Obedience

July 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Looks like you guys have had a good little family reunion. I loved all of the pictures! I am still laughing at the picture at the swimming pool with Sam and Mikey bear hugging in the back haha! weirdos :) 

It is interesting that you talked about obedience because I was going to talk a little bit about that in my letter to you guys today. We had a zone conference last Friday and something that we talked a lot about is something that President Robbins said to us when he was here a little awhile ago. He said that the mission is the best university for life... or something like that. But it is so true! I have already learned something things that have changed my life forever. Two things that I have learned about recently are 1) Goals and 2) Obedience... especially obedience to Priesthood leaders. I think one of the biggest things that has helped me in my life is that my parents taught me how to have an eternal perspective and I have always had goals to help me reach the long term goal, which is eternal life. I have always had the goal to go on a mission, go to college, and one day get married in the temple. So many people don't know their purpose and they don't have any goals so they end up not reaching their full potential. The mission is a university for life. We have so many goals that we make every day, every week and every month. If we learn how to reach our goals in the mission then we will develop the habit to reach our goals after the mission. It is so important to always have a vision of what we want to achieve. There is a quote in PMG in chapter 8 when it talks about key indicators. in spanish it is on page 180. I think it is by Elder Ballard... anyway, you should read it because it talks about the importance of goals. Here in the mission we also get to learn a ton about obedience. We have a lot of leaders here in the mission that pray for us and receive revelation for us and then they put plans (I know his english sounds bad there but that is how you say it in spanish, you “put” plans instead of “make” plans) to help us reach our potential. I have learned that our priesthood leaders are called of God and if we are not obedient to our priesthood leaders we are not being exactly obedient to God. Sometimes there are missionaries who like to rebel against their leaders. You can just see how if you are disobedient in the mission you are going to be disobedient outside of the mission. Por suerte, (fortunately) we have a good bunch of missionaries in our zone that are obedient.

I got the package a week ago! Thank you so much! It feels like I am walking on clouds haha! Thanks for the candy and the beef jerky too. Ooooooppppsss, I just realized that I have a whole stack of letters that I haven't read in like 2 weeks! These past couple of P days have been kind of crazy but today I will read them for sure haha! sorry! 

As for zone activities it is kind of hard to get the whole zone together because we are all so spread out. But we have had a couple activities where we play sports and eat food and such. I have taught a bunch of elders how to play 42 the basketball game and we also played Poison the other day haha! I bought a nice basketball for pretty cheap when I was in Chuy so we have a good time. But when I was in San Carlos it was a lot easier to get together as a zone and so we did a ton of stuff like hikes and what not.

The family of Juan and Lucas are doing awesome! Their grandma is really awesome and she loves us but her problem is that her husband is going to die in a year and he doesn't like religion at all so she wants to wait until he leaves to get baptized. She doesn't know it but she is progressing. Her daughter is Antonella and she helps her a ton. We are still working with all of them but it is kind of slow work. There are so many nice people in that whole family that are open to our message but they all have little problems that keep them from coming to church, etc. they are all very busy people. We are really looking forward to the future with them though. I am kind of sad because I am pretty sure that I will be leaving this change :( but we will see what happens next week.

I love all of you!

Elder Lacey

Dear Dad,

You just explained everything.... The mission is flying by so fast! A couple of weeks ago i felt like I was kind of stuck in a rut of complacency but I am feeling really good now. I have a new work out plan and I am finding extra time to read more scriptures because you are totally right. If we aren't progressing we are falling. I put some personal goals spiritually, mentally, physically, and temporally and I was reminded of when we would have father son interviews and put goals. Those were some good times. It is amazing how fast time has gone. I am trying to continue to be fully engaged so that there will be no regrets when that time finally comes. Say hi to all of the family for me and keep on keepin on.

un abrazo 

Elder Lacey