People Are Good!

Trek!! That`s awesome mom and dad that you guys got the last minute opportunity to go, I was reading in the teachings of Joseph Smith the other day about the building of the first temple. The vision of the First Presidency is awesome, when they have like a spiritual tour of how the temple should look, inside and out, and where it should be built. But something I really liked was when Joseph Smith announced to the Church where the temple would be built is the reaction of Hyrum, brother of the prophet. 

When Joseph Smith explained to a council of high priests the glorious plan that had been revealed to the First Presidency, the brethren were delighted and went out at once to choose a site—a spot in a wheat field the Smith brothers had planted the previous fall.Immediately Hyrum Smith ran to get a scythe to begin clearing the land for construction, exclaiming, “We are preparing to build a house for the Lord, and I am determined to be the first at the work.”

Pretty cool! We are all building houses of the Lord, as we are tabernacles of His Spirit, so thanks for being willing to help build up the younger tabernacles. Take advantage of the opportunity! 

Ok.

Another week down in the books!

This week was great, Elder Jenks and I were able to find a few people that seem pretty receptive and we are super excited to pass by them again! Elder Jenks completes a year this week, so we celebrated by going to Hard Rock Cafe (in the East Mission) and ate some GOOD OL' FASHIONED HAMBURGERS. Barbecue, bacon, cheese, onion, tomato, fries, coke, man. What more could a missionary ask for? 

Today I have just enough time to give a quick run down of who we are teaching and where they are at.

We are teaching this 18 year old named Carla, who is super receptive and likes when we come over. She is someone that Elder Jenks and another missionary found one day when I was on divisions with another Elder, and we`re super excited about her. This girl in our ward named Ignacia (Nacha) and this Brother named Hermano Rojas, have been coming with us to the visits we have with her, which have been all on Tuesday Nights. She is super awesome, Nacha invited her to mutual this week and she`s gonna come! 

The Family of Jorge, Angelica, and Fabian...have kind of disappeared. The last 3 citas we have had with them all fell through, and when we talk on the phone something seems super different. Not as animated to see us. We have been pushing a little bit to help them understand the importance of being married, and I don`t think they were super big fans of it. Later, Elder Jenks and I realized that we need to focus more on The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, because if they can deepen or further develop their testimony of those 2 things, marriage will come as a natural fruit of their testimony, but we haven`t had a chance to go over and try harder to teach that. Kind of a bummer. We`re going to try fix another appointment but if not, I don`t know what we`re going to do. 

My first week here, we had a baptism of a family, and this Dad is AWESOME. His name is Walter. Melina, his wife, has been having more of a hard time making it to church, but Walter has been coming every week to church, even when nobody else in the family comes, which is awesome. Before he was baptized, he didn`t come if his wife didn`t come. He has a calling now in the Young Men`s Presidency, and is working in that calling, going to mutual every week. We are working on a date to go through the temple and do Baptisms for The Dead with him and his oldest son, Michael. Super awesome.

Leonardo, that golden gift who just showed up to church our second week, wanting to be baptized, is also incredible. Also has a calling now in The Young Men`s Presidency, has been ordained to the office of a Priest, and is working on getting ready to receive a limited use recommend to go through the temple. We actually had our last lesson with him last week, telling him that we don`t really have anything more to teach him. He knows the Doctrine of Christ, has a calling, participates actively in the Church, and we really felt like we were wasting time visiting him. We told him if he ever needs anything, has any question, we`re super willing to come over and teach, but that regular appointments aren`t an obligation anymore. Sad, but also really cool moment to have with a convert. Only one I have had in my mission. 

Other than that, we are just looking for more people to teach. 

There are 2 blind brothers in our ward, and the other day we found a blind girl in the plaza, set up a lesson with her and went by the next day with one of the blind brothers named Hermano Leiva. Hermano Leiva is....awesome. Such a good guy. Has a sense of humor a little bit like Papa Magic, brings me a sandwich every week at church, and has an awesome family. He lost his sight a little bit ago, and while it is hard to accept, he seems to be doing super awesome about it. He came with us to this lady, who`s name is Marta, and we learned that she lost her sight just a little over a month ago. She`s pretty devastated, as she`s about 70 years old, so she doesn`t feel like it`d be worth anything trying to learn how to read, or walk with a bastòn. She is afraid of going anywhere alone, because she doesn`t want to get lost, or taken advantage of. She kind of just wants to die. I really liked the advice that Hermano Leiva gave to this woman in the lesson we had with her, he said, 

"Ya know, you have to learn how to walk around with a bastòn, because you cannot function in this world without it. As for the people outside, something I have learned is that the people out there are GOOD people, this world is full of GOOD people, and you need to recognize that and accept it. If you`re lost, ask somebody for help. Ask the people at the bus stop to tell you which bus it is that is coming, ask people how many more blocks it is to get where you want to go, you can trust the people out there. They`re good people."

That was nice to hear, because I think it`s an easy thing to forget. There really are good people in the world, even though everything seems to paint a different picture. I hope I can keep seeing the good in the people around me day to day, and not focus on all the wickedness and bad things that sometimes seem overwhelming. In President Cook`s last address to us, he told us that, if you compare the world now to how it was during both World Wars, we actually live in a pretty calm world. People are pretty good people. The difference now is that we have access to see and notice every terrible things that exists, and we focus more on that. I guess one of the blessings of being a missionary is that we get to see the good in a lot of people we have the opportunity to teach. 

Let`s go find some more good people this week!

Love you all,

-Elder Hixon