February 12, 2018

Well folks! It's been one heck of a week! I apologize for another week of slackage... But, here are some photos for y'all! Also, I want to leave you with my testimony of reading the scriptures. I know that as we all have rough days/weeks/months, that one of the best ways, if not the best way to help with that is by reading your scriptures daily! By reading them, especially the Book of Mormon, your faith and testimony will increase immensely and you will feel closer to God by doing so. I can promise as a representative and in His holy name, even Jesus Christ, that if you make a conscious effort to read EVERYDAY that some of your burdens will be lifted and you will be able to bear with patience your afflictions. 

I love all of you! 

- Elder J.T.Yates

Elder Whetzel and I at Kemah Boardwalk

Kelly's Country Cookin' with their HUGE portion sizes!

Elder Ibarra and I building a chicken coop

A now dead missionary (dead as in gone home) Elder Smart

Who woulda thunk??

This week was great! On Thursday, we went to the Toyota dealership to fix our car. When we arrived, they told us it'd be ready by the next day. Oh little naive Elder Yates believed what they said and went on his way biking for the rest of the day. Come to find out, there was more wrong with the car than we thought. So, they kept our vehicle from us until sometime today... We still don't have it and we are waiting for the call to come pick it up. But, we got to experience a biking area for the past couple of days! That was an experience I never want to have a again. Haha

But, I want to talk about looking at our trials and hardships with an eye of positivity. Whenever we face our trials, we come to that "path in the yellow woods"... At that moment we can either make a decision that will change us for the better or make everything worse. An experience that I had relating to this was when I was a young lad about the age of 9. We were at a store and I decided that I wanted some candy, but mischievous little me didn't want to pay. So, I took it from the shelf and ate it within the next couple hours. I still remember the guilt that I had from that experience, and I honestly think I never went back to apologize to the manager or anything...

In my personal studies lately, I came across this verse in the Doctrine & Covenants. It's section 58, verse 42. It it says, "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more". I realized that after I made that choice of stealing that candy bar which cost less than two dollars, I had made the wrong choice. Duh! But, like this verse says, if you truly repent, the Lord remembers your sins no more!! Isn't that wonderful?

Now, none of us are perfect. Though some may like to think they are. We need the power of repentance for our everyday lives! We make small miniscule choices everyday at almost every second. Some are for our benefit and others for our downfall. Repentance is a principle of perfection and should be used everyday! Not just for the big things, but the small things that we do that are not in accordance with the will of our Father in heaven.

As a missionary, I help my investigators and members make better choices that will help them become closer to Christ. We help and invite them develop their faith, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and then endure to the end. For most of you reading this letter, you have received these blessings already. Now, we need to endure to the end. Not just endure, but as Sister Hall says... "ENJOY to the end".

- Elder J.T.Yates

Top Efforts and Top Golf

To start my email this week, I want to thank everyone at home for all of the support that you send me! I love hearing from all of you and I love being able to share my feelings with you... But, if you want me to tell you more, I need to actually hear from YOU. Haha, I hear about people back home telling others to email me for them. But, I want to hear from you!

Anyways, I really don't have the drive to email today. I just want all of you that I love you! The mission is hard, but it is the greatest choice that anyone can ever have! As I have thought about what the mission has done for me, I have made a list...

- Strengthened my testimony

- Helped me understand the Book of Mormon and Bible

- Built my testimony upon the rock of our Redeemer

- Molded my thought process of why I want to be on a mission

- Helped me understand why I want to stay an active member of the church

I love this Gospel! I love the Lord! I love my mission! And I love the opportunities to serve the people of Houston.

- Elder J.T.Yates

Elder Whetzel and I in front of Top Golf

Me, mid-swing

A member's cat that fell asleep during our weekly Book of Mormon study.

It's a Mean One, Mr. Grinch!

Even though it's not Christmas time anymore, Mr. Grinch was still very applicable! 

On Tuesday of this last week, there was an ice storm warning that went across the area telling us to stay inside. The temperature dropped below 20 for about 2 days and everything froze! There were some plants that I grabbed and they broke in my hands like glass, it was super weird.

During that time of being locked inside, I had plenty of time to reflect on my missionary work. I realized that when I was at home, and when I go back home is where the real missionary work is! Member missionary work is the most essential when it comes to having people come unto Christ by being baptized.

A statistic showed that the chances and the likelihood of someone being baptized IF they have a member friend almost doubled! Think about that! IF each of us found a friend that we knew could accept the Gospel and would thrive in it, the world would be a lot more unified and would have a lot of people really converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I really started to regret my choices in the past when I though about all the times that I could've taken someone under my wing and really helped them come closer to Christ. But, from my last email... "No unchanged thing will even want to" enter into the Kingdom of God. Well, I can testify to you with a certainty of heart that I have been changed! I have been molded by my mission, and have been a witness to the blessings of the Atonement. 

My heart is changed, now... Is yours? How many times are we "humbled" by the spirit and move on with life hoping that we can just forget? Because if you are a normal human being like I am, it happens a lot more than anyone would want to admit.

In one of my favorite scriptures of all time it says:

"27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I love this scripture because of the promise that He makes at the end. If I humble myself, then God promises to strengthen me. Isn't that incredible? How many weaknesses do we all have? Think of how many strengths we can then have through the power of His Amazing Grace!

I can testify that even in our darkest times, in our weakest moments, and in our most difficult adversities, Christ wants to make us better! It is only up to us to make those our strongest attributes.

I love all of you! I know that as you really and truly humble yourselves and become that Disciple of Christ that we all need to be, and help bring others into the Gospel, we can become the happiest that we can ever be!

-Elder J.T.Yates

1) Danelle's baptism and every missionary that has helped her come into baptism!

2) Free food that we received after a food truck service that we did at a Methodist church.

3) The biggest freaking meal I have ever had!! It's not even the "Texas size"!!! The Texas size is double that chicken and double the sides!! Like, WHAAAAA???

4) I also didn't know that Hell could freeze over... Haha

His Grace is sufficient

Monday: We had a schwaked P-Day last week! We went and got haircuts for 2 Elders and then went to the Guitar Center near us to get some new strings, and ended eating at Steak-N-Shake. Holy Moly, they make a great Garlic Burger!!

Tuesday: In the morning, we went down to Bacliff to try and see a recent convert, Julie. She ended up not being there, so we knocked doors for an hour or so. Which, in Bacliff is scary sometimes. Luckily it was cold outside so there wasn't anyone outside that was very sketchy. Haha, in the afternoon/evening, we went to Sister See's home. Her and her family have been feeding the missionaries for over 40 years, and almost every week!! That is a lot of charity!

Wednesday: The morning hours are usually pretty boring, but on Wednesday morning, we went to a Less-Active member's home, Brother Falcon. He is a very deep thinker, and when he reads something in the scriptures, it is basically doctrine. So, whenever anyone says anything that is contradicting, he flips out. But, when we visited him, we just talked about what he wanted to talk about, that way we knew that we would be good.

Thursday: Thursday was crazy! We had District Council from 9:30 to 11. Then we had interviews with President and Sister Hall as well as the APs. That went really good, as always, and then we went to Taco Bell for lunch with the Spanish Elders in the District. It rained like crazy! Nothing like Harvey, but it was still enough to get my clothes soaked from standing in the rain for like 2 minutes... Oh well, it's Texas so there's not much you can do about it. We visited a couple recent converts and shared uplifting messages with them. To end the night, we helped the South Shore Elders move one of their members. That was a work out! I tell you what!!

Friday: Like most Fridays, we started at an Episcopal Church and helped with their garden. Honestly, I love helping them! I am able to learn a lot from them about the Apocrypha. Not something that you'd think that I would learn about on the mission. We then went to our Bishop's house to watch President Monson's funeral and have some lunch with them. The funeral was so great!! The spirit was very strong and made me cry a little. We visited Brother McCutcheon this week, can't have a week without him! Haha, he is really close to being fully active again!! We had some bomb home-made burgers with some extra gouda cheese... Oh yeah!

Saturday: We had a bomb lesson with Sharon this morning! She had been being taught in the past, about a year ago in Friendswood. She accepted a baptismal date for Feb. 10th! Our day was mostly sitting inside because we hadn't done weekly planning for the whole week, so we were trying to keep from not going insane. After weekly planning, we went back over to Brother McCutcheon's house to help him clean part of his house. 

Sunday: We had a nice long day of meetings today! We had Correlation with our Ward Mission Leader, Ward Council, Church, and then had Danelle's baptismal interview. We helped out a member in the ward who's house was flooded. We ended our night by eating dinner at a family's home who I now love! They are so great and love doing missionary work, so I am going to be working with them a lot more lately!

Alright, now that is done and over with, something that I want to talk about is Grace. What is Grace? How do we apply it? Well, there is a fantastic talk given by Brad Wilcox called "His Grace is Sufficient". In that talk he gives the example of drawing 2 dots at opposite ends of the paper, and told someone to draw a line representing how much of that distance Christ fills in, with a couple failed attempts, he went on to say that there was no line, but instead Christ covered ALL of it. He didn't just pay everything but a few coins, He payed ALL of it. 

Another quote that I love from that same talk is, "No unclean thing can enter the kingdom of God, but no UNCHANGED thing will even want to." I can testify that through Christ's Atonement, everything can and will be forgiven. I know that even though we may feel like we are too far away from a return to Him. But, as He says in the scriptures,

"21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven."

If Christ can forgive us EVERY TIME, how often should we keep returning to Him? Every time! 

I love the Savior and love His Gospel. I know it's true! I invite you to find that same testimony.

- Elder J.T.Yates

Me in a fire retardant suit. 

Elder Fleming and I after helping Brother McCutcheon.

Elder Whetzel and I post-exercise.

New Year Resolutions

As a missionary in the great Texas Houston South Mission, I have been taught how to have a Vision, Goals, and Plans. Without these, we cannot be as successful as we would like to be.

For me, I define success as helping someone that we teach or talk to; Increase their faith, Repent, Be baptized, Feel the Holy Ghost, or help them endure to the end. I have loved helping people come closer to Christ!

A vision: When we start our goals having a vision. You have a vision of what you want to do.

A goal: All of you know what a goal is and when you set one. Having these really helps bring a stronger purpose in your missionary work.

A plan: Make plans to accomplish those goals.

Making these Visions, Goals, and Plans are essential to our missionary work.

My challenge for all of y'all is to take these next couple of days is to think of what your Vision, Goals, and Plans are going to be for this year. Take these things and write them down. Remember to read them every week!

- Elder J.T.Yates

 Elder Yates in the wild. Cooking French Toast.  

The original tres amigos.

When I was able to baptize JJ!!! 

My 'son', Elder Smith!

'Tis the Christmas Spirit

There is a Mormon Message that I absolutely love during this time of year. It is about what the Christmas season should really be about.

The reason behind Christmas

This is the link of you want to watch it, I highly recommend it!

As we went about our week, the day that stood out to me the most was Wednesday. We had our yearly missionary Christmas Conference! We started it out by listening to fellow missionaries get up and read out of Luke chapter 2 and from other Christmas stories. In between those stories, we sang as a whole, and there were a couple songs that the choir got up and sang! The spirit was so strong! 

After that, we went and had A TON OF FOOD!!! We were blessed to have Trike, Brisket, and Smoked Sausage! Man, I haven't been that full for a while! Actually, more like Thanksgiving! Haha, along with the food, we had an awesome jazz band play for us! 

We were then able to have an awesome talent show! We heard so many different talents ranging from guitar solos, to piano solos, to violin solos, and back to guitar solos! ;) We also had in between those, some stand-up comedians from the crowd! One of those comedians was myself! My jokes weren't very funny, but I got maybe 2 or 3 people laughing, and that made me happy! I was also nervous beyond nervous to be up there telling jokes that I had only heard within the last 6 months. Haha, but it went well.

Something that I have loved this year has been all of the service that we have been able to give to the people in this area. Last night, we gave the best service that I have been able to be a part of. We went and sang at a retirement home and sang the the folks there, and were able to bring the spirit of Christ himself! I love this Gospel. I love the Christmas season. And I especially love the spirit that comes with this season!

- Elder J.T.Yates

That Jazz band that I was talking about.

What the Lexington building looked like during the Christmas conference.

Elder Whetzel and I.

Elder Lofgran, Bovee, and I getting that "pop" on! Haha

Sister Wilkinson and I.

Santa's not-so-little helpers

Man Oh Man! Was this week awesome!!

I am going to try something a little different this week... So here we GO!!

Monday: The usual P-Day, playing scatter-ball (free-for-all dodge-ball), went shopping, and I got a haircut. Then at night we went to a former investigator's home and shared a message with him after he had fed us chicken and dumplings. We will see where this goes.

Tuesday: We went on exchanges with the Spanish Elders today. I went up into their area, and Elder Gillies stayed in our area. The exchange went really good, and we were all able to learn a lot about how to be better missionaries. After the exchange ended, we went Christmas caroling to an old-folks community. That was awesome! There were 9 missionaries there and the older couple that were members that sang with us.

Wednesday: I am still getting used to leading District Council, but it isn't as bad as I originally thought it would be. After all of our studies, we went down to the farthest regions of our area, and tried some referrals and tried to teach them about the Gospel, that didn't end up working out, but we did end our day by finding and teaching one of the daughters of our most progressing investigator!! That was awesome!

Thursday: In the morning, we started by helping out a less-active member with her gutters. they literally had trees growing in them! One of the members that was there took us out to eat at the most ghetto Chinese/Japanese/I have no clue what food it was restaurant. But, was still super good! We ended our night by imputing like a million progress records into our devices so that we can make them digital.

Friday: To start the day, we went down to Texas City and helped out the Salvation Army again. They had over 1300 boxes for families that got displaced in Harvey. We went through and sorted out all the boxes and made sure that every child had a present! It was so awesome to be able to do something like this for people in need. After helping the Salvation Army, we went to League City and helped out at a Methodist church as they were passing out food for the homeless and the less fortunate. Without the missionary force, there would be so much service gone undone.

Saturday: On Saturday, we went back down to Texas City and helped actually pass out all of the clothes/toys/bikes/beds/etc. It was so cool to see the smiles on peoples faces as we would give them their Christmas presents! To end our night, we went to a member's home where their son is going to London, England for his mission, and they had their open-house.

Sunday: To end our week, we had church!! The literal best part of the week! We were able to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants that we have made with the Lord. We were even able to go help usher at a Methodist Christmas conference! It was called "The Messiah". It was actually super sick, they had a ton of opera singers and a fairly large orchestra.

Now that I have told you all about my week, I am sure that you are just begging for more right?? Right! That's how the Gospel is, when you learn of something, we shouldn't push it away and say that we already know enough, but we should be always searching for more in our lives.

In John 5:39, it says: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

How often do we search the scriptures for that eternal life that it is talking about? How often are we pondering on the things that pertain to our salvation? Most importantly, how often are we sharing those most precious truths with those that are around us?

As we are constantly sharing the Gospel, the Lord promises that He will bless us for our efforts! I promise, as a literal representative of Jesus Christ, that as you share the Gospel with friends and family, you will feel the spirit more in your life! I can testify to you that what I say is true, and I promise these blessings in our Lord and Savior's name, even Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

Elder J.T. Yates 

 Elder Whetzel posing very nicely for the camera!

 

Our exchange selfie (Elder Merrill and me)

 

 Our study table. Can you tell which side is mine? (The right side)

Elder Whetzel and I being Santa's not-so-little helpers!

Small acts, BIG miracles

This week was another one of constant confusion. 2 weeks ago, our mission was one of the first 5 missions in the United States to receive smartphones. Which has really made missionary work easier for us. But, it has been a hard transition from paper copies of everything to digital. It's crazy the amount of trust the Lord has in this generation of missionaries. I feel like I don't live up to His trust, and then he hands me something else.

As we have been going through the past records, there are so many times that I have seen small miracles that have been seen in this part of the Lord's vineyard. It feels like I am not making a difference at times, and I know that I have felt that before in the past, and that some of you feel that way now. But, I can promise you that these feelings in our lives are not true!

In Doctrine & Covenants 18:15 it says:

15 "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!"

My experience on a mission has only been 8 months, but I know that through these small efforts that I am performing, large miracles are taking place. I have talked to so many converts of the church who through a life lived in the shadows, are brought to the light by our love and devotion to Christ. Performing service truly brings joy unto our hearts.

I love the Savior. I love this Christmas season. This year, join me in continuing to "Light The World" through service. If you haven't already been doing it, join along and share the blessings of this Gospel. If you are already doing this, keep sharing the light of Christ and show Him how much we can do to give back to Him during this season.

- Elder J.T.Yates

Elder Gillies and I built a snowman! In flippin' Texas of all places!

Elder Whetzel and I after some service with the Salvation Army. With some eggs and Elder Ledezma photobombing.

The Salvation Army's setup for their Christmas service.

A Chinese Buffet that we ate at after a different service. With some fresh squid! Tasty!

A couple of cool Texas Elders!

And Thus We See........

This week was probably the weirdest week for me... On Monday, we received our very own smartphones! Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. On the exchange, we learned how to better use our phones for missionary purposes. Then, on Wednesday we had a zone conference with just Elders... That was the strangest part. We learned how to keep our hearts on our purpose as a missionary. From Thursday up until now we have been visiting with members and less actives trying to find new investigators through them as well as bringing them closer to Christ. 

I know that there are many parts of the scriptures that have affected so many of us. But there is always something that has stuck out to me: "And it came to pass..."

Whenever you read this in the scriptures, this is when Mormon was abridging the plates of Nephi. This always sticks out to me because of how much work Mormon put into abridging the plates! He took the time to make sure that we have the most important messages that we could use in our day.

I know that I am terrible at taking the time to write emails, so just rely on Mormon! Haha, I love you all!

Elder J.T. Yates

On the way to Galveston!

Using the new phone to edit those nice photos! ;)

The pleasure pier off of the Sea Wall.

Just the Elders at Zone Conference