August 30, 2011

Hello!

Well it has been an interesting couple of days training again. I am extremely grateful for the new training manuals that we have received from the First Presidency and everything that they have been helping me out with. Because if I was back in December training for the first time, I would have lost it by now, but I actually think I may have grown a bit since I left Indy now! I love Elder Gordon and have been doing my very best to help him get settled in. I have done everything I can over the last couple days to ease him in all phases of the work and not throw him into the deep end. Now we are working on me just holding him while he paddles! (But he has to paddle first) That is what we are really at at this point. We are working on overcoming fears and growing from the opportunities God is Giving us.

It will be an interesting time, but missionary work is not as hard as learning Welsh! I will give you a sentence here

TROWCH EICH FFON SYMUDOL I FFWRDD!!!

English: Please Switch off Your Mobile Phone!!!

haha I LOVE YOU!

Elder Blackburn

PS: The letters don't make the same sound as ours do either.

August 25, 2011

Good Afternoon,

Or at least it is when I am writing. I want to thank everyone for writing SO MUCH. It has taken me 90 mins just to read and respond to the emails I had and I had to skim some of the long ones haha. But moving on, A lot has happened the past couple days.

Last Monday, Elder Webb and I were told to give a full week a go and we were able to go out and work hard and see miracles. We far exceeded all of the finding standards. Whether it was just being cooped up all the time or simply Elder Webb being amazingly in tune with the Spirit, we saw lots of great things happen. The weather was nice too. I can hardly remember recovery time anymore. Transfers happened this week but I was not transferred. Elder Webb was transferred to South Ribble near the Historic River Ribble where the first baptisms in England occurred back in 1837. I am here with a new missionary from South Africa! He is larger than I am in height. We are about equal in girth though =P. I AM WORKING ON CUTTING THAT DOWN THOUGH. I am excited to train...again. Elder Feith who came out with me is training for the third time and Elder Ballantine is training now who also came out with me. It is probably the most stressful situation I have ever been placed in, but as long as I am trying my best and I mean REALLY trying my best, I should set him out on the right path!

Well, it is time to go and see what he has got! AKA WORK!

I love you!

Elder Blackburn

August 15, 2011

Hiya!

This was an interesting week. Saw the workings of Satan a lot this week with our recent convert. We have seen him rear his ugly head all through her teaching process. She has overcome all of the opposition he has thrown at her but the last one...the big one for most people he left until after baptism...family opposition...We are working with the ward to help her overcome it, but we shall see how it will go. Can't force the gospel. People have to choose it.

2 Nephi 10:23, Helaman 14:30-31

Be happy! It is your choice! The power is given to you, which means you are accountable for yourselves!

I don't have any more time!

I love you all!

Elder Blackburn

August 8, 2011

Hello Everyone,

This has been an interesting transfer with people falling through and other things but the main rollercoaster we have been on, besides the wayward appendix of Elder Webb, was Elaine Arnold and her teaching process. One day she was ready and then a new concern would pop up but as we held tight to the Book of Mormon and as SHE read, she felt more and more at peace with Baptism. She was baptised on Saturday and I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders. I was starting to understand that Jacob 1:19 is a lot more than just going finding diligently. We have to be willing to do all we can do to help them get there.

Elder Webb and I are trying to clean up a mess left by another missionary at the moment, and the ward is slowly coming around. But the Bishop and WML are at least coming around and having more and more confidence in us. Everyone Else...well they will take some time but I was at least able to introduce myself this week finally.

We had some great miracles this past weekend where our WML's daughter was blessed. His wife is from Zambia. It is a nice cocoa baby named Nyombai or something like that. If you say that you will be close to saying her name! haha. They had a good number of former investigators there and we were able to talk to a lot of them and went to tea later and talked to some more. We now have 5 or 6 potentials that we can go and try by!

Well, I am done with another pair of shoes that lasted me almost the summer haha. I am going to go and look at some GOOD shoes and hopefully they can last me till april...doubt it...!

I love you!

Elder Blackburn

August 1, 2011

Paris-http://mormon.org/feature/paris/eng/
Shawna-http://mormon.org/me/4M1X/
Alexis-http://mormon.org/me/3X9D/

Those are 3 people that I thought would connect with lots of you back home in some way or form. Paris is from the streets and is serving in the mission right next to me. Shawna is apparently a 1st grade teacher and Alexis is a student studying special ed who blasts Justin Bieber so if that is not a variety, I do not know what is.

Anyways, I have had some experiences this past week that are really driving home being an example and "living the gospel as conspicuous as you can"-Elder Holland.
Good
"Ye are the light of the world"
"Let your Light So Shine before men that they may see your good works and Glorify your Father which is in Heaven"
"I give unto you to be the light of the world"
"Ye are the Salt of the Earth"
"The light of the body is the Eye; if, therefore, thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light"
Bad
"If the Salt hath lost its savor, wherewith shall the Earth be Salted?"
"It is Henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men"
"But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"
AGENCY
"No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

It comes to a point in our lives where we have to choose God or choose Mammon (Satan, Lucifer, Devil, Beelzebub, Leviathan, etc...).
That point comes to everyone. In actuality, we are doing it every day, every decision. We are choosing to stand a little taller and extend our stride or we are choosing to sink into mediocrity and to not improve. We are never stagnant in our search for the Kingdom of God. We are losing and gaining ground every second of every day. The reason is up above this paragraph.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:28,36 tell us, "He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things...36 The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

It is up to us to obtain this light, this truth, and use our agency in order to receive that Eternal weight of Glory that Heavenly Father has obtained.

Make good choices this week.

I love you,

Elder Blackburn

July 25, 2011 Wales is COLD! Stinkin mountains...=P

Here are some quotes from Joseph Smith that I stuck out to me while I was browsing them. I especially like the last one. If we want to go where God is, We have to be like God...Families can be together forever, but only if we as individuals are pulling ourselves closer each and every day to our Father and His Son.

Hell may pour forth its rage like the burning lava of Mount Vesuvius . . . and yet shall "Mormonism" stand. . . . God is the author of it. He is our shield. . . . It was by Him we received the Book of Mormon; and it is by Him that we remain unto this day; and by Him we shall remain, if it shall be for our glory; and in His Almighty name we are determined to endure tribulation as good soldiers unto the end.
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 139.

Brethren, some of you are angry with me, because you did not fight in Missouri; but let me tell you, God did not want you to fight. He could not organize his kingdom with twelve men to open the gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham. Now, the Lord has got his Twelve and his Seventy, and there will be other quorums of Seventies called, who will make the sacrifice, and those who have not made their sacrifices and their offerings now, will make them hereafter.
Quoted in Joseph Young Sr., History of the Organization of the Seventies (1878), 14.
I defy all the world to destroy the work of God; and I prophesy they never will have power to kill me till my work is accomplished, and I am ready to die.
History of the Church, 6:58.

I know not why; but for some reason I am constrained to hasten my preparations, and to confer upon the Twelve all the ordinances, keys, covenants, endowments, and sealing ordinances of the priesthood, and so set before them a pattern in all things pertaining to the sanctuary and the endowment therein.
Quoted by Parley P. Pratt in "Proclamation to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," Millennial Star, Mar. 1845, 151.

I shall speak with authority of the Priesthood in the name of the Lord God, which shall prove a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. . . . If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses, for if we are not drawing towards God in principle, we are going from Him and drawing towards the devil. . . . Search your hearts, and see if you are like God. I have searched mine, and feel to repent of all my sins.
History of the Church, 4:588; paragraph divisions altered.


I love you all. Wrexham is doing well. Our investigator Elaine is being baptized this coming Saturday the 30th of July. Elder Webb will hopefully be able to baptist her or else I will be doing it. The gospel never stops spreading. Everyday someone else is accepting the Spirits invitation to "Come Unto Christ".

I love you, hope to hear from you,

Elder Blackburn

July 18, 2011

Well the last couple days have been very interesting. I am getting a little taste of Logan's mission life or at least that transfer of it. Elder Webb is healing up from his Appendicitis from a week ago. He wants to go out but we are commanded to take it slowly by President Preston. He is looking ok and we walked the 20 mins here to the library this morning. But I have to tell him to slow down because he doesn't want to look weak. I was going to send you a picture of us, but I am pretty sure for some reason my Gigaware cord is broken now...sorry if it cost a lot =/. No more pictures for awhile. Wales is beautiful and the language is hilarious. Doesn't make any grammatical sense of ANY kind LL makes the flem sound.

This week we will probably take some planned walks so I can at least get to know our area and not just the way to the library and ASDA (Walmart owned UK store). But we have cleaned out one of the messiest area books I have seen. I threw away A LOT of junk and then have finished the New Testament again. I am now in the middle of my Backwards Book of Mormon reading verse by verse. It is really interesting. It cuts out a lot of the war stuff that I like, but it is helping point out other verses to me and it points out to me when I start spacing off because I have to finish a verse and skip up but sometimes I just keep reading. See it does work. Today what really stuck out to me was Mormon 9. All of it was good. But I really like Mormon 9:1-5, and 28.

28 Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.

It is sort of a rebuking scripture to me because I think I have gained a good chunk of Knowledge on my mission, but I do not think I have turned it into wisdom which is frustrating. The difference between knowledge and wisdom to me is that one can know a lot but still act like an imbecile (spell check corrected that and that is just a weird way to spell it!) but moving on...When one is wise he is able to take the knowledge he has gained and apply it positively, correctly, and continuously to each circumstance he finds himself in. That is why I think I am lacking in the Gift of Wisdom and why I think that gift is greater than the gift of knowledge...

It was sad to leave the Reynolds family and the rest in Ashton, but I found I already know a lot of people here in Wrexham just because they are family members to the people in Bolton and Ashton and President Preston himself.

Stake President, President Martin was here this weekend for Ward Conference and he taught the Priesthood lesson. I would say it resembled President Uchtdorf's talk about living below our standards and his last couple. Except President Martin took a little bit more bold approach with these brethren which he can do because of his relationship with each of them. He said that there were probably only 20 priesthood holders in the stake that would do anything that the bishops asked them to do. I started thinking of our own ward. How many are there that would do anything that the bishop asked, whether it was to teach primary or teach the High Priests? How many can be called on and counted on in a moments notice? Can you be called and relied upon to render the service required? Really what people are saying to the bishop when they say "No" to a calling is saying, "No, I don't sustain or support you. I don't believe that you are inspired in your decision making, and I will not do what the Lord has asked me to do to build up the kingdom at this crucial time." Have you ever wondered why very strong high priests end up teaching primary classes? Have you ever wondered why the strongest are not up front? Because one of the most stressful things for a Bishop is filling the callings that "no one wants to do". So he calls on the faithful, the humble, the willing, the submissive, the Mosiah 3:19s of the ward. He is confident that they can and will do it HAPPILY! What is the difference between Laman/Lemuel and Nephi. Not the fact that they didn't do it. They did everything Nephi did. But it was their attitude.

The Lord will not command us to come into the Celestial Kingdom if our heart is not desiring it and focused.

No, he has prepared a lower degree of glory for those whose hearts are aimed for a lower degree. So my challenge for all of you is to aim a little higher and steady your shot, so that when the captain calls 'Fire', you will hit what your heart desires.


(Yeah it rhymed...) It is that true.

I love you all!

Elder Blackburn