of my theory before so I´m kinda doubting that it´s correct.
  Other than that this week has been kinda uneventful. I liked reading in the book of mormon in 2 Nephi 31. Towards the end of the chapter, Nephi is somehow only talking about going through the Temple. I dont entirely understand it but I´m trying hard to find it all out. Mission President explained it once and my head started hurting.
  Looking forward to mail pick up today! Also, I still haven´t had time to write letters to people so if anyone asks just tell them I´m getting around to it. Also my camera batteries died to I need to buy some more next week before I can send pictures.

Love ya´ll!
Elder Parks

October 8, 2012

Dear Family,

  We watched the saturday morning session of conference in our landlord's house, and we literally started yelling when President Monson changed the ages for missionaries. BYU will never be the same. Plus, it's gonna be weird seeing 19 year old sister missionaries.
  Taylor, 5 temples have Moronis holding gold plates: Jordan River Temple, Washington D.C temple, Seattle Washington, L.A Temple, and Mexico City Temple. A temple patron told me the doctrine behind the temples with gold plates but I gotta ask a Temple president before I believe it. Also, the RM I met had served in Australia and he only said the two words that you said aren't considered swear words in Australia.
  Well, to be honest, I'm not a fan of planning for district meeting. Also as a district leader I need to go on exchanges with the every missionary in my district (there is 6 of us total) during the transfer. The purpose of the transfer in to learn from the District leader, which I find odd for obvious reasons.
  Mom, from District leader I can go anywhere. I can be a zone leader, go back to a junior comp, a senior comp, or a trainer.
  So in our mission, the missionaries who have been out longer are the ones who are allowed to go to conference. However, since we received over 70 missionaries in 18 weeks, I'm classified as a veteran (with 8 months???) so I got to go to Sunday afternoon session! It was awesome to go there again. I saw Brother Bednar, from wells branch but he couldn't hear me calling for him. Also, the Hancock family was sitting 4 rows in front of me but they didn't see me either. However, someone that found me was my awesome MTC teacher!!! He came up behind me and surprised me. It was so cool to see him because he helped me a lot in the MTC. Found out too that he had found a girlfriend and was already engaged, where he wasn't dating anyone 6 months ago when I left. It scares me to think about getting married a year after my mission. Speaking of dating, I've had a few families ask me if I had a girl waiting for me back home. When I say no, they try to set me up with their daughter or cousin... it's kind of awkward. They get this idea that I'm some sort of millionaire who will give them money.
  My favorite talk from conference was President Uchtdorf. He got to fly with the Blue Angels!!! I liked his notion for us to just decide to be happy. I need to work on that, this past week has been kinda rough but we did find some golden investigators! They hate the catholic church, and want their kids to have good morals. Plus they loved conference and want to be baptized! Good stuff is starting to come.
   That's all I got time for now. Hope y'all have a good week!

Love,
Elder Parks

October 1, 2012

Dear Family,

  It's october!!!!!! I only have 1 year and 4 months left and I'm still not fluent in Spanish! I need to work harder.
Please forgive me for not sending pictures recently. I keep forgetting to bring it, but I am using it out in the field. The picture that I'm pointing in, I'm actually pointing at Moroni on top of the Draper Temple. Speaking of Moroni, did you know that only 5 temples in the world feature Moroni holding gold plates? There are also a few where Moroni is holding a scroll. Cool stuff.
  Thanks for the package! I actually went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders this past week, he ate a lot of my candy, the punk. I still have a lot of it though!
  This week in the Book of Mormon, I really liked chapter 21 of 1 Nephi. I remember that Nephi uses the words of Isaiah there because Isaiah is a great prophet for giving hope and encouragement. I think I need to use that one more with our investigators.
  This past week has been rough numbers wise but I'm keeping my hopes up. We don't have anyone that is progressing and we don't have anyone on date for baptism either. My greenie is struggling a bit, I need to actually focus on him more.
  I've really liked the colors recently. It's cool to see Fall creep down the mountains. Plus it's nice to drive around with the windows open during the day. I'm not looking forward to winter though, it's already cold in the mornings for work outs.
  Happy Birthday mom! Sorry we can't be there for it, but know that we'll be thinking of you! I always think of the mothers of the stripling warriors whenever I think of home. We we're raised up by a great mom.
  So this past week, we played tag in a place called the fun zone, we ran around on all these different inflatables and it was SO much fun. This past week I conducted my first district meeting. It was nice, the zone leaders helped me out a lot. The next day (wed) all the district leaders had an awesome training at the mission office from President Miller. He really does care for the leadership and well being of the missionaries. Thursday night we had an interesting conversation with some drunk guys. They asked us for beers in spanish, it was funny. On Friday, I helped out an Elder who was going home. He was a trial missionary who wasn't able to serve for the full 2 transfers he wanted to. We had some one on one time, and I talked to him a lot about how much of an example he is to everyone. He was bullied a lot, he almost committed suicide, his dad considers him a failure because he's not athletic due to a heart condition. I did everything that I could to help comfort him. I'm glad I did too because he really needed it. He told me that I'm the second person who has really ever cared for him in his life. I'm just glad that I could help him out. In church I accidently messed up primary!!! The teacher wanted me to stand behind a board so only my shoes and legs were visible. She then said that there was an important person behind the board. Well then I thought I heard her tell me that I could come out. Turns out, she said something else and I accidently spoiled the surprise. So much for my first sunday in the branch. Haha

The church is true!
Love,
Elder Parks