Glade Wars

This weeks was a really good week.  Every week is a really good week.  Life is really great as a missionary! 

We had exchanges go down this week.  It was gnarly.  Elder Bradshaw and I  stayed in Hobbs Spanish and Elder Checketts, our DL came with us for a day.  It was SO FUN.  Easily the most fun and funniest exchange of my whole life.  Elder Checketts goes home with me, so we are both pretty advancada in the mission, he was an AP for like 7 months or something like that, so he is a killer missionary and a way hard worker.  It was so fun just to go hard and do it well, ya know?  Right now he is training a missionary, Elder Banner.  Elder Banner is easily the most prepared kid I have ever met.  He works so hard. I would never guess that it is only his second transfer if it weren't for how skinny his cheeks are (because all missionaries get bigger cheeks).  They work real hard together, but Checketts wanted a break of sorts, to where he could talk about home and discuss plans for after the mission without making his greeny feel trunky.  That's why he came with us!  As I had previously stated, we went so hard, but had so much fun.  That is how missionary work should always be!!!  Sorry that paragraph was all misconstrued...Just know that it was fun.

For the past few weeks we have been doing service at Salvation Army for a few hours each week.  It has been a blast.  We do pretty much anything, from sort food, to building boxes, to mopping floors, to playing on fork lifts.  It is always a good time.  This week the lady who is in charge of it (who loves us to death) asked us if we could meet her at some random bakery here in town. We met her there and our job was to go through the bakery and find all the bread that was about to expire and then chuck it into her van.  I don't know if y'all have ever just chucked a loaf of bread as hard as you can before...but I would suggest it.  There is no explanation that I can tell, but it is way more fun to throw than a ball. Anyway, we spent about an hour and filled up her van so much that the shocks began to compress, it was a whole lot of bread! Then we went and helped her unload it all back at the Salvation Army building and this time we chucked it at each other.  If you haven't been hit in the face with hot dog buns...I plead with you...do so now. At the end of the day she gave us a box of food!  We told her "no ma'am, we can't take this" and then she said some Mexican profanities and made us take it, so we were grateful!  She even had thrown in a few bags of Fruit Smileys, those walmart brand fruit snacks!! I was and am a happy camper:)

Back in the day, when I was 17ish I was assigned several times to take the sacrament to various viejos in the ward. At the time I thought of it as somewhat of a chore, but as I pondered back on it this past week I realized that it was a huge blessing.  Even then I always loved to take it to Brother Cole, a man in the ward who was real close to death and couldn't come to church.  He made sacrament a special thing.  Each time we would bring the bread and water he would ask us to start of with a prayer, then he would ask us to bear our testimony or to tell him about what we learned at church that day, or to share our favorite scripture, or something like that, and then when he took the sacrament he would always put it in his mouth and stop and close his eyes and just think for a second.  Some of the strongest times I have felt the spirit has been in the Cole's living room.  I never really understood why it was such a big deal to him, or why he asked us to do those things, but I sure know that it helped my understanding of the importance of the Sacrament grow and it kinda built a foundation for me that I could build upon.

This Saturday I was thinking about the Sacrament and about what I could do to make it a more spiritual experience for me.  I studied it out that day and on Sunday and I had some really neat personal realizations of things I can do to make it more special but also a little bit more about the meaning and significance of it.  I realized that when I prepare the sacrament I am preparing the means by which people can renew their covenants and become clean again. I realized that when I pass the Sacrament I am giving them that opportunity to repent and be clean, that is cool.  I realized that "nadie viene al Padre sino por mi" (sorry I don't know what that scripture says exactly in English), but also that no one can come to the Son but by the Sacrament and no one could come to the Sacrament but by me (if I were the one to prepare or pass it).  I though that was neat.  On Sunday I was blessed because they asked me if I would bless.  As I read the prayer my heart was filled with the Spirit and I felt like a really truly was making steps towards God, renewing and repromising. The Church is so true!  I know that the Sacrament is so important.  I know that as we take the sacrament worthily, and do our best to keep our covenants each week, to remember Christ always and to take His name as our own, we will never be beat by the adversary.  We will always have the strength necessary to do good and to stay good.

I love y'all a lot!  HAve a good week.  Be safe.  Read your scriptures.  SMILE!

Love,

Elder Porter