Weekly Update~ "Blessings Come When We Seek For The Savior's Power as Bad as We Want to Breathe"

Dear family and friends,

RJ and His New Companion Elder Moyes

 One of the oft-referred to stories of this recent General Conference was the woman who suffered from the debilitating blood condition for 12 years. I loved this story in context to President Nelson's talk on Drawing the power of Jesus Christ into our lives. Like the woman who stretched physically and spiritually in order to grasp the Savior's power into her life. There are a few experiences where I witnessed others and myself stretch this week. 

We are teaching a man right now who has gone through a lot. I have seen him bring forth many fruits signifying his repentance and becoming a new man. However, he just seems to be one of those people who can't seem to catch a break. For about the past 3 years, he has been bounced around from home to home, trying to look for a job and making ends meet. He expressed to us that after he met the missionaries, he found a new found hope in life and things began to work out for him. He found a job about a month and a half ago at a casino running slot machines and began a training without pay soon thereafter. However because of the difficulty of circumstances before, along the way he got both his national I.D. and passport stolen, which has now arisen to become a big problem. Last week, his employers requested everyone to display some sort of identification before the training ends this week. In his desperation, he came to us, asking us to spot him 40k UGX for a new passport. I felt awful for him and was really stressed about what to do. After I got off the phone with him last Friday morning, Elder Moyes and I decided to pray about it. When we finished, a story I heard from MLC a few months back came to mind. In Mexico, there was a mission president faced with a dilemma of government marriage being an obstacle to many couples' being baptized. They simply couldn't afford to pay to get it done so they continued to co-habitate. However, the leaders of the church came up with a program to cut the price of marriage. When this plan was presented to this mission president, it didn't feel right for him to approve it. He thought about it all the way to an interview with a young couple preparing to be baptized. In this interview, he discovered that the couple went three days without eating in order to have enough money for their marriage, leading to their baptism into the church. With this experience, the mission president felt inspired to reject the plan and give these investigators the opportunity to exercise faith and let the Lord provide a way. We came to a similar conclusion with this man. When we went to his home to explain why we were not giving him the money by sharing with him the scripture in Luke 8 about the woman with the blood disease, he was completely understanding and the Spirit filled the room. We followed up with him this week and he told us as he prayed for direction on how to find the money to pay for a new passport, he felt inspired he needed to sell his phone and use the money that would be coming from his job to first pay rent so he could keep the spot in the home he is currently staying in, then buy a new phone in a few months. He felt confident it came from the Lord and we were grateful to witness this man stretch himself and seek God's will.

On Tuesday, I went on an exchange with Elder Seibert. The whole day was relatively good, but we hadn't had any really faith building experiences and hadn't seemed to learn much from each other. As we were discussing these feelings on our way to our last appointment which happened to be a member whom we would be teaching the restoration in 15 minutes too, we made a goal with each other that we'd make it the most powerful lesson of the day. But, to our dismay, he bounced us. It was 8:30 PM. Usually, it's time to prepare to go home if your lesson falls through at that time. However, I felt like there was more to be done in the day. We decided to pray and ask the Lord whom he would have us visit to share the message of the Restoration too to conclude the day. We sat and waited for revelation to come. Elder Seibert, having served in Nsambya before, suggested we visit a less-active member. We called him, and he told us he was home, so we put the truck in gear and sped off to his home 15 minutes away. We testified simply of the truths of the restoration, and finished. We were overcome at the Spirit that was present. We felt inspired to ask for a referral and he immediately listed off a name from the top of his head and told us to call him in the morning to find out when we could go together to meet with him. When we got to the car, we offered a simple prayer of gratitude thanking the Lord for using us as tools to share with someone who needed that message and for helping us stretch ourselves. Truly, I know blessings come when we seek for the Savior's power as bad as we want to breathe. 

I love you all,

Elder Hazen

Weekly Update~ "Following the Spirit"

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sure I've mentioned that last transfer, President Collings gave us a challenge to go into as many members' homes as possible and share the message of the Restoration in 15 minutes. The purpose of this exercise is to be simple and invite the Spirit and after we testify simply, ask for a referral. If done right with the Spirit present, President promised many referrals would come from it. He was right. We applied this in four different different homes and many referrals came from it that we were able to follow up with on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Thankfully, our teaching pool is now full of many people with tons of potential to progress.

Yesterday evening, we had a neat experience with prayer. Elder Moyes is a master at following the Spirit and I've learned so much from him already. At around 6:30, we were waiting for our investigator, Rajab, but when we called him, he told us he was just leaving his house, a 20 minute walk away. I thought it would be a good idea to go visit Andrew, who lived 5 minutes from the church, because he left church early and I wanted to find out why. But Elder Moyes stopped me and asked me if we could pray about it. To be honest, I was a little confused, because I thought it would be an effective way to use our time and it was close, so we could leave right when Rajab got there. But Elder Moyes brought up the idea that if we waited for Rajab, we wouldn't be able to meet with Alpha at 7:30. Alpha was a younger man that we met last Monday evening while visiting a less-active. When we were there, we shared the Living Christ with all who were present and set a return appointment with Alpha in the weekend. And so, we prayed about it. After waiting, we felt that we needed to cancel with Rajab, go see Andrew and maybe another individual, then go see Alpha. We found out why when we got there. At that particular time, Alpha was home with his mother, Sarah, who spoke great English, and had not been to church in some time because of a leg condition she had developed. We invited her to participate in the lesson, as we shared with Alpha the message of the Restoration. From the moment we said "amen" to the opening prayer, both were so engaged, asking questions, repeating what we were saying for clarification, and sharing insights. The Spirit was so strong in the house throughout the entire lesson and both accepted baptism dates in May. When we got back to the truck, Elder Moyes and I knew that we had to be in that home at that time for a reason and just poured out our hearts in prayer in gratitude to Heavenly Father for the blessings we saw throughout that day and that week. There is nothing better as a missionary than feeling a feeling of peace and approval that comes from the Spirit when following a prompting. 

There are many amazing things that are on the brink of happening in this zone and stake as we continue to work with the members. 

I love you all,

Elder Hazen

His Companion is Headed Home

Saying Goodbye to Elder Ward

Rainy Season

Flooding

Locked Keys in the Truck

Weekly Update~ "A Stone Cut Out of the Mountain"

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry, I don't have time for a long discourse of my week, but here's a few thoughts and events from this week.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Elder Nambale's birthday as a zone by going to the Ethiopian restaurant in Elder Packer and Shumway's area. It cured some of his yearning for the homeland where he spent 9 brutal months of his mission. Here's a few pictures of us enjoying the "soggy rag" known as njera and other authentic Ethiopian food, eaten without utensils of course!

Elder Robinson gave Elder Nambale and I a challenge to contact and visit 5 members during the week. The purpose for this was to begin to bridge the gap between us as missionaries and the members of the branch. Sometimes as missionaries we fall into the mindset that we have to get all the work done and baptize the entire country, but the Lord has provided a better way in his wisdom. There is a reason why Branch Presidents are the one who hold the keys of missionary work in their particular branch. Elder Nambale and I made a specific goal to go visit President William in his home to share the Restoration and discuss about his role in the work and ours and how we can better work together moving forward. We shared the Restoration briefly to invite the Spirit, asking him to share his testimony on specific things like the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. I was very pleased with how strong President's testimony is of the Gospel and as I heard him testify, the Spirit was in the room. We continued our conversation and reminded him of our support for him as missionaries serving in his branch and offered our help with anything he needed. He then told us of the struggles Rwanda has faced over these past years, especially in dealing with poverty, and he voiced his concern that the members don't understand the blessings tithing brings. He told us that if people understood the power our Father in Heaven has and increased their faith, he would lift them in their trials and would begin to support them so much so that their worries concerning money and other worldly things would disappear altogether. I was thankful for the love that President William obviously has towards the members of this branch and we committed to make tithing a focal point for the lessons we share with the members moving forward. I know that if the missionaries and the members develop a missionary work oriented attitude, then the work will begin to progress and it will accelerate like the stone cut out of the mountain and this Gospel will fill Rwanda like Elder Bednar prophesied. 

During weekly planning this week, Elder Nambale and I decided to consecrate our day tomorrow and dedicate it completely to finding new families. Please keep us in your prayers this evening.

I love you all,

Elder Hazen