Transfers...I stay...he goes :)

So Elder Robinson is getting transferred this week.  On wednesday he'll be heading down to the border.  Then I'll be spearheading the operation here haha.  That should be pretty cool.  

 

Anyways, cool miracle this week:  We had a day where a bunch of random stuff happened and we ended up at all of our plans at different times, and we ended up knocking on the door of a guy whose wife is a very less active member (she's not on our records) and he just started reading the Book of Mormon a little bit ago and hasn't been able to put it down because he's felt the spirit so much from reading it.  His wife had just gotten back from the hospital, and wasn't feeling very good, so we set up a time to come back this week.  That should be pretty awesome.

  

So pretty soon in San Antonio the church is going to do this big media blitz to help raise awareness and stuff.  They are going to air commercials on the television and radio, put up bilboards, taxi cab toppers, and some other stuff I can't remember to advertise mormon.org.  The purpose is to raise awareness, dispell myths, and help people to learn about the church, so that's cool.  Aparrently it's been pretty successful in other places that they've done it, so that's exciting.  I'm glad to get to be a part of that.

 

Something I was reading inthe bible that's pretty nifty is right in the beginning; Genesis 19.

This is when Lot ends up leaving Sodom and Gomorrah.  So while he's living in Sodom, three "holy men" or angels or whoever they are (the only really important thing is that they are men of god) come by and end up staying in his house.  Then, all the bed people of Sodom come and demand the three men in order to do bad things to them.  Lot tries to resist, so they press hard and are about to break the door down when the three holy men grabbed him and his family by their hands and zipped them out of the city by the spirit.  This is the really good part.  When the set them outside the city they said, "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.  So often, as humans, we find ourselves surrounded by the evil of the world, or living in Sodom, and trying to stay out of the badness, but its trying to "push our door down" and invade not only our lives but our very homes and families.  It is at these times that God extends His hand (often through one of his servants in the earth) and if we will take it, the spirit will carry us safely out of the sinister grasp of sin.  We aren't done yet, though.  Then we have to escape for our spiritual lives.  If we even falter for a moment to look back at what we're leaving we may falter and stop and fall back into destruction.  We can't even stay close to the Sodom we're leaving, we must get away into the mountain of the Lord, to his house, where we can be safe.  As missionaries we have a kind of special opportunity to do nothing but focus on sharing the gospel and helping people, but all members of the church have the chance to be the three holy men for those around us, and help to carry them out of the things that are holding them down spiritually, and show them the way to the Mountain of the Lord, where they will be safe.  We give the same admonition; "look not behind thee."  Move forward and progress, be done with the things that will bind you down.  It's a cool message.

 

So I'm running out of time now...  I love you and will talk to you soon.

 

 

General Conference...is coming!!

So yeah, not a lot to report this week.  We had some kinda cool stories this week, and lots of work, but it all ended with people choosing to disappear.  So we're back at square one pretty much.  Nobody to really tell you about...  Like I've kinda mentioned before, we've been doing a lot of work with the members lately, or at least trying.  The ward roster is kind of out of date and we've found a lot of less active people who have moved out or died or whatever else that causes them to be uncontactable.  That's good though, because we've been able to report to the bishop and clean up the records a lot.  We also got a list of children of record in the ward who have not been baptized, so that's really good, and there's some good potential there.

 

General conference coming up is way exciting! :)  Also the october ensign looks way cool.  Both good things to be shared.  The october ensign is a special Book of Mormon edition that explains all about the book, and conference is the opportunity to hear from God's prophets and apostles. :)  The first presidency message in this months Ensign has a really good thought about that.  A lot of us kind of take the prophet for granted (sorta like a lot of the ancient isrealites did with moses) and don't listen too intently to the messages or take them as very important, but we put so much emphasis on the ancient scriptures.  While it is true that the prophets of old saw our day, and the scriptures were put together to help us and be universally applicable to life, the mesasages shared at conference and in the Ensign are quite literally God's word to us, specifically, today.  They are one of the most valuable resources we have to build our testimony of the savior and his gospel and church, and to learn what his will for us is through study and personal prayer and revelation.  Not only that, but general conference is a fantastic time to invite the world to "come, listen to a prophet's voice."  What better way is there to help people gain a testimony of a living prophet than to listen to him?  That is one of the most awesome invitations we've been able to extend lately, and that we've been able to invite members to extend as well.

 

That's pretty much all I've got time for this time, so i'll talk to you later.  Thanks for everything.  Love you a ton :)

 

Elder Katzakian

Busy P-day

We're doing our best to plan out next p-day right now so we'll have more time.  So you should get a better email and we're going to try to go to "el mercado" after everything else is done.  There's this big, apparently pretty cool, mexican marketplace that isn't too far.

 

These last couple of weeks have been good.  We've taught a lot of people, but a lot of them have been defaulting on appointments and things , too.  There were going to be several families at church, who were going to get baptized in a few weeks, but everyone disappeared.  It's going well, though, and we're learning lots.  Anyways, I've got to go again.  Love you again!

 

Elder Katzakian

Another week...

This last week was pretty cool.  We've been working a lot with member families lately.  We've been helping some cool less-active folks come back.  It's really interesting to see how people will really only remember the parts they still apply after long enough, and the rest of the gospel becomes lost to them.  What our mission president is having us do is treat them like someone who isn't a member and start at the beginning of the lessons and teach them everything, inviting them to do those things which bring the spirit into their lives so that they can feel conversion again and rebuild their testimony of the church, the prophets, and most importantly the saviour.  It has also been cool because it has helped us to find more part-member families and other people who haven't experienced it yet and help them to live the gospel as well.

 

Also, Louis finally was able to get work and everything off and will be getting baptized on August third. :) So that's really exciting.  I don't get to be there, but I should be able to go when his family gets sealed :)

 

So with active members we've been teaching them about the value of and how to do role plays to help share the gospel.  As misionaries we practice teaching or talking with people every day.  One of the ways we do that is with role plays.  One of us will pretend to be one of our investigators, or just a random person that fits the profile of someone we may talk to that day, and the other one is the missionary, and we practice.  It's great because we come up with new ways to answer questions, and can pause and re-do things so that when the real situation comes it is fluid.  Something very special about this practice is that when done in a spirit of prayer, the one who is actin often has impressions come to mind of things to say or do that show the real, hidden concerns and needs of that person, so in this way we are able to discern what the people need.  A miracle I see every day is that when we do that well, we will find a similar situation, or will have found the real concerns of an investigator and already know how to answer them.  This is one of the ways of "treasuring up the words of life," so that God can "in the very hour, yea in the very moment" give us the words we need.  The greatest thing about it is that it applies to members who are not full time missionaries too!  As people who have taken upon them the name of Christ, and covenanted to support those around them, we are all entitled to revelation as to how to share the gospel with the people we know.  This is probably the easiest way to do it.  We help families to think of someone they've wanted to talk to about the gospel and figure out an appropriate invitation for them, such as FHE, church, reading the Book of Mormon, talking with the missionaries, etc.  Then we help them to practice extending that invitation.  It is a powerful tool to add to the repertoire of even the best member missionaries, and I would suggest trying it for family home evening, and maybe even inviting the missionaries to talk about how the do it a little.  One good thing that comes from it is seeing how simple and easy it can be.  Many feel it has to be a big, dramatic, earth shaking moment when they invite their friend to church.  It is not thus.  You can be talking about the ingredients in the sandwiches you're eating, and then just mention that you'd been thinking it would be cool if they'd come to church with you one time, since you enjoy it so much, then, regardless of their answer, you can just get back to the salami.  The coolest thing about the role-plays, though is that you will often know beforehand how they'll respond and already be ready to help them overcome any of the problems they might have with it.

 

Anyways, that's been going well.  Also I made some great quiche this week.  And something else too, but I don't remember what...  It turns out I have retained much of the knowledge I gained at the bakery, so I'm pretty dangerous with a bag of flour haha.

 

 

Gotta go now...  Love you a ton :)

 

until next week.

Elder Katzakian

New bike is coming....

For those of you who have been following this blog, Elder Katzakian is doing great!! We have not been posting the last few emails because they have been directed to our family and have been very sweet and personal.  We can assure you that he is enjoying his misison and growing up!!!  Reality is opening his eyes and he is loving it! Here is a small portion of the most recent email for a general update...


I'll have a new bike in a couple days when it gets here. So if I haven't told you about teaching members about role playing, let me know and I'll tell you next week.  It's pretty cool.  Also, transfer calls were yesterday and Elder Robinson and I are both staying here.  I just realized I haven't said much about him before...  He's basically like me, except more easily distracted, a heavier sleeper, and his sports of choice were football and wrestling.  Also he's more into cars.  Other than that we are pretty similar.

 

 

Much love

 

Elder Katzakian

!Se me robo la bicicleta!

We were low on miles in the car because of a time that we got lost, so we decided to ride our bikes so we wouldn't go over.  We'd been riding for three days I think... anyways we locked them to a stop sign to knock some apartment doors for twenty minutes (on the side of a busy road) and the lock was cut when we came back and my bike was gone.  They left Elder Robinson's though, so I jogged home while he rode so we could get the car and get to our next appointment.  The good news, though is that I did have insurance on it, so I should be able to have it replaced. I'll be talking to them today to find out.

So, things I need for my birthday...  I don't know.  I can never really think of anything,  Mostly just money would be good though, that way I could get stuff without a shipping charge.

Anyways, I've been picking up texas stuff like "howdy y'all," "fixin' to," and a touch of an accent, but more california is coming out than even did in california... I keep finding myself saying things like "right on" and "gnarly" without meaning to... I never did that before though haha.  It's kinda weird.

So there was an Elder Rodriguez in my ward at home from San Antonio who went (or came, rather, because of my point of reference) home a couple months ago.  It was pretty funny because he found me and took us out to lunch, which was fun.  Another one of those changey things where someone who was a missionary when I left is now a pool technician who took us out to lunch haha. 

As missionaries we do role plays every day to practice teaching and talking to people and stuff, and we've started teaching it to the members now too, so they can use it as a tool to help them be more comfortable with and know what to say when talking to friends and neighbors and other people about the gospel and extending invitations.  Basically the goal is to help people see how easy and casual it can be.  An invitation to come to church doesn't have to be super dramatic or a big deal.  It can just be casually interjected in a conversation about anything, really... It's cool though because I think it'll help a lot.

I don't think there was anything else really exciting this week...  Definitely keep up the prayers, the help is always appreciated.  Thanks for everything you do.

Love Elder Katzakian

First week in new area

So my first full week iin Spanish has been great, but we also cover an english ward so its not all just spanish.  I do speak a lot of spanish though.  My companion, however prefers to speak English if we're talking to somebody who knows both, so that's kinda been cutting down on it... The thing is, though that the spanish ward has been having the most trouble getting baptisms, and I imagine that missionaries having that attitude is why.  It's not really a bad thing, because sometimes it does allow us to communicate more effectively, and they can feel the spirit better when they understand better, but I mostly try to just speak spanish to them if they speak it, and I have seen that as we've been doing that, we've been finding more people who only speak spanish, and we've been better able to communicate with them.

 

Also, we found this place that sells the most delicious aguas frescas ever and they are cheap in large quantities.  So that's cool.  It does get pretty hot, but I have honestly found myself enjoying it.  It's kinda wierd... but good because I think it hits 100 degrees almost every day.

 

I've also found that Sundays are my favorite days to do missionary work because it's the Lord's day so it feels like there's extra spirit.  Maybe it's also because we just took the sacrament to renew our covenants and just haven't really had time to mess up yet... haha

 

So yesterday we found this guy named Rey (who only speaks spanish), who lost his wife and kids and pretty much everything he lived for, and now he's alone in this old, beat up house.  He actually takes very good care of it though, and of himself.  He is a very respectable, but kinda sad man... anyways, he had just been thinking to himself, and sort of to God, "What is my purpose here now?  Why am I here alone?," when we knocked on the door.  Then he didn't have to be alone!  Also we started to share our message with him and how it could help him.  We'll be going back tonight, so keep him in your prayers.

 

I've had a lot of cool experiences, but I can't rally remember everything because my brain is kinda fried... That's been pretty common lately, actually.  Time just keeps getting shorter and shorter... which doesn't make sense because the world actually takes slightly (by an infinitesimal fraction) longer to spin on it's axis and around the sun every day (and year).  So really I should feel like I have more time every day.  Oh well...

 

So on the fourth of July ( I forgot to tell this story) the bishops son was riding a unicycle around the ward fourth of july party and doing little jumps, so of course I had to prove that I was as cool as him.  Not trusting myself to stay upright on a unicycle, I grabbed the nearest scooter and proceeded to try and jump on that.  It turns out scooters are a lot smaller than I remember, and I miscalculated how hard I needed to pull on the handle bars.  I basically just pulled the scooter out from under myself and fell on my back in front of the whole stone oak ward.  It was super funny, but my tailbone and wrist still hurt haha. The moral of the story is that anybody who can jump a unicycle is always cooler that everyone else around them.

 

So I've go to go now, but it's been a blast.  Love y'all and talk to you next week!

 

Elder Katzakian