Casi Navidad!

So the biggest thing that has hit me this week is how little everyone knows about us, and how difficult it is to inform them as a missionary. Almost everyone just assumes we are robots coming to assimilate them and don't even want to look at us too long. There was even a lady who saw us coming and opened her door before we even got there and shouted no thanks and slammed it. No one really realizes that we are real people who have made and are making big sacrifices to be here because we care about them.  Obviously we think it'd be fantastic if they listened to our message, felt the truthfulness of it and joined the church, but we don't force it on them. We just invite to learn and help people come closer to Christ, and if they don't want to do that, then we're always happy to just do some service. We're not as aggressive and forceful as they think... but that's the first thing that comes to mind when they see the suits and nametags. That's why regular members are so much more effective at finding, they are just seen as normal people, and they make friends first, then when it's known that they are Mormon, the other people don't run away.  The people who understand that we are just there to help, even if they don't want our message stop and talk and we always have a pleasant conversation. so I just want to encourage everyone who reads this and is a member to make sure everyone who knows you knows it, and if missionaries ever come up in conversation, just make it clear that we are here only to help and teach and uplift people, we don't want to force them to do anything or fight or whatever... That way we might get a little less flak when we're trying to jsut brighten their day.

Another challenge I'd like to make is to anyone who is reading this who is not a member of the church. If you haven't taken the time to learn about the church and it's history and beleifs, do so. A great way to do that is to read The Book of Mormon, or tak to the missionaries. I promise that neither of those things will brainwash you. You can even tell the missionaries you just want to learn and not convert. They'll probably still ask you to pray about the things they teach and maybe even if you'll get baptized, but don't let it scare you. Your obligation is not to them, but to yourself and your God. So just do what feels right to you. We had a lady get really mad at us and not really let us talk because she said that she only studies from the Bible, the word of God, and not from a man made book, but I'm sure she hasn't ever even looked at the Book of Mormon.  We only really had time to simply say we know the Book of Mormon is of God before she closed the door.  What I would say to her if I had time is this: I have read nearly all of the Bible, and I have felt it's truthfullness insomuch that I would say I know it to be the word of God, but I have also read The Book of Mormon and have felt the same testimony of it's truth and know it to be the word of God as well. What qualifies us in saying that God can't give us more testimony of His son? and if He did, would you deny it? So read the book first, then look me in the eye and tell me it isn't a good book, tell me it's not from God. You won't be able to, for it is.

Something that made me happy, though, is the daughter in the Briggs family. They're the ones I wrote about last week who we found by talking to people at the dumpster. Anyways, she took the time to let us share a little bit of our message, and to serve her and her family, and she told us that she's been to a lot of churches, and we are the first ones she's met that really try to do what Jesus would do. She's impressed by that and wants to get involved. See what happens? if you just give us a couple minutes to learn about you and help you, you'll see we aren't bad. Then, if you give us a little more to teach you what we believe, you'll see that that is good too.  You don't even have to agree with us necessarily, it's just nice when people recognize that the work is good and we are only extending a hand of support. So tell your friends how nice we really are. It does wonders.

We also went to check on a lady who was being taught by the missionaries a long time ago, and they kinda stopped teaching her because she said she wanted to come to church and do stuff, but would always bail out at the last minute and just wouldn't keep any commitments. Some members of the church still wen't by periodically, but the missionaries didn't really have time. So yeah, we went back and talked to her and were very nice and offered tours of the church and stuff to make her more comfortable, and invited her to a christmas musical devotional that was last night. She had kind of a hard time... Her husband died ten years ago and she still cries at the drop of a hat about it. She got remarried briefly, but then got divorced and has been going through huge custody battles in the court ever since and is dealing with the mother's pain of feeling like she's losing her children and people calling her a bad mother all the time, and criticizing her ability to be a parent, while her children just tell her that they want to be with her. She prays, and tries to be forgiving, but she's put herself in a little bubble. She takes a couple classes, but doesn't work. She goes to a support group where it sounds like people just go to cry and complain to eachother and be told that everyone there is having a hard time, but not really be helped in any way. She goes to counseling, but the counsellor just seems to try to tell her that she's really strong enough to deal with it all and needs to not worry. That is actually counter productive because she keeps feeling the need to just keep trucking on by herself, because she can be strong enough, but then she gets overwhelmed and does nothing. So she gets up and goes through the same, meaningless routine every day hoping her problems will go away. She says she believes Jesus can help her, but doesn't do anything about it. We were pretty blunt with her and told her that God will answer her prayers and show her the answers and His love if she'll just show him. She needs to get out of her little bubble, out of her comfort zone, and then she'll be able to see changes. Once she actually does something to cope, she'll be able to overcome that pain and sorrow that she has just come to accept as part of her burden. The atonement of Christ can lift us to infinite heights, but only after we have done all we can do to do what he has asked. She seemed touched by that. She actually came to the devotional!!!! After like a year and a half of zero action, of saying she wants help, but doing nothing to get it, she actually got out of her little comfort zone, did something she was scared to do, and it was awesome. She really enjoyed it. It was like pulling teeth, and we were half an hour late, but she got there and loved it. I think that means she's going to make it to church too. She said it would anyways... but yeah. It was a huge step. She has a lot of potential.

So yeah... I was going to say something else, but I forgot... I still get to practice Spanish. Every day I pray for opportunities to use is it, and when I look for them I always end up talking to at least one spanish speaker. It's harder than you might think here. My area has the lowest hispanic population of the mission, and I'm in an english ward, so yeah... anyways, thank you for everything, sorry if my email doesn't really make sense, my brain is tired. I love you all :)

IN TEXAS

How's life in Idaho? send me the latest scoop. I'm pretty curious. I hope you're all doing really well. Everything is fantastic here.

So the first night here in San Antonio, we went down to the Alamo and placed copies of The Book of Mormon. It was pretty awesome. The weirdest part is that I got to be very confident and good at talking to people in the MTC, even people who acted super real, but as soon as I got here and started to taking to people who really need it and really matter, I got super nervous. I'm way better by now though. If you haven't figured it out yet, my P-day is Monday here. 

On Thursday we got our companions and our first assignments. My trainer is Elder Lish. He's pretty cool, and we have his old companion with us until Wednesday when He goes home. Elder Lish is the district leader as well.  We are both Spanish-speaking elders, but we're in an English area, so it's really hard to keep up on the Spanish. I'm doing alright, though. My first street contact in my area was actually in Spanish. She would've taken a Book of Mormon, except I only had English with me, so I just left her a pass along card and referred her to th Spanish elders in the area. Since then I always carry Spanish and English, and I have had the opportunity to use both. There are also some members in our wards that speak Spanish, so I can practice with them. We cover three wards here, and it is the wealthiest area in the whole mission. the worst aparments here push two thousand dollars a month, and almost every community is gated. It's really hard to find people, but when it happens, they are solid.

One of the things I like most about Texas is that almost everyone is really nice. Much nicer than in California... However, there are still very rude people every now and again. They especially don't like us, which is silly because all we do is come and ask if we can help them in any way. Even if they don't want to listen to our message we are always happy to just do service for them. It's kinda silly.

It has been way awesome to see miracles every day, and feel the Spirit guide us to the things that God wants us to do. The kinda frustrating part is that I know it could happen even more, but not everyon in the group wants to be totally obedient to all of the rules... and people who have more experience or are in authority or about to go home are not very open to corrective suggestions. That's okay kinda.. but I need to be a little more forceful when I know somethng needs to be done differently but the others don't want to.

Anyways... probably the coolest little miracle I've seen so faris this: We had an appointment cancel on us, so we didn't really know what to do. We pulled over to the side of the road to pray and seek guidance. As we then looked at our area map we felt prompted to go to a certain apartment complex and check up on some old dropped investigators. While we were there we had a bunch of doors closed on us and a bunch of people not home. we got down near the bottom of the complex and were knocking on a door, when a black woman pulled up and got out of her car to put her trash in the dumpster, which was pretty close to us. We decided it was a good idea to talk to her, you know since it was three men in the dark, by the dumpster going to talk to one woman. Makes sense. Anyways, she was a little freaked out at first, but then recognized us as Mormons. She said she wasn't interested because she's "non-denominational," but her sister is Mormon and lives in the complex if we wanted to visit her. She called her to ask, and the sister said she'd like that.  We went there and found out she had moved to Texas from New Jersey about a month ago for cancer treatment, and had just had chemotherapy the day before. She was living there with her husband, son, daughter and daughter's two sons, who are all not members. The folks in New Jersey said they'd send her membership records here, but haven't yet, so nobody knew she was here, and she hasn't had the energy or strength to go out and find someone. Her husband can't walk, we didn't figure out exactly what was wrong, but he was sitting there on the couch with some big things on his feet and a catheter. He has some serious depression and is losing his voice because he very rarely uses it now... The son was asleep, but the daughter was there, and wants to take the discussions because she remembers when the two white boy missionaries knocked on their door in the projects. Good story. Anyways, we got all of the woman's info. (her name is Kathy) so we could pull her records here, and shared a spiritual message with them. It turns out they picked up and moved so fast that she forgot her scriptures, so we left some there for the family. At the end we gave Kathy a blessing and it was way awesome. The husband and daughter wanted one too after that, so we gave three blessings in that apartment. They were all really awesome, and I know that family is going to have a lot of help and support and miracles over the next little while.  Kathy insisted we come back tomorrow for some fried chicken.  That made my day. It was awesome to see how the lord puts His servants where they will be able to succor his children. The church is true.

Okay, so my address is:

Elder Brock Katzakian
20211 Huebner Road #915
San Antonio, TX 78258

Anything that's been sent to the mission office I won't get until the next big meeting at Christmas, so the apartment is the best place to send things, unless it's close to transfers. I'll let y'all know when those are coming up (they are every six weeks, and it's the only time that I'm guaranteed to have a big meeting where I'll get the stuff that's at the mission office). I did get the blankets, though. Thank you :) I know packages can be sent to the apartment too. I don't know if there are any mission rules or anything about where they are supposed to go or whatever, but I do know that the apartment office is able to recieve them.

There is so much awesome stuff happening all over the place here and so many awesome people that I can't even come close to sharing all of it, so I'll just try and do the best ones. I've got to go now because there is a lot to do today. Oh, by the way, I know why missionaries get fat. We sit in the car all day, then peole feed us ridiculous piles of food. We had three desserts yesterday. Three. And people get all excited to give it to you, so you can't say no. And since there are so many members in this area, they always have our dinner, and it's always something special, and there is always some ridiculous dessert... every day. We have three lunches scheduled for tomorrow, and a dinner. I don't know what to do. and most of the missionaries don't want to get up early to exercise, and don't want to run. We're not supposed to get up witout our companion and I definitely can't run without them. I'm doomed. It's okay though. This is way more important than my health stuff. I'll just deal for two years, then I can do what I want. I'm just a little worried about all the sugar because I was starting to have some issues before I left and now I can't really get away.. but yeah. Love you all :)

Elder Katzakian's first member dinner in San Antonio

(I love that we have been able to get more updates in the last few days than we have the last 3 months!!)

Hello Parents of Elder Katzakian (can't remember how it's spelled!),

We just fed your son tonight and were pleasantly surprised to be his first meal at a member's house! I think we fed him well...after eating it, he said, "I vote YES to all of this food." It's always fun to have a "greenie" over and we never would've guessed it had we not asked him when he got here.

I just thought you'd like to know that he's in good hands and has a great companion, Elder Lish. They're in a threesome right now with Elder Phillips who goes home next Wednesday. This area of San Antonio is awesome, and we know the elders will continue to touch the hearts of the people around here.

Living up to the stereotype, "Texas pride" is already being fed to your son :) We informed him that we have the absolute best ice cream here (Blue Bell) and gave him his first taste of it. He talked about his mother's love of peppermint ice cream and how the freezer will be full of it this time of year. Well, I believe we honest to goodness have the best peppermint ice cream here and you've got to give it a try if you come pick him up in two years! I'll make sure he tries some of that flavor soon! :) Thanks for sharing your son with us and rest assured he's got a great trainer in Elder Lish. They'll do good things together. Enjoy the pictures!

He is in Texas!

(this is an email and picture we received from Sister Jones.  She is the Mission Presidents' wife.)

Dear Missionary families,

Your wonderful sons and daughters have arrived safely in San Antonio, Texas!  Their plane arrived on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.  President Jones and I and our assistants were there to greet them as they came down the escalator. They were enthusiastic and happy to be here!   We loaded the mission vans and returned to the mission home for lunch and an orientation.  At around 5pm they headed to the Alamo!  After learning a little about the history, they were divided into companionships and went out, Book of Mormon in hand, to make their first contacts as Texas missionaries.

Later, we returned to the mission home for dinner and a slide show. Tomorrow we will meet in the morning for more orientation and then your son or daughter will find out where they will be serving and who their companion will be.  We have excellent trainers for each of your sons and daughters and we know they are where they are supposed to be.  We will be sending a letter to you soon with a picture and more details and their address.  P-day is on Monday so you should expect an email from your missionary.  

Thank you for sending these well prepared, extraordinary young men and women to serve with us!  We'll take good care of them.

Love,

Sister Suzanne Jones

Week #9- Done! with the beginning

So I pretty much finished packing everything I'm not using to get ready in the morning by now. I'm ready to roll out to Texas. Fly, rather... but yeah. I feel pretty ready. I taught a lesson on how to teach part of the second lesson to a new advanced class, in Spanish, who're all from Mexico and Colombia and stuff, and they understood everything I said and it it all flowed pretty well. I can express just about anything I need to. I'm a lot better at speaking than writing, though... but that's okay, it'll come. Haha I know that I'm all confident in my Spanish now and the first person I talk to is just going to laugh at me because I'm such a gringo, but that's okay.

 

So we had the chance to teach Daniel Limon two more times this week and it went really well. Basically he kinda said we were probably right but he didn't feel it, an we pushed Him a little and he said he'd be more open and try the things we were suggeting, and that it'd better be worth it. The second one he was a lot better and he was sad to see us go. He told us that we'd been really good friends to him and to do the same to everyone we meet at th places we are going. Elder Jones left this morning, by the way. So I've been tagging along with another companionship today. We haven't gone many places, though, because it's our preparation day...

 

We got to watch the first presidency Chrismas devotional on sunday and it was so good. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is amazing. If you didn't see it, watch it on lds.org. Totally worht it.

 

So yeah, there is a very very very very slight chance that I will be able to call home very briefly in the airport just to let the fam know I'm getting on the plane... but I don't know. This last week has been crazy. It's been even more time warpish than the rest of the time here. I can't tell if it's gon super slow or super fast. I'm going to be surprised if I sleep tonight.

 

I'm excited to go to San Antonio. I know that I have been called by a prophet of God to be a witness of His truth, and I feel geat joy every morning when I put the Savior's name over my heart.  I am going to boldly proclaim the Gospel of Salvation as i stumble over Spanish words that I can't pronounce haha.

 

Love you all, thanks for all the help and support. Next one will be from the lone star state.

Week #8

So on Tuesday night, Elder Malm spoke to us. He was in the last conference. He's pretty awesome. Look him up.  He basically talked about how everyone who's here in the world now said yes to the plan before, and how we're doing God's work, so where ae the limit's? It was pretty awesome.

 

On Thanksgiving, Elder Holland came with his family to speak to us. It was pretty awesome. Elder Holland is probably my most favorite apostle ever. Anyways, he said that this Thanksgiving his family would be our family and had all his grandchildren sing for us and his wife talk and he kept the last twenty minutes or so to talk to us. He also, at the beginning, had four missionaries who had really intense stories of family struggles, or political issues in their home country trying to get on their mission, and one who has cystic fibrosis serving now in the referral center here get up and bear their testimonies. It was pretty sweet. He also had us think about how there are so many young children who look at missionaries and cannot fathom that they are anything less than perfect, that they are anything less than all the great missionaries in the scriptures wrapped up into one. He told us to think of them whenever we are tempted to be anything less than the very best we can possibly be, to live worthy of that trust.

 

He told us three things that he was grateful for this thanksgiving: He is grateful that the Godhead knows us each individually and personally, by our first names. They know our likes and dislikes, and our needs and our wants. Pretty awesome stuff. Look it up haha. He also is grateful for the compassion that the Godhead has always had on the poor. You gain a remission of your sins by being obedient to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel, and you retain it by imparting of your bounty to those less fortunate (see king benjamin's sermon, alma 34, and like a bajillion other scriptures. I just stopped looking because there were so many. Also an apostle said it, so that's already scripture.). He also said he is grateful that God was able to offer his son to atone for our sins and pains alone. As alone as we ever feel, and as hard as it ever gets, we always have someone, even if it's just one friend, but Christ did it alone. Follow the patten of His life as everyone falls away from Him, his family, Jews and gentiles (as symbolized by the leaders who condemn him), his apostles (one of whom betrays Him, and the chief one even denies knowing Him), and eventually even the common man on the street who does not know Him, but cries out for Him to be crucified.Throughout His life he said the Father would always be with Him because He always did that which pleased the Father. Then, at the end, as He hangs on the cross, even His father has to let him hold the weight alone, hence his cry, which was so important that it was put in the bible in the original aramaic.  We can't understand it without the translation that was put with it, but the translators left it there... It was probably the single most pained cry in the history of the world. It doesn't mean the Father was gone, rather He was probably right there, but he had to let Christ do it alone so that we wouldn''t have to. And that is intense. Thinking about that, look at D+C 133. Changed my life. 

 

So yeah, gotta go now. I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. I know mine was good. If there's anybody who is hesitating to use dear elder because they'd rather send it by hand, it's okay to use it now because I'll only have it for another week, then I'm pretty sure dear elder charges a stamp and mails it to me, so it'd be the same. Use dearelder before that. In a week and a day I'll be in Texas. I forgot my address so I'll send it by hand.

Love y'all