Parker - June 19

So yeah, we´ve had a fairly interesting week. The highlight was the ahem ´´Noche de Talentos´´ Thursday. So, sigh, here´s the story. 

Last week, our Branch president tells us ´´hey, instead of doing a family home evening at the church every tuesday, how about we start doing them thursday instead, and we can start it off by doing a talent show!´´ So we´re like ok, yeah, sounds great. So we invite people, tell them to be there at 6:30. And we get there, nobody shows up until 7:30, and nobody had a talent, yet everybody was quick to say stuff ike ´´hey, don´t hide your talents, god gave us talents to show them´´ but then we would ask the people who said that to come up and show something, they would shut up and say that they don´t have any talents. 

Soooooooooooo, I had to take some drastic measures to save the night. Attatched is a video that my comp took. All I can say about it is ´´It is finished, my humiliation is complete Father´´

Anyway. Apart from that, with the transfers, there was a lot of change in the mission, but with me, not a whole lot. Although the district is gonna have some challenges. Good news is that my former comp, the Dutchman, is my zone leader now, and he´s really awesome, and me and my current companion are getting along a lot better and are getting some good work done. 

But yeah, just to let you guys know how disorganized this zone is, I´ll explain my pday today for you. 

So we had planned to get together and play soccer in Concepción, the ZL´s area. And we were supposed to be there at 9:00. So my comp and I go, early morning to be there on time. We get there, and nobody was in their apartment, but we couldn´t figure out where they had gone, cuz we could hear the phone ringing inside the apartment, and their bikes were there. At 9:45, they show up, turns out they went to go bring the beds from the old apartment to the new apartment. Alright whatever. Then we start to get calls and texts from the other areas, one was saying that they still weren´t sure whether they were gonna go, and others decided to do their own thing and make up new plans. So at noon, we just came back here. We wasted half a day. BUT, don´t worry about me. I am doing a ton better. Physically, Emotionally, Spiritually, it´s all going a lot better now. 

Just a heads up, we´re probably gonna have a baptism this week. The guy would´ve gotten baptised last week, but he needs to be interviewed by the mission president or one of his counselors, and the guy who was going to come last friday woke up super sick, so he couldn´t come. So now we just have to wait for the interview tomorrow to see what happens. But I think it´ll be ok. His name´s J L. He is really excited for his baptism. It´s really great to see that anyone can make the changes and be baptized if they truly want it. 

Well, that´s all I´ve got this week, hope you guys have a good one,

Love,

Elder Blaylock


(From Jenny: I can't get the video to load here. If you came here from fb, check the comments, I will try to post it there. So funny.)

Brock - June 19

Hey everybody! This week was good. My companion´s name is Elder C. He´s from Recife but his family currently lives in another state called Sergipe. (He´s like mad rich). And Progresso is basically what I expected. There´s not very many people in the streets, and even though we´re in winter ("winter") here, it´s still gets hotter during the day than in the capital. The zone that I´m in is great. Of of the district leaders here is my companion Elder J (the tall one) and one of the other ones is an elder I did a division with one time, and he´s funny, so we´ve got a good zone here. 

This week was normal. The only difference is that we had to follow up with districts and areas like every day at night. Zone Leader so far is basically hardly different, at least for me. I´m not really sure what exactly my duties are, because there is no training, no manual, or anything. You just get a phone call, "You´re going to be zone leader." Wow. Great. How do I do that? No one really knows. 

Great to hear from you all. Glad things are going better for Parker. Jack is officially now an elder, and has probably been introduced to the widespread problem of not having home teacher visits done. It´s an international Mormon epidemic. There is no ward or branch where the elder´s quorum gets all of their monthly visits done. Happy late Father´s Day (in my defense, it´s not Father´s Day here, and I´m not good with dates). 

I´ll keep on strong. It´s almost done. 

Love,

Elder Blaylock 

Parker - June 12

Hey everybody!

Sorry for the late email, I´ll explain why in a minute.

So this past week has been pretty ok. We´ve done exchanges, where I stayed in the area, and it went well, which means that I didn´t lose myself. The only problem was that I was doing it with a missionary who ended his mission today. 

We worked hard, and we got a baptism! Yeah, a little girl named T, her parents are both members, who are starting to come back to church. The dad has a tiny problem with alcohol, which I´ll get into later. But yeah, it went great, and her little brother, who´s seven, turns eight in september, is now really excited for his own baptism. 

As for our other baptismal candidates, welllllll, we´re gonna have to keep workin on them, cuz due to some difficulties, they didn´t make it to church yesterday. So, we´ll see how that goes. 

And as for transfers.......I stay here! With the same companion. But, my former companion, the dutch one, is coming here to be a zone leader in my district, so that´s pretty cool. 

Now onto why I am writing late. So. T´s dad, D, didn´t make it to Church on sunday, and today, his aunt, who´s pretty active in the Church, calls us and tells us that D wants to harm himself. So we had to make a dash over there and talk to him. Turns out he drank the day before, and because he was doing so good, it made him sick, and he was feeling pretty low. But we managed to talk to him and get him animated to stay strong. We told him to read the scriptures every day with his family, so he´ll have a source of strength to turn to. 

So yeah, That´s pretty much everything, hope you guys are doing great.

Love,

Elder Blaylock

PS Happy 50th Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!!!

Brock - June 12

Hello, everybody! We´ve got transfers on Tuesday (my very last one) and I´ll be leaving the capital again....to be a zone leader! That´s right, I´ll be a zone leader in the Progresso area. I´ve never even passed through any area in that zone, so I´m not actually sure where it is, but I have heard good things about the members. My companion has an interesting name so I´ll get a look at it tomorrowand send it in the next weekly email.

Anyway, this week I had to do something drastic---actually, two things. First off, my right foot has been hurting terribly for a few weeks. I´ve assumed that my arch has collapsed. I´m also probably just exaggerating. Also, my left shoe is completely open on the side. So, I went shoe-hunting. This is where the second drastic thing came in to play. We all know I´ve got big feet. So there wasn´t a huge variety of options. And I no longer appreciate black shoes. However, after a prayer, and some teeth-gritting, I bought myself a pair of reasonable black shoes to finish it off. Assuming Jack has a similar foot size at this point, I´ll give them to him. They´re nothing pretty, but they aren´t "open-toed" shoes and my foot doesn´t feel like it´s breaking in half anymore. 

So glad to see these pics from Grandma´ & Grandpa´s anniversary! Everything looks like it turned out great. I love in the video you sent when Grandma says "I´m never surprised," and then immediately gets surprised by Mom being there. Classic.

This week was, once again, a lot of walking and a lot of resolving problems. Just your good old daily missionary life. We ended up really only having time to do some tracting on Friday, so that didn´t leave to much time to follow-up with our investigators that we ended up finding. But we did bring this ten-year-old boy to church again, and he´s so excited for his baptism next Sunday. In one of our visits, we asked him to say the prayer and he said, in the prayer, "Forgive my sins," and "that my baptism will go well". He´s great. 

I love you guys. I can´t express to you how gratifying it is to do the Lord´s work. To feel the Spirit as we teach; as we go along doing seemingly uninspired work; as we decide to visit a member, and, upon arriving, hearing her say, "I was just thinking today that it would be so nice if the missionaries could help me,". I bear my testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and of his re-established Church. I know these things, for I have lived them. Until next week.

Elder Blaylock

(and then there were six...)

Parker - June 5

Hey Everyone!

Sounds like you guys have had a crazy week! Grad parties, Seminary, and a surprise camping trip! Sounds like a lot of fun. 

Yeah, my week has been pretty interesting. Where to start? Oh yeah, so, wednesday, my comp wakes up and says ´´alright, we´re doing splits with the other elders today´´ Cuz he´s district leader, he has to do splits or exhanges with the other elders in his district, and we´ve been trying to figure out a day to do it, but its hard cuz they lost their phone, so they have no means of communicating, so we just hopped over there and surprised them. I went there, with the senior companion. Everybody´s been kinda worrying about him cuz that area is really hard, they almost never have lunch, and he´s just kinda become discouraged, also, a couple transfers ago, he was with another elder and they were fairly disobedient, he showed me his souvenirs from that time, which includes a list of movies such as Rogue One, Beauty and the Beast, Logan, Suicide Squad, and Doctor Stange (all in spanish of course). We obviously did not watch any of them, but still, it was really weird. He told me that he wants to change though, he actually threw out all that stuff and he´s planning on being more obedient. 

And friday, we head to the twig, Santa Ana, and guess what? Something has happened. Ok, so here´s the situation: There´s the house we go to when we do the Sacrament on Sundays, where Sister V lives, and she´s got quite a few sons, who are of course all grown now, but they all live there. A little ways away lives a recent convert and her husband. All of the men work in the Lemon harvest, the Recent Convert´s husband is like the boss or whatever, and something happened on Sunday at work, and each one came home and told a different story to their wives, then, the wives started fighting and gossipping. So we spent Friday night standing outside trying to get people to get along.

And now, Saturday, we did service in the morning for a family of investigators, putting together a garden in their yard. And in the afternoon, we go down this one street we always take to get to an investigator´s house, but they weren´t there, so we´re heading back, and this dog starts coming up to me on the bike and starts barking. Now, this happens sooooooo often here, that I am just so sick and tired of it. So I try to shoo it away, which usually gets them to go away. Except this dog has lightning fast reflexes and managed to simultaneously dodge my kick and clamp on my leg. So I shake him off and just decide to get out of there asap. As I´m leaving, he locks onto me again...I was not happy, because now, I´m down to even LESS pants. and I have some scrapes on my leg. He didn´t really bite me, just kinda slammed into me with his teeth. So we went to the ER, they cleaned it up, and told me to put ice on it. 

Then, on Sunday, we had district conference, went pretty well. And it the afternoon, we went back to cSanta Ana to sort out the whole fighting thing, and managed to convince some of them to get along.

So yeah, that was my week.

Love

Elder Blaylock

Brock - June 5

We had a successful (read: stressful) week, because we were able to baptize on Sunday, despite some opposition. But, all's well that ends well, so everything turned out okay. 

Today we met up with some of the other elders in a mexican food restaurant (buffet, with ice cream & churros included) and ate. I found it very good because it was hardly spicy but still a lot of flavor. So it was good mexican food for me. 

Don´t have much to comment about this week. So sad for Jack about camping with his friends, but glad to see that you three went with him. Very surprised to see mom in the same picture as camping. Hope it was a lot of fun.

Yes, as Dad noticed, my flight plans finally came in! To quote him, "It finally feels so real now." 

I also finished the Book of Mormon again. It´s always satisfying to finish a good book, and even more to finish "most correct of any book on earth" again. Every time brings further insights. 

I love you guys, it´s great to hear from you all. 

Elder Blaylock

Parker - May 29

Hey everyone!

Sounds like people had a busy week this week! My week´s been pretty good. Definitely the highlight was yesterday. 

So we found this family a couple weeks ago, the parents are less actives, and the kids aren´t members, and one of them is over the baptismal age. And we´ve been teaching them, they´re really great, they actually want to return to church, and yesterday they came! It was really great. But that´s not all. In the afternoon, when we did our sacrament meeting in Santa Ana, a few members came with us (read they gave us a ride in their truck) and we were able to pick up an investigator to come with us, but not just her, both of her daughters and a friend who happened to be visiting. Then we get to the member´s house where we do the meeting, and there´s a bunch of people there, all in all, it was the highest attendance that we´ve seen in Santa Ana, mostly its like 15 people, but yesterday it was double that. And two of the members who came with us gave talks. One talked about the importance of prayer, and the other shared his conversion story. And yeah, we have Four people who have baptismal dates! There´s T, who´s the daughter of the less actives, she´s like 10, and really excited to be baptized. There´s the Hermana C, who´s the investigator we brought to church, and there´s J, who at one point in his life tried to change genders, but now he´s really excited to be baptized, he´s read the book of mormon, and totally understands the law of chastity now. And finally there´s T, who´s been on the fence for a while, but now we´re sure he´s gonna make it, yesterday he almost didn´t make it to church, cuz of a birthday party, but he came anyway. 

And yeah, that´s pretty much everything important about my week, I love you all and can´t wait to hear back from you!

Love

Elder Blaylock

Brock - May 29

Wow. This week was really good. We had our last multi-zone conference with President Farnes on Tuesday, and it was very good. The Spirit was very strong. He talked a lot about the principles that he´s been teaching in the mission and how they are actually life principles. Everyone bore their testimony about the Atonement and Jesus Christ. It was a really great experience.

We came out of that a lot more dedicated to have some results this week, so the week was a lot better (despite an alarming pain in my right foot and ankle). We had one really promising investigator in church, and we also had a confirmation. 

One of the things that really stood out to me at the multi-zone conference was something President said about the parables of the treasure in the field and of the pearl of great price. For those who aren´t as familiar, here they are:

44  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

45  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:

46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

Many a time I have thought of my investigators while reading this parable. That they need to sell all they have to buy the field where the treasure of the gospel is hidden, to give away even good pearls that they already have for the one pearl of great price. But, as is usually the case with Jesus´ parables, there is more than one correct interpretation, and this was what President taught us in the multi-zone: What is the kingdom of heaven? Usually when we as members speak of the "kingdom of heaven", we aren´t referring to heaven but in reality the church. And what is the church? Well, it´s us. So now the whole imagery of the parable changes. If we are the kingdom of heaven, then we are likened unto a treasure in a field and a pearl of great price. This therefore, makes the man in the parable, of course, Jesus Christ, because no other man could "pay all the he had" to redeem us. If there was ever any bit of imagery to stress how precious and valuble to God and Christ, this should be it. I was profoundly touched. I love you all, and can´t wait to see you again.

Elder Blaylock