Relief Society Mad Hatter night March 10
Oh the Hats we wear!!
Corissa's Pictures:
SAY HELLO TO A FEW OF YOUR NEIGHBORS!!
Our friends, Paublo and Danielle Figeros, will soon be headed on more adventures. Check it out!
http://adventurousfigs.com/
Stan and Pat Lawrence a few days before St. Patricks
STAKE CONFERENCE WITH ELDER STEVEN B. ALLEN
Ali Lydall lead the Choir
SCOUTING ACTIVITY
The scouts were at Willow Park in Lehi. The attendees were Ky Lovell, Todd Nevenner, DJ Nevenner, Dallin Jorgensen, Dylan Short, Robin Murdock, Brady Huff, Kyle Ross, Easton Watne and Nick Watne.
FAMILY HISTORY
The
Stories That Bind Us
In an article in the New
York Times entitled “The Stories That Bind Us,” Bruce Feiler reported on
research into children’s resiliency and their ability to deal with stress.
Research Findings
Children who knew a lot
about their families:
- Tended
to do better than other children when they faced challenges.
- Proved
to be more resilient and able to moderate the effects of stress.
- Had
a stronger sense of control over their lives.
- Had
higher self-esteem.
- Believed
that their family functioned successfully.
- Felt
that they belonged to something larger than themselves.
Why Do Stories Help
Children?
From family stories,
children gain insights into how to deal with the situations they encounter in
life. A family’s stories tend to support a “unifying narrative” or
pattern. For example, family narratives might include: overcoming
adversity, doing what’s right, and helping other people in times of need.
The healthiest narratives reinforce the sense that family members
persevered through many ups and downs as best they could with varying degrees
of success.
How to Improve Children’s
Resiliency
- Tell
stories to children whenever possible (at the dinner table, in the car,
and so on).Tell all types of stories, from simple or humorous (our
family’s worst vacation ever) to profound (my grandmother’s struggle with
cancer).
- Tells
stories that reflect life’s ups and downs but result in a positive outcome
over time and show the family’s ability to overcome difficulties.
MISSIONARY MESSAGES
From Dylan Draper:
2 Years of Miracles...Elder Scott Funk
Hello Everyone!
I cant believe that the time has finally come. It is crazy to think that i will be going home this week. The time has flown by! I have Loved my mission. All of it. I have learned from all of it. And it has been a huge blessing in my life. I have changed...a lot. My testimony has grown so much! And i am so grateful for that. I will remember it all. From New Castle and not knowing which direction i was facing, because there was no mountains! To the other side of the mission in Wauseon. Where there i saw many miracles, and made a lot of friends. I loved it there! And one of the biggest miracles happened there...i received an answer to a question that i had for 5 years. That changed me. To Wadsworth where i saw many miracles. Especially the miracles of 2 families that changed their lives. It was amazing to watch them grow and to change. Even more amazing when I had the privilege to hear all 4 of them testify at the pulpit at a Mission Presidents Fireside. To Parma where i got to experience life on a bike. And realized, that its actually kind of fun to get sprayed with water by a car that is passing you. I saw Gods love for us, in the many instances when He protected us. And the in between move to Cleveland, when i experienced probably the hardest trial I have ever experienced in my life. Not knowing when my mission was going to end, and not knowing how my body would heal. And again I saw Gods love. As he gave me the Physical strength to finish my mission. And to end in Strongsville, where I saw people put their trust in God, in one of their hardest parts of their conversion. I have seen Miracles everywhere. God is a God of miracles. He lives. He loves us. I know it. I have seen his love throughout my mission, for my self, and in others. I have Loved my mission. It has changed me. It has strengthened my testimony, more than I ever thought was possible. I am excited to apply what i have learned on my mission,to my life back home. I am so grateful for the way that the Lord allowed me to finish my mission. On the 21st of march I had to opportunity to watch someone enter into the waters of baptism. It was a huge blessing. And then on the 28th of March, i was able to see one more person enter into that gate. And had the privilege to stand in the circle for his confirmation. I cant think of a better way to end my mission. I have loved my mission. I have seen miracles. I know God Lives. I know He loves us. Thank you for your support these past 2 years. I love all of you! Thank you!
Elder Scott Funk arrived home and will share his adventures on April 19th. I'm sure his humor, testimony and stories will warm us all!!
I am so excited to serve in Berlin.
There are some cool things to see.
I haven´t seen anything yet, but I´ll get to it.
Working here is very different. There are always a ton of people all the time.
I saw a lot of drunk people this week. One of them was shouting at me at Bahnhof. One was just sleeping on the floor of the subway. Yesterday, there were two men on the subway. Yeah... they were kissing.
Trains and alcohol do not go together.
It was kind of hard getting to Berlin on Tuesday. We missed our train of all things. Unfortunately I did buy the Spar Angebot ticket, which basically means if you miss the train you have to pay to get another ticket. I only ended up paying 40 more Euro though, so not a big deal. As I went to Dresden for my first change, I talked to an Italian boy, who is originally from Kashakstan.....spelling keine Ahnung..... he was cool.
In Tiergarten, we have a four man appartment. It gets a little crazy at times, but I am always calling my district after planning. This usually takes up all of my time.
On Wednesday, we had district meeting. That was a little scary. The missionaries were sympathetic though. The district is wonderful. We also were able to do a little finding. We had some good conversations and met some very interesting people. We also met for the first time Maren, an inactive member. She is awesome. She basically bore her testimony to us even though she has not been to church in 5 years. Her only problem is with the members. We are trying to get her to come to a JAE activity so that she can see that the members are really nice. Her boyfriend was also there, he is not a member. He was not too open but he still talked with us a little. They are WoW fantatics...(World of Warcraft). Luckily, Elder Boos knows everything about it.
On Thursday, we met with another inactive member. He was baptized one and a half years ago, but he does not understand the Book of Mormon. He is crazy. He would talk to us and then brake out in Bayrish or complain about " and it came to pass." We asked some of the members if they knew him and nobody could remember. We can´t find a teaching record for him either. It is kind of hard working with him. We have to go very slow with him. We are also trying to get some home teachers over there, because he is very lonely.
On Friday, we helped a member move, it took quite a while. We taught Wilder, an investigator. One of his biggest concerns is the word of wisdom. He is an architect and "must" drink wine at his openings. His question was more on the repentance side of things. He wanted to know if he could continually drink only at his openings and then repent. We told him "no", of course. We explained that he would have to exercise faith. Eventually we ended up committing him to ask God if he should still drink at his work. That is really how he will get his answer. He said it was something he would do. With investigators here I am starting to notice that there are quite a few that have been taught almost everything, but never had a baptismal date. This might just be my opinion, but they should be committed to being baptized as soon as possible. Otherwise, the other teachings don´t really do them much good. Then they end up saying at the end that it is not for them because the missionaries have taught them everything already. This results when they meet in cafes or other areas where the spirit cannot really work as well. It might be okay to meet the first time at a restaurant, but we have a dedicated church building ... aka: Spiritual Powerhouse. Anyway... I would like to change this and start committing everyone to baptism.
On Saturday, we basically did finding the whole time. We talked with everyone, but litterally no one talked back. They were throwing the "keine Interesse" bombs. Berlin is cool though, because it is really hard for people to avoid you.
On Sunday, church was wonderful. We really have great members in Tiergarten. We had an eating appointment, but it was for a birthday, so there were a ton of people. We were careful not to spend too much time there. At the end of the evening, we had family home evening with Javier at the Tafur family´s. This went really well. Brd. Tafur is awesome. Javier really felt the spirit, I pointed this out to him as well. He is convinced to come to church now. I think that´s what the spirit told him the most.
I really feel priveleged to talk of Christ. There is a special spirit about this. Every time I talk about him in a lesson, or when I read about him, I feel the spirit. I know that it is true. The spirit has witnessed to me, at my own level that Christ is my savior. I have never seen him or been able to sence him in any other way, except through the spirit. I know that when I partake of the sacriment, my prayers are answered. I just think that it is amazing that the person who my sins hurt the most, is the one who forgives them. I know that we have a loving Heavely Father. Through Christ we are made clean. We are made new. We are made spotless or makellos (imaculate). I know of his redeeming love, and I have felt it and I will never leave.
Elder Draper
"And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ..." 2 Nephi 31:21
From Elder Draper:
Subject: A full week in Berlin
It is pretty awesome and crazy here. So many people all the time. On Tuesday, Elder Boos was sick. What I did to occupy my time was writing a letter to a potential investigator in my first area. I've been pushing it off for such a long time and I am glad that I finally got it done.
On Wednesday, we had zone training meeting. This was very good and I learned a lot of principles that I will use in the future to improve my teaching. We also had a district leader meeting.
On Thursday, we met with Herr Shäfer. The missionaries have always met with him in a cafe. This is something I really don't like. You can't expect that the Spirit is going to tell them anything if it is not the right atmosphere and if an opening prayer is not said. He has many strange questions about angels, and is hard to teach. We will be meeting with him next at the church and we will give him a tour. This should help a lot and we can really find out if he is ready.
On Friday, we had a lesson with Brd. Hingst, a less active member. He has some mental issues. Our goal with him is to get him really associated with the ward, because nobody really knows who he is. The Book of Mormon confuses him. I think that he uses it as an excuse to have us over so that he can talk with us. Next time we are going to bring a member with us.
On Saturday, we had a lesson with family Haba. They are an awesome new convert family. They come to all activities when the can and are simply wonderful. We taught them the docterine of Christ.
On Sunday, we visited the baptism. We invited a number of investigators, and one said that he could come. We called him before to see if he was still coming as we arrived at the Dahlem church, but he had some kind of test that he had to do. The baptism was wonderful though. We also met with our ward mission leader. This went really well, and it helps me to keep the investigators in this district straight. Our ward mission leader is really great.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone. The Lord has created every soul. He loves every one of his children. It is really for all. The gospel is not designed as a restriction. It is a blessing. It is the key to all of the love and blessings that come from our savior. Really, out of everything that I teach and all the different levels that people understand what it is, the most important principles are Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. Even a child can understand these. This is the docterine of christ as Nephi describes in 2 Ne 31. I know that Christ lives and that he is the author of our salvation.
"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
Isaiah 49:15-16
Elder Draper
Subject: Week 3 in Berlin
On Monday, we had a refferal. We called him, but he had no idea how he was reffered, but we had a good long conversation on the phone. He said that he would call us back if he had any interest later. For our preparation day activity, we went to see the Berliner Dom. It was cool. Lots of art work inside. There is so much to see here in Berlin, literally too much. It is super busy.
On Tuesday, we did district finding. It was fun, and everybody had good converstations, but no one found. After that, we did more finding with many good conversations, some not so good. At the end of the day we taught English for the sisters. It was good because a couple people came. We had a good class and we just answered their questions about the church in English. They enjoyed it.
On Wednesday, we did mostly finding. We had lots of good conversations, but we didn't find anyone, but we got an amazing refferal from the Osnabruck Elders. We met at the end of the day with George. He is a young investigator of ours. I am not sure about how interested he is, but he asks questions about pretty much everything that we talk about.
I loved leadership training meeting on Thursday. I am going to try to recapitulate some of the main points in district meeting this week. Afterwards, we had an appointmet, but it fell out, so we did some finding and some area book work.
On Friday, we met with Familie Semperi. They have been investigators for a while. At the beginning, the husband was really interested in getting baptized. Now, he just doubts himself that he can do it. His wife is also a problem for him. She says really demeaning things in Italian to him when we teach. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ, focusing on baptism. He understands that it is important and he actually explained it really well when we ask him. He is just not sure that he can do baptism. After him we had an appointment with Clinton, our new refferal. It was really awesome. He has really an amazing story and a long one, so I dont have time to put it in this email. Anyway, he was a former investigator for two years. During this time, the missionaries always called him and he hung up. This time, he called the missionaries. It is something that he admired that we never gave up on him. He wants to get baptized with his girlfriend (they don't live together.) We haven't met her yet, but she is a Jehovah's witness but she would rather be in the same religion as her future husband than be separate. We have not met her yet. We invited him to come to church, but he didn't make it. The appointment was really a miracle though. He already reads daily in the Book of Mormon. He has a testimony of Joseph Smith and modern revelation.
On Saturday, we met with Winona, a new convert. She is really good at the piano. We watched the Restoration. She had not seen it before, but she loved it, and it answered some of her concerns that she told us about at the beginning of the lesson. We met with Bruder Schäfer. He is the one that I think we ought to have a break with. We met with Habib, an investigator. We talked shortly about the Restoration. He said that he knew it already, but we talked about some points. We invited him to come to church. He said he wouldn't be able to for two weeks, but for some reason, he would really like to meet the Bishop. We met with Lukas and Melissa. He is a non member who lives with an inactive member. We gave him a baptismal commitment and he accepted.
I really know that this Gospel is true. It comes from a loving Father, who sent his son. Though, he would endure all manner of pains and afflictions, he did it out of love. Clinton actually told us something interesting. "Imagine if you were going to be hit by the tsunami. If you believe in God or not you are still going to die. Would you rather die believing in God or not believing in God. What do you have to lose?" I know that there is nothing to lose if we trust in our Father. I know that he is there.
Elder Draper
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