Monday, April 28, 2014

A week of blessings and miracles.

Hello! (:
This week was amazing! Miracles happened! At the mission conference last week Elder Bowen talked a lot about having false limitations. He asked what is the highest number of lessons taught in a week was for anybody in the room and it came to be like 20 or 25. Then he told us that we could be and should be teaching 40-50! We took Elder Bowen's remarks to heart and we "jumped out of the bucket" this week. Last Monday we set a goal to teach at least 30 lessons over all that week. Needless to say, it was challenging, but we taught a woppin' 35 lessons this week! We kept sooo busy! And not only that but we got 53 declarations (declaring a restored truth to somebody) and the usual standard is like 20 for the week. We committed to the Lord and he blessed us with so many opportunities to share the gospel. We were constantly busy in finding activities and in teaching people everywhere we went! So if you pray for opportunities the Lord will bless us with them (: I definitely know that to be true! One of them was on Tuesday. We were walking down the street and we got chased down by a YSA aged man named Adrian and he asked what we were doing, and we told him how we were missionaries and he thought that was great. He told us a little bit about he is selling a product and asked if we'd listen to him and his buddies about his product, which happened to be a natural energy drink called Verve. We told him that we'd listen to him if he'd listen to us, and he was willing to comply with that. (: haha So we went into a home where there were about 10 YSA aged people, and they were all super friendly. One of them, named Matt, knew a lot about our church and grew up living next to some members, and he respected us for what we do. Long story short, we ended up teaching a lot of the people there, and a few of them were interested in learning more, and asked for copies of the Book of Mormon. Needless to say it was a true miracle, and we have an appointment with them tomorrow.
We had a great lesson last night with our investigator Rachel! We went over the restoration with her and she had a lot of really good questions on our beliefs and about the priesthood. It was really good, and I feel like we did a good job at testifying of the truths that we know.
We also got to teach our investigator Bill. We read over the introduction to the Book of Mormon with him and that went really well. He also had some really good questions regarding our belief in the Godhead. We were able to sing for him after the lesson was over, and I got to play the guitar! We sang I am a Child of God, right in the middle of the university campus in our stake. It was awesome (: That truly is a powerful tool that we have, is singing!
I wish I had more time to talk about all the miracles we had this week! I have an even stronger testimony now that God truly does love us and he cares about us, and He is willing to grant us anything that we ask of Him in prayer, if it be His will! We were so blessed this week with opportunities to share the Gospel, and we are planning on working even harder this week! thank you for all your love, support and prayers! You are in mine constantly (: can't wait to talk to ya on Mother's Day! Love and miss you! Have a great week!
Elder Teeples (:

We went into a member's real estate office to grab a gift from her to us, and the receptionist was a member as well, and asked our names, and when she heard my name, she was like "What?! I'm a Teeples!" Apparently, her ancestor is George Bentley Jr. who was brothers to Henry A. Teeples. So I pulled out a copy of one of dad's emails to me, about our heritage with the church, and she took a copy of it. She said she was going to email you to talk a little bit more about that but that was an awesome experience for the week (:

Monday, April 21, 2014

Spiritually fed by an apostle..Love Elder Nelson!

Hola!
 
Wow, what a week! I learned so much on how to be a better missionary! This week was just full of constant reminders and invitations to be exactly obedient and I personally have risen to a new sense of commitment. To top off last week with hearing from Elder Nelson was just phenomenal! I know even more so now that he is an apostle of the Lord. Such an amazing meeting! and his sense of humor is awesome! I love it! He has always been one of my favorite apostles.
 
We had a couple miracles this week. That's great that you have seen the video "Because of Him"  It's really so good! and we have enjoyed using the "Because of Him" video as a tool for our work.  We told everybody about it this week! It is so short but yet so powerful (: Share it with everybody you know!
 
We met an elderly lady named Martha while tracting. She was a born again Christian and she was bitter towards us at first, but one thing led to another, and we were able to read her a scripture from the Book of Mormon (out of Alma 40) and she felt the spirit very strongly and started to weep and pray to Heavenly Father. It was a really spiritual experience! She said she wouldn't mind missionaries coming by in the future. The Book of Mormon is so powerful like that and it carries the spirit so easily! 
 
We had a great lesson with our investigator Nichole. She had a lot of questions that have arisen from conversations with her friends from other churches, and we were able to answer most of her questions. We found from her questions that she really is searching for the truth. It is so great to see!
 
After the mission conference on Saturday, we visited a less active named Ivy, and it was so cool, we brought the spirit from the conference straight with us into the lesson. It took a lot of persistence, but she committed to come to church, and she came yesterday! Ahh A true miracle! Last night we were able to find a couple YSA people named Miguel and Melissa, and we had a brief lesson with them about God's love for us and the Book of Mormon. She seemed really sincere about reading the Book of Mormon and we are excited to follow up with them on that. Something I find I am often writing in my journal at the end of each entry is "There are prepared people everywhere!" and it definitely applies this week!
Elder Bate is a very good companion. He is so good at teaching with power and authority and I have learned from him a lot in that aspect. He seems to be very humble and willing to submit to whatever the Lord wants him to do. We have both set a goal for this week to teach at least 30 lessons total this week.
In my studies this week I studied a lot of Elder Nelson's talks in preparation for the meeting. One on the lessons we can learn from the Lord's prayers, the 3 that you sent out to us and a couple other ones. I always love his enthusiasm in his talks! I especially enjoyed his talk just a couple weeks ago. He sets a great example of letting your faith show, and his talk was simple and easy to understand. I also studied shortly the talk by Bishop Stevenson about our "4 minutes" that was a wonderful talk as well. So powerful.  We can really relate the 4 minutes to our missions. I wish I had more time to include some notes from the conference!
 
But anyways it was a wonderful week (: Thank you so much for all your love and support and I hope all is well at home! You are in my thoughts and prayers! Love and miss you very much!
 
Love,
Elder Teeples (:

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Elder Bate is Great. He's a worker!

Hello!! (:
This week was pretty good, and we have a reeeeeallllly busy week this week! Things with Elder Bate are going well. (: He is from Ogden, UT. He definitely has a desire to work. On our way back from Ventura on Tuesday we stopped at In'n'out for lunch. Elder Bate just started conversations with everybody he could, which is something I am not used to doing... I usually just keep to myself in public places like that. We both started talking to this girl named Angel, and it turns out that she hasn't been to church for a while because the church she goes to is down in LA where she's from. So we asked if she would be interested in hearing more about our church and she said she would like that, so we got her number and everything (: That taught me a lesson that day to just talk with anybody you possibly can! I got to see Leroy at the transfer meeting last week which was awesome! It was so good to see him!
But yeah, this week we have our mission leadership council meeting which will be all day on Tuesday, then this Saturday is our visit from Elder Nelson! I'm so excited! We rarely, if ever, have mission conferences in which the whole mission is in attendance, so this is a pretty good treat (: Haha. I'm not sure if we all get to meet him or not, but I sure hope so! that would be amazing!
Jose had something come up the day our lesson was scheduled... unfortunately. But its alright we are going to see if we can set something up for this week!
A lot of this week was spent coming up with some goals that we want to present to the zone. We have thought a lot about focusing on the Book of Mormon and placing a certain amount of them per week? Ha we still aren't totally sure. But we are excited (:
We did however teach a few lessons this week. One of them was with a potential investigator named Bill. We met with him along with a member and it was a really good lesson. We used lots of scriptures and such. Near the end of the lesson, his friend Bob came and joined us. So we got 2 new investigators that day, Bill and Bob (: Hahah we got a laugh out of that. We also taught a less active girl named Ivy. She is the only member of her family, and It was a great lesson with her! We just talked about the importance of scripture study, prayer and, of course, coming to church (: Ha. She is really cool though. Then her mom made us amazing casadillas! She is learning to speak English and is surprisingly good. She was so kind! One of the nicest ladies I have met! She prayed for us so sincerely before we left and I felt the love of Christ flowing from her. It was great (: Last night we had a couple really cool miracles. The night was coming to a close as we were walking around an apartment complex and we came across a man named JR. He was just outside and told us how he has a strong faith in God. He told us how he had talked with missionaries before, But not too in depth. He has really been prepared by the Lord! We were somehow talking about Adam and Eve, and he said something along the lines of "God knew that Eve was going to eat the fruit! It wasn't like He wasn't expecting it. He knew the fall of Adam was going to happen." Then we asked him what he thought the purpose of life was, and he was like "bro, we are here to experience good and evil. God wanted us to experience both so we could choose for ourselves and have faith in him." Needless to say, I was just waitng for him to bust up laughing and admit to being a member of the church... but this was not the case. Ha so we passed him on to the Elders who would be teaching him (: There are prepared people everywhere!
Yesterday there was a fire of something along the main road to get to the church building.... and we had a couple investigators who were really planning on coming to church, but they never showed up.... So we are guessing that the road blockage prevented them from coming :/ darn adversary. He truly does anything he can to prevent people from coming to church! AHHH!
But yeah it was a good week. Thank you for all your love and support (: I hope all is going well at home! (: I hope you are doing well with your schooling! Have a wonderful week! Love and miss ya!
Elder Teeples
The district!

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Conference was so great! Transfers again....losing Elder Robinson....Dang!

Hello!
General Conference was soooooooooo good! Ahhh! It was just what I needed (: I have been starting to get overwhelmed with all the busy stuff we have to do, and that spiritual boost was just what I needed! I loved Elder Holland's testimony "I'm more sure that Jesus Christ lives...than I'm sure I stand before you today" Sooooooo powerful! I loved it! I really liked Elder Bednars talk as well about how our trials and hardships are what give us the strength to endure life. Amazing! Desiree came to all 4 sessions of general conference. We watched it at our stake center. On saturday she made Elder Robison and I sandwiches and on Sunday she made spaghetti for all the missionaries that watched it at that building and we all had lunch together! She really is so great. She loves serving and really has a testimony of this Gospel. She has been such a blessing and example in my life! For the priesthood session there were some technical difficulties.... So randomly in the middle of talks, it would switch to Spanish.... So we missed most of Elder Oaks talk and random bits of other ones but its alright (:
Not an awful lot happened this week. We got our transfer calls!!! I will be staying and Elder Robison is leaving me, sadly #heartbroken): He is going to Thousand Oaks to be a zone leader over there, and my new companion will be coming from Thousand Oaks. His name is Elder Bate! I have met him at meetings so I know who he is and everthing (: He should be a great companion!
 
We found a new investigator this week! It was kinda cool, it was like 8:15 pm and we didn't know what to do, so we went to this one apartment complex to knock on a couple doors. We just started walking through the complex and walked into a random building, and went upstairs and knocked on random door, and it was this 18 year old named Jose. He was super nice! He said he is really open to anything, and he told us about how he is in a mariachi band with his dad, and he was the drummer. We have an appointment with him this week. He is way cool and we are excited to see where it goes with him!
Yeah other than that nothing really happened. I am excited for this next transfer! Thank you for all your love and support (: I am going to write everybody letters today and send them off soon. I hope all is going well! I stole a quote that Heather sent in one of her emails and it goes right along with Elder Bednar's talk. "A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships." I love it because it is so true! I love my Savior and I love this Gospel! Have a great week (:
Elder Teeples!

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Desiree was Baptized!!!

Hola! (:
So this week was really good! I guess first things first, the baptism went really great! I sent a picture of it in another email. It was such an amazing experience! One that I will never trade for anything. It was so amazing to see how she changed her life for the better! I'm not sure just how much she would feel comfortable with me telling you, but she has made tremendous changes to join the church. She read the whole For Strength of Youth pamphlet multiple times and as she learns more from it, she doest the best that she can to follow it as closely as possible. That is such a good example for me! I'm so grateful for that in my life. There really is such a light about her! The baptismal service was very spiritual. We were kind of worried though.. it was supposed to start at 3 pm, and at 3 pm... only a couple people had showed up! And most of the people on that had parts in the program weren't there yet... but we started the service by 3:15 and it went great. Apparently it was a pretty stressful day for most people, as that is to be expected the day of a baptism. Crazy! But it was awesome (: And I had the honor and privilege of being the voice of her confirmation. It was amazing! An experience I wouldn't trade for the world!
Another cool thing that happened was yesterday. I don't know if you remember Kate Hansen from the olympics? She was the world champion in the luge and I think she got silver this year in the olympics? I can't remember... Well she did a fireside in Camarillo last night and that was way cool! She is LDS and she talked about her story of becoming an olympian, and talked about some the trials that she had had in her experience. And she talked about how although they seemed like trials that would have ended her path in becoming an olympian, they actually made her stronger and she actually became better because of them, and called them "blessings in disguise." It was a powerful meeting. Elder Robison and I got to meet her afterwards! So that was really cool. But yet... meeting a world champion and olympian still wasn't as great and rewarding as bringing Desiree into the fold of God. It's amazing the impact we have as missionaries (: I would definitely take a baptism over meeting an olympian any day.
Hmm... other than that not too much happened. We had a really good visit with our investigator Nichole! We met her at the park for a picnic and she brought uncrustables (: They are so good! She had some questions about the Plan of Salvation so we did our best to answer her questions. She went to the womens meeting and from what we know she really liked it! We are all looking forward to General Conference this weekend! Ah It will be so amazing! And we are stoked to have Elder Nelson visit us (:
I hope all is well at home! I will write Grandma T. a letter this week! Thank you for all that you do! I love and miss you lots! Have a great week (:
Elder Teeples!