August 29, 2016

You'd think that being in a desert you won't get rained on much, right? Wrong. This week we got FLOODED!!! in just a space of 20 minutes the rain was up to our knees! We gave up on trying to stay dry and enjoyed the rain a bit. A small car tried to drive through the water and stalled, so we helped push them to higher ground. Then we went back towards the house, taking pictures as we went. We had a blast!

So this has been a really good transfer for my companion Elder Arlington and I. We've been meeting many of our goals as far as Investigators and lessons go, and have several awesome investigators! And so, I was a little sad when they informed me that I'm getting transferred. I'll be going to Ascension, a small town out in the middle of nowhere. In our mission we have several small areas in the desert, but this is one of the smaller ones. I don't really know what it's like down there, but I'll send pictures of the landscape and whatnot upon my arrival.

So wish me luck!

this week we went with a younger less active man who just went through a separation from his wife and daughters. Instead of coming to church and God for strength, he lost himself in alcohol and parties. We felt like we needed to visit him during the week and when we did he broke down crying. He told us about what had happened and told us he was trying to change. He had realized that he was doing bad things and needed to change, so he was trying to distance himself from the life of drugs and Fiestas but he needed help. He's now getting help from the local Branch President and we hope to see him become active in the gospel again. 

DyC 59:9-10

 And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;
 For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High;

That right there is one of the main reasons why we go to church. If we don't, we slowly find ourselves focusing more and more on the things of the world, the things that don't really matter.

So keep going to church, it's the best way to keep a strong and happy family!

Elder Phillips

August 22, 2016

I am having a great time here in Rio Nilo, It is a blast every day!  It hasn't rained for a while, but we keep praying for clouds.
Paul B. Peiper came to town! He's the 70 who's put in charge of all of Mexico. H came and taught us about the importance of working with the Stake Leaders and being humble enough to get more faith. It was an amazing meeting! The spirit was super strong and we all came away from it with knowledge of exactly what we needed to do to have more success. We also visited many less active members this week and talked about Faith. Why? Because Faith is everything. Question: What does it mean when someone claims to have faith but doesn't go to church or breaks other commandments? Answer: They don't actually have faith. Nobody's perfect, but faith is a principle of action.
 Ether 12:6 ...I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

All the proof we need about the truth of the gospel will come as we are faithful to the commandments. That's when we'll get blessings and miracles. MIRACLES!!!! I mean seriously, who doesn't want a miracle in their life? And all we have to do is 1. believe the word of God (Commandments) and 2. Act according to that belief (Obey them).

So follow the commandments and have a great week!

Elder Phillips

Mom,

It's crazy to hear that everyone's already finishing up their missions! Justin still hasn't written me though. So both Kelsies already got married? Crazy!

The truth is that I would absolutely love it if Megan went on the mission. I've been thinking that a lot lately. I am convinced that there is no better way to spend your time than to go on a mission. I have learned so many things! I want her to learn them too! Could you send her out to do visits with the sister missionaries from the singles ward or something? That can often times become a game changer and a decision maker. I didn't fully understand the importance of a mission beforehand, but I can testify from my personal experiences that I will never regret having made this decision, and neither would she. 

Now what would you have me do to help inspire her to go on the mission? 

Have fun with the kids in school! I hope Megan has a great first semester at college! And I agree, It is time. As we learn from the book of Ecclesiastes, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" There is a time for everything. There is a time for the kids to have fun and play at home, and there's a time for them to go to school to learn.

Hey mom, I was also wondering if you could update my facebook for me every now and then with mission pics or something. I'm not allowed to use it, but you still can!

My companion and I visited a local soccer stadium. The local team "Los Bravos" has been doing pretty well lately (or so they say). So we did a good old photo shoot inside.

I Love You!
Elder Phillips

August 15th

This week was awesome. And I've got pictures to prove it.

So it rained a lot! And down here in Juarez there isn't a good drainage system, so we still have lakes of water filling the streets. But it was a blast. When we arrived at our last appointment for the day we just asked for towells to dry ourselves off before going inside. I have to say, I love the rain! Partly because the water is awesome, partly because the rain doesn't give you sunburns. 

We visited some investigators and we had a wonderful experience with them. Their names are Maggie (19), Adan (16), and Abram (13). They are siblings. We met them outside their house last week because they have a really cool friendly dog who we stopped to pet. As we pet the dog through the fence, Abram was just getting home and came over to talk to us. So that's how we met them. One thing led to another and on thursday we were finishing up teaching The Restoration to them. As we finished explaining the importance of The Book of Mormon, Abram started crying and Adan got really excited. Down here in Mexico there is a lot of evidence from their culture and legends that support the Book of Mormon. Adan realized that when the natives talked about Quetzalcoatl (A white bearded god who was born from a virgen visited the americas thousands of years ago), they were referring to Christ when he visited the americas. He also told us that the natives wrote about a golden book that spoke of the Gods, but that the gods hid the book because the natives were trying to kill them. He pieced all this together and truthfully, it makes sense. These legends fit perfectly the description of the Book of Mormon. I'm not saying that it's doctrine or anything, but still... Anyways, Adan got super excited, Abram started crying, and Maggie started comforting him. 

Needless to say, they all came to church with us on sunday and loved it!

Well, I have no time left, So you all have a great week!

Elder Phillips

So here're pictures!

1. The Juarez flood. 

2. My District

3. Investigators

So I think that Justin must have the wrong email address, because I haven't seen a single one of his letters. Could you pass me his email address?

I love seeing the youth heading out to join the mission! In our branch on sunday there was 1 deacon, 1 teacher, and 1 priest. we're currently working with a 13 and a 16yr old investigators who'll hopefully join the branch in a few weeks. I'll make sure to attach some photos on the letter!

The truth is that many times we judge people without trying to help them and this can impede their eternal progress. If we try to love them as God loves them, we realize that there is hope for everyone. Some of the best members/converts i've met down here were drug traffickers beforehand. Anyone can change. There's always hope.

August 8, 2016

I really love all the pictures and the stories on what's going on back home! That's probably my favorite part. And seeing Megan's tan lines! Holy Guacamole! I haven't gotten Colton or Russell's letters yet, but I'm glad to hear that they're doing well! Justin still hasn't written me though... Maybe he just doesn't have my Email? Or maybe he wrote it down wrong? who knows. I kinda worry about that kid. 

 I have some great stories for you guys this week! This first one I'm just going to send to you and dad, and if you want to you can pass it on to everyone else, but I do plan on sending a short general letter too.

So It's about an older lady we met this week! A rather Interesting experience...

So to make a short story ever shorter, we got called by a member lady who lives over in Casas Grandes (a small town nearby) saying that her mother was in a hospital in our area and that she needed a blessing. So we got her information, put an appointment, and went to visit her. When we got to the room we entered to see an old lady(80ish) in a bed with a younger lady (30ish) sitting nearby. We explained who we are and why we were there and then asked her if she was a member of the church (we asked the younger lady, the older one had pneumonia and a breathing aparatus on her nose so she couldn't really talk too well). The younger lady told us no, and that the older lady wasn't a member either, but the daughter of the older lady was a member (the one who called us). So it was a little awkward but we went on and gave the lady a blessing. As I was blessing her, I got the impression that she wouldn't make it. I knew that her time had come. I felt a bit sad to say it in the blessing, but I told her to rest. I blessed her so that her pains would ease and she'd be able to rest peacefully. After the blessing we left. 

That was on Tuesday. She passed away Thursday around 9AM. 

I felt a little sad for the family, but I realize that there wasn't anything I could've done to change it. It was her time.

It's always sad to see someone pass away, but that time always comes. It isn't a question of whether or not it'll happen, but more a question of when. So that's why I love God and Temples and the church. Because God made a plan for us, and in the earth we can be sealed together with our families. That way we can be with our loved ones after this life too! Our family is the most important thing we have on earth. And so we have to love it and cherish it always. I think that's why the prophets and apostles have always said "Husbands, Love your wives." That's also why they bless us with scripture like The Family: Proclamation. I love my family. I love you all. I love you mom. And don't you ever doubt it.

Elder Phillips

Another great week in Rio Nilo. I have to say, I feel really good right now. We've been working hard and it's starting to pay off. I've been here for 3 weeks and we still don't have anyone progressing enough to accept a baptismal date, but we're putting our faith in the Lord and working hard to find those who have been prepared to recieve the gospel.

This week we went to visit a sweet old lady named Sister Enojosa. She's been an active member of the church for many years now but recently fell down and hurt herself. So we went with her visiting teacher to visit her and give her a blessing. In one of our visits, Sister E. told us about one time when her visiting teacher's family planned a Christmas Pageant for her. As she told us of the activity, her eyes filled with tears and I couldn't help but look back at the activities I had done in retirement homes back home. Truthfully, I felt bad. I realized that for this Sister didn't get many visits nowadays and she feels pretty lonely. And to have someone go out of their way to do a family home evening or simply come visit meant all the world to her. I shamefully admit that back home I usually had a pretty bad attitude about such activities. I was selfish, just thinking about me and my wants and how I would much rather be out going to the movies or hanging out with friends. But as I saw Sister E. nearly in tears as she reminisced about an activity that happened 5 years ago... wow. I don't even think that the family who did it remembers the pageant. But she does and I doubt that she'll ever forget it. 

I've come to realize that Christlike love and Humility go hand in hand. When we're only looking inward at ourselves and our wants, we never learn to love others.
Mat 10:39

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Only when we forget about ourselves and start serving others can we grow spiritually. 

Love,

Elder Phillips

We found some native Juarense Animals!

1. The horsedrawn burrito salesman

2. A cool looking lizard that came out during the rain

August 1, 2016

Sounds like you had a wonderful week! how fun! Activities like that are super awesome and are great for strengthing the testimonies of the youth, keep it up! (Our youth just got back from youth conference called Keystone. It was focused on the Restoration) A less active family i was teaching back in mezquital is now active and the daughter went to EFY. She came back with a super strong testimony and is now preparing to go on a mission when she turns 19! So keep up the wonderful youth activities!

What is your current calling in the ward? Young women?

I just wanted to thenk you for the awesome package you sent me. Thank you so much! 

I Love You!

Elder Phillips

Dear Everyone.

It has come to my attention that my letters have been getting progressively...lamer. I wish to apologize. And to make it up to you, I'll be writing a (hopefully) better letter. 

And so to start off, I want to wish a big old Happy Birthday to my dad, who just turned 50!

This week has been quite extraordinary. We started off by practicing the "Fat Cat Approach". What is this strange sounding technique? Well allow me to explain.

My companion is Elder Arlington, he's been in the mission for 18 months and has been slowly perfecting this tactic for the purpose of finding new people to teach.  This is how it began: as we were walking down the street, my companion saw a really really fat beast cat sitting outside of a house next to the owner. he immediately (being a lover of all pets) went ove to pet the animal. As he did, he started talkng to the owner about his pet, his family, etc. And by the end, we've arranged an appointment to come back and teach him about the Gospel of Christ. It's a fool-proof tactic that has proven to be quite successful during this last week.

Another example: Walking down the street, we see a large friendly looking dog sitting in the yard watching us. Once again, we go over and start petting the dog. After a moment, a young man arrives at the house. We get into a conversation about dogs and then we smoothly change the subject to talk about church. It turns out that the young lad's father is a member of the church but lives far away so the kids never got baptized. As we talked about the church, the youth's older brother came out of the house, offered us water, a mentioned to us that he'd like to go to church with us too! we put an appointment to visit them during the week and to take them to see the temple grounds.

So maybe it's the guidance of the spirit, maybe it's just our love for pets. Who knows, but either way it works!

A wonderful thing about Rio Nilo: We have the temple in our area! It is super beautiful! I've only passed by it a few times, but every time I do I have to take a quick break to just look at it for a while. It reminds me of the primary song "I Love to See the Temple". I can't wait to go inside again! 

I went on Splits with the Zone leader this week, and we went to a funeral. The woman who passed away was a less active member and almost all of her family is inactive in the church. They were in tears during the whole service. It's strange to see the difference between an active family and an inactive family during a funeral. The only way I can describe it is that the active family has hope. They have a hope of better things to come. They look forward to the day when they can see their loved ones again. And as Elder Fonseca taught a bit about the Plan of Salvation, a few of the families grabbed hold of it and took hope. Not all of them, but at least some of them. I feel like that's one thing that we can never afford to lose: The Hope. 

1Corinthians 15:54-58

 "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?...
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

So let us be steadfast and unmoveable. 

Let us abound in the work of the Lord. 

Elder Phillips

Check it out, I crossed the Rio Grande! AMERICA!!!!

 This is the big red X. I think it means that there's a treasure burried there...

And I got dragged into eating Menudo (cow stomach soup) again. This one actually tasted pretty good.