| Hola qué pasa familia? WOW. It has been a fantastic week, definitely one of the most gratifying in my entire mission. We had some really choice miracles, they might not seem like the type of miracles that blow you always, but nonetheless I am ecstatic. One crazy update is transfers: I am getting transferred away from Arlington Heights after being here for 4.5 months, which is sad. But the crazy news is that I will be going to Aurora and white-washing as a Zone Leader. (White washing means that they take out both of the old Elders and new ones come in). My companion will be Elder Reyes, an Elder that I served around back in my first area in Elgin. I am really excited, but also interested in how I will do with my new assignment. I am just about to hit my 10th month mark in the mission, and everyone in my new zone, except for about 3-4 people, will be older than me according to mission age. It will be a humbling experience I am sure, and I really would love the support of your prayers please! The success that we found this week really comes from the beginning of the month in our goal setting! We have been studying how to set goals like crazy, trying to be realistic while also making ourselves stretch. The best part about setting specific goals, is that the Lord has something to specifically bless you for. If we just wait around all day looking for some magic plan or loan to drop from the sky, we very well might not get anywhere. God gave us agency, the ability to choose for ourselves, so get out there and act! Set goals and make plans to accomplish them! Ask the Lord to bless you to meet those goals! I promise that miracles will follow as a result. This month we were able to reach all of our monthly goals except being off by 2! That might not sound like a miracle but trust me, it can be a really challenging feat. There is no way that we could have done it without getting on our knees and pleading for help. As a result, more people's lives were touched and more hearts were softened. I have a testimony of the power of dedicated and inspired goals. This is a quote from Preach My Gospel. Internalize it! “I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” –Elder M. Russell Ballard I love you all very much! I pray for you daily, Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 |
0 Comments
Bien bien bien bien, hola familia como andamos?
Another fantastic week comes to end here in Arlington Heights! Wow the work is amazing, I promise you all that I couldn't be more excited and happy to be where I am. This really is the work of God, and I am privileged to participate. This week has brought a lot of miracles into our area! I starting doing this thing in district meeting of setting up "friendly" competitions for the upcoming week, so that as a district we can motivate each other to do better and see results. The last week, I told the district that I would make salsa for whoever got out of the most meal appointment lessons on time (maximum of 1hr). You have to realize that this can be extremely hard in the Hispanic program. Every Hermana wants to feed you...and feed you....and feed you. If you don't take seconds, they get sad and sometimes pretty offended. So we started this competition to help us be more effective in our use of time. It is crazy how badly people are motivated to win...especially missionaries hahaha! This weeks competition is who can get the most new investigators! and although the competition is fun, we have seen some amazing miracles. The first cool experience happened when we were working during a ward activity in the Hermanas' area. We set up a table outside of a tienda (store) and starting contacting everyone we saw asking them about family history work (genealogy work). We contacted soo many people and it was really successful, but one woman and her family in particular really stood out to me. Sandra, the woman, walked by holding the hand of her teenage daughter and little boy. I began talking with her and asked her one simple question, "¿que tan importante es su familia para usted?" Or "How important is your family to you?" She stared at me for a second and I realized that she was crying. She told me that she had just arrived in the United States 4 days earlier and that she had been waiting for six year to come and see her children again. She said that nothing was more important to her than her family. It was such a tender experience and we were able to her information down and the Hermanas will be following up and teaching her soon! Amazing. This next part comes from an excerpt of my companions email, he is awesome....and he already describe these experiences so I am going to cheat hehe, In the words of Elder Tedders, "What a week this has been. We've seen miracle upon miracle. And while further reflecting on these experiences, both have to do with listening to the whisperings of the Spirit both in a split-second decision and far in advance. The first has to do with an event that happened about a week ago. Elder Stewart-Chester's tire popped on his bike and so we had to walk back to the apartment to drop off our bikes and go back out. On the way back we met a man named Marco, and set up an appointment to return and teach him. We confirmed this last Saturday morning and went to teach him that same day, but he wasn't there. We were really confused that he would confirm only a few hours later and then not show up. His friend, Leonardo, was there working on his own truck. We asked if we could share with him the message we had prepared for Marco, and he said "Maybe the next time you talk with him". At about 8:20 that night we felt like we needed to go and find Marco again. When we pulled up, Leonardo pulled up again in his truck. We asked if Marco was there, and he went inside his apartments to check and Marco was no where to be found. But this time after talking to Leonardo a little bit more he invited us in. We started by just asking about himself, his family, his home country, and what he likes. He opened up a lot, and eventually the conversation was led to religion, and that is where our message came in. We taught him powerfully about the Book of Mormon, and he committed to reading it and praying about it's validity. We have a return appointment this upcoming Saturday. The second miracle was first ignited by a prompting we received a couple weeks earlier while reviewing our monthly goals and how we were thus far going to achieve them. We felt really strongly that we needed to work with the non-member husband of the Young Women's president in our Ward. The biggest struggle is that he doesn't like to feel like he's being taught or specifically taught to, and he's deep into some addictions that have deeply affected his family dynamics. We figured the best way to approach this situation would be to serve him and alongside him as well so we could gain his trust. So that brings us to last night. We felt prompted to completely throw out the lesson plans we had and to start with something completely different, that we weren't aware about until it happened. We started off by singing the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". We talked a little bit about the background of the hymn and the doctrine behind it, and we felt impressed to share Alma 56, the verses where it talks about how the stripling warriors had no doubts that they're mothers knew the very doctrine that delivered them. We related it to the work they do as parents for the teaching of their kids, and the husband was seeming to muster up some sort of courage. He finally said "Elders, I want you to help me." He said that he's always been impressed by the missionaries, and since he's had two kids in the mission field and has seen the change that has been wrought in them, he wants that change to happen to him; he wants to rid of his addictions. We have an appointment this Wednesday to meet with him. " Lastly, "los mormoncitos" means the little Mormons. This woman that we made called us that and I thought it was hilarious! She talked about how hard we work to bring the word of God to the people who don't know Him. I love being a mormoncito. I love being a missionary. You are all in my prayers! Have a fantastic week, Con amor Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 Hey all you people! This is the reason for not being able to write a huge email today...We had a Zone Activity and we had the assignment to bring the main dish. So we rushed around like crazy and had a lot of help from our members to make picaditas for the entire zone. It is basically home made corn tortillas that are fried, then you put beans, salsa, cream, cheese, and onion. This food is actually my favorite Mexican dish by far, and now I know how to make them so get ready family. This week has flown by really fast, and we had a miracle happen this Saturday. Long story short, there is a woman and her son (Carol and Emmanuel) that are living in the home of some of our less active members. Obviously that scenario is a perfect opportunity to teach, but it has been impossible to get in contact with the less active family! Man, I can't even tell you how many times we have tried to stop by, and call and get in contact with Carol and her son. This Saturday, all of our plans were falling through and we decided to stop by one last time. and guess what? She was there!!! We taught them both, with the less active family! We had such a good time and were able to build a great relationship with her. She is from Colombia and is going to be making us Colombian food this week. It was such a sweet blessing from the Lord. Please pray for her and her progression in the gospel! This was another testimony builder to me that God really answer our prayers and blesses us when we are obedient. I love you all! Have a fantastic week, Con mucho amor, QUE TAL familia
Hey all you wonderful people! It was great to see your faces yesterday, hopefully you aren't too bored of me because here comes another email: This week has been fantastic and also kind of busy! (Aka every single week since the beginning of my mission) We started out the week with intercambios with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Frehner and Elder Tedders went with Elder Giolitto. We taught and contacted a lot, I had that crazy experience I was telling you about while contacting, and we served! We helped one of the members in the English ward with their yard work. I can honestly say that I miss mowing the lawn! Afterwards the members fed us deep dish pizza from Lou's which is probably the best pizza you will ever have. It is really famous in Chicago. Deep dish pizza is definitely something that you don't get that often in the Spanish program so that was a nice change up from chiles and tortillas. The work in the area right now is wonderful! But very slow. We are praying very hard for some new investigators that are willing to meet with us on a regular basis, because the current ones we are working with are not proactive enough in their investigation. Pray for some amazing miracles this week so that we can find, teach, and baptize! All the support we can get would be fantastic! Later in the week I went to my first MLC (Mission Leadership Council) and I received some amazing council while there. It was also so fun to see Elder Hughes and Elder Marchant my old companion and trainer. President Griffen said something really inspiring at the meeting so I am going to try and paraphrase it here: He said, I have a belief in inspiration and revelation. I am confident in what happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. The Lord guides this work in the present and only He knew what it needed in the past and what it will need in the future. His point was that sometimes we are so caught up with what happened in the past and who said what, and why we changed the regulations on this and that, blah blah blah. We end up confusing ourselves. I encourage you to have faith in the present! God knows what you and I need right now and in the future! He knows what your branch/ward needs, and most importantly He knows what the church needs. If you want to have security and stability in your life, follow the prophet. Later in the week I had my first exchange with Elder Ruiz and Elder Fong. It was super helpful and inspired me a lot. I am grateful for opportunities like these because it pushes me to become better. The work is amazing and life is fantastic! Stop focusing on nonsense and take advantage of it. 2 Nephi 2:25 "Adam fell that men might be, men are that they might have joy." Con mucho amor, Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 Hola familia, que tal? I really want you all to know that I love you. I think about you and your needs, and I felt God's love for each of you! This week I have a few updates, I am going to try and send at least one thing that I did each day of the week! We will see how this goes... Tuesday: We went to a member's for lunch this day and got to talk with her less-active son for a while as he drove us home. He really opened up to us and we're slowly but surely working on them. In the night we visited a less-active family with a member. This family is super nice, super knowledgeable about the gospel, but for some reason or another doesn't come to church. So we started the lesson SUPER well, good questions, good participation from them, but then our member went off for about 20 minutes chastising them and pontificating, and the less-active family completely closed up. It was so hard to recover from that but we saw a tiny bit of them open up to us after. Next time, we'll make sure not to bring that particular member hahaha(; Wednesday: So after district meeting the Relief Society President took us out to lunch to this AWESOME place called Mitsuwa. It's a completely Japanese store with a food court. It also has a bookstore/gift shop type of place. Everything is in Japanese, everyone speaks Japanese (and a little English), and you walk in and feel like you're in a whole different world. It was actually the coolest thing ever. We also ate at Obispo's for dinner and we had alphabet soup (I found out Hispanics REALLY like alphabet soup). Thursday: After weekly planning we taught an English class and had MCM. It was a pretty packed day with all of those squished together. Friday: So we had surprise service this day. The Zone Leaders called us after language study and said "Do you have any plans?" And told us the address where they were at. Apparently some non-members called the mission office and asked some help to move. So we went over and this house had been abandoned and was filled with so much junk. They had a giant dumpster and we were chucking so much stuff. We threw out some bookshelves and entertainment centers, and to "make room" we threw them in the dumpster and armed each missionary with a hatchet or hammer and smashed it to bits. We indeed "[were] edified and rejoice[d] together" (D&C 50:22). Saturday: We went to a members house for lunch (who as well gave us alphabet soup and tortillas) and their cousin was there again. So we taught him. Again. He is an interesting man and he always listens, but he isn't really accepting our commitments so we have to figure out how to get him to want the gospel blessing in his life. But, we move on. For dinner we ate at a less actives house....and of course they were eating pizza, wings, and chicken bacon ranch sandwiches. Haha Hispanics... Sunday: After church we ate at a members home, and I think they gave us spaghetti just like grandma's recipe! It was delicious to say the least. And on Sunday's we have DLCs (District Leader Council) where the zone leaders train us....so it was a busy day. Those are just a few of the basics of my week! I hope it was some what entertaining... I love you all and hope that you have the best week! SKYPING FOR MOTHERS DAY: Probably after 12:30 Chicago time, and before 6 Chicago time....sorry I wish I could tell you a more exact schedule but I can't! Con mucho amor, Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 |
Fletcher Stewart-ChesterFletcher is called to serve the Lord in the Chicago West Spanish Speaking mission. This is a blog of his letters and adventures CategoriesArchives
July 2017
|