12/3/12 no matter how far you fall away from god, you can get back on track!

HAPPY DECEMBER!!! :) haha and i got some incredible news for yall! im going to Idabel Oklahoma! :D we got transfer calls saturday night just before going to bed and im heading to Oklahoma! Good laws huh!! :) this week! and especially this weekend has been just chuck full of miracles!!! :D i cant even begin to express my joy and happiness ive recieved from serving in plano texas! :) i have truely come to love the people here! i gotta stop doing that cause as soon as i get my feet set, i get transferred haha! :) nah! im a lover so im gonna love the people reguardless!! :) ah! so where to begin!.... so on friday we had a lesson with our investigator Reanna Richaleb! and she is awesome! she has been studying and has actually been baptist and catholic and is now a messianic jew. so she asked elder merrill and i to study up on where the bible eccentially referrs to the book of mormon! and to study up on the lives of Timothy, silos, and paul or saul, haha so elder merrill studied that and i did the studying for the bible and the book of mormon! and came up with a little diagram for her! i think i sent it home in a letter... but its about the Gathering of Israel, and the Stick of Judah and the Stick of Joseph (ephriam). and so on friday we had our lesson planned for her and we figured that this lesson would eccentially be a make it or brake it for Reanna, she's either going to agree or disagree and not meet with us anymore type of thing! :) well we went other presented the lesson and worked hard to answer her questions with clarity and simplisity! :) IT WORKED! :) the tender mercies of the lord are amazing!! :) and then on Saturday, the Solanos, a family that recently got baptized, their daughter had just turned 8 this month so her dad who just got the priesthood batized her on saturday!! :) and mandy( the girl that got baptized) came up to me right before her baptism and asked if i would comfirm her a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints! :D :D :D My heart was so full of joy!!! :D President Durrant was there at their baptism and stood in the circle with me and my companion to comfirm her! :D ah i love missionary work!! its the BEST!!! :D and then Yesterday we went to a church in frisco texas with a less active ( Greg Boykin ) and with his girlfriend a non-member ( amy ) .... good laws! im sending yall a picture of this great and spacious building we went to! GOOD LAWS it was crazy! we walked in and it seriously was just a Rock concert! lights, smoke, loud loud LOUD speakers! jammed packed with large numbers of people! HUGE place! the whole time they sang and waved their hands in the air prasing god, and calling all to be saved! me and elder merrill were dumbfounded! ! we left and invited both greg and his girlfriend amy to come to church with us just for fast and testimony meeting ! they both agreed! FYI- Greg is the one that stopped us in the carwash parking lot by wal mart and asked for us to give him a blessing. and he stood up and bore i strong testimony of how no matter how far you fall away from god, you can get back on track! :) after going to a gospel doctrine class right after sacrament i realized the difference in our church from all the other churches on the earth today! the church in frisco was simply just a business, selling salvation, through music, crafty launguage and flashy lights, it was all so simple, at the end of the presentation, the pastor invited all who wished to be saved to come forward and be saved... Except christ and it will be all good! i learned in gospel doctrine that it is not the case.. Christ suffered for us... we cannot be saved simply from believing on his name and calling it good! life isnt easy, we go through hard times, we suffer, we mess up sometimes, and when we mess up it is not enough to say simple that i have excepted christ, im okay. Repentance is a hard and difficult process, we must not look for a easy way out of trials in our lives, christ laid the path of redemption, and in order to make progress in this life we must follow that path! the world looks to christ as simply a quick fix from you sins and trials, yes they were praising god, praising jesus, but it was only to the satifaction of their worldly desires... our desires should be for the eternities! :D Family! :D and living with them for eternity in gods presence! :D  haha sorry that was a long story but i had to tell yall about it! :) the last story i have is yesterday at church guess who was there???? Principle Wood for Cedar City UTAH! :D hahaha i went over to her daughters house and was able to sit and talk with her for a bit and get a picture with her! haha such a small world! :) haha well i will write you all my new address in oklahoma when i get there! so yall can send me some christmas goodies! :D i cant believe its christmas already! its still 75-80 degrees here in plano so it still feel like summer! haha its crazy! well i love you all ! im so grateful for the love and support you give to me! im so blessed to have yall as my family! :) LOVE YALL! :D

Always Focus on the Postive! 11/19/12

Well hello my amazing wonderful family!! Good laws its so good to hear from yall! :) again we had another incredibly busy week! :) we had a zone conference with president Durant on friday all day! it was awesome! he told us a story about how his wife wrote him on him mission and how important keeping a eternal perspective on things is! and how important love is in missionary work, he said some quotes that i really like: " love listens, and remembers!" as missionaries its soooo important to listen to the people you come in contact with! and even more important to remember what they tell you! :) the next quote was from president Durant father ( George Durant ) president durrant called his dads phone and put it on speaker, and as his voicemail came up it said, " Hello this is George Durrant, im having the best day yet so far!" :) our attitudes are so important in our lives! ive really come to realize the importance of having a good attitude and being optimistic! :) this week me and elder Merrill had a truely incredible week! :) but last night my companion decided to look at all the negative things that had happened, such as we lost 2 investigators, or some of the ward members are so annoying... At that very moment i realized the importance of focusing on the Positive always just as George Durrant does. this week was truly amazing! :) monday evening we were coming back home to finish up the day by planning and such, and we went through the Walmart parking lot to get back home. well a car honked at us, so i just figured " oh they just want us to get out of the way, we are not supposed to ride our bikes in the parking lot. so we continued on our way, and then a second time the car honked again and a person in the car waved at us! so we waved back thinking it was some members saying hi! :) well the car honked one last time and pulled us over in a car wash, so we went over and come to find out it was a man named Greg who grew up in the church but got himself into trouble in his growing up years and had tattoos and had been to jail a couple 2, 3 times, and he saw us and stopped us and asked us if we could give him a blessing, right there in the middle of the car wash! :) it truly was a miracle! :) this week we've met with him twice and we are helping him to regain his testimony ! what a wonderful man! and what a wonderful oppertunity that the lord blessed us with! :) as well this week truely we have been blessed with the tender mercies of the lord so greatly this week! :) again its always important to keep a positive attitude! even with this great week my companion still focused on some of the negative experiences of the week! may i challenge us all to Always Focus on the Postive! :) this week look at all the great things we have all been blessed with! i love yall so much! im so grateful for the love and support you all have giving so graciously to me! :) i love being a missionary! love it! :) its so great to here about all yall back home!!! :) 

11/5/12 precious truths

Holy cow!!! :) today was awesome! so i just got to the library to email yall and before we got here we had 2 appointments set up that we went to this morning, ironically they both cancelled on us so we went to a ladies house that we tracted into the other night just to see if she was home, we weren't able to talk to her before because her husband wasn't home so we tried again just an hour ago and they all were home and we came in and sat down and had the most incredible experience ever!! :) she had a million and 10 questions for us and we were able to answer them and explain things about how god has revealed the fullness of his gospel back on the earth! :) i will tell you what we talked about everything, the restoration, plan of salvation, and everything in between! what was really cool for me is i got a letter from dad last night telling me to not be afraid to tell people that we have the answers that other peoples pastors or leaders cant give answers for! so as she was asking us all these questions we were able to connect them all with the bible and the book of Mormon and help her understand some simple and precious truths that have been lost through out time! it was amazing! :) and yall are probably thinking well good laws why isn't Jesse and his companion relaxing, cause its P-day, haha well, i dont know why but today we needed to teach this lady about our church and there are no accidents or coincidences! oh how i love the tender mercies of the lord that come as we serve diligently! :) I love being on a mission! :) this week went so great!!! we worked hard all week and saw great success because of it! :) so how is everyone doing back home! :)