Trials

Daniel asked me to post this message as is:

Well this week was a challenge. Just had hot wet weather the whole week. But that is ok the work must go on. It has really been so hot everyday. The days that we do not have sun it is raining like no other but still hot. I love brazil. The new area is going good. IT has been a little hard with two areas combined in one. We have two wards and they are challenges at times but that is ok. I love a good challenge. I also know that the Lord will always help us when we need him. We have found some good investigators in these past few days that i am really excited to teach. The only weird thing is that i am really learning a lot here these past few days as a senior. I have to talk more. So the language is getting better and the lord has really blessed me to increase my knowledge of the scriptures. My companion and i are really different but that is ok i like him. We are having a good time serving the lord. These past few days i have been reading about some people in the bible who really had some difficulties. Man they had some tough times. The great thing is that everytime they had a hard time they counted on the lord and were freed from there trial. That is really how the world works. In helaman 12:3 it talks about trials. Unfortunantly one of the reasons why we have trials and difficulties is so that God can test our faith and that we could remember him again. How easy it is to forget our father in heaven when we dont have any problems. He put the opportunity for trials on the earth to grow and to really know who wants to live with him again. This life is a test. In Alma 34:32-34 says that this life is the time to prepare to meet God. A time for us to have trials and repent and have trials and repent and have trials and repent. It is that way. The church is a place for people that are making mistakes everyday but that want to change. A place for people to remember God and come unto him. The people in the church are not perfect but that church is perfect because it is Jesus Christs church. We can repent in alma 5:33 says that his arms are open for us. And also 3 Nephi 9:13-14 talk about repentance. How great of a blessing to repent and be cleaned and remember our God and our blessgings and be clean again. I glory in my trials as did Paul. yes they are hard. Yes they hurt and yes we can get through them. I want you to read about the church history and than tell me if our trials are hard. I want you to read about Christ and than tell me if our life is hard. I want you to read the Book of Mormon but not just read ponder and than pray and than tell me if this church is not true. After you have done this think.... Can Jesus really help me? If you have a doubt after you did all this read the book of mormon again and than read Doctrine and Covenants 121:1-11 and after you read that read Doctrine and Covenants 127 and see how much Joseph Smith changed. And than ask yourself. Can Jesus Really help me? Can i be forgiven? Can i do what is right? And can i live with my family and my father again? Once you have done this think really think. I will answer these for you. Yes Jesus Christ can really help you. He did not just suffer for nothing. Read Alma 7:11-12 and than read Doctrine and Covenants 76: 22-24. Jesus lives and can help. next questions yes you can be forgiven. Read about christ and what he suffered read miracle of forgiveness and read alma 5:33. or read about the story of the lady that commited adultery and went unto christ. HE wants to forgive us we have to want to be forgiven. That is the key. next question. Yes you can do what is right. Read Nephi 3:7. we can do all things. and than read almost about any prophet or in the bible that he will not give us anything unless we can pass through it to live with him again. Next question. Yes we can live as a family again. Christ died for us and lives again. We have the priesthood authority(Gods power). Yes i do not have one doubt in my mind that i will live with you all and megan and Grandma and God again. I know that God is just he would not take you away from me and nor could he. I love you all so much. He is so just all mankind will know Christ what a blessing. I know i will live with you again. We have to work together in this world. We were not sent here alone. I have brothers i have sisters and have a mom and a dad. But not all i have God and Christ. We need to use all our instruments to stay together. Satans goal is to tear us apart. Christ goal is the bring us together and that is my goal to. LIft where you stand an apostle of the lord said that. Dad lift where you are to bring us closer together, mom lift where you are to bring us closer together, and brothers and sisters lift where you are to bring us together. If one person stops lifting it gets hard. But if we all lift we can lift each other to live for all eternity together. All of us need to really think and repent and try our hardest to live with one another again. This world is tough. Satan wants to destroy our family and the families of the world. Buy why? Through a strong family comes strong warriors and through a strong family comes a whole family to God again. DOnt forget this. Do what you need to do. All of you. Christ didnt do his work alone he had apostles. He was Christ and he needed help. Are we better than he? We all need one another to get back in the presence of our father again. Without you justin, without you krystal with out Jason and without you Shane and without megan i can not make it to heaven again. But most important without you Dad and without you Mom i cannot and will not leave this life to live without you. We are one big eternal family. We are brothers and sisters. Lift where you stand. Take pride out of your life. Humble yourself and give the Lord and broken heart and contrite spirit and a want to change and he will take that and make a great man. Not just a great man or woman but a son and daughter that can live with our father again. The trick to this life is doing the little things. How many times in my life i fell into the arms of satan and was tricked to not do the things that i need. How many times now i have realized that without scriptures and without praying(personal and family), and without church and temple it is impossible for us to live with God again. Do the simple things that is my challege for you. Satan wants to teach us we dont need to pray just read 2 nephi 32 the last two verses. We need to pray. Read Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-11 we need to forgive others. i Will finish this with three scriptures and my testimony. First scripture. in Doctrine and Covenants 103:36 says the only way to win is to be diligent and faithful and pray with what? with Faith. I ask you all to do this. Next talking about blessings listen to what is said in Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 about blessings. YOu can not gain help or blessing with out trying your hardest to do what is right. I love you all so much. i know you can all do this so easy. The last scripture in 2 Nephi 31:17-20 talks about endure to the end. After baptisms and temple and holy ghost we can not stop there. We have to keep going and do the little things not almost do them. Put the word almost in front of the words(i dont know exactly becuase i only have a book of mormon in portuguese) i think the words are endure(continue), perfect, all men, enduring(continuing), feasting, endure, (after behold says the father). Put almost in this scipture and it kinda stinks. You will be in front of you father in heaven and he will say you almost recieved eternal life with me. But why? Becuase you almost did all the things you needed to do. We can not almost do the things we have to do them. Especially the little things. i will finish this just saying. That all is well in the mission. I know that God loves me and i know that i need to be here in the mission. There are so many broken families in brazil and so many sad families. i have a message to brighten there day if they do the little things. I know that Joseph smith was a prophet and he restored this church. I love this gospel with all my heart. I know that we can be forgiven i know that God wants us to talk to him, and i know that the Book of Mormon and the scriptures have the power to change lives if we read them. I love you all so much. I know that we can be an eternal family. Stay strong and do the little thing. I love you all. Until next week.

Elder Parkinson

Help from the Mission President

Well, this week has been great. I had the great chance to have an interview with our mission President. That went so well. You can really feel his love for you. Before that interview I was having some challenges but he really helped me out and I feel so great now.

Again I will say to help you all out who maybe have a doubt -- families are forever through the temple. I have no doubt in my mind about this. I know that God sent us here in families so that we can learn and grow and help each other. In the family is the place that all learning needs to begin. I have really seen this the past few days.

This last week started out slow with numbers. We weren’t teaching a lot of people and finding many people in the street. Everyone was gone I felt like and all of our appointments fell through. In the interview, our mission president helped us to find new ways to find new people and to teach better. We tried it Saturday and Sunday and I can really tell you he is an inspired man. We had great numbers Saturday and Sunday and finished the week great. We had one baptism. Her name is Jaine. She is so great. She is 11 years old and I see Ashley every time I look at her. I am so glad that I was here to help her join the church and come unto Christ. She is such a great example for her family. Now I think we have the chance to marry her father and mother. They accepted marriage and after great time for baptism I am so excited for that family.

Saturday we taught a family that we have taught for a long time. They already turned us down one time for baptism but our mission president said if we plan hard great things could happen. He also told us to focus on this family so we went to work. Planned a great lesson for this family about baptism we took about an hour and a half to plan. When we got there they had a lot of doubts and so our lesson changed so much. The incredible thing is that lesson was the best lesson I have ever had. My companion and I were talking but it was not like me to talk. Our whole lesson was completely different than the one we planned we didn’t use anything we chose to use before. I don’t know what happened. When I was talking I felt so comfortable it was not me talking. The best Portuguese I have ever had and my companion said that I was almost screaming I was talking so loud. I said things I never thought to say. I used Joseph Smith testimony about how he knew he saw a vision. Afterword I bore my testimony. When I was talking my whole body was warm and pulsing extremely fast. When we said amen to finish the lesson my normal Portuguese started again. I know that it was because of the preparation that we had that gave us the spirit. The Lord knew how much we prepared for that lesson and he talked through us.

On Sunday we talked again with the family. Again we planned like crazy. And again we didn’t use our lesson when we got there. And again the Lord talked through us. I spoke bold and powerful my companion spoke clear and to the point. The Lord really helped us. I know that when we do all that we can the Lord is just waiting to bless us. This time they didn’t turn down our baptism invite they accepted. I really hope they go through with it. Their family is amazing.

I know that this is the true church. Like Elder Holland the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Joseph Smith was the prophet who restored the church to the earth with the power of God. I know that we have all the knowledge and tools we need to live with God again. All we have to do is study and prayer to receive them. I love this gospel so much. I love you all. I really hope you all keep doing all the things you need to live with me and Megan and grandma and God again. I will try my hardest to live with God again and I hope you all will to. Just do all the little things. I love you all so much. I have to go -- just know that I pray for you every day.

Still Here For Awhile

I will try to make this letter short and sweet but we will see. Transfers came and I am staying in the same area same house and with same companion. So you can send me some letters straight to my house. My dad and mom have the address. But you have to send quicker than later because if you wait too long I could be gone from here. Also I could really use some letters that would be great. I am pretty excited to stay here because I know that it is help me out learn patience and other things. My companion is great so that is good as well.

Feel free to fill me in on any sports! That would always be appreciated. I would also like some updated pictures of the family. Also Justin and Crystal, do you have pictures of the time we went to the temple grounds with Tashi and everyone I have some people that would like some of those pictures of the temple ground etc.

Also to start this great week I had diarrhea -- that was great fun. I had it for like 3 days. But I kept working through it that was great. My companion also got pink eye so we were both sick for a bit but that just made it more fun to teach. Good news is I did not get pink eye. We also had a presentation in our chapel this past Saturday that was really good. We had a choir sing and people talk about the Book of Mormon. We got new investigators because of it and helped bring less active back to church so it was a success. Also I got to participate with my companion. That was fun to talk Portuguese in the front of like 300 people. The cool thing is they will be making CDs of the music and I should get one for free sometime so that will be sweet to show you all. The language is coming along a lot better and better every day. The hardest thing is I just need more words and a little better with all the conjugations but I am talking without translating now and I am told that my Portuguese sounds more Brazilian than an American talking so that is good. We have a lot of good families that we are teaching a lot of good new investigators that we found. We have also settled into the area so I expect great things this next transfer we will change this area. Missionaries in this area have struggled with baptisms for a while but we will change that.

The only bad thing is that we have had clouds and fog and rain everyday for the past 2 weeks or more -- that sucks. Fog here is an everyday thing. So if you didn’t like fog you would hate it here. That is about all for this message. I just hope that you are all getting ready to send me some great packages and letters. Oh one thing don’t send packages to my house just letters. I love you all. I know this is the true church with all my heart. I love this gospel. I love the opportunity that I have to be here. It is changing my life and I just hope I am helping the people around me. I know that God loves us and will help us in all things we just have to talk with him and he will respond. I know that the Book of Mormon has power -- we just have to open it and read. I love you all so much! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Read the Book of Mormon

So this week has been interesting. We had a ton of appointments this week that fell through. So that was not good but because of the fallen appointments we had great opportunities with new investigators. So we have a lot of great new investigators and I'm really excited to start to teach them. Also it rained a lot this week and was really foggy every night. You could not really see your feet so that was cool. Really difficult to talk to people when you can’t even see them. I got really down on myself this week I just didn’t thing that I was good enough or worthy enough for things and that is why we had so many appointments fall through. But my companion helped with that. He said that one of the best ways for Satan to get at us is telling us that we are not good enough or need to do more. I really agree now I feel Satan trying to bring me down every day. But how great of a blessing it is to have angels of the Lord and Megan with me every day of every hour to fight against the angels of Satan. All I have to do is be worthy of the angels and try my hardest and I will always win. Also I have really gained a testimony and invite you all to bless your houses to the Lord if you have not done so already. It is pretty simple. But I think that all our homes really need it so if you haven’t done so please do so. Also for all my members of the family. My companion wants to train his English and wants to talk to my family so I think he wants to send you all a letter. So be expecting one. It won't be long but it will come. He also said it would be great if you actually replied. He wants to thank my brothers for great example and mom for the recipe for pasta with the works (I made it this week and he loved it, thanks mom). And for the love of my mom and just everyone. He really says my family must be great and I one hundred percent agree. So one person we are teaching is infested with bugs. When we left her house I had bug bites everywhere they are not good bug bites so hopefully I don’t pick up some kind of disease. But there is a promise in Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon that I will be protected and I believe that I just have to stay close to the spirit. So I beat my companion in soccer the other day. And they say Americans don’t play soccer. That is what I am talking about -- one point to America. . The person we baptized the other day really is like my grandma here. She really loves me and thinks I have so much courage and other things. She would get along with Grandma Parkinson very well always telling stories. At times stories I really don’t want to hear. So we went to the temple today. We have the opportunity every three transfers if we are close enough. It was only two hours by train to get there and two hours to return but it was worth it. I love going to the temple. I figured out something amazing. The temple is the same in every country and every language. The spirit was really strong there and I really just loved every minute of being there. I really did not want to leave but I guess I have to continue with the mission. I really would love to go there tomorrow but there are people in the world that need to hear the gospel so that they for themselves can enjoy the great blessing that I have to go to the temple. That is the ultimate goal a mission has for his investigators. I want you all to know that dad does a great job with the blog. I really write pretty sloppy for him in the emails because I don’t have that much time. So I want everyone to tell him thank you. Like I said the week I had some ups and downs but I am still going and excited for what lies ahead. My companion and I are going to have a race to ten. All the ten books that missionaries can read we are going to see who can finish them first. I will win just you wait. I also finished the Book of Mormon last week and oh what a blessing that was in my life. I love this book with all my heart because it brings me closer to my Savior and redeemer and my Heavenly Father. I know that this Book the Book of Mormon is the word of God and when we read it, we can gain a testimony and strength for the days if we go about reading it with faith and an open mind. I have to get going sorry. But letters would be appreciated from all. I love you all so very much. I want you all to try to find a person to share the gospel with. pray for an experience to help a child of God come back to him. I know if you pray for a person to enter your life you will find. I love this gospel so very much. I know that it is true. I know that God loves us and that Jesus Christ died so that we could live. I know that he is the only one that really knows all that we feel in our lives. HE KNOWS US and what we go through. I know that he is waiting with his arms wide open to comfort us and say it is ok. I am here to help. I know that if you pray to God he listens and really want to talk to you. I have such a strong testimony of the fact that families are forever so love your family prays for them and if you teach the things you need to teach. You can be with them forever. I know all these things are true and I leave my testimony with you in the name of our brother and redeemer Jesus Christ Amen. I love you and miss you all.