Week 40 in the Field - Temple Trip, 7 Baptisms, and The Key to Revelation

Temple Trip as a Zone

Elder Alarcon and Me

Week 39 in the Field - Baptism Dates, Translating, and Preparing for Heaven

Weekly Letter 20 July 2015

Hi everyone, hope you've all had a great week.

This week I had the pleasure of attending a multi-zone mission conference with President Crapo and his wife. The conference was centered around the hymn "Rise Up Oh Men of God" and the implementation of a forty day spiritual program. We also had a few different workshops centered on mission goals and how to achieve them. I was honored with the experience to translate for Sister Crapo, the mission president's wife, in one of these workshops. That was a really cool, new thing which I had never done before. Overall the conference was great, filled with inspired counsel and powerful teachings.

This week we've been working a lot with the Mendez Family, the same family I mentioned in my letter last week. The adopted daughter Mariela now has a baptism date for the twelfth of September. They have a lot of trials but are excited to take a greater part in the gospel.

This week I've been thinking a lot about the topic of preparation for heaven. In Guatemala there are a lot of Evangelical Christians who constantly talk about having Jesus in your heart. They say that people cannot choose to change, they must wait until a desire is born within them to change. Many people postpone the day of their repentance, hoping for some miracle to save them from sin and they die before the miracle ever comes. They reject the role of personal agency and obedience, preferring a gospel of salvation IN sin, rather than salvation FROM sin. They emphasize that we are but mere creatures indebted to Christ rather than proclaiming that we are the sons and daughters of God that shall be eternally grateful for and towards Christ.

Brad Wilcox has an interesting story on this principle. He says, "I have born-again Christian friends who say, 'You Mormons are trying to EARN your way to heaven.' I say, 'No, we are not EARNING heaven, we are LEARNING heaven.'...They ask me, 'Well have you been saved by grace?' and I say 'Yes, absolutely, totally, completely, thankfully, yes.' And then I ask them a question that perhaps they have not fully considered: "Have you been CHANGED by grace?'

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that "Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue that path that leads to it". The Prophet Brigham Young explained that true, eternal, complete happiness is found in the kind of life God lives. Thus, "The whole object of the creation of this world is to exalt the intelligences that are placed upon it, that they may live, endure, and increase for ever and ever". Perfection is an inherent requirement in such exaltation. Again from Joseph Smith: "The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and life the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his maker and is caught up to dwell with him. But, "the prophet continued, and this but is very important, "we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment".

I believe that this is such an important truth. We cannot arrive to perfection in a moment. In the same way, we will not likely gain a testimony in an instant. We will not be charitable in an instant, nor patient nor virtuous nor obedient, nor any of the other Christ-like qualities in but a mere moment. Even at death, as we shed the clothing of our mortal tabernacle, we will not suddenly desire to do good nor will we be immediately freed from the baggage of sin and the burden of guilt. Truly the words of Amulek contain an eternal verity: 'this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God".

Again from Brigham Young:

"Some might suppose that it would be a great blessing to be taken and carried directly into heaven and set down there, but in reality that would be no blessing to such persons; they could not reap a full reward, could not enjoy the glory of the kingdom, and could not comprehend and abide the light thereof, but it would be to them a hell intolerable and I suppose it would consume them much quicker than would hell fire. It would be no blessing to be carried into the celestial kingdom, and obliged to stay therein, unless you were prepared to dwell there".

Heaven will not be heaven to those who are not heavenly themselves. I would imagine that if we feel uncomfortable in churches, if we hate reading the scriptures, if we take too much joy in the things of the world then we are not yet prepared to enter into the Celestial Kingdom.

We will not enter in to the Celestial Kingdom by accident. We will also not pray by chance or all of a sudden pay our tithing. Happiness is a choice, both temporally and eternally. We are here not to earn heaven, but to learn it. Earth life is not necessarily about presentation but more about preparation.

I hope that we might all live by celestial laws so that we might become celestial people and prepare for celestial glory. Our heavenly parents have dropped us off at school, and the duration of this earth life is but a single day of preparation and learning, but oh, what  a day!

-Elder Dawson

This is how we have to fill up the font some times. Water here is not like a 24 7 thing, it comes like for two hours a day, sometimes in the middle of the night. So if you don´t catch it and need to use a lot of water you have to call a water truck so thats what Elder Alarcon is doing in this photo.

Week 38 in the Field - Mendez Family, Street Contacting, and Resurrection

Weekly Letter 13 July 2015

Hi guys, I hope you've all had a great week.

This week Elder Alarcon and I have been working hard with the Mendez Family. The mom, Marilu, was baptized 5 years ago. She has a testimony but not a great understanding of the doctrine of the church. Ronny is her son and he has a little bit more knowledge and was baptized three years ago. Mariela was recently adopted as a member of the Mendez family and has not yet been baptized. Marilu and ronny have been inactive for a few years but they have come to church these past two weeks. Marilu is excited about family history and Ronny and Mariela (ages 18 and 17, respectively,) are excited to serve missions. They are all super nice and feed us every time we go over. They always read their assignments and are inquisitive but faithful. Mariela will be baptized soon and we are helping the two of them with their desires to serve missions.

This week in sacrament meeting we were pleased to see Carlos Perez and Victoria Cuellar give talks. The former is a thirteen year old recent convert and the latter is a lady who we helped reactivate. They both gave great talks and are progressing a lot.

We've been meeting a lot of cool people recently through street contacting. The other day we met a lady who works in a bakery. Her husband is in jail and she wants a closer relationship with God so she wrote her info on a piece of paper and told us we could pass by Monday at 8:00 PM. She seems really receptive and we have our first appointment with her tonight. We also met a guy named Carlos who has aunts in the United States who are members and they sent him a Book of Mormon and he has a lot of questions. Overall street contacting has been going well.

I'm doing well here and I love reading your emails. I love studying and teaching and meeting new people. I love the gospel and I love the mission.

I'd like to share a quote I read this week by Howard W. Hunter who said: "The doctrine of the Resurrection is the single most fundamental and crucial doctrine in the Christian religion. It cannot be overemphasized, nor can it be disregarded. Without the Resurrections, the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes a litany of wise sayings and seemingly unexplainable miracles - but sayings and miracles with no ultimate triumph. No, the ultimate triumph is the ultimate miracle: for the first time in the history of mankind, one who was dead raised himself into living immortality. He was the son of God, the son of our immortal Father in Heaven, and his triumph over physical and spiritual death is to good news every Christian tongue should speak."

How grateful I am to follow in the steps of a master who not only lived but lives, a teacher who not only spoke but who speaks, the Lord of the vineyard who not only labored but labors. The man Jesus of Nazareth is Jesus the Christ. How honored I am to bear his name and to be his duly appointed servant.

I hope we all might be able to more frequently and more profoundly think upon Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

I love you all, have a great week.

Elder Dawson

Week 37 in the Field - 6 Investigators in church, Culture Fatigue, and Perfection

Weekly Letter July 6 2015

Hey guys, I hope everyone's had a great week.

This week we had 6 investigators in Sacrament meeting which was fantastic. We have two investigators with baptism dates and this week we'll hopefully place a few more baptism dates.

My companion Elder Alcarcon is doing well and we are working hard to help him teach good lessons. As we walk in the street we practice lessons and teaching methods. This week we contacted 58 people in the street and Elder Alarcon is learning to open his mouth and invite everyone to come unto Christ.

This week The Fourth of July/Independence Day was celebrated in the U.S. No, people here do not celebrate the Fourth of July, but yes, they do know that it is a holiday in the U.S. To celebrate just a little, we got together with the Zone Leaders and went to a barbeque place which was actually pretty good. We also ate some ice cream and overall had a good time.

This week we also had a trainers and trainees meeting with President and the Assistants where we learned a lot.

This week we had a missionary activity and watched Meet the Mormons in the chapel. It was my first time seeing it and it was cool but I feel like a movie so heavily based on personalities looses a lot when you have to watch it dubbed in a foreign language.

One thing I've learned first-hand on the mission is the difference between culture shock and culture fatigue. When I first arrived in the field I experienced a little bit of culture shock, primarily with poverty and its tragic consequences. At this point in my mission I occasionally experience culture fatigue, a feeling of weariness associated with cultural differences. A lot of times these differences can be funny. For example, this week my Peruvian companion asked me, "It's hot in the United States, but there's wind, right? "I proceeded to explain that the United States stretches from the arctic to islands in the Pacific and from sea to shining sea and that it was hard to define the climate in the United States as a whole but that at least where I live during the summer it is very hot with often no wind. As happens whenever I explain Arizona to people, my companion gave me a puzzled look and asked why in the world would I live in a place like that. This is a very hard answer to give to people from third world countries because the real answer is that we have air conditioned homes and cars and places of business and the majority of people have pools and that by and large we enjoy spending time in our comfortable spacious houses. If I explain this to people here they often get a little upset so I normally just tell people that I have no idea why I live in a desert and we move on with the conversation.

Similar cultural differences are highly evident in the conversations about soccer when I am inevitably asked whether I like the team Barcelona or Real Madrid. The truth is that I've never seen either team play in my life and I couldn't care less. Occasionally I am asked what kind of dance I like and the truth is that a dance party for me is not dancing salsa or bachata or timba but standing around, listening to music, and perhaps inventing a few on-the-spot dance moves. Other things I have had to explain are: the difference between Washington the state and Washington DC, what microwave frozen foods are, what a year supply of food is, the fact that you don't have to pay to go to public school in the U.S., what carpet is, and so on and so forth.

Although cultural differences are at times frustrating (Did I mention the time my companion sampled the marinade on a piece of raw meat they were selling in Walmart?) but there are a lot of good things about the culture here too. By and large people here are a lot more friendly, a lot more trusting, and a lot more focused on family. Although it perhaps seems like I've complained, I really enjoy it here, and if I criticize the culture here, I do so with a smile, knowing that I am imperfect too.

We all have mistakes, we are all too prideful, and truly we all fall short of the glory of God. Fortunately, perfection is not a prerequisite for salvation. Bruce R. McConkie taught, "Good and faithful members of the church will be saved even though they are far from perfect in this life...What we do in this life is chart a course leading to eternal life.

Please remember to chart your course in the things you do day by day. Decisions determine destiny, every day you write your autobiography, and one small rudder steers a giant boat.

-Elder Dawson

Fourth of July lunch.

Homemade water bed. 100 bags of water on a mattress. Yes I slept on it.

Answers to Mom's questions:

What have you done on P-day in your new area?

We normally just play soccer and go to Walmart. Today we played Risk the board game. We always eat at Little Caesar´s

Did you take your hammock with you?

No, I left it in Gualán.

Do you still have your sink outside or do you have a more "modern" kitchen?

We have one inside but it´s small and does not have hot water. We also have one outside.

Do you have a better shower/hot water?

Yes, we have hot water here.

Do you have an oven in your apartment now?

No.

Have you been to the Dentist yet for a cleaning?

No, I don´t think missionaries here ever do that.

Do you have the April 2015 Conference Liahona (Ensign)? I can send one to you in English or Spanish.

Yes I have it in English and Spanish.

Are you tired of your music? Can you play CD's on the system you use to watch training videos/share videos with investigators?

I can download music and play it from a USB so I´m fine. Yes it can play CDs too. Normally I listen to conference talks.