Our first baptism

We have our first baptism this Saturday for Sandra Hernandez! She and her husband were married Saturday and it was way exciting to go to even though it was only in there house. It was so cool that they had no plans for getting married and we laid down a big challenge for them to get married Tuesday and five days later it was done. It feels so much better to teach them now that they are not living in sin.
Sandra is so excited to be baptized and she says she is going to go to town reading the Book of Mormon. I cannot wait to see it.
I don’t tell you about a lot of the people we teach because it takes to long to tell all the stories so I kind of like to talk about the ones that I am pretty sure will progress.
With that said, I don’t know who else to talk about. My favorite family is the Salazar family and most of the pictures that I send home that has me with a family is with them. They are all members except for the dad Jose. But the parents are living together and are not married because she has a divorce pending in mexico but doesn’t have the money to pay for it. A year and a half ago they were not active at all even though the Mom, Jessie Jimenez, was raised in the church. Now they are there every Sunday and Jose would be baptized if he could. I hope it all goes through soon but it is not likely because they have four kids to pay for and they don’t have much money. Elder Trappett says that when he goes home he is going to work to earn money for their divorce so he can pay for it and their wedding. That would be awesome. I want to be here when they get sealed. We are going to spend Christmas at their house so I am super excited. However, everytime we are there they make us eat until or stomachs are bursting. It is painful but delicious.
Tomorrow is our Christmas party. YAY! Gotta go byebye Love you, Elder Bernard

Nov. 12th letter

So the Noche de Hogar that I talked about last week with the Hernandez family was really amazing. From it we have three really good investigators. Sandra has a testimony. She is solid. She wants to be baptized. Her novio, Jesus has always been dragging along in the past I hear but we are moving forward with him. Last night we taught them and he drove us to another appointment. That appt. fell through and so I had time to just talk with Jesus while Elder Trappett talked to one of our investigators acrossed the street. I talked to him about how before my mission, I was a totally different person. I was a normal person with problems and I tried to find happiness in all sorts of different ways. The only way that actually worked was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I shared how through the savior, everything was changed and I don't have to fight for happiness anymore, I can just be happy. I told him As missionaries, we feel just like he does: like a normal person in normal clothes, with problems, doubts, struggles. The difference is that we have found an amazing truth that changes lives and we want to share it with every person on earth.

It was so cool because this was outside at night and people really open up sometimes when it is dark and you can just talk about life. We had a really good heart to heart. I was so excited when he asked "so how do you change your life?" I talked about how it is poco a poco, everyday we have to take steps to follow Christ and eventually he will change us. I left him with a little post it note that said "Que voy a hacer, esta noche para cambiar mi vida?" It was really amazing because we cut past all the crap and we talked real feelings and I think he is really going to strive to change. I am going to be teaching them tonight with one of the priests in the ward for exchanges.

Also, Marisol and Enrique, who are the aunt and uncle kindof, of Sandra, are also progressing. We also met them at that family home evening and from that have taught them a few times. Marisol has a baptismal date for the 5th and we are really excited to get this whole Hernandez family rolling.

However, things with Miguel are not so great. We were teaching him the other day and he had always been pretty quite before and we had taught him almost all of the lessons and he said he agreed with it all but the other day his doubt came out. He does not believe that there was any apostasy, he believes that there are just different ways of preaching the saviors gospel. We have taught two more times since then focusing entirely upon this but he doesn't even listen. He just blabs endlessly about how all the words of God are good. We are really struggling to get him to understand. His baptismal date will probably have to be put off.

I have to go. I have a whole bunch of other investigators to talk about but now time to do it.

Love,
Elder Bernard

Nov. 18, 2009

This last friday we had the opportunity to go to our ward thanksgiving dinner which was really loud (lots of loud spanish music and a baile despues) but it was really cool because alot of our investigators came. I don't know if I have to talked to you much about Marco and Annabella but they were having horrible relationship problems and were just about to split up but we asked Marco for a ride to the activity because Elder Trappetts bike was broken and so he was planning on taking us and dropping us off at the church but somehow we talked them into coming to the activity which was really good for them. I think just getting out of the house so they could stop fighting helped them a ton and we found out later that when they got home they spent the evening reading The Book of Mormon together. They also came to church and I was so excited to sit with them. I have taken them on as my little pet family. Elder Trappett lets me handle all the phone calls and everything with them and it is really cool because I have a really strong relationship with them. Honestly, I am obessessed with this family. I live to to hear that they read, or that they will be coming to an activity. When the week is hard, I push through just to get to teach them. I am so excited to teach them again tonight.

Other than that, I don't have a lot to say. I love this gospel. Everytime I read the Book of Mormon, I know that it is true. I wish I could spend all day reading it, but I want my investigators to know how it true it is also. I love my mission

Oh yeah, so much for trying to be skinny. When we eat with investigators or members we eat so much food and it is so delicious but so bad for you... and there is no way to get out of it either. I hope I am not super porkie by the time I get home but we will see.

Nov. 4, 2009

So anyway, People asked a lot of diet questions. I eat a lot of Mexican food which is delicious and is nothing like taco bell. Except Posole and Menudo are disgusting!!! I was at a members house a couple sundays back and they gave me a huge bowl of posole which is a nasty soup with lots of homany and grease in it. I could not finish it and i didn't want to offend but my stomach couldn't handle it and I was sweating because I was so nervous about seeming rude but I was about to chunder.

However, usually at my apartment I eat lots of authentic tamales that the members give us, and then my companion and I eat beans and tortillas for every meal. Everyone said that all i would eat here is beans and rice. The funny thing is, that is kinda true for the beans part but only because my companion and I choose to eat beans for every single meal. Still haven't had rice. I almost cannot stand a meal with out tortillas now, but these aren't Utah white boy tortillas.

I love the hispanic culture. It is so much better than conservative white culture. We had a big party at the park last saturday afternoon and everybody from the ward comes and they invite all their friends, it is a way bigger turn out then we ever had in Utah, and everyone brings tons of food and we play futbol all day. I hated soccer before my mission, now it is my favorite sport for sure. It is so cool because everybody plays. We had forty year old women and men playing futbol with missionaries, children and really good players alike. It was so cool. It's like everybody joins in and even the kids are amazing. I loved it. it makes me sad that I will ever be return to boring utah wards at some point in my life.

So I don't know if I talked about Reuben before. He was a chicano, hispanic but can't speak spanish. We found him a few weeks ago and he was so willing to accept everything we said and be baptized. However, he had a ton of problems with drugs and stuff but he was willing to do anything to get off of them. We taught him a few times but then we turned him over to the english elders because that is what we have to do.

Anyway, they couldn't get a hold of him for a while cuz he went out of town but we saw him last thursday and so we asked if we could stop by six PM saturday and see how he was doing. We stopped by that night but he wasn't there.

So we got a call from the english elders on monday and they said they stopped by and his dad told him that he died of a drug overdose. I was so sad because he was so ready to accept the gospel

Anyway we taught a plan of Salvation lesson to a part member family for family home evening on monday and at the end I felt like I should share this experience. I could hardly express myself in spanish because i was so emotional, and I was bawling my eyes out but the spirit ws really strong and I testified of how he will have the opportunity in the spirit world to accept the message. It was really cool because after I shared this it just ended up being a huge testimony meeting and their daughter, who is not a member and just had a child out of wedlock, shared her testimony and said she wants to be baptized and so did her husband and they had non member relatives over who we got return appointments with and half the people were in tears as we listened to beautiful testimonies. It was a total miracle and I know that it will lead to some baptisms.

I have to go. Miguel finally came to church and is on the path to baptism. We have another couple: Marco and Annabella that are close too.

Bye

October 20, 2009

So this we has been good. Mas o menos, por supuesto. It is hard out here. It was interesting to read Tracy's email because I think that she is having a very different experience than I am. Because most of the people are hispanic here, they are much more nice and willing to listen than whites. We can pretty much talk to anyone about Christ also because hispanics are generally religious-catholic. We have tons of appointments. We have teaching appointments probably at least 5 to 6 times a day. However, hispanics generally say yes to everything and don't understand the nature of a commitment. So many people say that they will come to church and come to activities or read the Book of Mormon and they don't make a single effort. We will even call them 30 minutes before an activity and they will say that they are still planning on us coming to pick them up and then they will not be home when we come to pick them up. It is frustrating because we have a ton of investigators. We get new investigators cada dia, but getting them to progress is another story. If someone reads a single page in the Book of Mormon that is way good, but it is very rare.

However, last night we had a very successful lesson. It was with a new family: Carlos Cantanilla (creo que si, pero no estoy seguro) and Veronica Suarez and there five year old son Luis. We had taught them for the first time on sunday and we showed them the restoration video and left immediately after becuase the spirit was super strong and we didn't want to do anything to diminish by staying to long. So when we showed up last night we answered all their questions and we brought a member, Hmo. Chavez with us and he shared his conversion story with them. They kept saying things like wow, and expressing their amazement over his conversion and the Joseph Smith story. We testified of the Book of Mormon and how it will change their lives and they committed to read it together and pray together and seperately to know that it was true. He doesn't know how to read so she is going to read it to him. And get this, she was asking her husband if they could go to church! We were jumping for joy because they were so interested. Normally, even with the best of our investigators we have to try to force them to be interested but with Carlos and especially Veronica, they are so excited, they are doing all the work. They want to know these things for themselves. I truly believe they have been prepared.

Miguel is still planning on being baptized as far as we know. He still has not gone to church yet but he promised he would this week. He read four chapters of the Book of Mormon on sunday which is the most that any of our investigators have read so I hope he continues reading. I hope also, that he continues with his baptismal date for the seventh of October.

This week I have not been able to speak Spanish worth beans and it is very discouraging. I hardly say a word in most of our teaching appointments which gets me depressed cause I want to help out but I don't know how to say what I want to say and I cannot understand very well. I know that I will get better but right now it is very discouraging.

I love you all. Please send letters.
Love, Elder Bernard

Elder Bernard arrives in HoustonI am super excited to be in the same city where Dad served. What was pasadena like 30 years ago? Now it is almost en

Pues, finalmente estoy aqui en houston. I am super excited to be in the same city where Dad served. What was pasadena like 30 years ago? Now it is almost entirely spanish speaking. The mission calls it spanish land. We hardly ever use english with any of the people here. I thought I knew spanish in the MTC, boy was I mistaken, I think I may have accidently been learning Russian because what I learned in the MTC is nothing like what we have here. For the most part, my companion does most of the speaking in the lessons and I try to follow along which is sometimes very difficult. I testify in spanish alot and sometimes I teach principles. I wish I could help more but sometimes I cannot even tell what they are talking about. Its sometimes really bad because I am never well rested here and the nice droning of voices speaking another language puts me right to sleep. Some lessons that are very long are hard for me to keep my eyes open in. But it is really interesting because the gift of tongues really comes into play here. I am always trying to speak spanish but sometimes I cannot worth beans, then, during a lesson, the gift of tongues will just loosen my tongue and it is like I can say whatever I need to say and I understand everything. Like, I had one lesson with an investigator, Dora (things were going great with her and then she just dissappeared and we haven't heard from and can't find her), I understood everything and could speak fine. As soon as the lesson ended we contacted three other people and I didn't understand a word of the entire conversation. It's really frustrating because I feel like I could be contributing so much more but I don't know how to express myself. I don't know, I kinda also feel like I can express what I want to say if they will be patient and give me the time to say it but I struggle with understand what natives are saying. I can understand what my companion says cuz he is gringo and speaks really clearly but his spanish is really good. He has been out here for over a year and a half.
So for the first few days I felt like my companion and I did not click at all and we were not really like friends, just people living and doing everything together. Also, I felt like all the missionaries here in the mission were lazy. Nobody has any real direction and they don't set goals with a purpose and they don't set goals to meet them, rather just because we are told to set them. So anyways, all of our appointments on Saturday and Sunday fell through and we were not really doing anything with purpose so I spent a lot of time in prayer and thinking about it during my personal studies. In the MTC, we learned a ton about finding the elect that God has prepared. It requires faith but you have to know that God has prepared people to receive his word and let go of those investigators that are distracting you from finding the ones that are ready. We also learned that if we want to find the elect we have to be the elect. So during my personal study, I wrote up a plan about how to be the elect missionaries and how to find the elect. It included everything we needed to be doing to be 100% obedient and how to be effective in give commitments, and following through with investigators. We talked about all this stuff during comp study. My companion has only had a few baptisms. The most was one a transfer and he has had many that he did not have baptisms during the transfer. However, he is not goal oriented. We decided to change the way we do things and to set goals that we can and will meet that also stretch us. We prayed and set a goal to have four baptisms by the end of the transfer.

We then went out to work and had the most successful two days yet. We gained alot of investigators in two days and it seems like we could double or triple or goal. I hope we do. The Lord guides and there is nothing that we do of our own out here. We have to have his guidance. All the real adjustments we did to our plans were really to allow the spirit to direct us in this work and he truly does just that.

Yes my PDay is Wednesday

My address is
401 Texas St. Apt. A
South Houston, TX 77587

Love ya,
Elder Bernard

Sept 28, 2009

So anyway, I spoke with Nicole Candelaria several times in the RC this week. One time she was really upset about me leaving and the Lady who gave her anti-mormon literature had talked to her again and tried to persuade her out of being baptized. She was so different this day. She said she didn't want to go to church if I was going to leave and she said she wouldn't talk to other missionaries and would not be baptized. This upset me alot. However, the next time I talked to her she had gotten over that hump and said that she now realized that Satan had been trying to deceive her. She is excited about the baptism on the 24th and she has continued having missionaries visit. I am kind of worried though because she expects me to send her lots of letter and she sent me five emails yesterday. She wants me to call her again before I leave but I alreayd told her I cannot and I will not because she needs to learn to have her foundation in Christ and in the gospel. I don't need disciples, I have no power to do anything for anyone. Christ is the only person who can help disciples. Anyway, I hope she'll be alright but I think she will.

Oh ya, for part of last week my Elder Evans and I were so ready to leave we could hardly focus and we slacked like crazy and we were unhappy because of this. But then we decided to focus harder than we have ever focused because many people tend to slack in their last week of the MTC. Since then, we have had the best week of our MTC experience. Finally, I love it here.

I am working really hard and I am actually trying to become a true disciple of Christ. At first it was really hard to invest myself fully and I kept thinking that this was gonna be a long two years. I guess i came here to check the mission off my list so that I could go on to live the life I wanted for myself, my career, my wife, my life. But now I realize that I need to have God direct my life. Not just pretend by being a good mormon. I need to put all trust in Him and forget about all the other cares. I want to get lost in the work.

Sept 14, 2009

Hello Everybody,

I am late on the email because the server was down all morning. I have had some good experiences this past week and I am sending 20 pgs of journal entries home. I now have 4+ RC investigators. I have another one named Kimberley that is from Las Vegas that is probably going to be baptized within in a short time and I worked with another guy Ted. Nicole Candelaria is still doing very well. Her testimony almost makes me cry ever time I talk to her. She is so simple but her testimony just burns within her. It is beautiful. My email won't be very interesting today because I don't have much to say that isn't covered in the journal entries.

Here's some journal entries-

I spoke with Nicole, my RC investigaro, on the phone for my third time. The first time I spoke to her it was 75% confusion and 25% spiritual experience. The second time was probably 50/50l But this time was incredible! It was about 90% hard core spiritual goodness. I had prayed about her mucho and had prepared many specific things to talk about and when I talked to her she was so ready to learn and commit. She had kept her committment to listen to the B of M everyday and had prepared to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. She felt that she knew it was true. She had been watching the restoration video many times and was totally in love with it.
Just from seeing a picture of Pres. Monson she says she's knows he's a prophet.She offered the final prayer which was very scary for her because she felt like her words were not good enough, but her prayer was the most beautiful, humble prayer I have ever hear. It brought me to tears. I am so thankful that God gave me this opportunity, this tender mercy. Any other missionary at the MTC could have done what I did but in his mercy he gave this opportunity to me.

Jeff's have other great conversations with others at the RC(Referral Center). He loves this opportunity but says he usually gets real talkers and can hardly get a word in. He talked to another lady, Kimberly, who was so excited when he told her about templesand how she could live with her family forever. Jeff says it's so amazing to know that we can have glorious blessings if we keep our covenants.

Sept 16

Jeff pulled a few strings and was able to meet Tracy and "host" her when she got to the MTC. It was awesome for Mom and Dad to be greeted by Jeff at the MTC, even though it was just for a minute. He looks the same (Mom's words)

Sept. 9, 2009

This week has been great! I had some depression at the beginning of the week but that is not uncoomon here and satan works very hard to get people down. Especially if they are not obedient. If I am not obedient, Satan combines his bullcrap with my other guilt from being disobedient and he brings me super down about things. However, this week, I decided that I would follow every single rule absolutely. 100%. I have talked about doing this in reality but it never really happened to this past week. I am going to send home all my gum and any other thing that was against the rules because I want the blessings of being obedient. We have so many nitpicky rules that used to drive me crazy but now I look at it as a challenge and it is honestly fun to be like, "ok now I cannot do this also, let's prove that it won't even bother me." Everyday we receive more rules from the district leader or branch president or even from the mission president but whatever it is I will follow it because the blessings are in blindy following.

Also, this week I talked to my progressing investigator in california, Nicole Candelaria, over the phone in the RC twice. Her life has changed so much in just the past two weeks. She radiates happiness now and she is in love with this gospel. The Lord just won't let her drop it. It is burning so deeply within her heart that she cannot stop seeking more truth. She met with the missionaries in her area on saturday and she asked them to be baptized as she committed to me she would. They gave her a baptismal date of October 24th, which made me very upset because I thought that it was so stupid to wait because she is so eager right now. However, I now think the date may be inspired because I feel strongly that her husband needs to be taught the gospel before she is baptized or her baptism will destroy their marriage. As of yet, he is not happy about her joining the church but I think his heart is softening and she has asked him to come to church for a long time and he always said no, but his work gave him an extra day off on sunday which hardly ever happens (God's hand), and he said he would go to church with her one time. I asked Nicole if here husband would let me talk to him about the church and she thinks he will. She is going to talk to him and tell me about it when I talk to her on Tuesday. I think that the Lord may soften his heart and then they both can join the church and raise their family in righteousness. Nicole committed to go to church yesterday, and I haven't talked to her yet but I am pretty sure she went, and she listens to the scriptures everyday on LDS.org because she doesn't read well enough to read them. She keeps asking me to fly out for her baptism but I told her I cannot because I will be in houston, however, we are going to keep up communication through mail.

My experience with Nicole has been an absolute tender mercy from God. The conversations with her are my favorite thing about the week. I pray for her and her family in every single prayer I say which is quite a bit as a missionary. Her testimony is so sweet and it enlightens my day.

Other than that this week has been pretty uneventful. In my class, we are playing a game were two people are anonymously selected through a drawing to be "Nativos" and they are supposed to speak solamente en espanol for the entire day. When it is time to judge, 24 hours later, the class votes on the person they think was the native and the native receives points depending on how convincing they were that they were the native. Makes sense. My explanation is not very good but anyway, I am one of the nativos right now but because it is the weekend and I have p-day today, we don't have class until tonight. I have been the native for three days and have hardly spoken anything other than espanol. My espanol has grown so much during these three days it is honestly hard to speak in english or even to think in english. I love spanish. It is so fun.

No mucho mas tiempo pero yo quiero compartir mi testimonio con ustedes. Yo se que Jesucristo es mi salvador, y redenter, y tambien se que le morio por mis pecados y que Jesucristo me ama. En el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

Ten seconds more. Love ya, bye

Aug. 17 2009

Anyway. Today I went to the temple for a third time. I can't believe it has almost been three weeks. It is starting to go by really fast. I have been a total slacker for the past week and I regret it super bad. However, my companion and I have had some spiritual experiences that have inspired us to work with diligence and to stop wasting the Lord's time. Elder Evans is an awesome companion and he has a strong desire to serve the Lord. My old companion has written twice. He said as soon as he got home he knew it was the wrong decision and he had been duped by Satan. He said that he had looked forward to being released but when it actually happened he said it was really hard. He has now decided that he is going to come back out as soon as his stake president will let him. They are going to hold his call for three months and he may even be coming back before that. He is way excited to still be able to go to T.H.E. mission. We are way glad that he decided to come back. I was so glad that I had had the experience that I had in getting on my mission because I think me telling him my story may have had some influence on him deciding to come back. It truly was divinely appointed that we be companions.


Anyway, my companion and I had a really spiritual experience together yesterday. We went to a really good devotional and both were stirred up to repentance by the spirit. We goof off so much together that we have been wasting the Lords time and not doing what we were supposed to be doing. The Lord didn't send us out here to play and although we were probably giving 75 percent effort the minimum standard is 100 percent. After the fireside we had a special companionship study where he first offered a beautiful repentant prayer and then I offered one immediately following. I then bore my testimony and he bore his. The spirit was so strong and we committed to make this the turning point in our missions and to start to serve with all our heart might mind and strength. I know that we are still at the beginning of our missions but we need to make that turning point now and waste no more time on childish things. We are now determined and we are implement 3 by 5 cards and other battle strategies i learned at group to fight off satan when he tries to keep us from going to work.

Love you guys. Write back as soon as you get this letter. and send lotsa dear elders. I honestly enjoy receiving them more than real letters and they are super easy to send.

Love Jeff

Aug 11, 2009

Hola,

How is everybody? I miss all of you so much. Well kinda, I still have not gotten homesick or anything but I love y'all a bunch. Just kiddin' practicing my texan (but since I am going to be spanish speaking y'all would be vosotros and since they only use that in spain and in the scriptures, I just won't say y'all how bout that. Sorry for the rambling.) I am having a real good time here. The days go by fast now and I love all of my district. We are such goof offs and I feel like we are all best friends and I have known them forever. My companion is for sure going home. I love him alot and I wish he could commit himself to the Lord and stay but since he is not willing to commit himself to the Lord I am glad he is going home.

Hola mi Novia,

The MTC is the hardest thing on the planet. I thought that it would be a breeze because I had worked so hard to get here but that doesn't matter every trial is still hard. However, things are going better and everyone says that the first week is by far the hardest because they are trying to break you. We had absolutely no free time ever until yesterday. I know it doesn't seem like it could have been that hard because i have only been here for so short of time, but I feel like i have been here for weeks. They all say that the weeks seem like days but the days seem like weeks and it seems pretty true so far. The spirit is so strong in the MTC. It is stronger here and spiritual experiences are more frequent then ever before but you can be spiritually soaring one minute and then the next minute you want to quit and you can't imagine going forward. On Thursday and friday, I was so angry at God for how hard everything was and for all the trivial rules that seem so stupid and that all contradict each other. I honestly was ready to call it quits but every time that happens the spirit comes and something pushes you on. I am committed to complete my mission faithfully and I am beginning to realize that anytime you focus on yourself and your own needs, your life sucks. There is just no two ways about it. But when you put yourself into others and focus on helping them you can be happy. I miss Magillikitty. Gosh I don't even know if I spelled it right and I made it up so I should now how right? Anyway my roommates are Elder Ferguson and Elder Wheeler, and of course my companion is Elder Cody Conder. My companion is a good guy although I think we would be unlikely friends if we had not been called as companions.

I am so excited to get to texas and actually start helping people. That is what it is really about. I think people lose sight of it here. Ithink that God called us with our distinct personalities for a reason and he wants us to enjoy the gospel because the gospel is a message of happiness.

Send me letters.

Love,
Elder Bernard

MTC

Jeff's address is
Elder Jeff Bernard
165-0929
Texas Houston East
2005 No. 900 East
Provo, UT 84604-1793

A good way to email Jeff is at DearElder.com. It's free and they print and deliver it.

So anyway, I thought I would inform all of you that don't know and those that do, I am actually leaving on my mission this time. I enter the MTC for real, on Wednesday the 29th. I am so excited to go. Sorry to leave all of my fans waiting. I know you have been dying to hear from me. I am stoked and I hope to hear from all of you soon.

Addresses

Hey everybody. I know that this post is totally lame but I wanted to put up the MTC and Mission addresses. I will be in the MTC for 8 weeks I believe. Feel free to write.

MTC:
Elder Jeffrey Spencer Bernard
Texas Houston East Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 9oo E
Provo, Ut 84604

Mission Home:
Elder Jeffrey Spencer Bernard
Texas Houston East Mission
2815 West Lake Houston Pkwy Ste 109
Kingwood, TX 77339-5220

Woohoo! I leave to the MTC tomorrow and I get set apart in a half hour!