Week 80 - February 20, 2018 - Mardi Gras and Miracles

Hey y'all!!

So this week was another crazy one!! Tuesday was Fat Tuesday and the last day of Mardi Gras. We got to go to the Zulu parade which is one of the most famous parades here in Nola, and it was a freaking party!! The Zulu parade is well known for throwing out coconuts and hey! I got one! It was really funny watching all of us missionaries trying so hard to get a fake painted coconut but hey, memories right? It is definitely a day I will never forget! The one problem, my voice still hasn't fully recovered from all the yelling trying to get coconuts and as many beads as I could! Oh well haha All in all it was an awesome time but I am glad that Mardi Gras is over cause it made travel really hard in our area.

Now for the miracle of the week. So getting doubled into an area can be pretty interesting because you have to kinda start from the ground up. It has been some hard work on the bike but our work is starting to pay off. We were visiting one of Elder T's recent converts and randomly one of his neighbors comes over and joins in the lesson and starts bearing his testimony to us about how God can help change lives. This guy had been an alcoholic for a long time and Elder T remembers seeing him drunk all the time when he was working with his convert before. Cool thing is tho, this guy decided that he needed to change and so he prayed and God helped him to quit drinking! We invited him to come to our next lesson and he said he would be there and he even wants to come to church! The Lord really does prepare people to be taught his Gospel.

Spiritual thought:

1 Peter 1:7-9

  7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

  8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

  9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

Isaiah 48:10-11

  10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

  11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

Sometimes we are called to go through trials that we don't understand. We know we have faith and yet life is still hard, bad things still happen. Many times I have asked myself why life has to be so hard, I mean I feel like I would enjoy it more if it was easy right? Isn't that what God wants? These two scriptures have come to be some of my favorites over the course of my mission. They really put in perspective for me why we have these trials. God wants for us something more precious than gold, he wants our salvation. In Isaiah he states that we aren't refined with silver. Why? With the Olympics going on I will relate it to that. What is the goal of the Olympics? It's to get the gold right? To reach the highest that an athlete can go. It is the same with God. He doesn't want us to get silver, he wants us to reach the highest we can and get that gold. Like Olympians, if we want the gold we must work to become strong enough or fast enough to get the gold, the only difference is that it is our faith that we have to work and that is why God gives us trials. If we didn't have trials we would never have to use our faith and it would never get refined into something stronger.  He will never refine us into anything less than the best so trust Him and know that, as he said to Joseph Smith, "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

¡Dios les ama mucho!

Elder Nathan Stoddard

 

 

 

Week 79 - February 12, 2018 - Downtown

Hey y'all!!

So first off biking in NOLA is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be! The area is actually super bike friendly and there are so many back roads to take that you can avoid the major roads very easily. The one problem right now is Mardi Gras. We live about 4 blocks from St Charles Ave and that street has almost constant parades during Mardi Gras! On car it is so look hard to get around. Biking makes it easier but you still have to weave your way through a ton of people and parade floats to get to the other side to work. So that has been the adventure of the week is trying to get through the parades.

On transfer Wednesday we went to the St Charles Church building and met for a ward function and to watch one of the parades with the ward! It was super fun and a good way to meet members but the funny thing was that some of the members that came for the function were from the Chalmette Branch! So I got to see the Farrells less that 24 hours after leaving Chalmette which was actually pretty cool. And the parade was super fun but it was also raining so we got soaked but it was worth it! Elder T even caught a teddy bear from one of the floats.

The last adventure that we had this week was biking to a ward King Cake party to meet more of the members and to talk with the non-member families they invited. It was about an hour and twenty minute ride! As we were leaving to go back home we realized that the Mardi Gras parades would be in full swing by our house and ghat there would be crazy drivers everywhere so we called the Mission President and got permission to stay with the Spanish Zone Leaders for the night. It's a good thing we did too cause as we went to load up our bikes onto their bike rack I realized that my front tire had gone flat while we were at the party. So it was a blessing that President gave us permission to stay the night!

Other than that this week has been pretty slow. Getting doubled into an area around Mardi Gras is kinda difficult. We spent the rest of our time trying to learn a bit more of the area and trying to find where the Hispanics live in this area but we weren't too successful this week. Hopefully when the craziness of Mardi Gras dies down we will be able to get around better and find more people.

Love y'all and hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Nathan Stoddard

 

 

Week 78 - February 6, 2018 - Fourth Quarter

Alright y'all

So it is now official. I'm in the last quarter of the mission. If I had to compare how I feel right now to someone else, I would say that I feel like Tom Brady from last years Superbowl. I 'm down in the fourth and have never felt more comfortable. Its time for the final push to win the game. I am moving areas for this last quarter. I will be serving in Downtown New Orleans with Elder Tonumaipe'a, or T cause it is hard to write his name every time haha! I am excited and can't wait to see what this last 6ish months bring. Oh and Downtown is a biking area so now I will really feel like a missionary haha! 

And the moment we have all been waiting for, DONALD IS DUNKED! It was a long hard road but it has totally paid off! Because Donald is in a wheelchair, we had three of us in the font to baptize him. It was Elder Israelsen, Hernandez and I and we had to do the ordinance three times! But hey it all worked out and Donald is now an official member of the Church! Whoop Whoop!

Other than that is was the standard missionary week. We did a lot of tracting and found some really awesome investigators that are super interested in the message. One of them, Nessia, is about our age going to college and she was super into the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. She understood completely the need for a restoration and how the priesthood needed to be restored if the apostasy actually happened. It was awesome! We also found a cool new Spanish family that let us come in and teach and said that we are welcome back anytime! So hopefully the Spanish Group here really starts to grow!

Well that is all for me this week! Love y'all!

Elder Nathan Stoddard

Week 77 - January 29, 2018 - Meetings and a sick week

Hey y'all!

Alright to be honest there isn't really anything for me to report since last Wednesday other than Elder Hernandez and I both got sick so it really took down the work for the weekend! So we are happy to have a new week and a fresh start. 

Spiritual thought for the week. Moroni 7:41

"And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise."

Y'all we have so much to be hopeful in! We have a Savior that loves us and sacrificed himself for us! Because he did that we can have the hope, through faith, that we can once again live, and see our family again!

Love y'all!

Week 76 - January 24, 2018 - Elder Costa

Hey y'all!

Well this week has been pretty good! We have had some exciting developments in the mission! As of this coming week we will be getting smartphones for the mission! I cannot tell y'all how excited I am for that because it is going to help the missionary work soooo much! Our planning and Area Book will now be on the phone and we will be able to share videos and study more talks as we prepare to teach! It is going to be an amazing blessing the the missionary effort! 

Yesterday we also had the awesome opportunity to have a General Authority Seventy, Elder Costa and his wife, come and do a mission tour. As always it is super amazing to have a General Authority in the same room as you and they are all soooo funny! I have never had more fun Zone Conferences than those when a General Authority or Apostle is visiting. So Elder Costa told us a super funny story from his time as a mission president in Brazil. He got invited by some of his Elders to come with them to a teaching appointment of a family where a local minister would be in attendance. Turns out the not only a local minister showed up but the head minister of the mission region and, even better, the head minister of all the church in Brazil! Big game yeah? So the church that the family belonged to is one that believes the Sabbath is on Saturday. So the head minister of all of Brazil says that if Elder Costa will answer a couple questions then they will leave and let them teach the family but if they can't answer the question the Elder Costa and the Elders must leave. So they agree. And of course the first question is "Do you believe in the bible" followed by "What day is the Sabbath?" So Elder Costa answers both questions and it makes the minister mad. The minister starts to bash with him and then Elder Costa gets a spiritual impression, "Do to him as Nephi did to Laban."  Elder Costa looks at us and goes, "So then I am looking around trying to find a sword!" We are all dying at this point because of what he is saying. He then tells us he says a quick prayer "Lord I don't understand." and the spirit tells him "Cut off his head with the spirit." So he turns to the story of when the Savior healed a man on the Sabbath and how the Pharisees reviled him. He then looks at the head minister and says "You are like they were. I hope you keep your word." And then the ministers leave. We all died during his story because he has broken English and we could tell that if there had been a sword there he probably would have done exactly what Nephi did! All in all it was a great time!

 One last awesome thing that happened was that we had about 40 people at church this week in the English branch! I haven't seen that many people in a long time and the best part is that all three companionship had either an investigator or a less active that they had been working with show up! It was soo cool to see the fruits of all our labors here in Chalmette and that we actually are making a difference! Maximo and his family also showed up to the English branch because, as Maximo told Elder Boyd, "This morning was a good morning, and I wanted to feel good this morning. I do feel good this morning." So that was really cool to hear. It was also a blessing because something came up and Maximo and his family werent able to come to the Spanish group that night! The Lord does prompt his followers!

Well I think that is it for this week! Have a great one y'all!

Elder Nathan Stoddard

 

 

Week 75 - January 16, 2018 - I HAVE A DREAM

Hey y'all!

Alright so I will just get right to the fun stuff for this week! First off Sunday was an awesome day! We had a Southern States broadcast from Salt Lake which was really cool. Elder Bednar presided and gave an awesome talk about repentance and how our faith in Jesus Christ is what makes repentance more than just a changing of ways, it is what makes us clean from our sins. It was a super good broadcast, almost like a miniature General Conference!

After the broadcast a large group of missionaries got invited to stay at the St. Charles building to be part of a missionary choir that would be going to sing that evening at a Baptist Church that was holding a memorial service for Martin Luther King Jr. We sang 'I Believe in Christ' and 'As I Have Loved You.' It was super cool and we also got to hear a real Southern Baptist Preacher talk which is always fun! I wish I had a video for y'all so y'all could experience just how crazy and fun a Baptist Church can be out here haha!

On Monday we got to march in the New Orleans MLK day parade. I  was a little skeptical about how well it would go having a bunch of missionaries passing out pass-along cards in an MLK parade but man it was probably one of the most fun things I have done on the mission! We passed out thousands of cards and it was super fun to meet and talk to some of the people that we handed cards to! All the little kids got so happy when you walked up to them to hand them a card! About seven or so of us walked out on the side of the parade on the grass where people were sitting in the back and passed out cards to them since they werent right at the edge where everyone else was passing them out. We even ran across the street on the far side a couple times to give the people over there cards! It was so freaking fun! I'm sad that I will probably never get to do that again..... but I'm glad I got this experience. 

After the parade, all 60-70 of us missionaries walked to a restaurant named Mother's and the Stake President, President Stock, payed for all of us for lunch! Like dang that is pretty darn generous! I can only imagine how much it cost but he is an amazing guy! 

Well that is the excitement for the week! I hope that all is well with everyone and that the New Years resolutions are still going strong! I love y'all!

Elder Nathan Stoddard