Week #7

Alright, so apparently there's a huge blizzard coming in. Haha that's really funny because I'm totally coatless. Though I do have gloves and a scarf as of today. Thanks family :) I appreciate the things people have sent very much.  Also I got some more good pictures that I'll have printed and sent. Anyways...

 

Last Tuesday our speaker was Elder Pearson of the Seventy, and it was really funny because basically his whole talk was rewording of my study journal for the week before. So I have a lot of doubles on notes now. Apparently it was important. He talked about becoming a true disciple of Christ and following the Spirit. His closing thingy was "A disciple of Christ is...? If I am becoming a disciple of christ, I am no longer...?" Good stuff. Also I suggest that everybody look up a talk called "The Armor of God isn't Comfy" by Hank Smith. He's an EFY speaker and a genius. After listening to that, you should study the armor of god in-depth and think about the extensive metaphor that can be made if you thing of life as a battle. It's pretty awesome. I can't actually listen to the tak here, but I've listened to it so many times that I know it really well... So yeah.

 

We alo got to teach Daniel Limon again. We went in with the intent to try and steer the lesson towards a baptismal commitment. It was a great plan. Anyways, when we got there, he told us he had read some more. Awesome! He read all of the book of Moroni. The chapter that stuck out the most to him was chapter 9. Less awesome... it's the chapter where Mormon is lamenting the fallen states of the Nephites and Lamanites, and describes their abominations. So yeah, the conclusion he came to was that he didn't want the book to be true, because if it was, that meant that it is possible for a people who saw God, who were a great and delihtsome civilization, to fall into the vilest of wickedness in a relatively short time. That mostly killed the plan we had. The lesson ended up bein mostly us bearing our testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, and that even though it does have some sad scary things in it, it can bring you closer to God, and make you happier than anything else. We also explained that it is a warning, and that that is why we do what we do. The people fell that far because they forgot their God. We are missionaries because we don't want people to forget, we don't want that to happen again. He did end up praying at the end, too. Nothing too special, but it was a prayer.  He said he'd keep reading, and pray about whether it was true. So I suppose it did go well.

 

Happy Thanksgiving all :) Looks like it'll be a pretty cold one.  Hopefully the food will be awesome, though. I'm not really sure what to expect here, haha.

 

Happy Birthday Grandma B!

 

Happy birthday dad! How's everything going in Idaho? I heard the blizzard hit there too. You've gotta tell me what you do for your birthday. It had better be super awesome. I would have written you in spanish, but I don't think I can do it fast enough... I do appreciate your letters though :) The only thing is that you used a gerund as a noun, but in spanish it's the infinitive. So yeah. Anything I could send you for your birthday? haha I love you. Thanks for all your help and support in getting and keeping me here.  

 

Alright folks, that's it for this week. Join us next time, on Elder Katzakian's blog!

Week #6

Last Tuesday Elder Bednar came to talk to us. It was pretty awesome. We got four apostles in a row and I'm hoping for a fifth tonight.  So Elder Bednar and his wife pretty much proved to me that a sense of humor is part of perfection. She spoke first and poked a little fun at him, then, during the beginning of his talk she actually got up and squezzed in front of him to get at the microphone to tease him about his age because of something he said and made him blush in front of the whole MTC. It was awesome. He said some funny stuff too, but I can't really remember specifically what now, and I was busy writing down the stuff that was more important than the jokes. Anyways, he talked about doctrine, principles and applications. Doctrines being what answers the question why, principles what, and applications how. He didn't really give any super specific examples, because the point of the talk was that we put in the effort to learn, rather than just being handed all the answers. so yeah. One good example is home teaching. Lot's of people try silly things to enforce the principle of home teaching, such as baking a cake on the first of the month for your home teachers. If they come early, they get good cake, if they come on the last of the month it is moldy. That's just a gimmicky application and won't really improve home teaching at all. It'd be more effective to get the biggest, ugliest, scariest guy in the ward (preferably an ex-marine) and put him in front of the Elders quorum to say that everyone had better do their home teaching, or he'll come get them.  Even then it would be useless. What would happen when he moved out of the ward, or died, or left for any other reason? Not home teaching. The answer is in the doctrine; the men must learn why they do it, and truly believe it for the home teaching to happen. There are a few hings it could be brought back to, but the most obvious would be our baptismal covenants, or the oath and covenant of the priesthood. To fulfill either, home teaching must be done. To have the motivation to do it, one must thoroughly understand and believe that. You can do a lot of good things in your life, and even know why you did them, but if you don't truly believe them, if you don't truly become those things, then it won't do you any good.  Not to say the applications are useless though. They are the action, they are the doing, but the base lies in the doctrines. If there's no real reason to do it, it won't get done.

 

We also had the opportunity to meet with Daniel again. It didn't go as well as last week. I think it was because we went in with too much of a plan, we didn't leave ourselves as much room to change things up according to the Spirit.  Apparently we weren't as clear as we thought, and apparently we misunderstood him a little bit. He said he wasn't really looking for God and he asked us why we were really there. We told him basically that we had experienced the joy that the gospel can bring and that we love him and want him to have it too, and that he may not be looking for God, but he is looking for something, looking for more meaning, and we're there to show him that that search leads to God. He thanked us for our concern. He actually did read the Book of Mormon a little, but not what we left for him. He ended up reading the first chapter in Ether, which is okay. He did get some stuff about prayer out of it, and we talked abot that a little. He said he'd keep reading, and we asked if he had any questions or anything we could direct him to in the scriptures, and I felt prompted to also leave the option of freely choosing himself what he'd read, without any direction from us, and he chose that one. I trust that he'll come across something that will help him, that we can discuss and make some progress with next time. So yeah, I'll let you know what happens next week.

 

Until then, adios.

Week #5

Another week bites the dust!

 

So my companion, Elder Jones, and I had the chance to teach Daniel again. It went very well. He did let us pray at the beginning and the end this time. at the beginning we asked if there was anything we could do for him and he asked if we had a million dollars he could use and we laughed and said no, then Eldoer jones pulle dout a hundred dollars and told Daniel he kept it for emergencies, and he could have it if he needed it. Daniel said he was okay, but seemed touched. When we got into talking about gospel stuff, we challenged him to pray again, and he wasn't really for it. He said he didn't even really want to know anymore, and what would happen if he found out we were right?  He'd gotten into some bad stuff since he stopped doing the church thing, he was a "partier." He didn't really have a desire to do those good things anymore, and he didn't really want to talk to us about the stuff he'd gotten into because he said that we were men of God. We promised him that if he'd just give it a shot, just pray, just try reading the scriptures, he'd feel that desire grow. We said he does't even have to really believe it'll work, just want to hope that maybe it will, and it cn grow from there. We shared a couple of verses from Alma 32 with him, and left him with the chapter to read in the next week. We couldn't get him to commit to it, so we just challenged him to read it and pray, and we'd talk about it next time, and that if he didn't have the chance, we'd read and pray with him next time, then talk about it. We bore our testimonies of that change of heart that can happen, and a little bit of personal experience, and told him that we love him and just want him to be happy, then left.

 

It's crazy how strong the spirit gets when we're teaching him. It seems kind of funny since it's just practice, but it's easy to forget that it is only practice. It does make sense that, being a teacher, the spirit would help to practice with these things. It's so cool to be recognizing promptings and being able to follow them and everything. It's just awesome.

 

Also, last tuesday night, Elder M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to us. He talked about the importance of developing the best possible personal communication skills, because that's what we are: personal communicators. Also It's important to learn the doctrine and have it down, so you don't have to focus on that while you are teaching, and you can just focus on the people and what they need and the Spirit.

 

So yeah, thanks to the Downeys for that package, it was basically super amazing. I don't have their address though. I'm trying to get letters out to people, but I'm only really getting out one or two every Tuesday.  Also, I apoligize if i forget to say thank you for something, a lot happens during the week and it's easy to forget. Just know that anything and everything is appreciated.

 

That plan for the jacket is perfect. It's not too bad here, because I'm only outside for a long time on Tuesday when I'm walking to the temple. Oh, and I dunno if I ever mentioned it, but Elder Flake started getting stuff, it was just a little later. As for what kind of stuff I'd like to get... I dunno. I'm not too picky and anything I don't like can always be traded for stuff I do.

 

So yeah, write me, tell me how everything's going, I'll try to respond. Gotta go now. Peace out.

 

Elder Katzakian

Pictures from Brock

 
I think this is for the Bellvilles.  Look at those shiney shoes!


Brock's comment "Volleyball is brutal"

(These are just a few of the pictures he sent)

Week #4

Alright, so it's been a super awesome week. On Tuesday, Elder Richard G Scott came to talk and it was so awesome. He spoke abput the companionship of the holy ghost and how important it is to missionary work and to life. It was also really cool because he had the main points of his talk written out and printed up for everyone in order to limit the notes we'd be taking to just our spiritual impressions. Then he bestowed an apostolic blessing upon all of us that we would all have the confidence in and through the Spirit to be bold representatives of jesus Christ, that we would all be blessed with the gift of tongues as we study and pray, and that we'll be able to retain the things we learn on our mission, not only the language but all of the spiritual lessons as well.  He then closed by bearing testimony, not as Elder Scott, but as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ that "Jesus Christ lives. He is a personage of perfect love. He is our redeemer. He is our intermediary with the father. I love Him. I solemnly declare that He lives. I know that He lives because I know Him."

 

The most amazing part was the number of elders who still couldn't maintain their reverence during a meeting like that. We got in trouble because a bunch of missionaries were taking pictures during the meeting. Anyways, it was awesome. Then it snowed. Pretty much the best day ever.

 

Also, my whole district got changed up because of people leaving early and moving to other MTCs, so now i have a new companion named Elder Jones, though i still room with Elder Flake too.

 

Elder Jones and I decided to take on the toughest challenge the MTC has to offer. Daniel Limon. He's a guy who works here as an investigator. there are a bunch of teachers you can practice teaching with, and they'll help you and give you feedback, but he's basically real. As soon as he steps onto MTC campus he's in character as himself before the he got baptized. He was also a difficult convert who took some very effective, dedicated missionaries and a whole ton of the spirit to get to church. So yeah, he doesn't even break character talking to other teachers. He speaks Spanish and English. Now we have one or two appointments a week with him until we leave. We spoke with him yesterday, us and him fluctuating between Spanish and English the whole time.

 

It was actually really cool. We were outside his "apartment" waiting and praying and getting ready, when he walked by, and asked us if we were Mormons. We said yes and he let us walk with him to his door, where he told us he had about five minutes until some friends were coming over. It was funny because we left then just went right back because we were the "friends" and he just didn't realize, but he didn't even miss a beat... Anyways, we started ten minutes early and ended up going fifteen minutes over our time and never got past telling him that God is our loving heavenly father. Long story short, we spent the whole time testifying and getting to know him, and we read a little from the scriptures, and the Spirit was super strong the whole time, but he wouldn't agree that we were literally children of God because he said that brings God down, and wouldn't agree to pray because he tried once five years ago when his mom and brother died, to get one more chance to see them, and didn't feel he recieved an answer, or that God really cares about little, insignificant people. i told him that we were the answer to his prayer, and that that was our message, that we can be with our families again, forever, and that God loves each one of us individually and personally. he said it sounded nice, but he couldn't believe it. he'd seen no evidence of it hiimself, and that we were five years too late, he no longer has thae hope. he said we could come back, but he won't pray because all that's done is hurt him. So yeah. it was intense. anyways, that's basically all my time. Oh, also, my name means "Son of Lightning." The armenian elders told me.

 

Tell grandma and grandpa thanks so much for the cookies and tie, they were super super nice :) and thanks for the pictures you sent. I also still need addresses. so yeah. everything is going well.

 

Elder Katzakian