change, repentance, growth through Christ: Mainz Week 16

June 15, 2015

Mom and Dad,

Emily is 16.

Austin turned 13, everyone is getting so old over there, I guess I'll be 20 in November, no 'teen' at the end of my age anymore. Weird. Glad she's having fun and you're all doing well, how does it feel to have another licensed driver in the family? The best birthday present of turning 16 right there.

Important focus there, making sacrament the spiritual, sacred experience that it needs to be. Getting rid of distractions- phones, procrastinated lessons, etc is important, just focusing on Christ, renewing our baptismal covenants. Remembering Him, his body raised up on the cross and blood shed in the Garden as well, in pure love, so that we can have joy, so that we can progress and overcome the burdens of life. [Sacrament meeting]

I like your comment 'the basics inch us along the desired direction and we are ready for the big jumps when they come'. Change in a way does take time, and in a way it can be instant. The decision to change is often what takes a second. What led to the decision probably took a lot longer, and making it last is a lifetime effort. (when it becomes habit and who we are the nature of that effort changes). Alma the Younger for example in the Book of Mormon. Or Saul in the New Testament, one, literally earth shaking experience, and a lasting change took place. 3 Days of sleep, feeling the power of Christ's atonement, repenting, and a mighty change of heart was experienced by young Alma. I think in a way change often does/can take a long time, but it doesn't necessarily have to. There's only so much you can change and grow at once though, if I could just make a bunch of decisions and be this really amazing person who never makes mistakes that would be cool too, but being changed and growing, setting goals, does take a lot of work. It would be too easy, life wouldn't be a test if growth worked that way. Interesting to think about.

Thanks for sharing about your mission too, Dad. I somehow didn't realize that you had spent time in Austria too, good stuff. Nope, we haven't had the street display yet, and the members feed us fairly often, but not every night or anything (I like eating at home, doing our own cooking too) the ward isn't a huge ward and we are happy to just spend time with the ward members. Teaching lessons and helping them is more important than having dinner together. Good food, I don't know if I really have a favorite, but I really like süßen Senf [sweet mustard] just like last time I was in Germany. Ward council is great, the ward works really well together. If you could pray for Marco to be able to make it to church. We're trying to help him understand how important it is, he also wants to quit smoking at some point, just working with and helping him.

Oh, and I'm giving a talk next week at church, the topic 'Dienen und Ewiges Leben' Service and Eternal life, President Eyring from the March 2014 Liahona. I'll send it to you when I finish. Also, how's your family mission plan, missionary work in the ward etc?

Have a fun week, be happy!

Love you!

Elder Blanchard


Haydn Straße. Franz Josef Haydn (hope I'm spelling that right). A composer who wrote amazing music I'm sure. This is the second one I've seen in my time here, may be a mission tradition.

hot week, 'knocking': Mainz Week 15

June 8, 2015 1:44 AM

Hey Mom and Dad,

Glad to hear everyone is having fun at home. Mom is getting excited for trek, when is that? It feels like I just left and school is already coming to a close, welcoming in a nice warm summer at home. Emily and Austin finishing strong with their last few weeks of school. Carry on :)

I didn't know Dad was that close to the temple in Switzerland, that's really cool. Our temple president over here, President Koch, is Swiss. And Taylor going to Switzerland over the weekend, just going on adventures with friendly families from where he served, how sweet! Dad, you should send some excerpts of mission journals and things like that, that would be fun, I don't know too much about your experience almost 30 years ago.

We receive the iPads on June 18th and were told to make AppleIDs, they are iPad minis, we'll use them primarily for teaching and studying (Gospel Library app and such, language apps as well most likely, hopefully a Deutsche Bahn app because that would be really helpful with looking up train times).

Yep, rather busy than bored. [Dad note: response to comment to Hayden about how busy this month and the end of school is. Better busy than bored] I've been so impressed by a lot of the people that I've met and meet. You're comment reminded me of a great man I know, Bruder Rauh. He's an older man in our ward, maybe early 70s and he just keeps going, staying busy. We go over to his house to eat and share spiritual messages and he often shares what he's been up to. We talk about calculus problems, physics, he's learning some Japanese. Radioactivity in Japan, how to get rid of that. Speaks German French and English very well too. Basically thinking about ways to solve world problems and always learning. Not to mention the strong faith that he has. You can stay busy, keep learning, and strengthen your faith even when you're retired, not too old to make progress :) Grateful for the amazing ward and amazing people with whom I spend time with.

This week was really hot outside (go check the German weather in Mainz and Bad Kreuznach- we have a big area, 6 counties fit into our boundary) and we worked really hard. We rung a lot more doorbells than usual. We didn't do too much of that my first two transfers [6 weeks between transfers], but it definitely feels like the inspired work that we need to be doing right now. Also, exciting and good, a man with whom we've been working for a while started to read in the Book of Mormon! Praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true, or if other things that we share are right doesn't help too much if we aren't willing to act. Act in faith now to put in effort to pray or read, and even more so to act on answers you get to prayers. If you were to ask a trainer for advice on how to get healthy, but had no intention of changing your lifestyle to become healthy, he wouldn't be too likely to put in his effort to give you a new diet and exercise plan. God knows us. He knows our desires, he knows our hearts. If a person prayers for patience but doesn't desire to become patient, their words our empty. God doesn't change us if we don't want to change. He doesn't take away our freedom like that. Pray for patience, and actually want it, having faith that Heaven will support you, and God will enable you. If we pray, study things out, and sincerely want an answer, with an intent to live by it, God will Always answer. 3 Nephi 18:20. 'And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name, which is right, believing ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you'  Luke 11:9-10 'Ask and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.'

Have a fun week! Say your prayers :)

Love,

Elder Blanchard

fun week, Fußball, faith and food: Mainz Week 14

June 2, 2015

Hello!

Happy Tuesday, sorry I forgot to give a heads up that I'm going to the temple today so emailing is now instead of yesterday. Hope you weren't too concerned at home.

Brother Singh, we had a few meetings with him. Basically, he talked with us on the street because he felt like we could help him. We had two appointments and we're praying for him, hoping that he grows and becomes more open. He wants things to change in his life but right now he isn't too interested in changing, we'll see what happens.

We haven't had a street display yet (yep, Straßenausstellung) still working on getting government permission on that, I'll let you know when we do though.

Yep, Jesus Christ and his Gospel are perfect. We do our best to grow, to become better, to serve as well as we can (and with His help, a lot better than we can) but we definitely are not perfect.

Last night we played soccer with our ward mission leader's family and a few friends. So much fun! I'm really sore today, kind of out of shape compared to before I left, but it's ok. Elder Fitzgerald and I eat pretty healthy food. Lots of fruits, vegetables and grains at home. Occasional baked goods and breads, less meat than I used to eat, but I don't exercise how I did before and I still eat an egg every morning (1 egg with sweet mustard and 1 apple or orange, typical Elder Blanchard breakfast).

Good lessons and thoughts on faith this week, from the Book of Mormon, Alma 32 faith being compared to a mustard seed, having some desire to believe. We talked with a family in the ward about faith at an appointment on Sunday night, so important that our faith is based in Christ. Starting with pray, with having a desire to believe, then a belief in God. Other things follow. The purpose of life, preparing to meet God. How do we do that? By getting to know him better while we're here. By learning to love Him and doing what he would have us do.

Have a great week, grow your faith, love eachother,

Elder Blanchard

'Coincidences?' : Mainz Week 13

May 25, 2015

Hi Mom and Dad,

Teaching and language are going well. There's always room to improve! I think that's how a lot of things in life are, the more I study the scriptures, the more I know, the more I'm aware of what I don't know and what I want to learn. Growing faith and Heavenly Father helps me to be humble.

Sweet that Connor and Tommy are home, great missionaries and great friends! What are they up to now? Breather before BYU or other things on the Menu now?

Emily and Talyon, checking in and heading off. Mom, do you have new young women coming into your class [see note at bottom] ? How's the rising generation of youth in the Las Flores ward looking?

Have a fun Memorial Day, today is Pentecost so we have a Holiday in Germany as well. I feel like every other week is a holiday over here. Due to two things. 1 Germans simply celebrate more Holidays I think. 2 Time flies when you're a missionary. Have a fun day without school! (also, does Austin have his own email, sometimes I want to send him stuff but don't know where to send it..) 

Seminary [check the link for explanation of Seminary] is already coming to a close, wow, enjoying the last few days there and of school. I didn't know Taylor got to teach Elder's quorum. We had an awesome lesson about the temple over here. Current temple recommend always, whether you can physically make it or not. Mom, what if Taylor marries a German girl and moves to Germany when he's done at BYU? Yep, working on taking more pictures over here. Whenever I get transferred you'll probably get a bunch of pictures of my apartment, drive to church, Bahnhof [train station] and just day in the life sort of things like that.

I don't know about that yet, but we have an exchange tonight into tomorrow, so I'll find out if she made it again. [The lady Hayden met in Langen during an earlier exchange]

This week we had a lot of 'coincidences' which were really cool. Call them tender Mercies, call them miracles, divine chance, lucky encounters. We visit less active church members to see how they're doing and if we can help them at all and this week we were just in the area so we stopped by a man whom we had never stopped by on and he was home. We saw some people with whom we had previously chatted on the street (Mainz is Much bigger than Mission Viejo). My favorite though, we were walking through a shopping center area (since we're planning to have a street display in a few weeks so we were just looking things over. I made eye contact with a man, smiled and waved from afar, automatically he was really friendly, then he motioned for us to come over. The thoughts going through my mind 'Ok, he probably has some friends who are members of our church, or he's talked to some missionaries before, exciting, always nice when people invite you to talk with them'. To my surprise, that wasn't the case. I don't know what his thought process was when we were farther away, but we talked and he really wants us to come by. Help him strengthen his family through the gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ. Brother Singh. Looking forward to visiting him this week. I know that when we do our best to do God's will He will lead us to those who are looking for Him. Doctrine and Covenants 112:10 Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers.

Have a fun week, be safe, don't have too much fun with no school in ;)

Love,

Elder Blanchard

Below, a Note not easily linked to another websites

Young Women Organization

Young women ages 12 to 17 belong to the ward’s Young Women organization. The purpose of this organization is to help young women build their testimonies of Christ and prepare to receive the blessings of the temple. The Young Women organization also prepares them for their future roles as women in the Church and as contributing members of society.

The bishop calls exemplary adult women in the ward to serve as the presidency and advisers in the Young Women organization. The young women meet on Sundays for gospel instruction and during the week for social, service, or cultural activities. During these meeting times—and in their personal time—young women also participate in a program called Personal Progress by setting and achieving goals in eight value areas.