Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Dearest Family!                                                 12/4/16

 

Thanksgiving was great! We took a couple minutes to set up some Christmas!
Thank you for singing me happy birthday! I think I heard it all the way over here in Arizona! My birthday was AWESOME! It was honestly the best Birthday, because it was on a Sunday, and one of the most solid investigators that I have ever taught was confirmed in that day. This is a picture of him:
This is R! He is so great! If you want to see someone who has repented and changed his life COMPLETELY, you need to come meet R, and I hope someday that you will get to meet him. He is an inspiration to me. At his baptism, the spirit was extremely powerful. Everyone felt it. After he got changed, he came up to bear his testimony. And he said: "I am stoked! I feel even better than I thought that I would feel! This is awesome!" He is so happy. Oh, what a beautiful thing, and what an absolute privilege it was to be able to teach him. It wasn't easy... there were a lot of really rough times, but God made it happen. And it is all worth it! Last Sunday, after he was confirmed, I was watching him and priesthood meeting, and he was SOOOOO GIDDY and HAPPY and LAUGHING and SMILING! I have never, ever seen him happier! He looked like CALEB WHEN HE GETS PRESENTS! He seriously looked like a gleeful little boy. He was beaming. And it all started when he saw the light and joy of members of the church that he worked with. They had something that he didn't, and he wanted it SO bad. President Robinson asked him for his conversion story. Here is his conversion story: 

"Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but speaking relatively, it took me 24 years to find Christ, the fact that it took me about a week to write this e-mail isn’t too bad I guess J

I had a relatively normal childhood. I was born to a Catholic mother and an Atheist father. My dad tells people he’s a Druid if they ask, he hates religion that much. My mother can’t have children so my siblings are all adopted, but somehow she had me. I’ve always found that weird.

I grew up “Catholic” until about the 4th grade when women stopped being allowed on the alter. My mom didn’t like that too much, and we stopped going to church. I put Catholic in quotations because I never believed in God. In my mind, God was one of the great scams of the world. Throughout high school and college I was one of the more popular kids. One could say I had a fascination with drugs, alcohol, and women. I overdosed on pills in high school, was arrested in college and I don’t remember anything about either because I was so intoxicated, but nothing changed me. I didn’t want to change. I thought that those vices companied with money was what would make me a happy, successful man. And I was happy, for those moments. But there were certain times, particularly in quiet moments alone, when I kept thinking that there had to be something else. There had to be something bigger.

I started my dream career at Deloitte about a year ago, and in doing so, met a few people who called themselves Mormons. I had no idea what that meant, I just thought they were all weird because we lived completely opposite lives. What I couldn’t understand is why they were happy. They didn’t participate in any of the activities that I considered necessary for a good life; yet, they were truly happy. I consistently picked on them, learning about the faith only to try and poke holes in it. However, the more I tried to find things wrong with their religion and way of life, the more I learned about it and how strongly they felt about God and His impact on their lives.

About seven months ago, a good Mormon friend of mine left Deloitte. To this day I can’t tell you exactly why, but I eventually asked if I could go to church with him & his family. He immediately said yes. About the third time I went to church with him, I left in the middle of Sunday School. I wasn’t getting anything out of it, and I thought this would be the last time I would ever try to find religion.

Driving home, I had a sudden urge to turn back. I now know that was the Spirit. And I did.

I began to visit the missionaries weekly and ended up consistently going to church. It was still very weird to me. Praying felt like I was talking to a voice in my head. Reading the Book of Mormon seemed like reading a Harry Potter book, good stories but they meant nothing. Church was a time when I sat there, stared into the sky, and told God, “I’m here… do something.” It was a few months after doing all that I was supposed to when I finally felt God’s blessings, particularly peace.

I was at home with 50 or so family members, all reminiscing on my grandmother who had passed away a few years back. She was the strongest person I’d ever met, but she had a terrible fight with Alzheimer’s, and she lost. As my parents worked very hard when I was younger, my siblings and I were essentially raised solely by my grandmother. For an entire year, I had to visit the person who had raised me since a baby, and I had to deal with her wondering who I was and why I was in her home. When this was happening, I thought if there was a God, he was a bully toying with my emotions. But this time specifically, something was different. Instead of being angry or sad, I remembered what the missionaries had told me. I remembered the plan of salvation, and despite my grandmother not being a religious woman, I knew that God knew her, knew she was a great person, and I knew she would accept the gospel. I finally felt peace about death, and through that, I trusted in God enough to feel peace about life.

After that day, the Book of Mormon started to make sense. I understood what Alma meant when he talked about the seed of faith. At that time, my seed had grown. And I am so eternally grateful for that.

Elder Holland has a talk in which he says, “In this Church, what we know will always trump what we do not know. And remember, in this world, everyone is to walk by faith”. I hold that quote close to me, because as I’ve only been around God’s word for a little bit, I do not know everything, nor do I claim to. But I do know, that the Book of Mormon speaks to me in a way that I’ve never experienced before, because I’d never opened my heart to God before.

I now pray often, and I know that I’m speaking to my Heavenly Father. I read the Book of Mormon, and I know that I’m reading God’s word. I go to Church and I know that being in that place brings me some of the greatest happiness I’ve known.

Ultimately, how I came to the Church is still odd to me. Many of the people I’ve told about my change don’t believe me, and if you told me a year ago this would happen, I’d have called you crazy. It’s a mixture of God’s love, the missionaries hard work, and a friend that unselfishly told a kid, who’d made fun of his religion, that it was more than okay for him to worship alongside him. I appreciate you asking me to write this stuff down, I hope to look back on this someday and laugh at how young my faith was J

Thanks,
R" 

I love you all a lot! And am so happy that I can serve my Heavenly Father. Have a wonderful week!



Elder Flake
Dearest Family!                                       11/24/16

I apologize for not writing on Monday! We didn't get to have a
Preparation day, because we were doing a Preach My Gospel Fundamentals
Workshop. Elder B and I gave the same training 18 times over three
days to every missionary in our mission. It was crazy and exhausting!
But OH SO FULFILLING. When we were doing it up in the mountains, we
stopped on our way down to the Valley, because THERE WAS SNOW! It has
been so long since I have seen snow! I LOVE SNOW!

Last week we were also up in the mountains on exchanges. IT WAS SO
MUCH FUN FIRING UP ALL THOSE MISSIONARIES UP THERE!!! Sometimes the
mountains can lull missionaries to sleep, so it is my privilege to GO
AND WAKE THEM UP! And remind them of who they really are and the
URGENCY that we need to have because of the ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES that
we can cause in the lives of those around us. IT IS MY FAVORITE THING
TO DO! For workouts on those days... we pushed a little Carolla around
the church parking lot. They have to get creative up there! There is
not a whole lot to do for workouts!

We came back and had some awesome experiences with some of our
investigators. One is getting baptized in two days! FINALLY! His name
is R and we have been working with him for a little while. He is
Italian, and has changed his lifestyle IMMENSELY since he has started
meeting with him. I honestly don't know of another individual that has
changed so much in so short of time. He was the head of one of the
biggest fraternities at ASU the biggest school in the United States.
And he did not do very good things. Drugs, girls, all of it... to the
extreme... and he is getting baptized on Saturday. The Atonement of
Jesus Christ is so real, and has the power to transform. We have been
teaching a few famous folks. And we recently taught a new investigator
the Restoration for the first time. It was powerful. When we started
talking about baptism... she demanded that she be baptized the next
day... she is pretty awesome. She will get baptized in a couple of
weeks.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! Eat a lot of food for me! I love you!

Elder Fla
Dearest All,                                                           11/14/16
 

This week was swamped with touching spiritual experiences. It was so cool! The spirit of this wonderful work was burning BRIGHTLY in our hearts. A lot of the credit for those experiences is given to the fact that we actually had almost an entire week of proselyting in our area! It is SO FUN TO BE A MISSIONARY! And to be finding and teaching and baptizing and crying repentance full time, all the time! What a tremendous blessing and opportunity. If anyone thinks that serving a mission is to great of a sacrifice that they can't make... they are a fool. The blessings of a mission out way the costs in EVERY SINGLE ASPECT. But that is not why we serve! The Why of serving a mission is because we sincerely love God and want to express our love in any way possible. And the way that He asks that we express our love to Him is by serving His Children. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," and "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." We have such a kind God that grants us such opportunities... sorry for the rant... so we saw all of our half dozen or so investigators that are planning on getting baptized by the end of the year, they are all so great and so prepared! One of our investigators that was supposed to get baptized this coming Saturday, has sickle cell anemia and she was hospitalized for about a week and recently got out. She was so touched by the love that the Ward had for her as she was in the hospital. She is an African American sister and has NO family out here besides her older brother that just got baptized a couple of months ago. All of their family is pretty hard core against the church, and she just moved out here. She was moved to tears about how loved she was. She said that she really hadn't felt so loved in her life! And now she is going to be baptized by her older brother on Christmas! WHAT?!? How awesome! 

President Robinson,

The work is going forth! However, to be proactive about our accountability, I have to confess that one out of the three that were expected to be baptized this transfer is actually going through, but they will all be happening next transfer, in addition to two additional candidates that we have been working with. Unforeseen circumstances have altered our plans. One of the three is going out of town for thanksgiving, so we had to move his date to the third of December. And the other One has sickle cell anemia and was in the hospital for over a week, but she committed to be baptized (again) for sure on December 24th, Christmas Eve! And then Confirmed on Christmas Day! What a beautiful thing! I can think of no better gift to give to God than your discipleship! And there is no better gift besides Christ himself that she is going to receive on Christmas Day when she receives the gift of the Holy Ghost! It is going to be AMAZING! We also finally got Isaac (the investigator that bore his testimony) to finally commit to a solid date... on Christmas Eve as Well! There were some powerful spiritual experiences that we shared with him to get him there, but if we keep it up I am confident that he will enter the waters of baptism. Our goal for December 3rd. Next month is looking hopeful! We are very busy teaching, but we still manage to continue to find new investigators week after week. 
Sorry, I am out of time... we have to go to a lesson with an investigator! I will take a few pictures of my journal! Pray for us! This is going to be a good lesson! We are going to invite her to be baptized and join This Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! 



Love Your Elder Flake

This was the car we have been driving around for the past FOREVER, but we just got a new 2017 Malibu. It is pretty sweet. Yeah, we are spoiled. This is the day we left this old beast!
11/7/16

Dear Family,

What an absolute adventure this week has been. So much has happened!
But I do want to hear from you! I never heard about Halloween! Tuesday
I was on an exchange with a very good Zone Leader, Elder J, on
the Salt River Reservation. We had a cool experience finding a Native
American sister who was in a very humbled position to hear the gospel.
I left Elder J with another missionary so that he could plan for
a Zone Training Meeting the following day. But, instead of waiting
around, Elder S (Elder Js' companion from Samoa) and I decided
to go out and find some one to share the gospel with! Now you have to
understand that Elder S is rather new and speaks very little
English, but he has powerful faith. We found the little native sister
really struggling. She had 4 children and no husband... she was about
28 years old and had little education. Her children are really sick
and one might die soon. He is 6. We taught of God's Plan of Happiness
for his children. Cool experience. The reservations out here are
comparable to third world countries... and some of them are just
minutes away from one of the wealthiest cities in the United States.
Wednesday, I was on exchanges with the Zone Leader in the Mexican part
of Mesa! At was so fun! We had so many good lessons and contacts in
Spanish! Thursday, I was on exchanges with two other Zone Leaders in a
part of our mission called Paradise Valley. It is a really nice part
of town!... most of it. We had so much success! We met a man named
Ma, and he has had a rough life. But we taught him that his Heavenly
Father loved him and he didn't just hear those words, but he felt
them. At that point he knew that our message was true and that Joseph
Smith was indeed a prophet of God. He agreed to be baptized on
Christmas Eve and confirmed on Christmas Day. This work is going
forward! There really are people searching and begging and thirsting
for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is so beautiful. Friday, I was back
with Elder B! We actually got to proselyte in our area! We had a
couple of really good lessons with some investigators. We taught the
guy from New York and the 1st Councilor in the Stake Presidencies...
our investigator was pretty amazed... I was too! This guys palace had
to have cost tens of millions of dollars. He went to Stanford and now
does something developing resorts and stuff. Anyways, it was pretty
cool... but I really don't want to be wealthy anymore... it just
really doesn't seem like the way to do it. Saturday, we were back on
exchanges. This time I went to a Zone Leaders area in North
Scottsdale! It was an interesting day! Towards the end of the night we
were just contacting referrals and potential investigators, but the
area is pretty large so it took about 15 minutes to get two and from
each destination, and most the time they weren't even home to receive
us! So, I just took one of their iPads and started calling all of the
potential investigators in their area, and so many people answered
there phones and wanted us to come by! Sunday was fun! We had a lot of
investigators come to church, and almost ALL of the testimonies
addressed precisely the concerns that our investigators had. It was
pretty neat! I love you all! Let me know if you have any questions! I
will gladly answer them. Have a great week!

Elder Flake


10/31/16
What an exciting week! We have tons of people who are progressing
towards baptism and lasting conversion in the church! On Saturday
there was a baptism in our district that we brought one of our
investigators to. It was perfect! It was sort of a smaller baptism and
our investigator was the only nonmember there, so the sister getting
baptized walked over to him and talked to him for a long time about
her story, and why she was getting baptized and how he should be
baptized too! It was really cool. It touched him, and got him even
more pumped up for his baptism on the 26th of next month! He is going
to be great. It is so amazing to see people turn their lives
completely around, in a relatively short amount of time. This guy was
partying HARD. And I mean hard... he was in a fraternity! He didn't
want a family. He wanted to be single the rest of his life. He didn't
really believe in God. And now he has a solid testimony that this is
God's church. He is becoming converted. He feels more peace in his
life. His views about his life are starting to change. His priorities
and desires are starting to change. He is kinder and more happy. The
effects of the Gospel are so obvious in his life. I wish there were
spiritual before and after pictures that we could take, and then show
them to the world. So, that they might see and behold clearly the
fruits of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he isn't even a
member yet. God has power to change our cores! And he is one of
millions who are being transformed through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ. Why can they not see what we see so clearly? OYE! Sorry, I am
ranting again.

We also had a Mission Leadership Council this last Friday, and Elder
Band I trained on Planning effectively... during which we gave
some "visuals" of bad, good, better, and best ways to plan. Here they
are:

Tuesday, December 6, 2016


Dearest family!                                    10/24/16

Did those journal entries work out alright? I hope they did, because
there were some really good stories in there and some pretty neat
spiritual experiences. Well, not too much has happened since I wrote
you on Thursday. We had a really cool lesson last night with one of
our friends who isn't a member! He is from New York and has the
coolest accent. I love it! He agreed to be baptized, and is getting
really close. It has been really a cool experience to teach him
because he has almost no background on God. He has never read the
Bible. We had to explain to him what God is, and Abraham, and prayer,
and his mind was blown when we taught him the plan of salvation.
Tonight we are going to finish teaching the Plan of Salvation with a
member of the Stake Presidency who wants to meet him. It is so great!
He also buys us pizza ever time we go over... 
 GRATEFUL! I love you, and pray all is well!

Elder Flake
10/11/16

This week was spectacular! Elder B and I had exchanges from Monday
to Tuesday with the Phoenix Zone Leaders and the Paradise Valley Zone
Leaders. I went to Phoenix and the Zone Leaders there are both in my
old area. They didn't have much to do on Tuesday, so I told them at I
would take care of from Noon to five. After straightening some things
out down there and then some good studies we headed out! We met with
so many of the people I had found and taught and it was amazing to see
the change in their lives... for better or for worse... some of those
we went by were a wreck. They looked bad, they had gotten into drugs
and were not mentally there. It was so sad, but a few of them had been
humbled and prepared by the Lord. There was one sister that was really
interested in the gospel when I was teaching her, but she was soooooo
busy. She was a single mother living in the ghetto of Phoenix, going
to school full time, and working a couple of jobs to provide. But when
we went by God had deeply humbled her and
prepared her. She had to quit her job and school because she had
surgery... she had nothing to do, and was feeling really down and like
a terrible mother. She had been praying for help and relief, and we
showed up. I reminded her of how she felt when we taught her the first
time and then taught her about the restoration of the priesthood
power. We boldly testified that it was the Lord's power that he used
to heal the sick and afflicted. We explained that the same power had
been restored and entrusted to us as Priesthood holders. Then she just
spilled her life and started crying and expressing how alone she felt.
Then, we asked her if she would like o e of those blessings we told
her about and she said yes. AND IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. It was straight from
the heavens. It touched us all and deeply moved our hearts with awe!
And the best part, was that when we first arrived there there was
about 15 people in that tiny little apartment, but as we the lesson
progressed people started slipping away one by one and it kept getting
quieter and quieter up until the blessing. And at that point, she and
her adorable 4 year old son was there. We gave the blessing and there
was tremendous peace and quiet, her son didn't say a word, and at the
very end of the blessing he ran up and gave his mom the biggest
unexpected hug while she was still sitting in the chair. We all shed a
few tears that day. It was just a special experience, and a profound
reminder that the Lord is exactly aware of our needs no matter where
or who we are, and that in The Gospel of Jesus Christ it is ALL ABOUT
THE INDIVIDUALS. It is all about the one. That is who we are sent to
find and take care of. There are 5 million people in the area, but our
Heavenly Father sent us to one woman, because His love and care and
affection is on an individual level. I know that is true. I see it
daily and I feel it myself.

Elder Zeballos of the Seventy spent these past several days with us.
He is such a good man! He is from Chile and he is the General
Authority that first spoke in Spanish at General Conference. He is an
excellent leader. He is so kind, and good. I got to spend some one on
one time with him. It was an absolute privilege. He did Three meetings
while he was here. One for the mountain zones. One for the Valley
Zones. And then a Mission Leadership Council. Great guy. Very
inspired. Elder Band I attended and conducted all of those
meetings.

After the Thursday meeting up on the mountains. We headed to Eagar...
my first area! Earlier that week, one of the investigators I taught
there over a year ago was told by the missionaries there that I was
going to be in Show Low, so she was going to drive to Show Low so that
I could teach her. But we went to Eagar instead. It was so good to be
back in that beautiful and peaceful little town. We taught the lesson
and it was powerful. She is getting baptized! And she is so excited.
It was a special experience, because she said how much the Lord
through me touched her life and changed her forever. She knows that
the church is true and is determined to join it. Awesome experience.

So many things happen! Sorry, I didn't email yesterday! We were doing
some transfer planning with the president. Life is up and down my
friends. But that's what makes it FUN! Imagine how boring it would be
if it was always just a constant up!?! The down times make the up
times feel so much more enjoyable. I love you! See you soon.

Elder Flake