Week 48 5/26/15

5/26/15

Goodbye Altadena Branch

Hey everyone!

Im really sorry that i have not sent out a group email in the last couple weeks, ive been just insanely busy! I have been doing awesome though! I LOVE my mission. Its busy, honestly the busiest ive ever been in my life. Its extremely stressful, always having to deal with all sorts of people and ideas. Its exhausting, Riding bikes every day and working till you drop. BUT its worth it. I would not want to do anything else right now in my life. I have the opportunity to be in the service of the lord right now. What greater blessing could i ever have then that? before i move on to talking about my week, i want to share with you all something that has been very powerful to me the last few months. Its called the fellowship of the unashamed.

 I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed
       The die has been cast.
         I have stepped over the line
         The decision has been made
         I  am a disciple of Jesus Christ
 
       I wont look back,let up,slow down,or be still
 My past is redeemed,my present makes sense and my future is secure.
        I am finished and done with low living,small planning, smooth knees,
        Colorless dreams,tamed visions,worldly talking,
,         Cheap giving and dwarfed goals.

       I no longer need pre-eminence positions, promotions, plaudits or popularity.
       I  do not have to be right, first, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded.
        I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience,
         Am uplifted by prayer and labour with power.

         My face is set, my gait  is fast, my goal is heaven.
          My road is narrow, my guide is reliable, my mission clear.

         I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided or delayed.
         I will not flinch in the face of adversity, negotiate at the table of  the enemy .
         Ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
         

         I will not  give up, shut up or let up
          Until i have stayed up, stored up and paid up
           For the cause of Christ
       
          I must go til He comes, give til i drop,
           Preach til all know and work til He stops me.
         
         And when He returns for His own,
         He will have no problem recognising me
            My banner will be clear.
           

 I love it! Its is a quote by Henry B. Eyring, and its kind of become my moto for my mission. I want to be unashamed. i want to be the type of persom that is that dedicated and diligent. I want to be that true disciple of Jesus Christ. So, im working on it little by little.

Anyways, As you can probobly tell from the subject line of his letter. Im being Transfered!! Haha, it has been such a blast serving in the Altadena spanish branch here in birmingham, but alas, my time is up and there is more areas that i need to go and work hard in! So, i wont know where im going or my address until tomorrow, but i will let y'all know asap.

It truly has been a blast serving here as well, ive had so many memories. Ive been lost on busses, almost hit by cars, yelled at by crazy people. ive biked in outrageous downpours of rain, walked through blistering heat, and yet, ive seen gods hand in my life. Ive been able to see at every turn how god blesses those that do what he says. Ive met some of the most amazing people in this area, people that will be lifelong friends and many people that are preparing to be baptized and hopefully will make that decision when the time is right for them.

i have one quick story, My first week here me and my companion met a lady named Lucy who lives not to far away from us. She is a single lady and love love loves her garden and yard. She was so impressed that 2 young men would even stop to offer to help her do yard work. she refused (because she is a self relient woman) but we stayed in contact. we would talk to her in passing and finally this last weekend we were able to do some service for her, leveling out her back yard where she couldnt. It was such a great experience to see how someone could go from having no interest in us, to really respecting and loving what we do. She now has a Book of Mormon and as far as i know has been reading it. 

A different woman was baptized after visiting with missionaries for a year and a half! Sometimes it takes a long time for the spirit to touch people, but this work is real. the work that we do, is never worthless. we are always helping or influence somebody in everything we do, as missionarys and at home. I hope that we can all learn to influence everybody we meet, for good.

I love you all!

- 

-Elder Steele

Week 46 and 47 Mother's Day 5/10/15 and 5/18/15

Week 45 5/4/15

5/4/15

Hey Everyone! 

Happy early cinco de mayo!!! So fun fact, cinco de mayo is actually not a very popular holiday in mexico haha, they really celebrate their independance day which is september 15 i beleive. So.... cinco de mayo is an americanized holiday, you learn lots of fun stuff when serving with spanish people!

So, I better get on to my week!

Its been a good one over all! pretty busy as well! To start off, we are now working with this Lady named Dora and her Kids Karla and Diego! Thay are super super nice! everytime we come over the kids just love us and we help them with their HW, they even have been reading the BOM, litterally Dora reads it to her children! (They are like 8 and 6) Its so awesome! you can really see the lords blessings that come when you work hard. Litterally that same day we biked for hours in the rain, i have never been so wet in my life, but its awesome! Ill never forget the tuesday night that me and elder bott biked five miles back home in the dark and rain from doras house. It was a blast! crazy, but we had a good time haha.

Anyways, Later this week we had the awesome opportunity to have a party for Maria! she is the sisters investigator but me and elder bott have been working with her for 3 transfers now as well haha. she really wants to be baptized but unfortunately is kind of stuck in a bad situation. She cant leave her BF because she doesnt have any money, at the same time she cant go back home to california because she cant afford it.... so we are praying and fasting for her! Recently she was able to find  job and wants to save up and hopefully move out! She has such a strong testimony of the gospel, pays her tithing, comes to church, bears her testimony on fast sunday, its awesome! She asked me to give her a blessing to help her get over feelings of exauhstion from working 60+ hours a week on friday and on sunday bore her testimony of the power of blessings. It was amazing! One day she'll come into the church, just a matter of time :)

We also celebrated Elder Kelloggs 20th birthday this saturday! We went to this awesome Restaurant called "La Bamba" then later a few of the members of our branch threw him and a woman named tania (whos birthday was the next day) a party! it was great! we got to talk to a cool potential investigator (boyfriend of a member) and we had a pinata and cake and all sorts of food. I think it was a blast for kellogg, definitely a birthday to remember! Later that night we went of splits with the zone leaders. Me and Elder Morely went to try and see some peeps with a young man in the branch named irvin. No one was home though so we went tracting and ended up finding this awesome guy named Jose who wants to come to church! he told us he is searching for a church in fact!

The other Highlight of this week was the CES Devotional for the young single adults! That happened this sunday evening and i loved it! The speaker talked about how to increase our faith and that we might be a little bit farther on the "faith scale" then we think! one quote he said was "calm waters dont make skilled sailors" Sometimes we need to go through the hard times to appreciate the good. the hard times help us build our faith, so what doesnt kill you makes you stronger! i can say i know thats true for 100%. I hope all of you can remember that when times get hard, to use them to build you! I love you all so much! have a great week!

Week 44 4/27/15

4/27/15

Hey everyone! 

So this Week has been a pretty great one! I dont have a ton of time today to write but ill give a few highlights!

So this week we had a 2 day exchange! I stayed in my area with Elder Morely our zone Leader and we had an awesome time! We have been out of miles for a while and so me and Elder Morely just biked it and went hard. We saw a lot of blessings from it too! While we were out tracting we managed to run into this couple (elis and gloria) Who are both going through some very hard heaalth problems. They asked us for a prayer and we read in james for them and taught them about blessings. Once they knew about blessings they wanted one and so we gave both of them a blessing for their infirmities. They are in a really tough situation but we are going to keep working with them and i know that as Christ comes into your life it can change all sorts of things so we are praying for them!

We also had a great opurtunity this week to visit a former investigator named alberto, he was investigating the church about a year ago and we got back in contact with him. he is a really awesome guy! Hopefully we will be able to keep teaching him. we are also going to be teaching him english. so thats awesome!

However, we do have some bad news, Our investigator named Alfredo is going through a really rough time right now. He is very very sick. When we went to visit him he was really out of it and half of his face is in some way paralyzed. He can feel but he cant move the one side of his face at all. The strange thing is that there is a less active member of our branch who also has had the same problem! If everyone could just keep them in their prayers if they remember that would be awesome!

Well, Other then that i am loving Alabama right now! it hasnt been too hot and im used to the humidity in general now. So lets hope the beautiful weather keeps up!!! Today we helped a family, The Rudd Family, move They are awesome! they are heading off to california but are origionally from Where i'm from! we will miss them but it was awesome getting to know them. they were like the spanish elders best friends here haha. The people you meat on a mission are amazing, they really can change your life!

Well, im just going to leave with a thought....

Right now in our lives, everything we are going through is meant to help us learn something, are we learning what we are supposed to be learning? Maybe we need to figure out what we should be learning most in life and focus on that. Its amazing how much more you can learn, when you know what to learn.

Love you all!