Week # 7

Hey Family-

This week was not a productive missionary work week. On Tuesday Elder Tienda and I were being silly and running to our district leaders car when he tripped and landed face first on the  street. His face was pretty cut up and swollen so he wanted to stay inside this week.  He is much better now, I just worry that it will be tough to get him in the working mood now that he got to relax... We shall see. I have not moved and now it seems like we wont move anytime soon.  I am really glad that the Payson picnic went well. I certainly missed it as I am sure Dylan did as well; but we are extremely glad to be serving the Lord.

 

  Nate - Good luck on your show dude. I have not heard of "Anything Goes " but I am sure you will have fun and enjoy it..  How is freshman year goping ? Hate it or love it ? I remember my freshman year :) I was a crazy little guy !!

 

   Nicole - Good luck in Volleyball ! What position do you mostly play ? I remember watching your volleyball and softball games with mom and I will certainly miss that. But you will do great!! You still work at triple P ? How is that going? Oh by the way my district leader wants to write you :P haha l;ove ya

 

  Wow thats crazy about Cody, I am glad that he is doing better though. I bet his mom way way freaked out ! Was he bummed that he is staying stateside now ?

 

Anyways I learned a pretty cool lesson this week. We were at a store and I saw some soccer jerseys. On the Mexican soccer jersey written on the tag was the inscription " Somos Guerreros." That means We are warriors. I thought that was way cool. They go out on their "battlefield" and "fight till the death". We as members of the church are also warriors. We are enlisted in God's Army which is the greatest army ever created. Our enemy is darkness and our weapon is our testimony.  I am often reminded of the Hymn We are Enlisted. The lyrics are different in Spanish. It starts off Somos los Soldados que combaten error; that means we are the soldiers that fight against wrong.  Later on it says a la batalla id sin tardar, con la verdad podreis conquistar. That means  to the battle go without delay, with the truth we can conquer. That is so true! The world is full of darkness these days, but there can be light wherever we are!  But Just like you wouldnt want to go into battle with a dull or broken sword, you dont want your testimony to be dull or broken. We need to "sharpen" our testimonies. How do we do this ? By reading our scriptures, praying and serving faithfully in the church.  If we fight this battle faithfully to the death, we have been promised a great blessing. Back to teh hymn it says, " un hogar celestial vamos a ganar. THat means a celestial we shall win. That is our reward. ETERNAL LIFE. The greatest gift possible. I want to invite all of you to be a light in the darkness. to stand up against Satan and his warriors. I can promise you that if you do so, you will be blessed beyond belief and in the end, we can recieve eternal life.

  Well I love you all and take care !!

- Elder Weston Dutson

Week # 6

Hey family !

 

Once again another week has flown by!  I guess i want to start off and say thanks mom for the little package. I was the envy of the district with my new pillowcase :) The ABC's of missionary work is pretty cool too. I am trying to work one letter each day and focus on improving in that area. Well now I guess I will get to the transfer news! Elder Tienda and I are are staying together !! Yay !  We were both pretty excited about that.  My district leader will be training so we said goodbye to Elder Villegas, and Elder Aranda has completed his mission, ao Elder Okazaki will be getting a new companion as well. There is a really good chance that Elder Tienda and I will be moving to another apartment complex this transfer, so I will keep you all updated about a possible change of address.

   The past week was soo good. It was our district's turn to have interviews with President Martin. Man do i love him! He is such a loving and fun man ! Elder Tienda and I set a baptismal date with Jenny ! It was way cool, before we even finsihed asking her, she said I want to be baptized so we asked her if Sept 11 would be too soon. She said that it would be perfect ! Oh and I heard from Elder Welker. He is back down in teh Vegas valley. he visited Amelia Lopez ( mother of the kids whom we baptized while I was there) and he sadi she was asking about me :) he is going to give me her info :)

  Along with the baptismal dte, we have been teaching a guy from El salvador named Tony. He is an incredible guy.  He is a Catholic, but he has a sincere desire to learn the truth. We met him knocking doors and we gave him a book of Mormon. He promised to start reading it and he said he would call us. He called us on Wednesday and we met him at a park. he had already the first 5 chapters in 1st nephi and is very curious.

  This week while I was studying in the Book of Mormon and I came across something that I thought was really cool. It is in 2nd Nephi 2:6-8. It says :

 6 Wherefore, ^aredemption cometh in and through the ^bHoly ^cMessiah; for he is full of^dgrace and truth.

 7 Behold, he offereth himself a ^asacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto ^bnone else can the^cends of the law be answered.

 8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, ^asave it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who ^blayeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the ^cresurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.

I can definitely testify that is true. Our purpose as missionaries to bring others to Christ; in teaching that we testify of the great gift of teh Atonement. That he suffered for everyone who is willing to come with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  But my favorite part is the last verse. Us as members of teh church, not just as full time missionaries have the great priviledge and responisbility to make those things known to the inhabitants of the Earth.  Sometimes as worldly human beings we fel afraid to open our mouths, but every time I feel that way, I am reminded of Lehi's attitude in the Tree of Life dream. He talks about that great DESIRE that everybody partake of the fruit because of how much he enjoyed it. I definitely am soo grateful for teh gospel in my life and I am blessed to have all of my immediate family in the gospel. But everybody is my brothers and sisters. I dont want anyone of them to get lost, to to wander off into strabge paths as it says in the dream.  So I challenge you as I have challenged myself, to take on this great priviledge and responsibility and "make these things known unto the inhabitants of teh Earth, that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits and mercy and grace of our Holy Messiah.."  I promise you that as you do that, your hearts will swell with charity and you will find the great joy that comes with sharing the gospel.

  

   I want you all to know I love you and pray for you everyday!

 

con amor,

- Elder Dutson

Week # 5

Hey Family!

How exciting to hear about the wedding date ! I am way jealous that you all get to be there and I dont, but you will all just have to give her a biggg hug for me! Congratulations Nate on making Student Council, way cool! even though i never did like those Student Council kids :p I am glad that you and dad get the chance to have a little getaway ! And definitely take the opportunity to attend the Snowflake temple. Temples are so amazing. One of the many reasons that our message we share as missionariers is a happy one is because of the joy of temples and the sacred and eternal things that are done there. I am way excited for Courtney and James to be able to do that together.

  Congrats Nikki on making Varsity VB even though that isn't much of a suprise. You are way talented and I am pretty sure that even if I would have tried harder in school, I would not have been as smart or as athletically talented as you are! Thats a bummer about kayla Keith not getting in. :( But there are many other fun activities that she can join now !

  Elder Iver and Elder Gray are companions now ? Thats way cool. I have stayed in contact with Elder Gray even out here in CA and it sounds like he has had an incredible mission. You will have to send Elder Iver and Elder Gray my love !

    I really like that glove idea ! It is cool because those five things are essencial in being baptized. They have to have atestimony that we are all sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father, that he sent His Son to die for us; that the proper pristhood authority was lost upon the earth with the death of Christ and his apostles. We have to know that our Heavenly Father has never kept that guidance that teh priesthood and prophets have, from permanently leaving the earth. That he has sent the people many prophets in the past, even after they repeatedly reject them. And because of that, Joseph Smith was called as a Prophet of God to restore the true and complete church of Jesus CHrist, and that he will never take prophets from us again. It is such a beautiful message !

  WOW! thats crazy about Dusty! Hopefully he will be ok and he and his family will be in my prayers.

  Hey Grandma how is Johalan's family doing ? Hopefully, they have been able to feel of his Spirit as he tries to let his family know that he is ok!

 

   This week has kind of been a rough week. Our whole district had little success. We had many appointments scheduled, but Satan works really hard to create interference and most of our appointments cancelled this week. We have high hopes for this week though and we have planned to extend a baptismal commitment to our top investigator. Her name is Jenny and she is a very nice lady. We have been teaching her ever since I got here. Elder Tienda and I really believe she is ready for baptism and she has a sincere desire to do what her Heavenly Father wants from here. I will keep you posted! As for the rest of the work, we are having a blast. Our district is way close and we enjoy hanging out on our preperation days! Transfers are coming up next monday so we are all hoping to stay the same.!

 I have heard that we are having a mission tour in a few weeks. One of the Seventy will be coming to our mission but I have not heard when or who just yet ! I am way excited and it brings back memories of when I was in teh MTC during the new mission president training. I got to be in a meeting where all of the Twelve were present and I got to shake several members of ther Seventy's hands ! Well, i definitely love ya all and miss ya ! P.s. my official six monthy mark is in like 3 weeks ! I will have to burn a tie but its kind of sad. I dont want to think abouty time gone, just time i have left!! I love the mission so much and the experience and knowledge that it is bringing me.

  Elder Tienda and I recently read a talk entitled Consecrated missionaries. We have recommitted ourselves personally and as a companionship to be completely consecrated missionaries and give our all to the Lord.  I am constantly reminded of my weaknesses as I have many, but like it says in Ether 12:27 that i have weaknesses for a reason. Ha I am already pretty prideful somethimes, so if I didnt have weaknesses my head wouldnt be able to fit through any doorways. Weaknesses and struggles gives us opportunities to change better ourselves. But just like that scripture says, that if I will humble myslef and come unto Christ totally, being a totally consecrated missionary, that those weak things can become strengths!

 Love you all,

- Elder Weston Dutson

Week #4

Dear Family,
 Haha you guys have 8 o clock church i forgot :P My ward starts at 11 which is like the absolute perfect time :) But its a little weird. Hispanic people are always late to like everything(which drives me nuts ) and so in order to get more people to Sacrament meeting, they have all the classes first and Sacrament meeting is the last meeting of the day. It took some getting used to. This week was way amazing though. Elder Tienda and I had been struggling to find investigators since I got here and we had been holding on to some people thatw e really should have dropped, just so that we had people to teach. But we prayed about it and decided to drop all those people that needed to be dropped. Well the Lord definitely blessed us, because as soon as we did that, we found many people that the Lord had prepared for us. We found NINE new investigators this week. Way Awesome !
    The neighborhood continues to be scary haha... This past week there was like a shooting every other day. We constantly see police and people being arrested, but we know that we will be protected as long as we are doing what we should be doing. Most of the bad guys respect us anyways because we are brave enough to walk around on the streets.
  Tell Steve Congrats ! thats way cool :)  What is relationship situation? has he got engaged yet ? Courtney told me about the job situation thats kind of a bummer but it will work out !!
  Lucy attacked another dog ?! Is she sick or something ? she is like the least aggresive dog i have ever met... I hope Kirks' wifes' dog will be ok and I hope that they are not too mad at you guys.. We have a lot of fun pictures that i will try and send ! Give all the family my love!
-Elder Dutson

Elder Dutson also mentioned that he had the pleasure of eating "Cow, Goat guts tacos" and he thought they were "Way Yummy"

                                                                    Elder Okazaki

                                                                     Elder Tienda

Week #3

Dear Family- Thank you for gettiong all the mailing addresses set up :)  This week was definitely interesting lol. Our area is really rough and in fact, there are a couple streets where we are not supposed to be on past like 7 or 8 because it's dangerous.  We witnessed like 5 people get arrested this week. And while we were on a certain street, probably like 2 or 3 blocks down the same street, there was a shooting. It was way crazy ! And Friday night/ early Saturday morning, i was woken up by a police helicopter circling our apartment complex and shining the spotlight looking for somebody. It was way scary.
   What you said about obedience is absolutely true.  We have witnessed, how sacrifing something that you want to do, that would comprise one of the mission rules and doing whats right,  we have had added power when we teach. It's soething I appreciate very much. I have some pictures that i will try and send you as well.
  Elder Tienda and I are going to start a fast of our so that we can find people to teach, since we still are not having much luck.
 Last Monday we ate dinner at a members house and it made me laugh. They speak perfect english and they wanted to speak English with me. They are BIG Lakers fans and when I told them I was a Celtics fan they teased me( just like tyhe Montez's would do :P). They are really fun though. We are eating over there again today.  Thanks for all the love )
- Elder Dutson

    Elder Dutson and Elder Tienda