August 22, 2011

8 August, 2011 - Week 5 of Transfer 13

I loved your emails this week! I have the greatest family. I'm glad that the two munchkins in Ecuador are enjoying themselves, those are my girls! (Blake's sister Paige and girlfriend Lindsay are in Ecador working in an orphanage)  Each night I pray for them and hope this trip has a lasting effect on them. I'm sure I could use trip like these, it would most definitely humble me. I'm sure my area is the closest thing you can get to a 3rd world country in the Great Salt Lake valley. Half our lessons we sit on the ground cross legged with a little lamp which lights the old beaten up apartment. I love culture of those we are teaching, especially the food (that’s right Dad, the food).

So this past week we wrapped up with zone conferences and had two baptisms in our area! They were both great. Diana's was a large baptism with a lot of less-active and non-members who attended. We held the service in the chapel and pulled down the big screen to show the first vision. And don't worry we only played a 4 minute clip from the video not the full 20 minute film that was played at Lindsay's. Elder Bertolino introduced it and I was able to end it with my testimony. We both bore our testimony and boldly invited others to come unto Christ. There were a few people who felt it but especially this one man whose name is Corey. We spoke to him after and he now wants to meet with missionaries and be baptized. We passed the referral on and the missionaries in his area are in touch with him, it is exciting see how this work has a domino effect.

Diana is a strong convert and has quite the story. Once again you will have to meet her, she is hilarious. She reminds me of Taren. For her baptism she couldn't handle the white jump suits so she went to the distribution center and actually bought a temple dress, I guess she’s ready for next year now. Then at her baptism she wanted a picture with every person who walked in. Like I said she is hilarious. Immediately after her baptism we had Dona's at the same building. Dona’s was a smaller but such a peaceful baptism, everyone loves her. We are thinking about having Dona come to some lessons with some of our other investigators who are struggling with the Word of Wisdom. She asked for a Priesthood blessing to quit a few weeks ago and since then never second guessed her decision to quit. She just tells herself over and over, “I’m not a smoker”. It has been so fun working with Dona and her boy Daniel.

Friday night we had Mission Fireside at the mission office which I conducted, its weird conducting meetings. President Miller had his son in law Brett and Brett’s brother Brandon come for this fireside. They have both devoted their life to classical music and are doctors in music. They have a choir which competes with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I don’t know if that’s the right way to word it. But it’s big and they are unreal. Awhile ago I shared with you how we took the entire mission downtown to see this “Messiah in America” well that was done by these two brothers. At first they weren’t that comfortable and more just talking to us but President being himself turned the meeting into the most spiritual thing I’ve witnessed on my mission. I am learning so much from him. These two brothers taught us and related the perfection needed for their music to us in our missions. They lead us in music and even performed for us. I am having a hard time telling you really what they did but it was so good. Everyone was a little skeptical at first and not even wanting to come. In the closing hymn we sung with such gusto. I thought angels were going to appear, never felt the spirit in that chapel so strong before.

On my mission I’m obviously learning more and more. When I look back at the beginning I can’t believe how little I really did know. What I’m seeing right now is elect of God. There are those who are prepared and those who aren’t. Everyone we are finding has been so prepared. Almost everyone we meet with have been brought real low but are now ready for the Lord to build them back up. The worst thing we can do is be content with where we are at, Satin works in mysterious ways. I love my mission. It has changed my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am the same Blake but a new person. I have a love for the scriptures and feast upon them daily.

Have a great week! I’ve been writing this email on our laptop while sitting in the back of our favorite Bishops SUV. He is driving us up to Kamas to go fishing for the day. I am pumped, feel like I’m on a road trip! I’ve been in that valley for 18 months, mountains acting as big walls on each side. I will have to send you some pictures of what I catch. Bishop Springer is the man and he’s a hardcore fisher..... Its now hours after we got home. We have decided we are better fishers of men than fishers of fish, so we are going to stick with sharing the Gospel. Caught zero fish but Bishop caught one and least I held it.

Love Elder Pizzey.

Diane's baptism

Dona's baptism

August 15, 2011

Week 4 of Transfer 13 - August 15th, 2011

Being an Assistant to the President is definitely not the easiest thing... Constantly going and never time to slow down. I love it though and I am so grateful for what I'm learning. I can't believe I will be hitting my 18th month mark this week. That is insane. When I look back at the beginning of my mission and remember all the missionaries who were at their 18th it seems crazy, they are all gone! And have been gone forever. My life has changed 180 degrees due to my mission. I can't describe what my mission means to me. I love it. I love Jesus Christ, I love the Gospel and I love the scriptures. By the way you should read "The Inconvenient Messiah" it is a great talk. This past week we had two of the four zone conferences (we group of zones) and this week we will finish them off. We had zero baptisms this past week which broke our seven week run of weekly baptisms (sometimes more than weekly) but this weekend it's picking back up once again. Let me share with you some of my experiences from this past week.

We are teaching this lady who's name is Diana. She is 25 years old and just the greatest person to teach. When we first met with Diana she said she wasn't interested in baptism but just wanted to learn more about the church. She was baptized two years ago in a christian church and was happy with where she was at. Well even though she told us that right from the beginning we invited her to be baptized on the first lesson and prepare for the 20th of August. She actually laughed at us and said no! Although she accepted the invitation to pray and ask God if it was necessary to be baptized and if the Book of Mormon was true. Second lesson she came doubting her Faith in Christ due to some SERIOUS trails in her life which she didn't share with us at the time. We threw our lesson plan out the window and taught to her needs. Ended up focusing the purpose of trails in this life and our moral agency. At the end of the lesson she said that she never felt anything like what she felt during that lesson, but still said no to baptism. Our third lesson she said yes to baptism but maybe in a few months. The fourth lesson she said, "Elders I want to be baptized on the original date you invited me, August 20th. Can I?" It has been amazing working with Diana, she will be baptized this weekend at 11am. Now you may understand why missionaries invite others to be baptized with a specific date on the first lessons. When someone is ready for the challenge, there is no need for the challenge.

I don't have time to even begin describing the progression of Dona! Remember she is the mother of Daniel Manar who we recently baptized. She has just taken off in her learning of the Gospel and is truly converted. We love her. She has sacrificed so much but the Lord is blessing her ten fold. She will be baptized this Saturday as well. It is nice having Daniel retaught the principles of the Gospel too.

There is this shady looking apartment complex in our area we call the "white buildings". We have names for all the apartments, just makes it easier. For the past month both Elder Bertolino and myself have felt prompted to tract them, but haven't found the time to do so. We always discuss and say we need to but finally this past Saturday we had the entire day to knock them down. Miracles occurred while we tracted those streets. From the beginning of the day I had a prayer in my heart that we would find someone because we needed to catch up! We hardly had anytime at all this past week to FIND. The second door we knocked a pretty lady covered in tattoo's opens the door and says as if she just woke up, "I am not a member... but I am interested. Can you come back?" We were a little confused and thought she was just playing with us but after some further conversation it turns out she really is. She has been thinking about it for awhile and wants to prepare for baptism. We are teaching her tomorrow. Other great things happened. Ran into people who recently had children and married. Basically the perfect time to find people.

There is my week for you. Thank you for the wonderful update from home and looking forward to hear from you next week. Please keep me updated with Paige and Lindsay, I proud of them. I imagine it would be humbling experience working with some of those kids. I can't wait to see pictures as well. I love you Mom and Dad, don't forget to read that talk! Maybe do it today as a little family home evening. Have a great week!

Love Elder Pizzey.

August 8, 2010

August 8, 2011 - Week 3 of Transfer 13
Just so you know. Its 4:45pm and we are in a huge rush. I have been typing for the past 20 minutes and everything just got deleted... Not to happy anymore. Well let me try to shorten everything up I said.

I am glad to see everything went OK this past weekend with the funeral and the birth of Marli, I like that name. I loved the pictures you sent of the kids, I hardly recognize them anymore. Good work Sisters for laying up treasures in heaven. Now Taren and Dave you better get started, don't let me beat you. I am really excited to have little Pizzey's running around. I almost forgot to mention the bad news you shared though. The car, I knew it. To be honest I thought it was already totalled and you were just waiting to tell me until I got home. Well good thing your off to Africa Paige! (Blake obviously does not know they are going to Ecuador) You won't need a car there that's for sure. Have fun girls! Love both of you.

Today we are emailing so late because we hiked Mount Olympus with Elder Brand who is leaving this week, he leaves mid transfer for school. We will miss him, he is unreal. Served as an Assistant from his 10 month mark until his 20th month mark, way intense. The hike killed me though, I am way out of shape. You just don't get enough time to exercise everyday as an Assistant. We also don't have meals everyday, which you think would be good but that just means we eat food that isn't as healthy. Fast food. I hate it. We just don't have time during those crucial hours for meals though.

This past week has been crazy hectic as well. We had Zone Leader Council last week. We addressed a few of the topics we felt our Zone Leaders need. There are a few that have polar opposite needs but with the training that was given both sides were met. It was focused on serving those we preside over and building our love for them. While we trained on that for an hour President Miller actually got down on the floor and polished every ones shoes... that was humbling to have him do that. I will never forget it. Then switched that around to IF you actually have true love for your Elders and Sisters you will have high expectations, therefore you will hold them accountable. The spirit was ever strong and it was the best ZLC I've attended. We have a few Zone Leaders who are departing this transfer and they shared their testimonies as well. I've learned alot from them.

There have been some crazy miracles with investigators that I wish I could share. This work is truly the work of our Heavenly Father. This past month we baptized 12 and for August we are projecting 9 and have a goal of 10. I hope we can hit it. It is a little stressful to have the "model area" for the entire mission but truly its my favorite part. I love being in our area and working it. We are trying to help our mission catch the vision which we have obtained. That is baptizing weekly.

The Salt Lake Big Cottonwood 2nd ward is the greatest ward in the world. The demographics are all over the map. Different ethnicity's and from extremely wealthy to low income. We attend this ward every week and feel at home here. A majority of Baptisms have been in this ward. I think it is stressing the WML out but also the ward council a little. The WML needs some help though, hardly any Ward Missionaries. I think one... doesn't work so well for teaching weekly new member lessons, which is scary. It is definitely keeping all of us on our toes though. The great thing is the retention rate in this ward is basically 100%, they do an unreal job.

Behreh this past week was baptized into the 2nd Ward this past Sunday. He is from Berma and speaks Korenni, not a common language. He is 14 years old and just the cutest little guy. We have been teaching him for 5 weeks and has come to church each week. Sumeh, one of Elder Bertolino's recent converts has been translating for us. She is 18 and preparing to serve a mission. She will be one of the first Korenni speaking missionaries. She will be the Lord's tool in bringing her people the Gospel, its so exciting.

So many other great things have happened. Recent converts receiving the Priesthood and passing the Sacrament for example. This week we have two Zone Conferences and next week two more. That means late nights and early mornings and long days at the mission office. Recently Zone Conference has gone from the Assistants training with the Mission President for the majority of the time to the Zone Leaders taking a big bulk of it with the mission President. So we will see how it goes, hopefully we can stay in our areas to study and proselyte.

Love you Ma and Pa! Also family and friends.

Love Elder Pizzey.

Behreh's Baptism

August 1, 2011

August 1, 2011 - Week 2 of Transfer 13

WHAT! I just started my email and got another one from you saying I have another niece! Marli! How cute, that is intense. Guess what!? I will let you in on a little secret, I have known for months that Breanne was having a girl. It was so hard not to tell you on Mother's day over the phone. She sent me an email awhile ago letting me know but told me to tell know one. How fun, I know. I'm glad all is well and everyone is healthy. I can't wait to see these little munchkins when I get back. Love you Breanne and Jordan.

I am so glad transfer week is over! I think we put in a total of 50 hours for that transfer, it was painful. We had 22 missionaries come in and President interviewed each one for 15 minutes, so you can do the math. That was a long day. We filled the time with trainings and what not. Drove them up in two different groups to Draper Temple to over look the mission and share some scriptures, get them pumped and catch the vision of baptizing weekly. For awhile in this mission we lost the vision of baptizing weekly and no one believed or even thought it was possible to baptize 100 people in your mission. Well its coming back, thats what Elder Bertolino and I focus on. We first had to start with our area and proving that it was possible. It is a complete mindset, and slowly other Elders are startng to grab hold of it. We have some Zone Leaders now who are starting to catch fire and then their zone follows. On the other hand there are a few zones struggling big time. It's hard to know just what to do to help them out. We are working on it.

We had 10 baptisms scheduled for this past weekend and 4 of them fell through but 6 baptisms is still lots! Let me explain about the four that fell through. Alex (10 yrs) and Miranda (12 yrs) Campbell from Ontario Canada. They are the smartest and most spiritually intune children I have ever taught! They were here for a little over a month visiting their mom who is an active member. Their father who lives in Canada is a non-member. It was a really difficult decision for them to get baptized but finally decided to go through with it. At first their father said he would support them in what ever they do but once they decided yes he told them they weren't allowed. The baptism was scheduled for Saturday and they found out Friday night it was a no, Alex was crying for ahile. It was a depressing night and it was extremely hard to have the motivation to work. BUT! We are going to have the missionaries in Canada begin teaching them and if the Father allows them people will pick them up for church. I love these two though, it felt like I was teaching somone my own age.

The other two. Behreh (14yrs) from Burma! I love him and he has fallen in love with the Gospel. He attends all the YM (youth) activites, church every week, and studies like crazy the things we leave him. His mom said yes but his dad said no to him being baptized but after us talking with his father he agreed it would be good for him. So Behreh's baptism moved from this past Sunday to next Saturday. And the other person really just fell off the map, hopefully one day though.

I love this area, it has been resurrected! It is baptizing like it used to back in the days of Daniel England. I don't think I have time to describe to you my day yesterday but it needs to be recorded! Let me make an attempt as usual. It topped if my mission as one of my greatest, it seems like they just keep getting better. First at 7:30am President came to our 'money' stake, the SL Big Cottonwood Stake to train the Leadership of the wards. As usual when President was speaking it was powerful and people didn't want him to stop. He called on us to come up to the pulpit and teach some princibles of the Restoration. After we had a meeting with the Mission Presidency, the Stake Presidency and us. At 9:15am we taught a joint Relief Society and Priesthood class on the Doctrine of Christ, which went quite well. Then we spoke at 11am for twenty minutes each, I focused on the Atonement. We didn't have anytime to prepare other than to gather some thoughts while the sacrement was being passed but the Lord really helped us there.

Immediately after speaking we flew to another church building for the baptismal interviews of the Gajmer family. We had this brother there to translate the sacrament meeting for this family, it was great for them. They could actually understand! The Napoli brother who came translate, is the man! He is a spiritual giant. Born in Napol and lived there forever, moved to China and was baptized there. Then came to study at BYU and now he works for the church and has just begun the translation of the Book of Mormon into Napoli. He submitted a request to make a Napoli branch here in the valley and was just given permission so it will be happening soon. Yesterday we baptized the 190th Napoli in the Salt Lake valley! I love these people. It was so cool to see Daniel England's recent converts, the Biswa's, using their Priesthood to baptize and confirm their relatives. We are now preparing the Biswa's to enter the temple in a few months. The hardcore translator will be teaching a temple prep class each week for them, this work is exciting.

Nasir Kalala, one of our recent converts, was in a serious car accident Saturday night and was rushed to the hospital. Our WML was able to go over there and give him a blessing, and the very next day he even showed up at church, but could hardly walk. He recieved the Aaronic Priesthood that very day and baptized his wife a few hours later! Elder Bertolino had to get in the water to help him lift his wife up and out of the water, it was hilarious. It is hard to catch you up to speed but this is the majority of it. I feel like most of these emails I just dump a bunch of stories into a big blob and it makes a big mess. Hopefully you get a sense of how things are going though. I do love your emails and look forward to them each week! Time is ticking down and going so fast! I am extremely motivated to work hard and accomplish my mission goal, it will be a tight one but I have faith that it will happen.

Love Elder Pizzey.

The Gajamer's and Biswas

The Campbells, fellow Canadian Kids