Week 98.5

Ladies and gentlemen, we did it. 

Although it got cut just a bit short, I finally made it to the end of my mission serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Utah, Salt Lake City West Mission. 

These past 1.9 years/22.7 months/98.5 weeks/689 days have been some of the greatest years/months/weeks/days of my entire life. I have come to know -- through successes and failures, blessings and trials, joys and sorrows -- that God is my loving Heavenly Father and that this whole time it has truly been His work and I am just His instrument. Sometimes I wasn't His best instrument. I have also learned that the greatest demonstration of His love was when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to the Earth, to teach his Gospel, establish a church, and follow the will of the Father by suffering and dying for every one of us. He loves me, and he loves each one of you. His arm is always extended when you are knocked on the ground or even when you stand tall. 

I know that the Church of Jesus Christ, after once being lost, has indeed been restored on the Earth through a living prophet, as God has done time and time again with the prophets of old. This prophet was Joseph Smith. I know he was a prophet, because I have come to know that the Book of Mormon, which he could have translated only through the power of God, is undoubtedly true. I cannot deny the feeling that I get every time that I read a verse that was written just for me. It's true. It's all true. Every word. That was the first truth that I had to come to know when I started my mission; it was pretty hard to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon when I didn't know it was true at the beginning of my mission. I know my Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers. I have come to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost, which is quite possibly the greatest challenge for every missionary and person alike.

Serving the Lord has proved to be one of the most challenging and most rewarding experiences of my life. I feel so bad for my first handful of companions that had to work alongside myself, me being one of the most unpleasant, arrogant, ungrateful, and unloving people that I know. I am grateful to have been changed through Christ, through countless moments of pure repentance using His Atonement. I regret not having been a kinder person towards the beginning of my mission, but I have absolutely no regret as to who I am today. I still have much to learn, grow, and change, as many of you will see when I come home. But I will break down and cry if I come home and anyone says, "You haven't changed a bit." If such is the case, these past two years will have been an utter waste.

But I know this time has not been spent in vain, because every night, I have gotten on my knees and tried to utter out the phrase, "Lord, I did my best today." For the days where I have truly tried my best, this sentence was easy to say, and the Lord would always "slam dunk" me with the Spirit as a confirmation of the Lord's satisfaction for my day's offering. For the days where I lacked true discipleship, the Spirit would let me know where I could've done better, and I would commit to do better the next day, and I again would feel a confirmation of my day's offering. The days where I was all in, I was the happiest, and the Lord blessed me the most. The days where I was a "part-time" missionary and focused more on myself, I wasn't happy, and the Lord didn't bless me as much. This is His work. I love Him.

I am very grateful for all of you that have been supporting me and reading these emails since week one. I really hope that you've seen at least a little bit of change in me since the beginning from just my emails alone. 

I'm going to be coming home tomorrow, December 17th. I will be giving my homecoming talk at church on Sunday, December 26th, and all of you are invited to come hear my testimony and my many experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am today.

I have loved being a missionary! See you all soon!!!

Elder Terry

Week 97 & 98

Hey all of you lovely people!

This is my final transfer!! I'm staying in the El Camino ward for the rest of my mission, and I'm staying with Elder Barnes and we'll be in a trio with the new addition of a legend, Elder Gaunt. Being that I'm going home halfway through the transfer, I'm basically living out of my suitcases... it's pretty difficult. And these past two weeks, I've had a lot of time to work super duper hard in the area and also reflect on how much I've accomplished and how much I've grown on the mission. What's helping me to endure to the end is how much I love the work, the people I serve, and the people I serve with. 

Miracles:

So we have found a whole bunch of new people to teach that have seemed very promising. However, on Sunday, only one of our friends showed up. We were pretty disappointed, but at that moment we re-lived this scripture from the Book of Mormon:

"Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord be comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the [Latinos], and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." (Alma 26:27)

It was at this moment that God showed us that He still had everything under control. 

1. As we sat in the foyer mourning the fact that we were going to have to stop teaching a bunch of our friends, two people randomly showed up to church. Some members immediately fellowshipped them and they joined the Sunday school class. They then accepted visits from us.

2. We had a lesson with our only amiga that came to church, Viviana, and after having taught her for the past 4 months and having attempted to put her on for a baptismal date, she finally accepted a date for December 26th!!! Although I won't be there to see her get baptized, she has such a solid testimony and such strong connections with the members that I know that she'll stay strong in the church after her baptism. Viviana is so awesome.

3. As we made visits later in the day to let our amigos know that we were going to stop teaching them because they weren't keeping their commitments, we couldn't even finish visiting them all because we kept crossing paths with other new people to teach. We finished the week with my new personal record of having found 19 new people to teach in just one week.

I love being a missionary. 

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Found a big tire.

2) We had to take a companionship to the hospital at midnight, so here's us tired as heck with masks on

3) Chillin

4-5) Food trips

6) Got some boots for the snow

Videos:

1) I hate icicles 

2) Frozen rain gutter

Week 95 & 96

Hey everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! You'll be happy to know that I ate like 4 Thanksgiving dinners and came home a couple pounds fatter. In preparation for a Thanksgiving mission devotional, my mission president reached out to me and asked me to pre-record a special musical number. I threw together an arrangement of "Because I Have Been Given Much" and "For the Beauty of the Earth", and sent it in after the first take. It turned out super well, and President Spencer hyped me up afterwards and told me he's gonna listen to it on loop. Patriarchal blessing prophecies were fulfilled. 🙏

Elder Barnes and I have been continuing to pop off by finding a bunch of really really cool people lately. First, we found the Pino family! We knocked on the door of what we thought was going to be this nice old lady that we talked to a couple of weeks back. But when we knocked, we met the Pino family, who had just moved from Venezuela 3 days prior! They let us in, we shared the message of the Restoration while sitting in a circle on their furniture-less floor. They loved it! Their 8-year-old daughter was smiling wide and hardly even blinked.

We also found the Velazquez-Ramos family. We knock and they warmly welcome us in. The father tells us that he had also recently moved from Venezuela with his daughter while his wife had been living here alone for the past year. Nothing gets a missionary going more than when someone says they have been looking for a church to attend. We told them about our weekly service, and when the mother realized that it would conflict with her work schedule. instead of giving excuses, she faithfully stated, "Imma talk with my boss and take the day off. If the Lord wants me to go to church, Imma go to church." 😎

Going into these last couple of weeks of my mission, I've been reflecting a bunch about what I've accomplished. For the first 3/4ths of my mission, I really wasn't seeing too much success in terms of baptisms and all that. I've always worked hard and I would find some pretty cool people, and after I left an area, the missionaries that came in would baptize the people I taught. I honestly had accepted that I was just a seed-planter, and I was okay with other missionaries reaping the fruit. 🍎🍓🍌🍐

It wasn't until these last couple of transfers that I realized that I could be more than just a seed-planter - I could plant the seeds, water them, till the ground, support the base, and watch them grow and grow until fruits started to grow, and be the one to reap the fruits all within just a couple of months! I know that God can perform miracles, and I knew he could use me as an instrument in His hands as long as I was sharpened and polished through the development of Christlike attributes and teaching skills. One of my biggest regrets in the mission is not having studied Preach My Gospel as thoroughly as I have these past couple of months, because I've seen miracles and promised blessings on the daily. I know this is the Lord's work, and He loves to show me that every single day that I decided to follow His will rather than my own.

Miracle:

So we send a list around the ward for members to sign-up to join us in our lessons. The list also got passed to the youth, and one of our amigos, Jose, signed up to join us in a lesson on Friday at 6pm. Now, at first we asked ourselves if it would be a good idea for a nonmember to join us in a lesson with another nonmember... but then we decided to full-send it. The Wednesday before, we had plans to teach the Restoration to Jose again so that he could be prepared for the lesson, but he ended up having a couple of questions and we ended up teaching him the Plan of Salvation because he needed it more. We were now just praying that we could set up a lesson on Friday at 6pm to teach the Plan of Salvation.

Lucky enough we did! And when we knocked on the door........ they didn't answer 😔 However, we knew we couldn't give up cause Jose was counting us and we were counting on him. We decided to visit the Tineo-Paz family, a family that we had found a couple of weeks back and hadn't answered for a while. We knocked on their door, and they (finally) answered!!! We got in, taught the Plan of Salvation, and at the end we talked about the importance of going to church. We then looked over to Jose, and he continued to bear one of the sweetest, most genuine testimonies. He related something along the lines of:

"Now, I have never been a fan of religion ever since I was a kid. I have gone to other churches, and it just wasn't for me. But when I go to the Church of Jesus Christ, it just feels different. When the missionaries come to my house and help me learn, it just feels different. So even though I'm not a member of the church, I invite all of you to come to church this Sunday, because you will feel different as well."

I had one of the biggest grins on my face the whole time. He was following the Spirit even though he didn't even know it. Sadly, the Tineo-Paz family didn't come to church that Sunday. But I don't think that lesson was for the Tineo-Paz family. It was for Jose. He talked to us after church and relayed how sad he was that they didn't show up. We helped him to recognize that that feeling of sadness was Godly sorrow, and that we are more than accustomed to that feeling whenever people decide not to change or keep their commitments. I can't help but see Jose as a future missionary. 🙌

I love being a missionary.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Post-baptism photo with Axel and Alicia Morales

2-4) We went out to eat a bunch these past couple of weeks cause it was Hermana Krummenacher's last transfer

5) Me strangling Jose's puppy (not actually) cause it doesn't stop biting us 

6) Leaving cute notes for our amigos 🤗

Week 94

Hey everyone! Here are some highlights of this past week:

- We had met a cool guy named Luis and we set up a follow-up lesson for a couple of days in the future. We honestly were not expecting the lesson to go through cause they didn't confirm if they were home, but we knocked and boy were they ready for us. Luis ended up being a less active member, but his wife, Adriana, was the one who was being prepared for us. She mentioned not having a pleasant religious background growing up, and currently wasn't part of a church, although she was now looking to join one. And that's when we dropped in 😏

- We got some awards for having the cleanest car and the cleanest apartment in the Zone 😎

- We hadn't had contact with our friend Hilda for the past few weeks and we were about to stop teaching her... until we saw some police outside her door. Apparently, she was going through some difficult marriage challenges, one thing leads to the next and her husband now has a restraining order. She sent us a text saying, "Now I'm ready to study with you." Yessir.

- At the end of an epic lesson, our friend, Jaime, said a prayer and asked for us to find some really pretty girlfriends after the mission................... Now if I've learned one thing on the mission............. it's that God hears all prayers............. I just hope He decides to answer that one 👀

- Imagine having no time in your area because you're too busy with so many baptismal interviews from your district. Well, that dream became a reality for our district leader, who spent his whole night going from interview to interview......... but he doesn't have a car so we had to chauffeur him our whole night as well.

Miracle:

Our friends, Axel and Alicia Morales, got baptized this past Saturday!!! And their baptismal service was probably my favorite one that I've ever been a part of! We combined the baptism with the two baptisms that the Hermanas misioneras had as well, and as such, the ward supported and participated a bunch, which definitely lowered the stress aspect on our part. We performed a special musical number, the baptisms went smoothly, and a bunch of members bore their testimonies and helped the baptismal candidates feel welcome to the ward family. Many tears were shed. I'm super grateful to be able to participate in the Lord's work. My testimony of the fact that He's at the head of this work grows every day.

I love being a missionary.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Axel and Alicia Morales got baptized!!!

2) All 4 baptisms between us and the Hermanas misioneras

3) Made some pupusas for our district activity

4) When you haven't watched TV for almost 2 years

5) The literal key to success 🔑

6) I think it was a safe bet that nobody lives here anymore

7) When a cat follows you into your apartment, sometimes you just have to let it enjoy the free hospitality

Week 92 & 93

Hey all of you lovely children of God! These past weeks were awesome!

Miracle:

Our miracle of the week was that three of our friends, Amanda, Jhon, and Alexis, got baptized!!! We are super excited for them and for their decision to let God prevail! However, I wish I could say that their baptism ran smoothly...

So our ward decided to take the baptismal services into their own hands this time (which we were okay with of course) by making the programs and inviting people and everything. The day of the baptism, we asked our ward mission leader if he needed help filling up the baptismal font beforehand, and he was like, "Nahhhh I got it." We showed up 30 minutes early to help our amigos with the baptismal clothing, but right when we showed up, our ward mission leader showed up...... to start filling up the font..... which takes an hour and a half to fill up...... so yeah we had to stall a bit. 

6:00pm hits and all of the members show up, but the water isn't even a foot deep yet. We played some music and took pictures, and while we were taking pictures, the fire alarm went off.... for like 10 minutes. Apparently the Tongan ward was doing a trunk-or-treat the same night, and they were using the kitchen and accidently burnt something. So there we are, trying to feel the Spirit, with a fire alarm blaring off, and the water is still rising poco a poco in the font. We finally started the service an hour late, and it actually went pretty well considering the previous chaos. I was able to personally baptize Amanda. It was awesome.

"You and the ward mission leader should do everything you can to ensure that the baptismal service is organized, inspiring, and memorable." (Preach My Gospel, ch. 12) Oh... it was memorable all right.

Epic mission story:

So we were heading through our apartment complex back to our car because it was about to hit 9pm, when we spot a guy named Francisco chilling by his car, blasting reggaeton, cigarette in hand, beer on the trunk bed, you know, the usual. We walk up to him and strike up a conversation. He was partly drunk - not too drunk to not make out a word that he was saying, but just drunk enough that his conversation was all over the place aaaand.... he was willing to do anything we told him to do 😉

So I straight up tell him that he shouldn't be drinking or smoking, and he was like, "I know, I knowww." I ask him, "What would you do if God was standing right he-," and before I could finish the question, he takes the cigarette in his hand and tosses it into the street. 👀 He passed the first test. I took it one step further and ask, "What about that beer on your truck?" He goes, "Oh this? I haven't even opened it yet." I glanced around and spotted a dumpster not 100 feet away on the other side of the street. "Bet you won't toss that beer can into that dumpster." He goes, "Well if I throw it from here it's gonna explode!" "Bruh obviously. Just walk to the dumpster and throw it in there." "Aight, bet." So he walks across the street (almost gets hit by a car) and tosses the beer can into the dumpster from 20 feet away, making a beautiful clanging dumpster sound as it hits the bottom. Elder Barnes and I just looked at each other, jaws open, surprised that he actually did it. He walks back towards us and we high-fived each other. We could literally hear hosts of angels cheering above. Francisco is a stud.

So my mission is starting to come to a close, and it's crazy looking back to see how quick this has flown by, and how far I've come. I've set a bunch of goals and standards to make sure I work hard til the end of my mission. I really hope that when I get home, people recognize how much I have changed because I've gone through so much work and so many trials to grow into who I am today. My favorite experiences that I've had recently have been just being in a lesson or in a missionary meeting, and having an out-of-body experience of everything going quiet and I just see these people the same way that God sees them. It's the best.

I love being a missionary.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Alexis' and Jhon's baptism!! They are so awesome! (Amanda still hasn't sent us the picture of her baptism)

2) Bowling with the district (and with the 4 other districts that showed up at the same time)

3) We got kidnapped in the back of a white van during a service project (not really jaja)

4) Durags at Zone Council

5) Exchange with Elder Park

6) Found the whack-est speed limit

7) Got a package from home with some awesome socks in it!

8) How people who are 6' look at people who are 5'11"

Week 90 & 91

Hellooooo!!!! How are you all doing?

These past two weeks have been super crazy!! To start off, Elder Stuflick and I broke the mission record for the most people on date at the same time, with 16 people on date for baptism!! This was especially a big achievement for us considering we didn't have anyone on date just a month ago. We originally had a good 8 people set to get baptized on October 30th, but with great miracles sometimes comes great disappointments, and we are now only expecting 3-4 baptisms on that day, since some people have dropped off or we've had to move their date back.

Something funny I noticed was that (being that it's cooling down here in Utah) I rotate through these 3 sweaters that I have, and every time I wore my maroon sweater, we always managed to put at least one person on date for baptism. I would wear it more often, but that would be abusing its power of course.

We also had transfers this past week and here's the rundown:

Things that didn't change:

- I am still here in El Camino (and most likely will be for the rest of my mission)

- I am still a Zone Leader 

- I am still in the same apartment with the same roommates

Things that did change:

- Mi amor, Elder Stuflick, got transferred to another area, and as such I got a new companion, ❤ Elder Barnes ❤ He is from Washington, is super smart, super funny, and I was actually his Zone Leader when he came into the mission just less than a year ago. He will probably be my last companion as well.

- Once again (to account for the billions of greenies that have come to our mission the past three transfers), our Zone got goofed up, and now our Zone covers from northern Taylorsville all the way to southern West Jordan. The mission also decided to name the zones after Book of Mormon characters, so we are now... the Amulek Zone 😎

So the original date that I was supposed to return home was January 11th. However, in order to begin school for the winter semester, I had my return date moved to December 17th!!! So I will be happy to see you all for Christmas this year! That means I will be finishing my mission halfway through the following transfer in less than just two months!!

Miracle:

We showed up to church, and one of the members in the ward decides to bring his friends from Guatemala that recently moved a week prior. Just a couple of days later, we were able to visit these friends, the Morales family, and after teaching the message of the Restoration, we felt inspired to ask them if they were willing to follow the example of Christ by being baptized. They initially said yes, but then showed a bit of doubt. We found out that they new basically nothing about baptism, so we showed them a cool little video about baptism, and they lit up! They then reaffirmed that they would gladly be baptized on November 13th. Since then, they have come to church every week, and have read the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon and have absolutely loved and understood all of it!!

God is too perfect.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-2) Elder Barnes y yo

3) Me and the boyz goin ice skating 

4-6) Elder Stuflick and some pretty sunsets

Week 88 & 89

Hey everyone!

I had one of the most spiritual weekends of my entire mission, with a Zone Council about teaching like the Savior, followed by a trip to the 💝 Jordan River Temple 💝, followed by 10 full hours of General Conference!!! I had prepared a bunch of personal questions and questions for the area, and you better believe that I got my answers! I owe much of the success that we've seen these past two weeks to the revelation and immediate application of the counsel we received and applied from our living prophet.

I had an exchange with Elder Young, who only speaks English, and he came into our Spanish area. It was fun! I taught him how to introduce himself and bear his testimony in Spanish, and it felt like having a greenie from scratch haha. We luckily had a bunch of lessons with Latinos that luckily spoke a bit of English, so he was able to still teach with power and authority.

So, it's been 20 months in the mission, and I might just now be figuring out how to do missionary work. In the past 2 weeks, we have put 11 people on date for baptism, 9 of which are on date for October 30th. We are going to do everything in our power to make sure these baptisms happen, so be tuned for some epic pictures of a crowd of people baptismal clothing in a couple of weeks ;) Here are some stories and miracles of these people that have been prepared by God to be baptized:

Miracle 1: The Chacin family

We were knocking doors. We met a kid and asked him to show us to his Spanish-speaking neighbors. He pointed us to a door, and thus we knocked it. No one answered, and as we were about to head to another area, this family that lived there had just arrived and invited us in. There, we met Amanda, Dialeidi, and Alexander Chacin. We got to know them, and found out that their older daughter, Amber, had gotten baptized about 4 months ago in West Jordan, and then they moved here and lost contact with the missionaries. The other 15 year old daughter, Amanda, had shared that the missionaries were teaching her as well, but at that time, she did not feel ready. However, she felt that now was her time to be baptized. Her parents agreed. They are now preparing to be baptized. They have since gone to church and are already building friendships with the members of the ward.

Miracle 2: Hilda

We were knocking doors. We met a woman named Vicky, who told us that her friend, Hilda, mentioned wanting to come back to church. We thus visited Hilda, a sweet old lady who has been having difficulties with her inactive husband. We found out that she had attended church in the past, but had never gotten baptized. We asked if this was a decision she wanted to make in her life, and excitedly said yes. She is now preparing to be baptized, and she is seeing the promised blessings of a stronger marriage as she is consistently reading the Book of Mormon and daily praying.

Miracle 3: Antonio

We had met Antonio a couple of weeks back, and have been visiting regularly to help him learn more about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, being that he is starting from scratch. He has attempted to read the Book of Mormon, but has struggled, being that he can't focus very well. We showed him the Gospel Library app, and he now enjoys listening to the Book of Mormon audio, and watching the Book of Mormon videos. In just 3 days, he listened from 1 Nephi 1 to 2 Nephi 4! We finally asked if he would want to be a part of Christ's church if it were on the Earth. He gladly affirmed. We asked if he was ready right now to get baptized, took a look down, pondered, and said yes. He is now preparing to get baptized.

Miracle 4: Diana Ortega

We had met Diana on an exchange as she was bringing groceries from her car to her apartment, and allowed us to help her out. We set up a future lesson, and found out that she knew basically nothing about religion. We had another lesson with a member couple present, and we were able to help her understand the importance of the Book of Mormon. One member shared an experience of receiving a vision after praying about the Book of Mormon, and at first Elder Stuflick and I were nervous that it would throw off Diana's expectations. However, Diana lit up, and started sharing that she's also had some dreams about celestial figures and wanted answers. She built a great friendship with our fellowshipping members, and she accepted a baptismal date as well!

God is too perfect.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-4) Temple trip ft. the Taylorsville Zone, the Bangerter District, our companionship and I

5) Us and the Luza family from Perú

6) Sweater weather

7-8) My beautiful companion, Elder Stuflick

9) Rain fly weather

10) We needed to go to a lesson, but an ambulance parked right behind us. We had to walk 🚶‍♂️

Video:

1) These pumpkins for some reason made us crack up