"I know that it doesn't matter if the person you try to teach doesn't commit to anything, it just matters if you're doing your best at inviting them to come unto christ."

Thursday 27 December 2012

Weekly Update 27 December 2012

Hi!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, it was great here. Christmas
as a missionary is such a great experience, people are much more
friendly and you can almost taste Christmas in the air.

We went caroling with the Chester ward this week and it is really fun
to be with the member at Christmas, doing those fun things with them.
Our investigators are doing great aswell, we are preparing ourselves
for a Baptism here in the Chester Ward and I am very excited for the
things that are awaiting us in the new year.

In Chester on Christmas Day, we even had a little bit of a carol
service and got together as members and exchanged presents, we just
had a really good time. I didn't think I would ever say this but, I
actually think we have too much Chocolate for me and my companion to
handle, we are on a Chocolate overload, chocolate treats for
breakfast, chocolate for desserts and chocolate for snacks. We are
trying to get rid of it as soon as possible, my New years resolution
is to get back into weightlifting for my last 6 months of my mission
in preparation to hit it big when I get home.

It is transfers on the 2nd of January, who knows what will happen.
This transfer has just flown by, it is unreal how fas this mission
thing is going. I will be a missionary forever, long after I actually
get released from this full- time calling, too many of us view
conversion as a one time experience. Many people say "It happened on
such and such a date" But true and lasting conversion comes from doing
and acting, conversion lasts forever and so will my mission.

I am personaally excited for this new year, I am excited for the
Changes that I am going to make, for the things that will happen
during these 6 months I have left and for the effects that my mission
will have when I return.

With Love,

Elder Sapaden

Monday 17 December 2012

Weekly Update 17 December 2012

 A picture of me,
 
I just wanted to show you how good of a cook I have become. Seriously I could become a chef someday.
 


 


Hello!

Missionary life is all about adventure after adventure. Sometimes
missionaries definately overplay the thing that happen to them on
their missions, but this week was filled with moments that could have
went horribly wrong, times where my whole life flashed before my eyes
were on the increase. I have a strong testimony that I have guardian
angels.

Wales is a good country, it is filled with scenary, sunsets and sheep.
I love it! One of our investigators is a walking miracle. She is
perhaps the best investigator I've ever taught, she has been smoking
every hour since she was 13, she had a lot of trials growing up we
gave her a Priesthood blessing this week and she hasn't reverted to
the cigarettes since. What a miracle.

Much of this week has been helping the missionaries around us fulfill
their potential. It has been exciting, I've never spent so much time
on my mission driving around seeking to do one thing after another.
Some people may find happiness in the journey, a whole day where there
is always something to do, it also feels that sometimes there is no
room to breathe, but I prefer it this way, it seems that I wake up and
sleep and it goes so quick.

I spent some time with a younger missionary from Tenesee he had one of
those accents where you want him to say such things as "Life is like a
box of Chocolates" I love these moments of training and guidance where
you get to pause for a short while and remember what it is all about.
We learnt the lesson together, a lesson I learnt long ago on my
mission but tend to forget sometimes. Missionary work is fun, if not
then you are doing it wrong.

The Chester Ward is such a good ward, I really do like it here.

With Love,

Elder Sapaden

"Count your blessings, but more importantly... make your blessings count"

Monday 10 December 2012

Weekly Update 10 December 2012

Hello!

I seem to be at the point of my mission where things seem to be
jolting forward at an aggressively violent pace. It is going too
quick. The Chester Ward is amazing! I love it here and Christmas here
is going to be fantastic.

The other day I was in Birkenhead, it was another exchange with a
different missionary. It was weird... we had to travel through
Liverpool to get there, it used a train line similar to the Tube in
London. Going through back to my old proselyting area was interesting,
It brought back memories of unsurity, of newness and of joy. I was
such a new missionary when I went to St. Helens through Liverpool.
Liverpool is definately one of my favourite places ever. It kind of
took me back to the days when I had little responsibility of
missionary leadership, those were days never to be forgotten.

I got back to Chester on Thursday and it was welcoming, we were
teaching a lot. A important lesson is one I learnt of repentance. The
way we teach the principle of repentance as missionaries needs to be
very sensitive, it needs to be backed up by the spirit and done in a
loving caring manner. Ultimately the best way to teach repentance is
highlighting the joy of forgiveness. Many a time this week we had been
around people who haven't made the best of choices. Infact it reminded
me of our call and duty to emulate Jesus Christ, the people he was
around were perhaps not the most wise in their choices. He was around
publicans, hypocrits, harlots and many other people who had commited
sin in various forms.

He came not to call the perfect, but he came for those who needed to
become penitent, we are told, the whole need no physician. Those are
exactly who we spent time with this week. It is an eye opener, perhaps
as missionaries we aren't the most familiar with what is in the world,
we try empathise but that empathy falls short because we haven't been
through what they have been through. But the amazing thing is that the
grace of Jesus Christ is sufficent for everyone who had a broken heart
and a contrite spirit. When we speak to those who have particularly
been involved with those more serious sins, the transforming power of
the Atonement reaches out to the individual.

I came up with the "I'm not perfect" principal, what do people see
when they see missionaries? Some may see our perfectly tied ties, our
spotless white shirts, my hair that I still spend 10 minutes to
perfection and people get intimidated. It is so intimidating when
missionaries who exalt themselves talk to those investigators that are
abased. Vital to helping them is helping them realise we are just as
human as they are, while respecting the confidence of our power and
authority contained within our call.

It is something that has changed my mission forever. During King
Benjamins sermon the people had viewed themselves in a carnal state,
even lower than the dust of the earth. I want you to all know that I
am human, I make mistakes far greater than perhaps some of our
investigators but the healing power of the Atonement is transforming,
more transforming than any "10 minute makeover", more transforming
than the day and the night, it is viewing a difference perspective of
ourselves, the world and God.

With Love,

Elder Sapaden

Monday 3 December 2012

Weekly Update 03 December 2012

Photos first :)
More sheep than people!

More of Wales

More of Me and Elder Corbin



 Well, there is a picture of me today, and some pretty pictures of Wales.





Hi!

It has been another very interesting week. It has been quite cold here
in Chester. This week we have been moving around a lot, one of the
things we do often is to exchange with other missionaries, I went to a
place called Porthmadog in Northern Wales and Elder Corbin went to
Wrexham. Porthmadog was quite intense, it was one of those places
where there were more sheep than people, it was very scenic and it
comes close to how pretty the Isle of Man is, it was very fun there.
It is probably the furthest away area in the mission (excluding the
Isle of Man) it takes perhaps more than 3 hours from Manchester, but
it was so worth it.

The work here in Chester itself is amazing! We have an investigator
Dated for Baptism and we have many other investigators working toward
Baptism, the future in Chester looks bright. Plus we have a good ward
here and spending Christmas here as a missionary is going to be
Celestial.

We have had a lot of fun this week and working with other missionaries
is great. Here in the Chester Ward we are very integrated into the
ward as missionaries, we are even part of a ward Nativity, we are
dressed up as Shepards and it is going to be fun.

Something I've been thinking about is the importance of personal
revelation in the mission field. Many times missionary leader try to
teach the importance of a principle to another missionary. It goes in
one ear and out the other. The best teaching is "caught" rather than
"taught", however even those various methods of teaching will not
work. The same with our investigators we try to help them gain the
vision that we have with them. I feel that the most common mistake
other see in missionaries is that the missionaries "convert"

The missionaries themselves do not "convert" rather we teach for
conversion. So how do we do that? Well... we cultivate and nourish an
environment for personal revelation, they do the converting be we
teach to be converted. It led me to this wonderful thought "The best
lessons a missionary can learn are the lessons he or she learns on his
or her knees." When we make the best guesses or even the most logical
or argumentative debates, if we are seeking our own will, then it is
not Gods will. Revelation is the key to the Celestial Kingdom.

With Love,

Elder Sapaden