"One had vision, the rest had none..."

I would like to apologize for my lack of time, but I have no time to do that.

Today I would simply like to bear my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true and I know that the Book of Mormon can change lives. Before my mission it was important and I believed in the Book of Mormon, however, I didn't know why it was so important and the spirituality that is contained in its precious pages. As I read through the Book of Mormon in the missionary training center in a time that feels just like yesterday, I really came to love this special Book. I felt like I was reading something that I had never read before. I was gaining knowledge that I had never been introduced to. I once heard someone say that you don't necessarily learn anything new on your mission, you simply come to better understand the things you know in your heart. That is how I feel about my testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

I always knew that this sacred record was true, however as I have studied the words on the pages, and more importantly the words not on the pages, but the words influenced by the Holy Spirit, I have really come to understand the meaning of the Book of Mormon in my heart. Four transfers ago on my mission, I made a commitment to read the Book of Mormon at least a chapter or more every day for the rest of my life. Ever since then, day by day this Book has changed me and I know it has the power to change you too. Please read it, study it, ponder about it, and most importantly pray. Find the answer for yourself. It will change your life. The Book of Mormon is the keystone to our church and it is the evidence that through Joseph Smith the Lord restored His Church on the Earth. I would like to testify that I know that is true, and yet the Book of Mormon is so much more than that. It is everything. It is power and peace from God. Sorry for the scrambled message, but I would like to firmly and wholeheartedly declare that the Book of Mormon is the word of God!

Everything is going well and I love being a missionary! We should have a baptism next week so I will keep you posted on that! Sorry for no more updates but I am alive and well! 

To close I will share a poem President talked about in zone conference. Pretty powerful:

Three stone Masons were working one day; I paused a while as I passed that way.
I asked this question of all to see, just what they thought and would say to me.
'What are you doing?' I asked them all. These are the answers, as I recall.

The first man said: 'I'm chipping stone' He saw his job and his job alone.

The second man answered: 'Can't you see - My ten bucks a day look good to me'.

But the third man answered, and he was right, 'I'm building a temple on this site'.
The selfsame work by all was done, but one had vision, the rest had none.

Your work is easy or hard for you, It all depends on your point-of-view.

Enjoy football and fall back home for me. JOY IN THE JOURNEY! 

Love,

Elder Gochnour

1 YEAR AND CARING FOR THE 1

      

Hello! Congrats to the Titans for balling out and I also heard that Zion Williamson is looking good. Blue Devil Nation baby! This week was good and actually, a lot happened and I hardly have enough time to scrape the surface of expressing my every day coming and goings, so I will just give a quick recap:

• As ironic as this sounds I decided that in order to mix up my transfer I would wear the same outfit every day for six weeks. Wearing the ugliest tie I have and a rotation through my three pairs of tans pants. Not to mention the killer Keens (loafers) haha! My humor has really gone downhill...

• Went on another exchange to Sen Sok. No way to describe that place so I will just have to tell you the stories when I get home. Lots of goats and sheep and missionary work.

• Had a meeting with almost the whole mission because one of the area 70 came on Saturday and it was pretty awesome. I love getting together as a whole mission and feeling the spirit.

• One of our investigators named Seyta is really the miracle man! He has no food and no money and is literally barely surviving. His blind dog isn't doing so great either. It was his birthday on Saturday so we took him out to eat and we just went big! Steak, pork, octopus and everything a man needs to have a good meal. He was so humble and grateful for that meal and I think we really made his day. After a lot of sacrifice from the members, he should be starting work this week and getting baptized the next! An awesome guy with tons of faith. He would have already had a job, but he decided to starve rather than to take it because he said it wouldn't allow him to go to church on Sunday. Pretty cool stuff. The work here has been a little bit slower, but it has given us more time to just focus on the one, and spend more time thinking about each one of our investigators and is really a blessing in our lives! 

I hit my one year mark! It was actually pretty anti-climatic, but crazy to think that I have been out here for a year. I burned one of my white shirts and spent a lot of time reflecting on this past year and looking forward to the year ahead. 

I spent a whole study time in Preach My Gospel thinking about the person that I want to become when I step off the plane in the Salt Lake Airport a year from now. I feel like I have changed so much, but yet have so far to go. I feel like I have done so much, but yet have missed so many opportunities. No words can adequately express the feelings that I have for the past year and the feelings I will yet have for the year ahead. 

I guess simply put, I have gratitude. I have gratitude for this mission, for this Gospel and for my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that the most important thing is being able to bow down to the Lord every single night, and say with an honest heart that, "Heavenly Father today I tried my best, and tomorrow I will try a little bit harder." That is all that matters. And if we are able to bow down and say that every single night of our lives, we will eventually become the finished product that we once only hoped for. I would invite you all to do the same. With that all in mind, President Homer the area 70 shared this scripture D&C 45:2 and it really kicked me into gear. 

It says:

2 And again I say, hearken unto my voice, lest death shall overtake you; in an hour when ye think not the summer shall be past, and the harvest ended, and your souls not saved.

We can't come to the end of our missions, or more importantly the end of our lives, and realize that the summer has passed and that our glorious and precious time to harvest has ended. I may have one year down, but that means I get a whole other year to devote my self to the salvation of souls. The summer is not yet over and when it is, I don't want to think that there was a soul not saved that I could have shared this wonderful gift of hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers everyone. And after this year I have the rest of my life to finish that work until death does overtake me. I love being a missionary and can't wait for another 52 weeks of pure joy in the Lord's vineyard!

Thanks for all the love from back home! You guys are the best!! Read the Book of Mormon!

//Elder Gochnour

"I am never lonely"

  

  

Hello people! 

Glad to hear the wedding went well and the knot is finally tied! Shout out to Lucy and Eli FALK!

A very interesting thing happened this week. After asking President multiple times, he finally found the means to put Sisters in our area! We just have a lot of female RC's (recent converts) and investigators, and it would just be a lot better if there were Sisters to teach them, instead of having us Elders do it and always having to find member help. That being said in the short term vision it put things into a spin, to say the least. The Sisters already have another area that they are busy in and don't have a lot of time to meet with our female investigators and RC's as of right now. 

We had transfers on Wednesday and a service project on Saturday that ended up being an hour and a half bike ride. We also helped a member fill out his mission papers so it was hard to get a lot of work down but here are two pretty cool/ humbling things that happened this week:

1. We have this extremely old member in our ward that we just call "grandmother" and she is unable to go to church, but we occasionally go and visit her at her pharmacy that she lives at. She is one of the most awesome people I have ever met in my life. She always reads the Book of Mormon, and when I first got to the area she was just starting Alma and now she is close to finishing Ether! An absolute baller! She has to read with the big Book of Mormon and she even uses a magnifying glass haha. Super funny and so awesome to see her faith. Every time we visit her I ask her what her favorite scripture is and she just always responds, "They are all my favorite!" 

I also say that we wanted to come visit her so she didn't feel lonely, but she simply responds "I am never lonely! I have God and the scriptures with me." She is one of the happiest and optimistic people I have ever met, and this week we were able to ask a little bit about her past. Without getting into too many details because of lack of time, she shared about the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, that had haunting effect on her family. She and all her relatives (more than 80) (including her 10 children) were forced to go to the province Pursat. They had nothing there and as the days went on the food supply became less and less until ultimately they would each only get one spoonful of rice soup (not sure what else to call it) for every meal. That is all the food they had. All but one of her children starved to death. Of the 80+ that went only 4 returned to the city. Her husband was taken from her and killed. Tragedy. And yet, here was this old lady, "grandma" sitting in front of us with no worries or fear on her face. No bitterness or resentment toward God, or the trials that she suffered through. Simply hope, love, and the perfect knowledge that one day she would be able to see her children again. That is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. That is why this message is so glorious and perfect. Because of hope and happiness that comes from the healing of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

2. Wow, that took way too long to type. The other story is about our old investigator who is the miracle man. Long story short he has no money and no job and didn't eat for three days. We are helping him out and the bishop is amazing to help take care of him. Pretty cool miracles have been manifest through his humble faith. More to update next week.

Anyway, love you all!  I was reading in Jacob 4 today and it says in verse 3, "Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engrave these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents."

We must rejoice over the Book of Mormon and learn with joy from its precious pages! I know that that Book is true and you all should be reading it every single day!

Go Tiger, Utes, Jazz, and sports!~

Love,

Elder Gochnour

    

Anotha One!

The week started with a bang, quite literally actually. It was Tuesday night after a pretty regular day of proselytizing and it started pouring rain pretty hard. We were also coming home late so I was trying to haul on my bike and at this intercession, I saw a moto slow down so I thought I was good to go, but then he just sped up right into me and t-boned me haha. No injury and still living baby! I wish I could say that was the only accident, but at one point I may have biked into a parked car this week as well ha. We had a good week of missionary work! Honestly, missionary work is not too exciting on the everyday level, but when you look back at the effect that the work you put in has had then you really can get excited. A lot of teaching, biking, and having to rearrange our plans when people don't show up or don't answer their phones haha. This week we also took home 300 duck eggs from Elder Pov's house so I pretty much just ate about 13 eggs a day haha. Fun stuff and really making memories out here. We had transfer calls and I am staying here with Elder Pov so another transfer in Pochentong and I am gonna try to make the most of it because it will be the last one. 

The fun news of the week was the baptism of another one of our investigators named Jing Choan! We have seriously been teaching her for probably about 4 months and it has been a very slow process. She had been to church 10 times and has a lot of support from the members in the ward. Countless times throughout our lessons she had questions or concerns. We would do our best to answer them and resolve them and eventually the concern would go away and things would fall into place. I know that that didn't happen because we are good teachers or we shared the right stuff with her. But I know that because she continued to stay faithful and trust in the Lord, eventually everything that she was worried about made sense and didn't matter so much anymore. I know that the true power and truth of the gospel can resolve anyone's concerns, whether you are a member for your whole life or just starting to learn about who Jesus Christ is. I know that because I know that this church is true and as we continue to trust in God and continue in faith everything will work out just like it did for her. Awesome baptism and great to see her enter a sacred covenant with her Father in Heaven.

If any of you want a few good reading assignments I have some for you that really helped me understand about faith and endurance. I was reading in Hebrews 11 and then in Ether 12:7-22. It talks about the amazing miracles that the prophets were able to do because of the faith that they had. 
I would invite you to read those sections of scriptures and think about your own faith. We also have to realize that many of the prophets did not have the ultimate success story. Although they had many miracles wrought by their hands, they had to face extreme hardship, suffering, and even death.       

Just because we have faith doesn't mean things are going to be easy, but they are going to be possible. That is where we have to endure and use our faith as the stepping stones in our path of life!

SHOUT OUT TO LUCY AND ELI FOR GETTING MARRIED ON SATURDAY! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND WISH I COULD BE THERE! ENJOY THE PERFECT DAY!

Also, shout out to William West with the big bday last week. I love you man!

Thanks so much for all the love and support!

Elder Gochnour