August 25, 2014 Week 59

Wooooooooow 10 months to go!!??? man I don't know what happened!  

It sounds like the fin legacy is still at school nice... FIN SWAG!! Yeah Purcell has a football team I don't know if they are any good, everyone in town says they are good... but they don't really have anyone to compare to.  Maybe Brighton can set up something and play against the Purcell dragons then we will be able to compare! I am sure that Brighton would win!

Also knowing that I have 10 months left kicked my head in a different gear!  We asked around and this week, we have a member going out with us every day!  The gear has kicked in the ward a little bit but there is still something that is holding it back. 

It made me reflect on something I studied this week on partaking of the sacrament.  I figured a way we can actually apply the atonement in our lives. 

It is by going to the ER(E-xamine R-eport).  

Lots of times I find my self just partaking of the sacrament or trying to think of all of the things that I did wrong that week…

Well does this change me into a better person? not really. 

It takes a truthful and deep examination of ones life to really apply the sacrifice of Christ.  

Then find the thing that is holding you back the most and then work on it! 

Harold b Lee said, 

"the most important of all commandments of God is the one that you're having the most difficulty keeping...conquer it then start on the next"…

This is a true principle.  It has gotten me to examine all aspects of my life...personal, mission and family and try and find the things that are holding me back the most.  Then making sure that we report day and night, repent and ask for help! Just in the past week I have seen greater change(for the better). 

“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 like 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 we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment” 

But this made me think what is the biggest thing holding back the ward right now... because something is and something will until it is perfect! 

The work is going great here!  The member presents are really starting to pick up. When a member is at the less (less active appointment) the whole mood changes and usually a friendship is made.  Rocky fishburn(bro fishburn's son) took us out this week and we were able to have a good lesson with the Munday family.  They are a family that we found tracting 2 weeks ago.  We taught them the plan of salvation and it went really well.  It is amazing to teach the plan of salvation because it is something that everyone used to know... so once they hear it, it makes sense!  After the lesson they expressed how they are going to try to read the scriptures every day and have family councils... we didn't give them either of these commitments! 

It is amazing to compare families and how they work! the kids really do reflect the parents!  Another experience we had was with Andrea.  Andrea is probably in her 20's and has 4 kids under 9! Her husband isn't home a lot and speaks spanish.  She has been great in expressing to her children about God.  She usually doesn't go to church but she went last week to the First Baptist Church in Purcell...yey...well she got antied!  Got to love anti…. she told us we believe in God(s)...classic.  It is always awesome when other churches talk about mormon 'beliefs'!  ahhh but anti has nothing on the spirit! She shared how she didn't really believe it and thought it was weird they were talking about LDS beliefs in a Baptist church.

Well there is so much that happens in a week but not enough time to share it! Good job everyone! Keep on trucking! 

August 18, 2104 Week 58

Hello how are yall doing??!!

It great to hear that Eli and Joel are doing great in football...they are looking a little (just a little) bigger! Good Job that is how it is done!  

To Eli: Yeah don't worry about not starting- you are a year younger than most of the boys! BUT Make sure that you are working as had as you can and have the vision to start! "A vision without action is daydreaming". 

But don't let one of those boys/coachs/teachers/"friends" mess up your testimony.  It is easy for it to happen in school! But if you read, pray and go to church. You will be fine! Really strive to get in a scripture study routine now! That is something that I regret not doing!  You will have some awesome opportunities to share the gospel too. Whether they are members or non members!  Last thing is to recognize the spirit... I think one of the greatest blessings of the Holy Ghost is not only the great feeling one has when he is worthy of it but also the terrible lost feeling that comes when we make a mistake! I think the quickest way to loose spirituality and really the root of all sin, are the things we see and hear!  The sooner you turn it off or stop listening to it the better off you will be! 1 last thing I would do haha... repent every night, really look for the little things that you did that day that were wrong and then CHANGE them! We have a few investigators that are in your same age group! Honestly this is all stuff that I didn't do in high school and I regret it!  But y'all are probably better then me and are already doing it! GOOD JOB

The missionary work is doing great in Purcell.  The ward is starting to pick up in helping us with our missionary work!  All of our recent converts are doing great...Purcell is great as usual!  We knocked some doors in a trailer park that we found the week before.  It was funny though we had a helper, this 14 year old boy was riding his bike around and he started following us up to doors and introducing us to everyone haha it was great!  We got 3 doors slammed in our face 3 times in a row, all of them were women... he said, "DAAAAANG all the ladies turn you down!" I lost it, haha good ole Oklahomians but we did get 9 potentials out of it!  Maybe that boy will be a future missionary who knows!

I have been having some awesome studies.  My love for the new testament has really grown these past months.  When 9 oclock hits I feel like I have been studying for 10 minutes! 

First Corinthians 2     

4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

This hit me! Really the best way for us to help our investigators/friends is to put them on the path which that they will start understanding the spirit and building their faith on what they receive!! or in short helping them build a testimony! 

Well good job y'all.  Thanks for all that you do! Have a great week and have fun!

ELDER FINLINSON

cows

 Dollar G

Elder Taggart Easy Cheesey 

Freshhhhh Peaches

Kyle Windrix-sculptor

Sunset

Bike Riding Fun

August 11, 2014 Week 57

"GOOD JOB!"

--Bro. Fishburn

This week was great we had a fun time!  As you can see from the pictures I forgot about my goal a couple of times and had to take some random shots.  We had a good week this week though. 

I think we had the shortest investigator in Purcell history this past week...We found him last Sunday taught the restoration, then the plan of salvation on Tuesday and then dropped on Friday it was crazy! He was a nice guy but I guess it wasn't what he was looking for... probably too hard. ehhh if only they knew it is actually easier to LIVE when you are in the true church and obeying the commandments!  We had a member bear his testimony on that last week... he lived the party life before he was a member and he talked about how he never felt happy!  Maybe that will be a new finding technique, "do you want to live an easier life"... we will try it out this week!

Church yesterday was mas o menos.. We had an investigator come Doyle Springs we have been teaching him and his wife for a while.  His wife was a member of the church and is trying to come back! Luckily they only stayed for sacrament meeting!  Our ward mission leader taught gospel principles and it was terrible... he bashed on the class and was calling our recent converts on things they were doing wrong... luckily the Hoffman's didn't show up! Luckily the buffering spirit was there! One of the recent converts told us after that she didn't even understand what happened in Gospel Principles... and she got called out in it! miracle

So we had exchanges this week and I went up to Blanchard...well first problem …  for lunch we had Chinese food ... second we forgot the phone in the car(of the new castle area... third we got dropped off in a neighborhood 14 miles away from the apartment.  We thought we were saved when we had a less active member stop by and ask if we needed anything.  We used his phone and the other Elders didn't answer... so we told him that they would probably be there soon... well we were deceived.  So we started walking down the highway haha we were getting honks and screams! GOT TO LOVE IT IN THE BIBLE BELT!  But a member stopped and picked us up after 2 miles! haha we probably would have gotten to our apartment around 10! miracle

We have been doing some fun less active work.  Yesterday we visited one family who is having a lot of troubles in going to church and in obeying commandments.  Well let's just say I got a cup of ice dumped (it was 'cold') on me on purpose and Elder Taggart got paralleled to Satan.  So after that it was rebuking time, but we leave that to the holy ghost!  We told them that we were there to give them a commitment and that commitments are commandments!  She disagreed, I told her to go look at Preach My Gospel...silence... we continued.  Our commitment for them was to set up a family Scripture study/prayer every night.  

So this sister found a good scripture found in moroni 7:16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

She then asked her daughter what were some evil things in the world these days… she responded, "smoking" (this less active member has been having a hard time with the word of wisdom and hearing that from her daughter was probably the best thing that could have helped her!). We then testified that is why he have family scripture study.  We truly learn more in the home then in any other place!  It was great! 

So y'all make sure you are doing your family scripture studies!  I feel like a hypocrite for saying that but... it is true! I was rebuked about it the same time that our less active was! That is the great thing about missions! 

Something that stood out to me was the story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius was visited by a angel to visit with Peter. Peter had a vision to seek out Cornelius. The account ends with the baptism of Cornelius.  This displays the principle of looking for the elect and the elect looking for us. I know when we are led by the spirit nothing can stop this from happening... whether it be tracting a house or asking a member for a referral, it is all done by the spirit!

Well I hope yall have a good week! 

GOOD JOB

ELDER FINLINSON

Braums

Elder Favilia doing my journal

Elder Taggart-Pday Planning

Problems in Purcell

Random

Redneck dryer

Stranded

OKC Temple with Zone

August 4, 2014 Week 56

Well it sounds like Eli and Joel are having some fun!! ohh yeah baby football!!! uhh i kinda miss it.  The fundraising no. haha but kinda the conditioning!   We played early morning soccer on Friday and the temperature reminded me of football in the mornings...except the humidity was way different!!  

This week was great!  We had interviews with President this week.  It went great but I have a feeling that I could be staying in Purcell for another transfer after this one-- that would be until October ahhh 9 months in the great Purcell!  But who knows what can happen.  We did talk with him a little bit after and learned about the iPads that are supposedly coming this year.  It will be crazy!  I can see positives and negatives but I guess we will see what happens! 

Last Wednesday was probably one of the slowest days of my life!  All of our appointments fell through and no one was answering the door.  Ohh well I guess that just happens sometimes.  But that is why we have harmonicas to cheer us up after.  We have gotten pretty good, it is easy just to mess around and figure out hymns!  

We had a great lesson with the Hoffmans this week.  They said that it was and answer to their prayers!  It always make you feel good when that happens, I guess they really wanted to have their kids included in the lessons and what better way to do that, than to start from the beginning!  We were also able to bring the young men's president with us so that made it even better!  He was able to invite all of the kids to the Wednesday activities and I think the Hoffmans are going to make them go!  So we taught them the restoration, but we did it in a different way.  We first watched the first part of that mormon message with the rock climber and asked them throughout the lesson to think of ways that God helps us.  Then we finished by watching the rest of the video!  It went really well and it was a different way to look at the restoration. 

From the restoration we can see 

1) God loves us and wants to hear from us through PRAYER

2) God loves us and blesses us with FAMILIES

3) God loves us so he gives the world PROPHETS 

4) SCRIPTURES

There are definitely more points than that but we focused on those 4 and it was good because they remembered them throughout the lesson!  and of course baptism was a part of it!  The Hoffmans are doing really good!  They have been fellowshipped like no other and everything is going great!  The only thing with them is their disk golf but that will eventually change!!

Well missionary work is great... so just do it...

Quote of the week

A Vision without action is daydreaming--pres Monson

LOVE Y'ALL

ELDER FINLINSON

A picture a day…

June 20, 2014 Week 54

Ok wow!  

Well we got transfer doctrine and me and Elder Taggart are staying!!! 

This will be my 5th transfer in the great Purcell!!!!!!! 

I will probably say that after this transfer I will be ready for a change but I am loving this area still!  So I will be here until September! 

But we started off the new transfer with the baptism of the Hoffman family!! It was great!  

It is amazing to think that we were about to drop them in April!! 

Well good thing that didn't happen!  

I am curious to see who we are going to baptize next!  

I am thinking it is going to be the Hoffman kids! 

They have 3 kids that could be baptized they just were not quite ready!  

Brother Hoffman wanted to make sure that his kids made the decision on their own and didn't feel any pressure. 

So we gave the list of baptismal questions to Brother Hoffman and told him to interview his kids!  It is going to be interesting to see how it went! 

We are really excited to take them out on lessons.  They know a ton of people in Purcell so we are going to get some serious work done with them.  

The ward did amazing in supporting them at the baptism!  They said that they didn't want a whole bunch of people... so we invited the whole ward haha.  

I think in the long run they really appreciated all that attended!  

I had a little pre-baptism scare when they pulled into the church parking lot on saturday I saw what looked like a puff of smoke on the passenger side of the car…

I thought well what do we do?!! They can't just puff on a cigarette and hour before the baptism!!! 

Well then I saw that it was just the spray from that air freshener stuff!....ahhhhhhhhh 

But the service went very well Brother Komers did the baptism and on Sunday Brother Burn did the confirmation.  

It was great to have members of the ward do the actual ordinances! 

They now have a good friendship with both of them and they won't be leaving in 2 months!! Elder Meservy was able to go too!  

We had exchanges this week and for our dinner we had Icelandic food!  It was good! The member that gave it to us served in Iceland and wanted to give us a little of what he ate!  So we had fish balls and then crepes for desert!  

We also had a dinner with the Cabrera family and they cooked up some really good carne!!!! ahhh talking in spanish por fin!!!  I will finish later!

July 28, 2014 Week 55

WOW it hit me this week, it was on 23rd… (Ethan's release date is June 23, 2015)

Someone one asked us how long we have been out, Elder Taggart, bless his heart, said 3 months and then I looked at my watch.... I have 11 months left.  What the heck happened to time ??!!  It is weird because Elder Pugmire was the same way when I was getting trained, he had a year left!  I felt like it would never come, well it has!  

But with that comes such an appreciation for the decision that I had to serve a mission!  I know if I went home right now it would of been worth it-- don't worry.  But anyone who desires change should go on a mission.  That is one of the number one reasons why I decided to go on one.  Seeing the change from missionaries leaving to when they came home was crazy for me to see!  It was easy to see that they were happier after the mission than before!  That was probably the biggest testimony for me to go on a mission.  I wanted to change and the mission seemed like the best way to do it!  There is also the service aspect of it! I loved service in young men's!  So going on a mission seemed fun... where it is almost service 24/7.  Then of course prophets saying, it is the best thing that a young man can do helped out too.  I just added that in, someone asked me to share

Well this week was great we had a lot of fun and I had one of the most intense lessons of the mission.  It was with this man named Larry Nelson.  He is an excommunicated member of the church and  has the desire to return to church again.  The one desire that he is lacking or struggling with is change.  Well with anyone who has a testimony knows that you need a desire of both.  The doctrine of 

Christ is what runs Christ's church and woven into it is change.  And we have the Right, to desire whatever we want, "God … granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life” (Alma 29:4)… 

Well the lesson lets just say got to the point that he started feeling uncomfortable (aka the spirit working in him)  He told us that we weren't helping him and that we were putting to much on him.  Well sorry do you want us to dumb down God's laws? We can't do that! But we can tell you what they are, and invite you to live them! And testify of the blessings of obeying them! 

We then told him, "We aren't telling you to obey these commandments God is!" Well after we said that I think a spiritual atomic bomb went off.  We found the statement that he needed to hear thanks to The Spirit!  We then witnessed the loudest spiritual silence ever.. haha it was great! I don't know what he is going to end up doing, but I do know that he knows what to do!

The Hoffmans are doing great!  Mabel their 6 year old daughter was able to convince Sis Hoffman's mom and dad to go to church!!! It was crazy.  I guess Mabel just called her up and asked if she would go to church on Sunday and she said yes!!  Sister hoffman said the only time that she had seen her mom go to church was when they were giving out free food! Sister Hoffman said that she been through alot... meth, alcohol and boyfriends.  But for some reason a 6 year old was able to start up a conversion!  But they were fellowshipped really well and are planning on coming next week!! and of course brother Fishburn knew them haha!

Well there were a lot of other things that happened but.... time is terrible it just goes too fast!  

Good luck y'all.

Love,

ELDER FINLINSON 

July 13, 2014 Week 53

Hey yall!

Wow what a week!! It is always hard to start up an email! But i guess I will start with the Hoffmans!! woooohooo they are getting baptized this week!! they made it to church!  it was awesome!  

We walked out of a meeting and they were all siting on the back row... 15 minutes before church started!!  haha we told the Bishop in ward council to announce that they are going to be baptized!!! 

Right when they announced it Sister Hoffman looked down and said "Jesus" haha she HATEs any form of attention it was great! but they are doing awesome!! Just the parents are going to get baptized this week but the 3 kids are definitely going to follow in the future!! The ward did a good job in welcoming them back to church! So keep them in your prayers so they can endure this week and get baptized!! 

I love this area it is very diverse and very big, there is a ton of work that can be done here!!  Now with the bridge being open we never run out of things to do and especially working with the Spanish people it makes it even crazier!! It is hard because we feel like we don't have enough time to visit everyone!! That is why nightly planning is so important and following the spirit throughout the day!  

We really had this happen yesterday!  We were riding back from an awesome Sunday dinner with the Sexton family and unintentionally passed 2 of the houses that we had planned to visit that night...well we didn't really have the miles to backtrack so we decided to try the Cabrera family (a less active family that goes to the spanish branch)- we had never met them but a few days prior the missionaries from the branch told us if we had time, to go and visit them! so we did.  Well they weren't home so we went and tried a potential in the same area.  Well they didn't answer either so we were on our way out of the neighborhood when a oncoming car stops us and says that they are the Cabrera family!! bueno perfect timing!! so we ask if we can stop by and visit with them and they agreed! They gave us some good ol sandia-- agua melon! it was awesome we had a good visit with them, then hma. Cabrera said that we were and answer to her prayers! she and her husband have been gong through alot in their lives.  I guess her dad who is also a member of the church (not only a member of the church but attends the same branch as her) is kicking her family out of their trailer-- even though she and her husband own half of it!  She said that she is going to obey her father because she doesn't want to lose her father completely!  But they are in a huge financial problem and I guess a few weeks ago hmo Cabrera was going to try and leave to Guatemala.  Hmo Cabrera is a recent convert and doesn't have the priesthood yet.  So they asked if we could give them blessings! WELL we can sure do that! For hma and her daughter we gave them in English but for hmo we gave it in Spanish!  The spirit was very strong in their humble home! After that they said that we were an answer to their prayers!  As I look back to that day I recognize that we were led right to them and we didn't even know!! I truly believe if we can recognize this in our live's we will see the power of the Holy Ghost in a different way!  I think too often we talk of what the Holy Ghost will do, but we ignore or forget what the Holy Ghost HAS done in our lives!

I am studying the New testament chronologically and I am in the final week of the saviors ministry!  It has been amazing my testimony has grown so much in the Savior just by reading the new testament in a different way! One that stood out was the Interaction that Christ had with the rich ruler--MATT 19:16-26... the ruler comes to him with a question that we should all have in our hearts

"Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?"

Christ then responds to him" Keep the commandments" he then lists off some commandments!

"All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?" said the man. 

 Jesus said unto him, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me"

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

The ruler had the desire for eternal life and would do anything for it, or he thought.  If we have the question,  "What lack I yet?" and respond positively to the answer we will find ourselves constantly improving and on the path to eternal life! because of the apparent difficulty to return to God the disciples asked, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."

boom... so we better have a relationship with God!

Well yeah we had a great week There are more stories but not enough time to share! yall have a great week! love ya all!

--ELDER FINLINSON