The Life of Elder Ty : Baptism and lots of pictures...beware of the poisonous one!

October 27, 2014

Our district last transfer

I sent some pictures... it’s been a while, I can’t even remember which ones I’ve already sent, and which ones I still need to send. But anyways sounds like Jackson’s getting his life figured out. Sounds exciting to travel across the world with your family... if I was him I’d do it. I can’t believe Marshall broke his collar bone! Thats crazy... like we almost aren’t even allowed to leave our house on P-day haha. But that’s good that he won’t have to go home early.

So this week was A’s (51) baptism. We’ve been teaching him for several weeks now. We first found him when he was standing outside of his house with his mom (84) and we asked to talk to him a little and asked if we could share our message with them and he accepted. Soon we discovered that he had a problem with drinking. We taught him for about 3 weeks, but we didn’t teach very well. He didn’t understand it all, but he was accepting to be baptized, so we figured everything would go well. So when the day came for the interview for his baptism, he decided he wanted to wait one more week because he wasn’t feeling prepared mentally. Consequently, that next day he went back to drinking. We almost gave up, but he told us "I have faith in Jesus Christ that I’ll stop" .... so we decided to teach him again... but teach him for real this time. Step by step. Teach him the Gospel. Teaching repentance and what it means to have a broken heart and contrite spirit. Teaching about the plan of salvation and how Jesus atoned for our sins. Teaching about how we will have to be clean to live with our Father in Heaven one day. And he started to feel a change in his desires... ONLY once he started to understand the gospel. Since we started teaching him this way, instead of focusing mainly on the part about baptism, its been about 3 weeks. He said he’s lost his desire to drink and he knows he’s on the right path, I know this because he says it every time we see him. He can’t read... and he can harldy walk, but he’s received a testimony that this is the only true church and that he’s doing exactly what his Father in Heaven desires. I’ve learned a lot while teaching him, about the process of conversion. A lot of the time we sin because we don’t understand the price of sin. We don’t understand what’s at stake, or we haven’t received a testimony that our Father in Heaven loves us and wants to live with us again. As we learn about the gospel, feel the spirit bearing witness of it, and therefore gain a testimony of it, we start to lose our desire to sin. Maybe the temptations won’t leave all together, but the desire will.

Baptism day

This week I also gave a talk. Everyone liked it... Elder Imperador likes to listen to Jeffery R. Holland’s talk in English from 2 years ago.. when he talked about the first and great commandment... so as a result I’ve basically memorized that talk. And most of my talk I was quoting Elder Holland’s talk, just translating it into portuguese... cuz I have it all memorized.. it went pretty good. It’s the first time I’ve given a talk since my first area. (Below is Elder Holland's talk from October 2012, "The First and Great Commandment")

So I don’t have much time today, but sounds like things are good back home. We’re getting pretty excited for Christmas. We are going to buy a tree today. I think it’s pretty expensive, but Elder Wilhelm’s dad is a doctor so maybe he´ll cough up some money.... but it’s pretty rough because he’s about as slow to open up his wallet as Rand is. But anyways.. hope you guys have a good week. Thanks for the package that's coming :) and I got a belt from a member in the ward that’ll last me until the end of the mission. Thanks for everything. Have a good week :)

-Elder Udy