The Minister Gone Bad

Half of the Zone. Photo by Elder Alexis

Hey everybody! This week was an interesting week, especially with Conference! I'll share some of the quotes and insights that I liked down below for easy reference.

So we're working with a couple interesting people now. First we had Stanley. He's the nonmember husband of one of our Haitian members. He still lives in Haiti but came up to visit for 10 days, and wanted to start taking the discussions. Elder Hatch and I were able to teach him about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon before he went back to Haiti. He's super solid and accepts everything, pretty much a free baptism for the Haiti mission. We gave his information to the mission office and they passed it over. Cool!

We also have the two B... kids, Sara and Denard, who were baptized a couple years ago but have been inactive. We randomly stopped by to visit one day a few weeks ago, and Sara said "because you stopped by I'll go to church again this week." She came by herself last Sunday and again with her brother to conference yesterday, is reading in The Book of Mormon, and seems committed to coming back to church. Once we can get them to meet with the bishop they'll be rescued!

Finally we have the N...-O... family. They're a less active family that the bishop is working to get back to church. The mom grew up in D.C. and her best friend was Mormon, and they even went to BYU together. She was going to get baptized there but her friend started to rebel against the church, and she didn't want to stay in school anyways so she moved out here (I think there's more to the story but I forgot it.) She didn't see missionaries again for years until some knocked on her door a few years ago. She had a girl in foster care that wanted to be baptized, so she and her family decided to be baptized with her. After that though the girl had to leave because of legal complications and it broke the mom's heart, so she suffered from depression and anxiety for a while and is just now getting out of it and wanting to get back into church. Very interesting story, and it seems like the whole family is ready to come back too (the dad and oldest son came with the bishop to priesthood session.) Nice!

But the highlight of the week was definitely General Conference. We were even able to get investigators to come! Yay! Between the two sessions on Saturday we went out knocking, and we met Bertina and her 2 kids. We shared a prayer and a little bit about the restoration (as usual), and she said she'd come to church (as usual). Except this time she actually came! She watched the Sunday morning session and seemed to really love it. We told her about how church usually is, and we're seeing her tonight to start teaching them. Very promising! 

Now for a couple funny things. We talked to this one random old black guy in his front yard a couple days ago, and everything was pretty normal until he randomly stops and dramatically says:

"Lemee tell you a secret. I'm a minister.......gone bad."

It was super funny. It was literally like a movie. He even like looked away and walked a couple steps while he was talking, and then turned to look at us for the punch line. Probably one of the funniest things I've come across. Our whole house quotes it at least twice a day, and it's earned a spot on our quote board.

Another funny thing was that yesterday between sessions of conference we randomly had a TON of member food. A family fed us lasagna and salad and breadsticks at the church right after, and then we left to go to our actual meal appointment with a younger couple in the ward. (They had Disney music playing on Pandora for us, and I was in heaven. Definitely sang under my breath every song that came on. It was awesome, I decided that I'm gonna be the super chill member that feeds the missionaries when I get home haha.) We had sausage and pasta and mashed potatoes, and cookies. And then we went back to church for the next session and someone had ice cream sandwiches for us. We were all pretty full.

So as promised, here's some of my notes from Conference. There's lots more, but here's some of the first:

The use of the marvelous technologies that will come will require the Spirit of the Lord within us.

-President Eyring

(Prophesy???)

The phrase "The Atonement" is doctrinally incomplete. The Atonement is non an amorphous entity that we can call on for help. We must connect it to the life and mission of Jesus Christ.

-Russell M Nelson

(Haha this funny, something I've thought about before.)  

Stand close to the Savior as you would stand next to someone with more perfect pitch

-Jeffery R Holland

(I loved his talk for all the singing analogies.)

When we are not all in or only partially in, there is a disturbance in the force.

-Gary B Sabin

(His talk was good too because of all the pop culture references.)

I'm so grateful for living prophets and for general conference, it was such a spiritually uplifting experience and very different as a missionary. Sorry for the long email, but there was lot's I wanted to talk about, so I did haha. Hope you're all doing great! Keep up the good work!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

Here's My Number, So Call Me Haiti

Hope you enjoyed that Haiti pun, courtesy of Elder Duffin and Elder Firth. This week was kinda boring to be honest. There were some high points though. Sunday was good. It was fast Sunday so we had a mission conference where President Burgess spoke to us. Our devotional that night was Chad Lewis, a former BYU football player. Everyone seemed to like his talk, it was pretty motivational, but I couldn't really relate to him and his stories.The best part though was when we watched "Missions are Forever" by Elder Holland for our movie. It was a talk where he came to the MTC without notes or anything and just talked about missions. It was really good. He talked about how you shouldn't waste any time as a missionary and how your mission should extend into the rest of your life. I took lots of notes.

These two of the board are an overview of
pretty much everything we've learned so far.

Monday Elder King's back was hurting after playing basketball, so he and I went back to the room during our last class time to rest. It was nice, not gonna lie, just to lie down in quiet. He's feeling better now though, just has a cold or something. We call it MTC Sickness because everyone's pretty much just in a constant state of sickness here. I haven't really gotten sick though, just a headache and stuffed nose here and there.

For our Tuesday devotional, Elder D. Todd Christofferson came and spoke to us. That was a cool experience, and he gave a good talk. He talked about repentance mostly, and at the end he quoted David O. McKay and said "It is better to be trusted than to be loved. The Lord will love you no matter what, but can he trust you?" That was probably one of my favorite lines from the MTC so far.

Wednesday was pretty normal, I stayed in with Elder King during exercise time and took a nap. That was nice.

Yesterday was different, we had a day long conference called In-Field Training. It was good, they have the best teachers here teach it. It talked about all the different aspects of missionary work in the field, like finding, teaching, working with members, etc. It was a good change, the day went by pretty quick because of it too.

Cousin letters plus my scriptures and "Jesus the Christ"
(which I've started reading and boy let me tell ya, it's a head-full)
Makes me remember the song:
"Wish I could turn back time, to the good 'ol days"

I got a fun letter from the Indiana Nicolaysens this week, I took a picture of it because I thought it was so fun. I love getting pictures from the cousins, they brighten my day. If you can't see, in the one David [age 5] drew there's descriptions of what everything is, there's "Elder Stevenson and his companion" and "Someone crying because they don't know the gospel." So fun. 

Elder King, Elder Duffin and Elder Firth leave on Monday. That'll be kinda sad- they're the people I'm closest to here I'd say. Especially Elder King, he's kinda my companion. I don't know how that's gonna work once he leaves, I'll probably be a trio with somebody.

I just checked the mail and nothing so far- packages or flight plans. Just a letter to Elder Firth from his girlfriend (oooOOOOOoooohhh!) I'll let you all know what the plan is. I can call home from the airport, either before the flight leaves or on layover. Some missionaries are having a throw away phone, like tracfone or something mailed to them before hand. Depending on how many missionaries are in my travel group and how many phones they've got that might be safer, and probably more reliable. We'll see once I get my plans.

Frè Augustin looking fly

With everyone getting ready to leave it makes me excited to leave, but I still have a week. We're getting new missionaries next week, so those of us who stay it will be mostly review. We'll probably be teaching some of the lessons ourselves even. It'll be an interesting week either way.

Keep sending notes and pictures! I love hearing about everything going on back home and with the family. 

Here's my song for this week:

"Manman mwen pa renmen ou, epi li renmen tout moun."

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

The MTC is Amazing

Official missionary tag. The Haitian Creole reads: The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

So yeah. I have my journal here with me to try to help me remember everything that happened. Sunday was super great, definitely a rest from all my labors. We had a testimony meeting in our zone during church and everyone gave it in their mission language (we're encouraged to do so). I especially liked the ASL [American Sign Language] testimonies.It was weird how I could feel the spirit with absolutely no clue what they were saying. Elder King and I led a discussion about The Book of Mormon during priesthood meeting, we had some good participation so it went well. We also had a mission conference and we were watching in the overflow and it felt just like general conference. The temple presidency was reorganized so they all spoke to us. Later there was a devotional with Matthew Holland, president of USU [Utah State University] and Elder Holland's son. He spoke about Joseph Smith. I sang in the choir piece afterwards, we sang Praise to the Man, the MoTab [Mormon Tabernacle Choir] version and it was really cool. Mostly guys. Anyways, then we watched The Character of Christ talk by Elder Bednar and it's AMAZING. I wish I could find it outside of the MTC [Missionary Training Center] but they say you can't find this version. Look it up for me, it was a Christmas morning talk at the MTC with Elder Bednar called The Character of Christ.

Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT

Monday morning we did service. Just cleaned around the residence building. Elder Blood left for Fort Lauderdale. We sang God be With You Till We Meet Again in Creole with him and I got a little teary. He was super helpful the first week, we could ask him literally anything. I'll probably see him around. We started exercise on Monday, we went to the gym because Elder King was "just tryna ball". I stayed on the top floor running the track and using the weight machines. That's what I've done every day pretty much and I enjoy it. I like using the elliptical and bike machines. When we got back our water was off, it was all super hot and the drinking water had green stuff in it. They were working on some pipes or something. I went downstairs and got a powerade from the vending machine to drink, but no shower. 

Tuesday was Neil L. Anderson's 65th birthday. Ask how I know that. Because, to quote my journal, "he freakin CAME AND TOLD US." And guess where I was. Sitting with the choir not 50 [feet?] yards away as he spoke. He came for our Tuesday devotional. There was a spirit about him as he spoke, I took lots of notes.One of the main points was "Be clean, Be obedient, Be busy." We sang I Believe in Christ afterwards and it was super spiritual. This sounds weird, but as I sang I didn't have to try so hard to get the harmonies. It felt like someone was singing through me. 

Study Break

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, just classes and study. We had Chick-Fil-A for dinner one night, that was cool. I didn't know that could happen. The language has been coming pretty well for me so far, and I feel like it's discouraging for some of the others, Elder King maybe especially. He feels like he's falling behind all the Elders with a French background and getting frustrated. Some of the others are maybe feeling the same way. He was also sick yesterday so that didn't help matters any. I pray for him and my other companions every night.

That's pretty much it for this week, I'll start the Q&A now:

Did you know that Elder Duffin is from Aunt Erica's stake?

No I did not and I told him. He said his dad lives in G. P. We were excited, I seriously think we could be brothers in another life.

Can I see emails on day other than P-Day [Preparation Day]?

Yes I can. If I find a few extra minutes I can read emails but I can't respond. I'd actually prefer that you send them throughout the week if you can, that way I don't have to play catch up. I'm a slow reader.

Did you get our cookies?

Yes I did and they were delicious. 

Did you get any mail?

Yes, I got the Dear Elders from Dad, I can also see those in my email. I got a letter from Auntie Lauralee that was super nice and had notes from all the family. Also missionary jokes that I told to my district and we loved them. P.S. send more jokes.

Where are your pictures? 

So the computers are not letting me access the camera or card reader due to a lack of proper permissions it seems like. I hope it's a temporary issue but for the time being I can't get into my card. I'll try to get to it but these computers are heavily tampered with to provide only basic functions. I can get to my portal and language training and that's about it.There's not even a way to search for files, you're supposed to be able to find it on the desktop but it won't show up. When the autoplay box pops up when I first plug it in my access was denied. We're going to try other computers later today because everyone in here has the same problem, hopefully that will solve the problem. [Obviously he got it worked out since they are on here now.]

Haitian Creole Language Book

Are you going to say anything in Creole?

Wi. Mwen renmen tout fanmi mwen, mwen konnen Levanjil a vre. Atrav(e accent grave) Ekspyasyon JeziKri a, nou kapab resevwa padon pou peche nou. Atrav(e accent grave) Levanjil JeziKri a, nou kapab viv av(e accent grave)k fanmi nou pou toutan. Mwen ap w(e accent grave) tout ou pita! Translation via google translate: Yes. I love my family, I know the Gospel is true. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we may receive forgiveness of sins. Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can live with that family forever. I'll see you all later!

Has Hannah moved into my room yet? Send pics.