Follow up to the surprise email from last week - September 15

Mission accomplished!  I met your wonderful son in Salta this morning.  He is doing well and is working hard!  He is happy and healthy.  I showed him the photo of us with his brother and he was pretty happy to see him!  He also said that he is the shortest of the group!  WOW!

Un abrazo.  Thank you for your faithful service and for preparing such amazing young men!

Elder Mark A. Bragg

Presidencia de Area

Area Sudamerica Sur

Jack - September 13

It´s been a long couple of days and a quick week since I arrived at the MTC. I was of course sad to be leaving my friends and family for two years, but I can testify that the Lord looks out for those who place their trust in Him and follow His will. On the first flight a flight attendant stopped by me as I was reading the Book of Mormon and talked to me about serving a mission (He´s a member) and just that quick conversation really calmed me down, and let me know that God was watching over me. On the second flight a kind attendant showed me to a better less crammed seat because I´m so tall. Once we arrived at the MTC I struggled a lot with a lot of homesickness and stress over how little time we were given to unpack and adjust, I was so stressed that I couldn´t focus at all during the first class. After dinner however, and being able to kind of decompress by getting to know the other missionaries I arrived with, I felt much better and was able to lose myself in the work. And I can´t stress how important that is, I haven´t felt homesick at all since then (mostly), it's so easy to lose yourself in this work and i feel truly blessed. Every night I look through the pictures I brought with me of my family and friends and I am so grateful for all of you. My district is awesome, my companion is a little less awesome. Elder R and I are complete opposites, and it causes a lot of stress and problems, usually on me. He is very cocky and enjoys being the center of attention, he´s not very focused on any of the lessons and is very stubborn in his views of how a lesson should be taught, but then he still expects me to put it together. He talks a lot, and i mean a lot about his many girls at home, and how he´s dating like 2 or 3 but none of them know. It´s awful. Sorry everyone, I needed to decompress. Part of the reason I know he´s my companion is because the Lord knows each of us and has a plan for us, even if we only know part of it. Elder R is pretty good at trying to talk with some of the native speakers, which has encouraged me to be more extroverted. Oh and by the way the gift of tongues is real, my spanish has improved so much in just this last week. I think the Lord has a sense of humor though because ever since I gave a lesson back home about the gifts of the spirit, I´ve been seeking after those gifts, and one of the ones I´ve been praying for is the gift of patience, and how do you build patience? through patience. It´s very stressful but I guess having to be patient with my companion is helping me build patience so that´s good. Seeking after some of the other gifts of the spirit has been very enlightening. During a personal study time where we were supposed to be studying the doctrine of Christ I was stopped by a large portion of scripture highlighted, which is unusual because I usually don´t mark my scriptures, and it turned out to be the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, as I read it I made a list of attributes and associated blessings. A little further in the chapter we are instructed to ¨Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.¨ Looking back on my list I realized that these attributes and their associated blessings are our Light and that we need to share and Strengthen that Light. Furthering my study, I wanted to focus on one particular verse: ¨Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.¨ What an incredible blessing. Through further study in books such as As a Man Thinketh, and some quotes I´ve heard through my life I put together more notes on being pure in heart. I´ll try to just send a picture of those since I don´t have a ton of time to write. I want everyone to know I´m doing well out here, the food has been pretty good, I haven´t had any problems being too picky about the food, that and I usually can´t eat very much, it´s very filling. My district is awesome and we´re like a family and it´s weird because we´ve only known each other for a week. I hope everything is going well back home! And I hope everyone is safe and happy! 

Elder Blaylock 

Written on my comp's foot while he was asleep (not by me). My Latino roommates are hilarious, but they also never go to sleep.

Parker - September 11

What a week!

Wow, oh my goodness, this week has taxed my mental, social, and physical energies way more than I thought. But I`m told by my Zone leaders that I`m handling it well. So that`s good. 

My Comp, elder F, is really cool, and helpful, he`s very active and has a good memory, which helps a lot with whitewashing. But basically we weren`t able to actually work until Saturday. 

But yeah, it`s been crazy. Being a district leader isn`t too hard, just gotta see how people are doing at the end of the day. And then every Tuesday I have to lead district meeting, so that`s gonna be an interesting day tomorrow. 

But yeah, other than that, not too exciting, just trying to work hard. I`m sending a pic from pday today,

Love you all!

Elder Blaylock

A surprise email - September 9

Dear Blaylock Family

We are on assignment in Santiago this weekend and met your wonderful son today at the MTC.  He is doing very well!  He is happy, healthy and working very hard!  I don't meet too many missionaries taller than I am!  I am trying to get on my tiptoes in the photo and I am 6'3''!

He mentioned that his brother, Parker, is in Salta in our area!  We are going to be there next week on a mission tour and we will be sure to share this photo with him and take one with him to send to you. 

Thank you for preparing such worthy and willing young men to serve the Lord.  I know that there are many blessings but I recognize what a sacrifice it is to have two sons in the field.  May you be richly blessed!

Un abrazo!

Elder Mark A. Bragg

Presidencia de Area

Area Sudamerica Sur

Parker - September 4

Hey Everybody!

Sorry for the late email, but wait till you hear this.

So Sunday afternoon, the assistants call, telling me that I am going to be district leader now. Then at night we get the transfers, I`m headed to Rosario de la Lerma in Salta, it`s like an hour away from the capital, and my comp is gonna be elder F. 

OK, great. I get on a bus, fairly comfy, there was a movie too, A Dog`s Purpose, which was about a reincarnating dog, not my favorite film, haha.

Anyway, then I get to Salta, and guess what nobody told me? I AM WHITEWASHING (starting everything from scratch)....Oh my goodness. Basically what happened is there was another twig here, and the missionary here managed to convince the president to open up the twig as a separate area. So he`s going there, and I`m here, whitewashing, as well as first time being district leader...

BUT

I don`t want you guys to worry about me, I am going to be fine. My companion is pretty cool, so far we`re getting along fairly well. He`s from Utah.

I don`t have a whole ton of time, but I want you all to know that in these times of changes and challeges, The Lord will help us, we just have to go and do the things the Lord commands, because we know the Lord wouldn`t give us challenges or difficulties without preparing a way for us to get out of it or through it. Keep Praying. Keep Reading. Trust in God, and Believe in Good Things to Come. 

I love you all,

Elder Blaylock

two missionaries out in the world again

Brock 2.0

The Evolution and Articulation of Brock 

Overheard after spending a great day with his brother.

B: It's so hard.

J: What?

B: That things are so good that you don't want them to end, but if they don't end...it would be really bad.

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(Think about it: summer vacation; eating a box of See's chocolates {ha!}; childhood; a good nap; Adam and Eve in the garden...)

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As a child Brock had a really hard time with change. Harder than the rest of the kids. Hearing this (deep on many levels) realization and acceptance of this hard life-concept was reaffirming to me as a parent. 1. To all those out there in the thick of child-rearing--oh, it's hard! So hard. And sometimes you despair and think that things are not going to turn out okay; concepts are not being learned; the same situations occur over and over again, ad nauseum. Hang in there. I lost a very dear friend to cancer a little while ago. She was a few years ahead of me in life and she gave me advice and a listening ear as she had had a son very much like mine. She gave me encouragement and hope and I am so grateful to her. Hang in there. 2. Missions are amazing. They are so hard and good. There are concepts that we have been trying to teach in our home for years. Years. But were only realized and truly learned when our children have been put in the midst of the trials, service and deep spiritual faith and commitment that all go hand in hand when someone decides to serve a mission. I am so grateful for this opportunity that the gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helps to provide for my children. For those of you interested, I am including the text of Brock's homecoming talk. It is balm to my soul as I get ready to send out yet another child into the world.

xx
jenny

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I’ve been asked to speak today on a topic that has been at the forefront of my mind for the last two years; a topic that is near and dear to my heart. What blessings come from the commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, described by Doctrine and Covenants sec. 20 verse 37, as one “truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto repentance”1? Or, to retool the phrase; what do we get, what happens to us when we are truly converted?

Well, I can start off by saying that true and complete conversion is a rare point that few, if any of us, will reach in this mortal existence, so these blessings that we will receive will be received in degrees, in accordance with our own degree of conversion. It’s a process, and we will be blessed by our progress within that process.

One of the greatest gifts that comes from committing to the Gospel is understanding. We understand our relationship with our fellow man as our brethren, that we must esteem them as our own flesh. Paul puts this to words in the first epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 8, 13, and 20:
“So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us...
“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe...

“For ye are our glory and joy.”2

This understanding that Paul and his fellow missionaries had of their brethren, a gift in and of itself, led to other blessings. Because of this understanding, they desired, as did Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah that “salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.”3

Their understanding of their relationship to others led to a desire to share these blessings with them! Not only did it bless them with the desire, but it blessed them with the opportunity and the knowledge of how to share those blessings! And tell me, did Paul have fruits showing that he truly desired the salvation of his brethren? How about Alma and the sons of Mosiah? The scriptures say that they baptized thousands of converts unto repentance. They showed their desire by working to attain it.
The longest I stayed in any of my areas was six months. In my mission this was somewhat uncommon, so I felt that I came to understand the concept of “eternity” there. On my first week in this area, my companion and I found perhaps the humblest house in the entire city. Now, I don’t want you thinking that this is common for Brazil, so don’t start thinking that I served in the Amazons or something like that. This house truly stood apart. It was a small, dilapidated shack, made from bamboo shoots and plastic sheeting. It sat, illegally, on private property. In this house lived a family of six in the worst of conditions. The parents were unmarried, chemically dependent, and thin and dry from said drug usage. The father worked in the streets, scouring the trash for recyclables. The house had no shower. The children had only recently been going to school. Now, it took a long time, but slowly we helped them out of their addictions. We helped them get married. We baptized the mother, the father, and the oldest child. And after that, he led us to others, who led to even more. 80% of the people who I taught and baptized in the area were because of that family. In my last week in the area, on New Year’s Eve, I visited this family. Clean, their formerly gaunt appearances filled in with a healthy glow, living in a rented home, readying themselves to purchase a car, and with the children playing quietly and happily in a corner, I saw the people that God had always known them to be. I saw the people they had become, through the commitments and ordinances of the gospel.

Conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ also allows us understand our role in our own lives. When I was leaving for my mission, as a young man who perhaps did not study the scriptures as often as he should, I was questioned about which scripture I would want on my mission plaque. Panicking, I scrounged up a scripture mastery without much thought, and turned it in. Doctrine and Covenants 58: 27-28:

“Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness:
“For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.”4

And I didn’t think much about it.
However, “all things work together for [our] good”5. My mission president was a man whose commitment to this gospel shone on his face and rang in his voice, and he had a thing or two to teach me about being an agent unto myself. I held an erroneous yet common belief, that I was not in charge of my own fate, and that I could blame circumstances, other people, anything but me, for my own misfortunes. I was being, in my mission president’s words, a victim.

My mission president expounded to us something that Lehi taught his sons in the beginning of 2nd Nephi6. We are free to do one of two things, to be one of two people: one who acts—or one who is acted upon. We can receive what we are given and make ourselves content or point the finger at others or at our situation and say “That’s not fair!”—or, we can do something about it. We can act.

This changed my life.

Understanding that my own actions would either get me where or what I wanted, and that complaining, or murmuring, or inactivity of any sort would never solve a problem for me, opened my eyes to the role I not only played in my own life, but about the role I played as a missionary in the lives of those I served—that, regardless of good desires, work had to be

done if I truly desired their salvation. We know it is “after all we can do”7, that we are saved by the Savior’s grace. My mission president loved us because he loved the Lord, and therefore he wished to teach us this great thing.

The Savior’s grace brings me around to perhaps the greatest blessing of conversion—conversion itself. Conversion is, as its name suggests, change. More specifically, a change of our nature. We change our behavior when we start to follow the Word of Wisdom, when we start to pay tithing and attend church meetings, and so forth. But when we are changed, when we are converted, we gain a better understanding of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When we understand that, when we understand the enormous price and the pure, unbridled love that Christ had for us to the point that he suffered, he anguished bodily and spiritually to pay the price for our sins, we are able to partake of His infinite mercy and able to repent, and be clean.

Because that’s what it’s all about. Repentance. To enable us to live with God and our families forever.
Because of Jesus Christ, we have these opportunites, these blessings, these gifts. All we have to do is commit ourselves to be like Him. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve, said in General Conference of October 2000:

“Now is the time for each of us to work toward our personal conversion, toward becoming what our Heavenly Father desires us to become. As we do so, we should remember that our family relationships—even more than our Church callings—are the setting in which the most important part of that development can occur. The conversion we must achieve requires us to be a good husband and father or a good wife and mother. Being a successful Church leader is not enough. Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it. The Apostle John spoke of what we are challenged to become when he said: ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we

shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.’”8 9

Brothers and sisters, I testify to you that I know that my Redeemer lives. I know He loves me and wants me to become like him. I testify that I know with all of my heart that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet called of God. I know this Church is true. I challenge you all to ponder the words I have spoken this day, and invite you to act— seize the blessings of conversion. After all, the process of conversion is what qualifies us for eternal life. I bear these things as my solemn testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

CITATIONS:
1 D&C 20:37

2 1st Thessalonians 2:8, 13, 20
3 Mosiah 28:3
4 D&C 58:28-27
5 Romans 8:28
6 2nd Nephi 2:26
7 2nd Nephi 25:23
8 The Challenge to Become, Dallin H. Oaks, General Conference 10/2000 9 1 John 3:2