March 26, 2009

Hey family (and friends who read some or all of this email)! How is everyone?! I hope well!

So, what’s new with me and the mission? Well, not a whole lot. Transfers were yesterday and I’m still in the Tigard 1st/Fanno Creek wards serving with Elder Nelson. Yep, no transfers for me. That’ll be 6 months in this area. And I really can’t complain. I’m happy to be here another transfer. I love this area, I love the members, I’ve loved my companions so far, and I just love the people! The work is progressing along and we have people that are progressing as well. Yay! Our investigator, John has a baptism scheduled for April 18th (and hopefully it’ll go through!) and work is still progressing with our other investigators. I’m not sure the last time I mentioned our other investigator - Nicholas, but things are going well there as well. He’s progressing (though not as fast as we would like!) and he is reading the Book of Mormon. We’re continuing to encourage him to read it from cover to cover starting at the beginning and working through it. Speaking of that, I really would like to get a copy of Journey of Faith (I believe that is the title of the film). It’s a documentary-type film produced by F.A.R.M.S. (the Foundation for Ancient scripture Research and Mormon Studies, at least I think that’s what it stands for) that we watched in District Meeting last week and it is AWESOME! It chronicles the journey of Lehi and his family from Jerusalem to America and does a wonderful job of showing how unlikely it was that Joseph Smith knew the description given by Nephi of their journey across Arabia was so accurate. That is a movie I think everyone would enjoy seeing if they haven’t…and it’s something I would REALLY like to have while out serving a mission. It would help (at least I hope) people like Ivory who are very through and do lots of studying before they will join the church. Ultimately, the only thing that matters will be a person reading and praying about the Book of Mormon themselves in order to get an answer of whether or not it’s true from the Holy Ghost. That’s the only way to have a deep and abiding faith, but it’s so cool to see that the Book of Mormon is constantly being proven to be accurate and true as modern research continually prods at its validity and reality.

Anyway, what else is going on. We’re tracting more (well, kind of anyway) and that’s always fun. There are lots of interesting experiences associated with that, and I’ll hopefully relate some of them at a later time. Right now, though, the story that comes to mind the most is what happened to me yesterday. We were trying to track down some less-active people and we were taking a road that all of a sudden dead ended and then started up again about a block away. Great! But, there was this small little walking path we could see, so we decided to take that on our bikes to not have to back track and go around in order to get one block further. Anyway, it had been raining, and since I was a little frustrated with our maps and I went first, I went a little faster than I probably should have. Needless to say, about half-way through I lost traction and fell over. Hooray! I was in the suit I had just gotten back from the dry cleaners and I landed right in a large mud pit. Fun times. My whole left side was pretty much covered with mud and let me tell you – I was really happy about that. Anyway, I’ve got a couple of pictures, but with time I’m not sure if I’ll be able to attach any right now. Huzzah! I was mad for a little while, but looking back on it, it was actually pretty funny. Especially since it wasn’t a fast wreck, being in the mud, my bike just kinda slowly slipped down a small (3 or 4 inch) ledge and I slowly tilted over to the left until I made contact with the mud. Elder Nelson got a good laugh out of that, so I suppose one good thing came of it! Also, since it was mud and all, I didn’t get hurt (besides my pride) and nothing was broken (aside from a small hole I found later in the side of my pants). Good times though!
I could go on and on, but I’m running short on time. I hope everyone is doing well and I hope y’all know I love you!

Read the scriptures! Study them!

Take care everyone! I hope things are going well and that all know I think of them regularly.

Have wonderful day!

I love y’all!
-Elder Michael Starks

March 19, 2009

A man convinced against his will, of the same opinion is he still.

So, that's a nice little quote I got from one of the Traveling Elders yesterday. We had exchanges with them (they're officially Traveling Assistant's to the President) and they basically go around the mission giving trainings at Zone Conferences or other "Traveling Elder Trainings" and they also go on exchanges with companionships to help uplift, motivate, and train them. Anyway, it was a good time! I went with Elder Wray (yes, I spelled that correctly) and we got some good stuff done. We ended up wasting some time trying to help a member move two TV's, but it still felt like a fairly productive day, even though we didn't get a whole lot of "work" done (like tracting, or teaching lessons, or other types of contacting). Elder Wray reminds me of myself and he had some good advice and suggestions to some of concerns, struggles, and questions. So that was pretty sweet! As far as other work is going, it goes...mostly well. The work has seemed to slow a little this past week, we had our lesson with Ron and Caroline Miller get postponed till next Tuesday, so hopefully that will go through. While on exchanges yesterday, Elder Nelson and Elder Henry were able to have a lesson with the Ferrell's and the Tommer's and that seemed to go well. They were able to set a more firm date with one of our investigators for April 18th to be baptized after he prays and knows that the Church is true. Now, the sad part this week comes from a couple, where the man was just baptized about 3 or 4 weeks ago. They're in a rough spot right now and struggling with their reasons for making the big changes in their lives they've been making. It seems that their testimony of Christ and the restored Gospel is not quite where it needs to be in order to sustain them; from what they told us it also seems apparent that communication between them broke down for a month or two; and most of all, it is apparent that Satan is doing his all to keep them away from the happiness and peace they are so earnestly seeking. Keep them in your prayers, please!

As for Elder Nelson and I, we're doing alright. It's still a challenge for me, but I'm learning to adapt to new personalities and live with people that are different from myself. I love Elder Nelson, he has some awesome qualities and characteristics I can definitely learn from; and I'm trying to learn how to just ignore some things that don't matter, and discuss things that really do matter so the both of us stay sane and united in our purpose and goals.

As for myself. I'm doing alright. Still growing and trying to figure out what it means for me to be a missionary, but still doing my best to give myself to the Savior. I love the Lord and I love this opprotunity I've been given. It's definitely difficult at times but I really appreciate the tender mercies of the Lord, and I appreciate Him in my life.

I'm happy I'm here, I'm happy my family and my friends (especially those very special ones) love me and support me doing this, I'm happy they're having their needs met and are okay...even though I might not be communicating with them as frequently as they or I would like, and I'm so happy that I have a chance to help others find a peace and joy that passeth all understanding.

My favorite scripture seems to be coming up more and more in my life, in my teaching, in my thoughts, just in general: 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Remember that!

I love y'all!
-Elder Michael Starks

March 5, 2009

Hello family!

How goes life in Tejas?! I hope well. I really do. I love y'all! Well, you might be asking yourself, how does the work go for Elder Starks? It goes well!

Things are progressing with a few of our investigators and one of them accepted an approximate baptismal date for sometime in mid-April!  Elder Nelson and I hope that things with him pan out and that he will continue to progress and make those leaps of faith necessary to find out for himself if the gospel is true. And his wife has even opened up a little as well. She spoke a few times (as I mentioned in my last email) but I'm not sure about this week, we were on exchanges with our Zone Leaders when Elder Nelson extended that time period of mid-April to John, so I'm not quite sure how Joelene took that and how she participated in the lesson. Anyway, we had a pretty good lesson with another investigator last Saturday, the Spirit was there and I think I was the most bold I've been on my mission with him when I felt prompted to tell him that if he would pray specifically to know that the Book of Mormon was true, he would receive an answer. He wouldn't commit to specifically pray, but the Spirit was there and we both felt it was a good lesson - not the usual listening to him ask questions about things from the Bible that (at least to us) do not pertain to Salvation. Pray for him and his family! Let's see...who else? A couple was just baptized two weeks ago. They're so cool. We're going to start teaching the new member lessons to them with their home teachers hopefully starting this next Tuesday. Yay! Um...I know there are more people to talk about...Oh! We have a lesson this Saturday with a lady. I think I told you last week, but we tracted into her and she said she had some cousins who were Mormon and one or two that had served or were serving missions and she said we could come back and share a lesson with her and her family. Hopefully something will come of that! We're trying hard to tract two hours each day so we can find some new potential investigators! Oh! In the Fanno Creek ward we had a lady refer her daughter (who is less-active) and her boyfriend to us. The daughter's boyfriend agreed to the lessons and the daughter apparently is on that line of being able to go either away or toward the church really easily. We hope we'll be able to make some progress with them and help them both to feel the Spirit and come to church and ultimately come unto Christ. Good stuff is happening and we're doing our best to work hard and teach people. We're hopefully going to get back to teaching the younger girl and boy we were working with. And we're slowly working on another famliy to reactivate the two that are members and teach the 8 and 10 year old's who aren't. Other than that things are going pretty well. Our exchanges with the Zone Leaders was fun. I was with Elder Barrett (one of our Zone Leaders) in their area and it was a great day! We set a goal to talk to everyone that we saw, and we were both pretty sure we did it, too, by the end of the day!

We also went to the temple this morning and that was really nice. I'm really happy that Pres. Dyches lets us go once a transfer - it definitely helps me out a lot.

Tell everybody I say hi and that I'm sorry for not writing anyone back yet - it's so hard, harder than I imagined!

Well, I've gotta go for this week, but I love y'all and hopefully will hear from y'all soon!

-Elder Michael Starks

P.S. Mail sent to our mailbox would be sweet treat!

P.P.S. Attached is a picture of Elder Nelson and I. And a picture of a cool rainbow we saw yesterday while I was on exchanges with Elder Barrett.