TEMPLE TIME!

69 of the 97 missionaries in Cambodia in front of the potential Temple Site. Giving a Hurrah for Israel!

A peek inside the gate at the possible Temple Site.

So if you haven't heard, President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple coming to the Kingdom. No not a temple of Angkor Wat, a temple of salvation!!!!!!!! Let's GO!!!!!!

This week was pure chaos and our area suffered because of it. I guess chaos isn't the right word, because it was all positive, but we just haven't had much time to do regular missionary work in our area. We still got my boys Vuan and Samuel L. Jackson who are both amazing and are progressing toward their dates very nicely. Cool quick story: Vuan told us that before he met the Elders his life was so lonely and bleak. He had no friends. He would go to work, go home, and sleep. He felt like he didn't really have much purpose in life, but now he has friends and it is difficult to catch him without a smile on his face. The gospel does change people. Another funny story: we taught Samuel L. the Law of Chastity and now whenever he sees any members or meets with us he always just repeats the Law of Chastity and all the points in it haha. At least he remembers though!

Tuesday we had a one day exchange! I went with Elder Shurtz who is a way cool guy and can play literally every instrument so that was a fun day. Wednesday taught English class.  Thursday & Friday we had Missionary Leadership Conference & new missionary training.  Saturday was a ward activity and then Monday we had a tri-zone, zone conference. Long story short LOTS of meetings and good, free food from the mission. Lots of time with all the mission friends and lots of spirit felt. Not enough time to talk about everything that happened, but I am grateful for leadership from President and the inspiration he receives to guide our mission. There have been some major changes made in the schedule that will give us more time to proselyte which I am SUPER excited about! Fun stuff. 

Also funny story: We slept down in the city the night of the new missionary training and we all planned to play basketball, but when we got to the church the power was out. We weren't going to lose this one opportunity to ball so we just went outside and played on the baskets that didn't have hoops. You can imagine how that went. Only in Cambodia my friends.

Anyway, the main thing that I wanted to talk about was the temple that will be built in the beautiful city of Phnom Penh in these upcoming years. It was Monday (yesterday) morning at about 5:40AM when I received the text that a temple would be built in our country of Cambodia. Honestly, at first I didn't believe it. The church has only been here for about 20 years and still is a young organization. Wards and branches are strong relatively, but still have a lot of work to do. However, towards the end of the text, I realized that the vision that we had set for the mission only two zone conferences before had just become a reality. And since learning of the Temple announcement I have had a feeling of pure joy. Sure there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of people to be reactivated, and a lot of new people to be found. But the Lord is hastening His work in this beautiful country and I am so blessed to be a part of that. I know that this announcement came from a true prophet of God, who knows these people and knows what the future holds in store. He knows the help and healing and especially the HOPE that comes from the temple. He knows the peace that will be given to these people. I know that the temple is the house of the Lord. I know that every temple is a place of peace and I can't wait to be apart of laying the groundwork for this amazing building. I love this gospel. 

Last night we went around and had the opportunity to tell some members that didn't know yet about this glorious news. We shared with them D&C 97:15-16

15 And inasmuch as my people build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it;

16 Yea, and my presence shall be there, for I will come into it, and all the pure in heart that shall come into it shall see God.

I just want to bear my testimony that the Lord is hastening His work and how grateful I am to be a part of it.

Anyway, I love you all and the church is true!! I can't wait to watch conference and I hope you all did too!

Love,

Elder Gochnour 

A Crab on a String

Well, this week was an adventure. Here are a few things that happened:

• We visited a member and her son (who is named Hollywood haha). The son was playing with a crab on a string and I decided to give it a belly rub and the thing pinched my finger hard and I flung the crab across the room. Normal.

• We went fishing with one of our recent convert but didn't get any bites. Actually, I guess that isn't completely true. The only thing that was biting was a bunch of mosquitos.

Other than that we are just slowly and surely trying to get a little more established in our brand new area. We are visit members, find new investigators, and teach the ones that we have and it just seems like everything just goes by in a blur.

 Honestly, it doesn't feel like I have that many crazy cool experiences anymore. I have them all right, but now it is just life. It is just part of the work that we do every day as a servant of the Lord. It doesn't feel new anymore, but it just feels like every single day is enjoyable and consistent and effective. Kinda hard to explain, but I just really love being a missionary. It just is flat out fun. 

We found two old guys that were willing to listen to us, and one of them even prayed, but we will see... The big news is our man Vuen is an absolute baller! Not much time to explain about him, but people like him are the reason why I have hope in this work and in this life. The Lord is moving his work forward, it may be one soul at a time, but the work is rolling forward and nothing can stop it. How glorious to be a part of it. He came to church and will be baptized pretty soon. Our other investigators (my boy Samuel L) are doing really well, but it is a holiday and so kind of chaotic to get them to church, but hopefully, once everything settles down it will go back to normal.

Other than that life is super good out here! I love being a missionary and I love my companion Elder Chytraus. It is so easy to relate to him and to understand where he is coming from. It kinda just feels like hanging out with one of my friends back home! So yes long story short, life is good.

Not much for a spiritual thought this week, except that I have still been studying revelation and I know that revelation and the Holy Ghost can change our lives. Take this scripture for example in Mosiah 5:2, 2

 “And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”

The spirit will change our lives and we are going to need to be receiving revelation as this aal Conference approaches!

I love you all! The church is true and Jesus is the Christ. Go titans! Keep working and go jazz with the new throwbacks and Grayson balling out! Also, don't sleep on Duke football....

Love, 

Elder Gochnour

A Child is Born

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!

I have a whole lot to talk about so we will see how this goes.

On Monday I was able to say goodbye to a few people and then I was hoping to do the same thing, but my comp got sick so I sadly wasn't able to say goodbye to a lot of the beloved members in Pochentong.  I will just have to meet them another day or in the spirit world haha! I love Pochentong and those amazing people. 

Then came transfers on Wednesday! But because our "kids" (new missionaries) didn't get in until Thursday morning I was able to spend about 3 hours to try to become familiar with every member's house and ever investigators house in our new area. Which really just wasn't enough time haha. We were just biking around hauling trying to see them all haha with Elder Orton who was here before. It was a very rushed three hours!

Then I received my "son", Elder Chytraus!!!!!!! I got the skyline eagle! All I am saying is the boys at Oly better keep the streak going and get the rock because I can't be training an eagle without the rock! Good luck boys. Anyway, Elder Chytraus is an absolute baller. It has been so fun to be with him and help him experience this crazy country for the first time. He has seen a couple of his first naked children and super poor houses! It is so fun to see how new and exciting it is and I really reminisce about my first days in this crazy country.

The days following were pretty chaotic. I had to figure out all the zone leader stuff, use a dinky map to find where in the world I am going, and also I am English class leader so we had to print out all the papers and stuff. Not to mention we had no food and the house was just a mess so it has been a whirlwind of a few days, but things have settled down now. On our first day here though we taught a cool guy and gave him a baptismal date which was so awesome. This area has about five good investigators that are all doing way well and have a lot of potentials and so things are definitely looking up! One of which is an old guy who looks exactly like Samuel L. Jackson, just a little bit skinnier so we just call him Elder Jackson or Samuel L. hahaha and he is an absolute legend! I will keep you updated on him. I already LOVE the members in this area. They are so fun and I can't wait for these transfers ahead.

I am sorry for the scattered email, but I want to share one more thing. One night after I prayed I just laid down at night and felt pure joy. It was one of the weirdest, but best feelings. I realized that the reason I felt that joy is because for the space of about 3 whole days I hadn't thought about myself once. Even though on your mission you come to forget yourself and get lost in the work, often times your mind slips back to things of home, or concerns for the future, and you start to think about yourself. Those things are natural, but as the busy three days came and went I didn't think about any of those things and in return, I just felt pure peace and joy in my own life. I know that Jesus Christ lived his whole life this way. He lived for others and in return He was perfect. May we all forget about ourselves a little bit more and focus on others this week!!!

I will give you some better stories next week, but for now, just know that I love you all. 

Even though we are all weak, imperfect servants of the Lord, God can work miracles through us. 

Go, Titans.

Love,

Elder Gochnour

Bye-Bye Pochentong

  

Sadly because of transfer calls last night I will be leaving this beloved area of mine. I am gonna miss this place and this amazing ward that meets every Sunday within the walls of an old mansion. 
I am excited though because I will have the opportunity to train a newcomer to the mission and we will be going to Chbarm Pov and white washing the area. They say that you really come to notice your weaknesses on your mission, and I can't wait to truly come to understand the meaning of that sentence these next two transfers as the leader of this area! 

I am really gonna miss the amazing people here and especially Elder Pov who I have really come to love these last couple of transfers.

This week we had another baptism! He is only 10 years old and is a member of an active family who goes every week, that for some reason did not get him baptized when he turned 8 (that happens WAY too often here haha). He is actually a really cool guy and it was fun to see him enter the waters of baptism. He kept the testimony very short, but he said that he is grateful for the Savior. I think we can all be a little more grateful for the Savior in our lives.

I thought rainy season was over, but I guess I was wrong because it rained every single day this week. We had interviews with President and it went pretty well! I love the Lewis's and know that they are receiving revelation to guide this mission. Also, one of the missionaries had bad blood clots and almost passed away and so we went and visited at the hospital and he is a trooper. Just chilling in the middle of Cambodia after surgery reading the Book of Mormon. You gotta love the mission life. Other than that just kinda a lot of biking, teaching, studying and everything else that you do as a missionary.

Most importantly I want to share something that I learned in personal study. I have recently noticed that President Nelson has been making a BIG PUSH to have us focus on receiving personal revelation. He gave a talk in conference and studied to find this to be his overarching theme. 
I decided that in order to follow the spokesman of God on the Earth today, I better find out a little bit more about receiving personal revelation. 

I can't even begin to explain how much I have learned and how important receiving this revelation for ourselves is. I invite all of you to read his talk and really think about how you can better receive personal revelation in your own life. 

One thing that I found in True to The Faith says, "Quiet spiritual promptings may not seem as spectacular as visions or angelic visitations, but they are more powerful and lasting and life changing. The witness of the Holy Ghost makes an impression on the soul that is more significant than anything you can see or hear. Through such revelations, you will receive lasting strength to stay true to the gospel and help others do the same." 

There are so many examples of people who have had miracles in their lives and have been changed by the gospel, but because they weren't able to do the work necessary to continue to follow God and continue to receive personal revelation the effect of that miracle wasn't enough to carry them. We have seen this in recent converts that go less active, return missionaries that fall away from the church, in witnesses of the Book of Mormon that went apostate and so many other times. WE NEED TO CONSTANTLY RECEIVE THE WHISPERING OF THE SPIRIT IN OUR LIFE IN ORDER TO STAY ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW! It is essential! If you don't believe me then just go ask the prophet! I would like to close by another bomb that the Bible Dictionary drops about God, 
"God can be known only by revelation. He must be revealed or remain forever unknown"

Take that as a little food for thought and find the spirit in your life!

I love you all! GO UTES! Happy birthday Eli and good luck to Oly against Lehi!

Elder Gochnour

The Miracle Man got Baptized

Well, I spend all of my email time looking at pictures of my niece and nephew so #sorrynotsorry

To start things out I would just like to give a personal shoutout to Elder Michael Cunningham who sent me a Donovan Mitchel jersey that is now my new favorite item of clothing. Somebody let my boy Donny know that he has fans repping him all the way out in Cambodia!!!!!! Also, shout out to the Titans for just balling out! TTTE!

This week I had the chance to go to Sen Sok again for the fourth time. Honestly, when I first went there I thought boy I would never want to serve in this area, and I felt pity for the missionaries there, but now I am actually jealous. I love that place, and it came to show me the importance that attitude is everything.

Our investigators are doing good and we are working hard to find new ones! I won't go into detail, but the work is really moving forward here.

2 highlights of the week:

• There is a recent convert family that is very poor and some of the most faithful people I have ever met. His name is Pu Rat and he always feeds us once a week even though they hardly have enough money for their own food. I have learned to love that about these amazing people. They give you everything they have, even if that is nothing. Anyway we were teaching about enduring to the end and I told a story about how I had worked so hard to cook this delicious food called Kha and I did everything right, but then because I didn't watch it while it was cooking on the stove I burnt it. Just like in our lives. Even though we may have all the saving ordinances and have everything done right and followed the gospel our whole life, if we aren't careful we might burn our delicious meal and make all the hard work worthless. Anyway, this guy just got into it and he was so pumped. He was talking about how the salt was like reading the scriptures and the garlic was fasting haha and as I sat there I just felt happy. This gospel truly is for everyone. I feel so blessed to see the joy that comes from these people following the gospel of Jesus Christ and how pumped up he was. 

• The miracle man Setha got baptized this week! If I typed everything that happened from the time that we met him while walking on the side of the ghetto railroad tracks, till the time that he entered the waters of baptism, then you would be reading a novel. I will have to save the stories until I get back. The baptism went super smooth and then the coolest thing happened. He got up and bore his testimony about his family. Because he had lived a life full of sin and satisfying himself. His family had all become separated. He lost communication with his mother and that broke his heart. As he accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ he came to slowly but surely and it changed his life. At his baptism, he testified of his love for his Savior and his hope of connection with his family again now that he has got his life in order. The gospel really does blesses us temporally and spiritually. Then the member of our bishopric and got up and bore his testimony. Most of his kids are less active which I think is very hard on him and he talked about the importance of our relationship with our earthly parents and the love that they have for us no matter what happens. He also talked about the love that our Heavenly Father has for us and both him and Setha were letting the tears flow. Pretty cool to be a part of such a monumental and life-changing work. I love this gospel.

I am out of time, but all of you scrubs better go read Mosiah 24. Love you all! Go Utes and Titans! Joy in the Journey!

Elder Gochnour

Lord, I would follow thee.

September 3, 2018

I would just like to start out by saying that I love you all and hope everything is going well back home.

Nothing too crazy has happened in the last two weeks! Just lots of little miracles and funny stories and cool experiences that would take way to long to describe the background situation. I guess I could sum up my last two weeks by saying: I love being a missionary and getting out there every day and doing the work of the Lord. 

We are a little low in the investigator pool right now, so I decided to focus all my studies and efforts on finding new people. I really gained a testimony of the Hand of God in this work. In Cambodia sometimes you just have to go out and walk under the hot sun and try to talk to people that usually have no interest in learning about the gospel. Hardly ever do those efforts result in a baptism. However, I know that as we show our faith, God rewards us in ways that we wouldn't have expected and don't quite understand. We were able to find three new people who wanted to learn this week, just from random situations and I know that God truly does reward us for our labors.

Guntia got baptized! She was an investigator that we taught up to lesson 5 and then handed her over to the Sisters when they moved into our area. I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting about one of the biggest truths that I have learned so far in this country. On one of my first Sundays in Cambodia there was a guy that was a member from Africa who lives in Cambodia, but super new to the church. He came up to the missionaries and asked, "How can you tell people, and promise them that by following the Gospel of Jesus Christ their lives can be better?" At that time I didn't know how to answer that question. I wasn't sure if I could tell them and know that it was true. I had seen the power of the gospel in my life, but could it really help everyone? Well today, I know. I know that the gospel can help everyone. It truly can change every single person's life. Guntia is an awesome example of that.

I would like to close by sharing a hymn that has really come to mean a lot to me out here on the mission. Give it a read and think about how you can better follow the Lord in your life.

1. Savior, may I learn to love thee,

Walk the path that thou hast shown,

Pause to help and lift another,

Finding strength beyond my own.

Savior, may I learn to love thee--

1. Lord, I would follow thee.
2. 2. Who am I to judge another
   When I walk imperfectly?
   In the quiet heart is hidden
   Sorrow that the eye can't see.
   Who am I to judge another?
3. Lord, I would follow thee. 
4. 3. I would be my brother's keeper;
5. I would learn the healer's art.
6. To the wounded and the weary
7. I would show a gentle heart.
8. I would be my brother's keeper--

1. Lord, I would follow thee. 
2. 4. Savior, may I love my brother
   As I know thou lovest me,
   Find in thee my strength, my beacon,
   For thy servant I would be.
   Savior, may I love my brother--
3. Lord, I would follow thee.

Thanks for all the support and love. 

Choose to be happy this week! 

I feel so blessed every day to be a missionary of the Lord. 

Shout out to Grace for the big birthday this week! 

Love,

Elder Gochnour

"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