Thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving everyone!!!

Things here are going pretty good. We've been without water for 3 days, so that's no fun. But hopefully we'll get it soon. I am however grateful that we've had energy. This past Saturday, President advised all missionaries to stay inside for the day. Apparently there were some protests going on and they didn't know how it was going to turn out. so we stayed inside all day on Saturday. We played chess and some card games. This Thursday we're all going to President's for thanksgiving.

So with Thursday being thanksgiving and all. I figured I'd talk about giving thanks. And I'm stealing this from my comp. Yesterday at dinner, we shared a spiritual thought. It was my comp, Elder Caffertys turn. He shared a scripture in D&C 98:1. Verily I say unto you my friends, ^afear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give ^bthanks; So we went around and we all said one thing that we're grateful for. It is always a really cool experience and i would advise you to do the same. Also Brother Weggland showed us something that he had done. He and his wife had made a list of everything they're grateful for. When we do so, our eyes will be opened to more blessings that our Heavenly Father has given us, and we will be more easily able to see the hand of the Lord in our Lives.

Eu sou Grato pelo evangelho em minha vida. Por cause do evangelho, eu sei que eu posso viver com minha familia para sempre. Todos nos podemos receber conforto por meio do evangelho. Tambem sou grato por minha familia. E Pais que me ajudam nesta vida. Sou grato por Jesus Cristo e a sua expiação. Este é o evangelho do Senhor. Amo Vocês!!

Com Amor,
Elder Money

Translated: I am grateful for the gospel in my life. Because of the gospel, I know I can live with my family forever. we can all be comforted by the gospel. I am also thankful for my family. and parents who help me in this life. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and his atonement. this is the gospel of the Lord. Love you!

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911161818001

Hey Everyone

Glad to hear everyones doing good at home. Congrats to madeline... shouldve looked for a guy from BYU, but utah is alright ;)

So things are going good in our area. Theyre starting to pick up. we've been doing a lot of door contacting, which is frustrating but funny at the same time. We're working on finding people who really want it. We've really been working with the members and it helps a ton!!! I cant remember who it was, but someone gave a talk this past general conference that talked about how much the church would grow if every member would share the gospel with at least 1 person. 1 person can lead to 2 and 2 to more. Its crazy how much of an influence we can be in peoples lives, and us having the knowledge of the true gospel, have the responsibility to share it with others.

Yesterday, after eating dinner with Brother Weggland, we left a spritiual message, and he said how he really thinks that living in Angola is like living amongst the Gadianton Robbers. This morning on our way to soccer, we saw a fight, which happens all the time, and a cop was right there, he walked by and looked, then just walked away. then some people broke up the two teenagers that were fighting, but the one wasnt done, he wanted some more. so he went after the kid again, but a big guy got in between them. and the little kid was still gonna fight him! then we heard everyone screaming, and we out the window of our taxi and the kid pulled out a knife... theres cops around, but they dont do anything. i dont know what happened cause our taxi drove off. But I thought about what Brother Weggland said. It really is like living amongst the Gadianton Robbers. It seems like everything here contradicts the teaching of the Gospel. Beer is cheaper than water. people hang up posters on the walls with half naked woman on them, people have bars on their windows and big metal gates on their doors, because there are so many robbers, the cops are corrupt and just want money, etc. I really thought about it. About the nephites and the Book of Mormon. All the things we can learn from the Book of Mormon. It truly is the keystone of our religion. As missionaries we are constantly studying it. constantly telling others about it and inviting them to read and study it, and because of all of this my testimony has grown. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon, for the things that we can learn from it. I know that its true. We can receive spiritual strength if we study it and live its teachings.

I love you all,

Love,
Elder Money

http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-03-08-testimony-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng#2010-03-08-testimony-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng&_suid=1384199500476009371555014161753

Pictures from Sister Merrill's blog

Transfers

So this week we had transfers. Elder Cafferty is my new comp. We're living with Elder Tingey and Elder Yeonoplos. Its gonna be a fun transfer :) Cafferty and I are getting a long great. this week was pretty crazy. We had transfers on p-day. We decided to move houses. there are two houses in our area, one road away from each other. and 6 missionaries. so 2 live in one and 4 in the other. the house i was living in had 4. it was small, and we always ran out of water. so with transfers, we decided to move into the other house. so we did. best decision ever!!! its awesome. the room is way bigger. they always have water. so we can take normal showers now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and wash our clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mine were starting to stink even after i put them in the wash! but its really cool. i put up some African paintings. way cool. this should be a fun transfer.... Elder Cafferty and I made transfer goals.... our goals are 100 lessons and 2 people baptized! we're shooting high, but hopefully well get it.

Our area is pretty new. We dropped all of our old investigators who aren't doing well. We had 4 investigators at church yesterday. One that had been investigating for a while. His name is Benjamin. So it was way cool for him to finally come to church! We were way excited about that. So elder Cafferty and I will be doing a lot of door contacting and finding. and a lot of dropping. Everyone loves to listen to us, but not many like to act.

That's way cool you went to dinner with Yuki. i bet she loved that. shes a really cool girl. Lasallette is awesome as well. i tried to weasel my way out of playing piano, cause Elder Stewart would play it normally, but he left, and before he did he made sure to tell everyone that i play. and so Lassalette made sure that i played during sacrament. haha. shes like the mom of the church in Angola. you cant say no to her. so i did. it went alright. I played praise to the man to start, and i messed up a couple times haha it was pretty embarrassing. and i was way nervous!!! cause president Merrill and president Miranda (district president) were both there sitting right next to me. i played Jesus of Nazareth for the sacrament hymn, but i never practiced it before so i just played the right hand... but it was on the organ setting so you couldn't really tell :) and then i finished with God be with you til we meet again. and that one went well. it was a humbling experience that's for sure. but it was one of the best sacraments ever.

The highlight of my week was moving into the new house.

the worst part was.... i dunno there wasn't really a bad part. maybe the fact that we only got 6 lessons this week haha. transfer week is always crazy!

but things are going good. Ohhh funny story. i dunno if i told you or not. but this happened a couple weeks ago. this guy came up to me and was like hey do you know this guy, showed me a pic and it was a pic of max!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i started freaking out i was like how did you get that pic!! he said that his sister fed the missionaries at her house. she lives in Denmark!!!!!!!!!! how crazy is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha.

I was thinking about the whole ''ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened up unto you'' scripts this past week. And i was talking to some of the missionaries about it. And i said that i don't have a super strong testimony about that. And one of the Elders responded, well maybe the answer isn't always yes.... it could be no. I had never thought about that before. Sometimes I would ask Heavenly Father for something and I never got it. It wasn't that it was a bad desire or anything like that, but it just never came. Well, my answer was no. :) haha. We might not always like it. but we do always receive answers to our prayers. Sometimes its yes, sometimes its no. And sometimes its nothing. When that happens, its because Heavenly Father trusts us to make the right decision or its not time yet. I have a testimony of this. Heavenly Father does hear our prayers. We just have to work on recognizing the answer and accepting His will.

I Love you all and miss you!! Keep writing. Support from home is the best thing you can give a missionary.

love,

Elder Money

Strange Coincidence

Transfers are next week! So we'll see what happens. Glad to hear everyones doing good!

This past week was good, we taught quite a bit of lessons. Our area was pretty much white washed so all the investigators we have now are fairly new. They're progressing well, but they wont come to church!!!!! its way frustrating. But we'll keep working on it.

Yesterday we were trying to find this lady, who is a reference we got and shes less active. Addresses are few or non existent here. she lives on road one, house number one. so we finally find road one. but we see house number 178.... So we've got a long ways to go haha... so we start walking and we had been walking for a while when this guys stops us and starts talking to us. he says he wants to hear more about the church. so we got his number, and right as we were about to leave, (we're at about house number 110) this lady comes up to us and tells us that her house is this way. So we are like uhhh ok so we follow her, and enter into house 121. Turns out she was the lady we were looking for!! I always love when things like that happen. these 'coincidences' that happen. A lot of times when we are guided by the Spirit, we don't even know it. Its like Elder Bednar says, ´´Dont worry about it. Just be a good little boy or girl, and your footsteps will be guided, and your utterances inspired.'' I'm grateful for the Spirit. And I love the rewarding feeling that comes from knowing that you followed a spiritual prompting and good things came from it.

I love you all!!!

Love,
Elder Money

 

 

Families and Testimonies

So another week!

This week was pretty good. Nothing too special. I love my area. There are a lot of awesome people in our branch. Two missionaries from Angola are leaving this week. one of them is going to Ghana and the other is going to Portugal!

This week we had a baptism. His name is Itanilson. Hes an awesome kid. Super smart. Hes neighbors with one of the families in our branch. So hes got an awesome support group and will be an awesome member of the church. We have a family night at their house tomorrow night. They're awesome. They're all members. Its cool to see how the church grows. There's this family's house and about 3 other houses around it who are all LDS. they're an awesome family and are always doing missionary work.

One thing Ive been thinking a lot about this week is my testimony and families... My Testimony has grown soooo much on my mission! Theres a scripture in 2 Nephi 5:27 that talks about living happily. Its a simple scripture and one of my favorites. Its when the Nephites separated from the Lamanites and are obeying the commandments and are living happily. This is a huge part of my testimony. I Am grateful for the gospel because it gives me hope. Because of the Gospel I know that I can live with my family forever. I know that we are blessed with happiness when we live and obey the Gospel. We will live, like the Nephites, after the manner of happiness. The Gospel Blesses Families!

Love,

Elder Money

 

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2700253803001


Pics from President and Sister Merrills blog

 

 

Light of Christ

Hey everyone!

Sounds like you all had a blast in St. George. I'm jealous. Thanks for the pics Trish!! :)

I got to watch the Sunday sessions of General Conference. All the missionaries in Luanda went to President's house yesterday. It was really cool. I love being with all the missionaries. Especially at this point in time. The Church is growing!! Its not easy to be a member, but its worth it. I definitely have a testimony of that. I know we receive blessings when we go to church, read our scripts, and pray.

So this past week, Elder Stewart and I were heading downtown to a family night. So we get into a taxi and the taxis they have here are vans with a front row, a middle row, and a back row. They fit four people onto each row so its pretty crowded. So we get in, and I'm sitting next to this lady, with her 2 year old daughter on her lap. and the little girl is just staring at me. I smile, then she slowly reaches out and puts her hand on my arm and leaves it there. I smile again then she looks at her mom and points at me. My comp, this lady, and I all start laughing.... As we were about to get off the taxi, I hand the little girl a pass along card with a picture of Jesus on it. She looks at it, shows it to her mom, smiles, and then gives it a big kiss! :) the little girl started laughing and kissed it again. It was the cutest thing ever!! And i thought about it. EVERYONE has the Light of Christ. One thing I have definitely learned while being on my mission is the reality of Christ, and the Atonement. The more I learn about it, the more it blows my mind. We cannot comprehend EVERYTHING about the Atonement. But we can receive ALL the blessings that come from it. It requires a lot on our part. The Atonement is for EVERYONE. NO ONE excluded. That is the greatness of the Atonement. I am so grateful for the atoning sacrifice of Christ. All of us should strive to increase our relationship with Him and to be able to receive the blessings of the Atonement. That little girl has the Light of Christ. She has a Spirit that was once in heaven with our Heavenly Father. Our purpose is to progress and get back to Him. All this is made possible through the Atonement.

Eu amo vocês! Eu amo Jesus Cristo! Sou grato pela Expiacão em minha vida.

 

(Translated: I love you! I love Jesus Christ! I am grateful for the Atonement in my life)

Love,
Elder Money

 

http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-01-010-patterns-of-light-the-light-of-christ?lang=eng#2012-01-010-patterns-of-light-the-light-of-christ?lang=eng&_suid=138120789221804063904526444486

 

Fan the flame of your Faith

Hey everyone

Happy birthday to Charlie Rae!! :)

This last week was a little crazy. I was studying, Elder Stewart was taking a shower, Elder Hobbs was doing dishes, and Elder Chandler comes running in and tells me that our pump is on fire!! so we go running into the back room where our water pump is, and smoke is coming out of it! So we hurry and shut it off. Needless to say, it broke. So we called a guy to come fix it. And he must have gotten lost, cause it took him 4 days to get there. haha. So we were without water for a couple days. But now its all good!

Elder Stewart and I have close to no investigators! so we've been doing a lot of finding. And a lot of door contacting. We got home the other day at about 7 o clock for dinner. and Elder Hobbs needed to go buy some Toilet Paper so I went with him to go buy some, and this kid about 20 years old told us to pray for him cause he had problems with drinking. so we talked to him for a bit, he showed us where he lives. and then we went and bought the TP. We went back to the house, then Elder Stewart and I left to go do some more contacting. We ended up at This kids house again and taught him and his family about the Word of Wisdom. by this time we only had about 30 minutes left. so we decided to go knock one more building. and as we got to the second to last door, a girl answered and we told her who we were and what we were doing and she said she was Muslim but she told us to talk to her brother. So he came to the door, he invited us in and we sat and talked to him about the Book of Mormon. He's really cool. His name is Neves. So moral of the story... The Lord blesses you when you're obedient.

This week I was reading the talk from Elder Holland, called Lord, I believe. Its a great talk. one of my favorites! i would recommend reading it, even though you've probably heard it already. I was also reading a book by Elder Bednar, and both talk about our testimonies. Elder Holland talks about how we will have doubts. and that's OK. But we should address those doubts in belief, rather than unbelief. and that we should always hang on to testimony that we have already gained. Elder Bednar talks about how we may have doubts and there will be little things that wont always make sense to us. But he talks about how we cannot deny the church today. We cant deny all the scripture, all the people, all the testimonies that have come from a man with close to no education, who didn't even live to be 40 years old. The point is that yes we will have doubts, No we don't understand everything, but we cant let go of testimony that we have once received and we cant deny all the people who have testified of this 'Marvelous work and Glory'. I am grateful for the Church in my life. I have seen it change lives for the better. There is not a person on the face of the Earth that would not benefit from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and being a member of His church. I love Him, and I love His Church.

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Money

District Conference

Hey everyone,

So tough loss. But I'd still rather be a Y fan :)

This week was pretty normal. Elder Stewart and I have 1 investigator. And he's getting baptized this Saturday, so after this Saturday we'll have 0. So we've been knocking a ton of doors. Its pretty funny to see people's reactions when two white guys show up at their door in shirt and ties. But other than that, nothing new.

We had District Conference this week. almost 700 people showed up! it was a big turn out. and that doesn't include the members from the provinces. The talks were good. President Merrill is able to use his Portuguese from his mission to talk. Sister Merrill has a missionary translate for her and then bears her testimony in Portuguese. They both gave great talks. I really Liked Sister Merrills, but I thought I'd share something interesting that President Merrill talked about. I read about this story in a book by Elder Bednar. He talks about how their was a man who found a pearl. And it was the most beautiful pearl he had ever seen. So he wanted to show it off to the world. So he paid a man to make a nice blue velvet box that was all decorated so he could show off his pearl to everyone. but to his disappointment he found out that people were no longer coming to see the pearl but to look at the box. Then the comparison was made that often times we focus on the Jewelry box, rather than the pearl of great price. For example Churches are a jewelry box. its the meetings and Spirit inside of them that is the Pearl. He then challenged us to focus on the pearls of great price. rather than the Jewelry boxes.

I love you all and miss you :) keep in touch.

love,

Elder Money

 

Rivalry Week

Hey everyone! so, rivalry week!! haha Im wearing my BYU gear. so hopefully they don't disappoint!!

This week was a little crazy. President Merrill pulled a fast one on us and did transfers a week early!! so we had to scramble to get all ready for them. Elder Tingey has been walking with Elder Stewart and I because his comp hasn't gotten here from Lubango yet. But he should be here tomorrow. We flooded our house again :) but not as bad this time. Church was really good this week, except we've been without energy for the past two or three weeks. so no piano or microphone. it makes things a lot harder!!

This week i just have a small little message. Last week when we had interviews with President Merrill he said something interesting to me about 'Spiritual Promises'. He talks about how we may have made spiritual promises in the pre earth life and how sometimes the Lord will guide us and help us to know what some of those promises were and its our responsibility to fulfill those promises. I fully believe that. I think about that all the time. Maybe when we have to go knock an entire building and i don't want to, but i think to myself that maybe theres someone in there that i promised i would find. it relates in all aspects of our lives. And I love being given those little insights or promptings by the Spirit that let us know what we should do or what we may have promised that we would do. Just something to think about.

I love and miss you guys!! keep in touch!!

love,

Elder $

GO COUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Safari

Hey everyone. So this was a pretty good week. a little crazy! I never thought id be in Africa, knocking random peoples doors and walking into random peoples houses on my birthday haha, but it was a good way to spend it. Happy birthday to Kylie!! Hope it was as good as mine ;)

One funny story this week, the way water works here in Africa is that every house has a water tank. and its connected to water from the city, which will fill up the tank. well, the city isn't very reliable here and we hardly ever get water. Lucky for us, we have a neighbor upstairs who is a member of the church who has a giant water tank and will let us steal some of her water. So in order to do this well ask her, and shell drop a hose down to our window, and we pull it in and stick it in our tank, then she turns it on and it fills up our water. our tank is 500 liters, so it takes a little bit for it to fill up. so Elder Stewart and i were sitting there waiting, doing studies and getting ready for the day and then I stopped reading and thought, i wonder if that's almost done? so i got up and walked out, Elder Stewart was in the bathroom, shaving. So i ask him if its almost done and he says ''i dunno, it should be close, go check'' and then we just hear splashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! hahahaha so i bolted upstairs and asked her to turn it off. so we kinda flooded our house :) but no harm no foul.

We also went on a safari today with our zone, and President and Sister Merrill. It was a blast. We saw some monkeys, Giraffes, wildebeest, (the guys on Lion King who killed mufasa), and some antelope and little dear that look like Bambi. it was a blast!!

My mom sent me a book by Elder Bednar called Act in Doctrine. I just got done reading it and really liked it. It brought up an interesting concept that I had never given much thought. it talks about ACTING in doctrine haha. I often find myself trying so study as much as I can and learn as much as I can. But for what? it doesn't matter if we don't act on what we know. For example, we all know the phrase that goes something like ''Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime'' but even if you teach him how to fish, and he refuses to go fishing, he'll still be hungry! We have to LEARN, and then ACT in what we learned. Its not enough just to know that Christ was humble, and charitable, and loving, and etc.... we have to act on that, and become like him. When we listen to the General Authorities in Conference, we need to apply what we learned in our lives.

We had interviews this past week with President Merrill, and he told me something interesting. he said ''You know, I wasn't the best missionary, but I showed up for work.'' And that's really true. We don't have to be the best, and if we are, that doesn't really matter. What matters is ''Showing up to work'' So next time you learn something new, don't just listen and think oh yeah that's great.... Apply it, act on it. That is where true progress and success come from :)

Eu Amo vocês!! Obrigado por tudo. (I Love you, Thanks for everything)

Com Amor,

Elder $

 

 

(Pictures taken from Elder Tilley's blog)