Feb. 24th:
Short email time! Just got here! Will hopefully have time in the morning to type up more and will be writing a letter tonight to mail tomorrow or Wednesday. I still have time now to type up a shorter email (in comparison to what I will be writing overall,) so I’ll get to that now.
YES, I got the Valentine’s Day package! It was very nice! :D We enjoyed it very, very much. Thank you! :)
The V family is doing well and S (mother) and A (middle daughter) are getting baptized this weekend!! WOOP WOOP!!
The R family is well but they have been out of contact with us for a little while. We are going to work our way over there this week.
Elders F, J and I are doing well and are pretty much over the spiritual trauma of the whole thing. Elder A has been emailing us regularly and he is doing just dandy with his steak and hot tub......and Netflix.......and TV.......and Xbox....you get the idea. XD
Spiritually I am doing just fine but temporally I could use a little help in getting....something....but I can’t remember what it is.... so it may not be that big a deal......I'll let you know if I remember. I don't really think about material things here. They just have no significant bearing on....anything. At all.
YESSS!!! :D I used the Traumeel on my knee right away...OH! THAT’S what I was going to ask for!!! I need to get a $15 knee brace at Walmart and an ankle weight at a sports store for IDK-how-much. Brother/Dr. P in the AV Ward here (sister ward to ours) is a chiropractor and has been giving me therapy this week as my knee has been super achy. So yeah. That's what I needed. lol!
Unfortunately I am not allowed to shop outside of Monday unless it is an emergency. Which it is not :( I have had a couple blessings and it is just some easy simple chiropractic therapy that is going very well. :)
Tennis shoes??? :D OHHHHHH!!! OKAY 'cuz I was gonna be like COOL! But I have no packing space for them ._. hahaha XD I don't know of anything off the top of my head really that I want or need.....except for tie money, but I wouldn't recommend that cause it can get a little silly. lol!
OH, YES, A BELT!!! I have punched 3 new holes in mine and had to cut off the excess....so definitely that. Cause it’s not really doing its job. haha. Again with me not thinking of my physical things. Ugh.This is why families are a good thing. XD
Well my current one is a Dickie's 44 from wally world. So I am assuming a 42 should do the trick just dandy. :)
I already picked up a brown belt from another Elder out here so a reversible one wouldn't be necessary and wouldn’t be as sturdy anyways.
Letter-writing paper wouldn't be too bad either. haha.
And Old Spice is the way to go!! WOOP WOOP!
I am going to focus on sending pics right now and save the writing for the letter/emailing at a later time. :D I’ll send them now, but separately. Love you guys!
(Details for pics just put on Drop Box coming!)
We have to go to dinner now so we will finish this hopefully tomorrow morning as Elder F didn't get hardly anytime to email at all. And I’ll write a snail mail letter too.
Love you! BYE!
Elder9
Feb. 25th:
Hey guuuyyyyyS! EMAILIIIINNGGG IS AWESOOOOMMEEE!
OTAY. Let it begin. Since we have about 2 hrs, I’ll just write it all in here instead of snail-mail.
Mama, you mentioned a concern about Elder A and how he got a hold of "deep doctrine". We are allowed to read talks, and one of the books we can read is Jesus the Christ, which can be very deep if you make it. These things and some conferences we have been to are the things I am talking about when I say he studied deep stuff. Cool beans? :D Cool beans.
As for when this all went down it began really around the 10th but didn’t get crazy till the 12th-ish, and wound down just a handful of days ago. I am not surprised that it "matches up" like that though, (with how you were feeling at that time,) in the least. You and I, dear mother, we have a connection....and the Spirit. haha.
When I talked about the things that the four of us were talking about, that was just a fancy way of saying we were talking about the simple doctrine of Christ, and going over some of the discussions and talking about what we had seen applied and cause-and-effect and such. We learn the lessons and then start to truly understand them as we teach them more and more throughout our missions. That’s all. I cannot recall in detail what we talked about but it’s not of great importance in all honesty.
As for when I prayed and learned how to apply that knowledge and so forth, that's all it is, I learned the simple doctrine of Christ, the pure teachings of truth and during my prayer I realized how I could apply it personally to the people we were teaching. That is the goal we shoot for at all times: How can this thing help this person?
Along with all this knowledge, both missionary-minded knowledge and not, comes great responsibility to LIVE it. When we learn about eternal truths, we are personally responsible to live according to the knowledge and wisdom we gained through the grace and power of the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth.
Here is the quote I was talking about, by Grant Von Harrison (I don’t know who that is):
"Until you learn to discipline your mind and have complete control over it you will be limited in your capacity to exercise your faith. The full power of mind is only realized when it is focused and directed to a specific end. If you allow your mind to dwell on incidental or mundane preoccupations you will be limited in your ability to draw on the power of faith and your mind will not be a source of power for you. You will also discover that as you attempt to control and focus your mind the devil will bring things to your view to distract you. When you can control your mind, and not allow it to be distracted, you will be able to exercise unlimited faith and unlock the powers of Heaven by your faith."
This is the source of everything right here. The point of this whole email, the past two to three weeks, my mission, our lives. Control of our minds. It is directly relative to our control of our faith and power and reliance upon God. Elder A recognized this and wanted to apply it but tried TOO hard and looked beyond the mark in a way. This lead to taking things out of proportion and thinking too deep about things. Taken the right way, however, and used appropriately, we can literally unlock the powers of Heaven by our faith. We see it time and time again in the scriptures when a prophet or someone else exercises their faith and controls themselves, they see God face to face or someone is healed or something is learned or taught. The power of God is real and we need it in our lives. This is how we do that.
I love this time in my life. It is the most stressful, there is more drama in missionary life than I think anywhere else on the planet, no joke, and it's a crazy time, but it is glorious and magnificent and I wouldn't miss this ride for the UNIVERSE!! Thank you for supporting me and helping me on my path to this point. Parents have the most important job of anyone else on the entire planet and you guys did great! :D Not to brag or anything. ;)
I am a different man already and there is more change to come as I learn of my Savior and live according to the testimony within me. My very soul has been changed for the better.
I don't have much else to say at this point other than to mind your mind. Don't rely on it, but keep it focused so you can use it as a source of power, or rather, a conduit for the power and wisdom of our Almighty Father in Heaven. Stay focused on the target and you can achieve it. Vary but a little bit and it will damage your progress and growth. But, we WILL vary. We do that, we are human. So when we do, use the Atonement, which again, by controlling your mind and exercising your faith, you can do with ease. I love you all very, VERY much and hope that this week will be a great one for you and all will be well. Go kick Satan in the face! (New motto for our Zone lately!)
Love,
Elder9
FROM DADDY:
Well said, Elder Brak.
I see a lot of references on the internet to this author, Grant Von Harrison. Be warned of anyone that talks of “self mastery”. If we could master self, we would not need the Savior. The very reason we have the Savior is because we can not master ourselves.
We can exercise faith, and then The Lord will help with the rest. We can not control our minds. But, we can and should try, and we can follow the simple teachings we have been given.
Do not lose faith if you lose control. That is the teaching of the adversary. Pick yourself back up, repent, and keep buggering on. HE WILL CARRY US when we can not do it ourselves...if we have faith.
FROM ELDER NINE:
You are exactly right. That is exactly where Elder A took a slightly wrong turn. He did not completely rely on his own self-mastery of his mind but he also didn’t rely on Heavenly Father quite enough. The whole key to control, is Heavenly Father, His power, and the enabling power of Christ's Atonement. Good stuff. Just had a chance to reply shortly while Elder F finished up. Gotta go. Love you guys. Brak.
Elder 9
+and+Elder+Parsons+being+goofy+after+picking+us+up+for+dinner+24+Feb+2014.JPG)
Short email time! Just got here! Will hopefully have time in the morning to type up more and will be writing a letter tonight to mail tomorrow or Wednesday. I still have time now to type up a shorter email (in comparison to what I will be writing overall,) so I’ll get to that now.
YES, I got the Valentine’s Day package! It was very nice! :D We enjoyed it very, very much. Thank you! :)
The V family is doing well and S (mother) and A (middle daughter) are getting baptized this weekend!! WOOP WOOP!!
The R family is well but they have been out of contact with us for a little while. We are going to work our way over there this week.
Elders F, J and I are doing well and are pretty much over the spiritual trauma of the whole thing. Elder A has been emailing us regularly and he is doing just dandy with his steak and hot tub......and Netflix.......and TV.......and Xbox....you get the idea. XD
Spiritually I am doing just fine but temporally I could use a little help in getting....something....but I can’t remember what it is.... so it may not be that big a deal......I'll let you know if I remember. I don't really think about material things here. They just have no significant bearing on....anything. At all.
YESSS!!! :D I used the Traumeel on my knee right away...OH! THAT’S what I was going to ask for!!! I need to get a $15 knee brace at Walmart and an ankle weight at a sports store for IDK-how-much. Brother/Dr. P in the AV Ward here (sister ward to ours) is a chiropractor and has been giving me therapy this week as my knee has been super achy. So yeah. That's what I needed. lol!
Unfortunately I am not allowed to shop outside of Monday unless it is an emergency. Which it is not :( I have had a couple blessings and it is just some easy simple chiropractic therapy that is going very well. :)
Tennis shoes??? :D OHHHHHH!!! OKAY 'cuz I was gonna be like COOL! But I have no packing space for them ._. hahaha XD I don't know of anything off the top of my head really that I want or need.....except for tie money, but I wouldn't recommend that cause it can get a little silly. lol!
OH, YES, A BELT!!! I have punched 3 new holes in mine and had to cut off the excess....so definitely that. Cause it’s not really doing its job. haha. Again with me not thinking of my physical things. Ugh.This is why families are a good thing. XD
Well my current one is a Dickie's 44 from wally world. So I am assuming a 42 should do the trick just dandy. :)
I already picked up a brown belt from another Elder out here so a reversible one wouldn't be necessary and wouldn’t be as sturdy anyways.
Letter-writing paper wouldn't be too bad either. haha.
And Old Spice is the way to go!! WOOP WOOP!
I am going to focus on sending pics right now and save the writing for the letter/emailing at a later time. :D I’ll send them now, but separately. Love you guys!
(Details for pics just put on Drop Box coming!)
We have to go to dinner now so we will finish this hopefully tomorrow morning as Elder F didn't get hardly anytime to email at all. And I’ll write a snail mail letter too.
Love you! BYE!
Elder9
Feb. 25th:
Hey guuuyyyyyS! EMAILIIIINNGGG IS AWESOOOOMMEEE!
OTAY. Let it begin. Since we have about 2 hrs, I’ll just write it all in here instead of snail-mail.
Mama, you mentioned a concern about Elder A and how he got a hold of "deep doctrine". We are allowed to read talks, and one of the books we can read is Jesus the Christ, which can be very deep if you make it. These things and some conferences we have been to are the things I am talking about when I say he studied deep stuff. Cool beans? :D Cool beans.
As for when this all went down it began really around the 10th but didn’t get crazy till the 12th-ish, and wound down just a handful of days ago. I am not surprised that it "matches up" like that though, (with how you were feeling at that time,) in the least. You and I, dear mother, we have a connection....and the Spirit. haha.
When I talked about the things that the four of us were talking about, that was just a fancy way of saying we were talking about the simple doctrine of Christ, and going over some of the discussions and talking about what we had seen applied and cause-and-effect and such. We learn the lessons and then start to truly understand them as we teach them more and more throughout our missions. That’s all. I cannot recall in detail what we talked about but it’s not of great importance in all honesty.
As for when I prayed and learned how to apply that knowledge and so forth, that's all it is, I learned the simple doctrine of Christ, the pure teachings of truth and during my prayer I realized how I could apply it personally to the people we were teaching. That is the goal we shoot for at all times: How can this thing help this person?
Along with all this knowledge, both missionary-minded knowledge and not, comes great responsibility to LIVE it. When we learn about eternal truths, we are personally responsible to live according to the knowledge and wisdom we gained through the grace and power of the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth.
Here is the quote I was talking about, by Grant Von Harrison (I don’t know who that is):
"Until you learn to discipline your mind and have complete control over it you will be limited in your capacity to exercise your faith. The full power of mind is only realized when it is focused and directed to a specific end. If you allow your mind to dwell on incidental or mundane preoccupations you will be limited in your ability to draw on the power of faith and your mind will not be a source of power for you. You will also discover that as you attempt to control and focus your mind the devil will bring things to your view to distract you. When you can control your mind, and not allow it to be distracted, you will be able to exercise unlimited faith and unlock the powers of Heaven by your faith."
This is the source of everything right here. The point of this whole email, the past two to three weeks, my mission, our lives. Control of our minds. It is directly relative to our control of our faith and power and reliance upon God. Elder A recognized this and wanted to apply it but tried TOO hard and looked beyond the mark in a way. This lead to taking things out of proportion and thinking too deep about things. Taken the right way, however, and used appropriately, we can literally unlock the powers of Heaven by our faith. We see it time and time again in the scriptures when a prophet or someone else exercises their faith and controls themselves, they see God face to face or someone is healed or something is learned or taught. The power of God is real and we need it in our lives. This is how we do that.
I love this time in my life. It is the most stressful, there is more drama in missionary life than I think anywhere else on the planet, no joke, and it's a crazy time, but it is glorious and magnificent and I wouldn't miss this ride for the UNIVERSE!! Thank you for supporting me and helping me on my path to this point. Parents have the most important job of anyone else on the entire planet and you guys did great! :D Not to brag or anything. ;)
I am a different man already and there is more change to come as I learn of my Savior and live according to the testimony within me. My very soul has been changed for the better.
I don't have much else to say at this point other than to mind your mind. Don't rely on it, but keep it focused so you can use it as a source of power, or rather, a conduit for the power and wisdom of our Almighty Father in Heaven. Stay focused on the target and you can achieve it. Vary but a little bit and it will damage your progress and growth. But, we WILL vary. We do that, we are human. So when we do, use the Atonement, which again, by controlling your mind and exercising your faith, you can do with ease. I love you all very, VERY much and hope that this week will be a great one for you and all will be well. Go kick Satan in the face! (New motto for our Zone lately!)
Love,
Elder9
FROM DADDY:
Well said, Elder Brak.
I see a lot of references on the internet to this author, Grant Von Harrison. Be warned of anyone that talks of “self mastery”. If we could master self, we would not need the Savior. The very reason we have the Savior is because we can not master ourselves.
We can exercise faith, and then The Lord will help with the rest. We can not control our minds. But, we can and should try, and we can follow the simple teachings we have been given.
Do not lose faith if you lose control. That is the teaching of the adversary. Pick yourself back up, repent, and keep buggering on. HE WILL CARRY US when we can not do it ourselves...if we have faith.
FROM ELDER NINE:
You are exactly right. That is exactly where Elder A took a slightly wrong turn. He did not completely rely on his own self-mastery of his mind but he also didn’t rely on Heavenly Father quite enough. The whole key to control, is Heavenly Father, His power, and the enabling power of Christ's Atonement. Good stuff. Just had a chance to reply shortly while Elder F finished up. Gotta go. Love you guys. Brak.
Elder 9
PICTURES: A P-Day In The Life of Elder Nine (Specifically, 24 Feb. 2014)
The day begins...
Driving in beautiful P. It's not as pretty as it looks though. hahaha.
LAUNDRY DROP OFF! We do our laundry at the E Family home as they are kind enough to us do our laundry there! :D They are SO COOL too!
Brother E. :D He's catching up on some work with his MacBook. :P
ML. He is painting the E's home inside and has been coming with us almost every day for 2-6 hours at a time! He is getting ready for his mission and is doing GREAT! He's really cool too! :)
Personal Study Time at the H's Home (Elder F does his laundry there, and they are not usually there, so it is a nice quiet place to study) I am reading Jesus The Christ in this one. :P
Joey, the H's dog. :D
BREAKFAAASSSTTT at Carl's Jr!!! WOOP WOOP MONSTER BUSCUIT!!!!!!
Walmart time! Getting groceries and that jazz.
BURLINGTON!!!! Tie shopping for Elder C and Elder Kimball. K is the shorter of the two unfamiliar ones, and he's from L, and he and I LOVE MUSIC! He actually has an album on iTunes and is a recording artist! You should check out his stuff...since I can't, haha, He is majoring in music and can improvise like CRAZY and wrote a song called "Carthage" which is a mix of "Praise To The Man" and "A Poor Wayfaring Man Of Grief" and other stuff and tells the story of Joseph Smith in Carthage and stuff!
In Burlington, tie shopping.
In front of PRH going in to give a guy a blessing whose brother is a member of the church. He had a heart attack. :( But he seems to be doing great now!
The next three pics are of the car wash, the "Lavacruz Wash" XD
Me, holding SWEET swords! :D
The next four pics were taken while I was on exchanges
with Elder L
with Elder L
("Exchanges" is when a missionary from one companionship trades places with a missionary from another companionship and the two "new" sets of Elders are "companions" just for that day. Sometimes it helps the work to have a new set of eyes, new set of ears, and new personalities.)
Elder L
Elders J and P being goofy after picking us up for dinner. XD
Elder L again XD
Elder J "plating" us! lol!
And that's all the pics for this time around! :D Hope you like 'em!
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