La Feria, Week 2- "It's You, and Me Forever."

 Well, honestly this week flew by. There were a lot of miracles. Here are some of the main ones.

Quarantined:

We had to spend Tuesday and Wednesday inside because Elder Burgess was really sick. It is okay though because that meant that I got to work and grow my skills on Facebook finding and teaching. In fact, I found one person this week from Facebook that is very elect. His name is Enrique, and I will talk a little bit more about him later.

 

Muchisimos Español:

I gave a full 10 min spiritual thought in all Spanish at a dinner appointment with the Zone leaders District Leader Bishop and Bishops family. It was all on the fly and as such incredibly stressful. I did it though, and although I didn’t have the complete vocabulary and ability to do it, I testified and the spirit was strong, so ultimately, I feel good about it. Lesson learned, life is a lot less stressful when you follow the spirit. He is our eternal guide for forever, how cool is that.

 

Starting to get a little warmer:

This week I experienced walking around in 85° with 80% humidity and straight sun. At least we were not on the bikes for that prossing time, but yeah, it was hot. I cannot imagine how warm it is going to be in the summer.

 

Enrique:

This man is a miracle. I found him after a fervent prayer on who to find on Facebook and a long day of diligently finding people on Facebook. Then I decided to triple text (very bold uncommon move) Enrique. It later turned into us going to his house. He is amazing. He shared with us that he had been desiring to learn more about God when we reached out to him. We had an awesome lesson where we taught a lot of principles and he is very prepared to accept the gospel. He even said that he has been feeling an impression recently that he needs to be baptized. He is seriously the coolest and just seems to get it. The only sad thing is that he doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, so eventually we will have to pass him off. That is okay though because we are all working towards the same cause. I am very excited to work with him more.

 

Anotha one:

We also had another finding miracle with a guy named Jonathan. As I stated before prossing in the hot weather is not the best, so when we were having no success on Wednesday it seemed very tempting to throw in the towel and just do more Facebook finding than necessary. Well, this week I had fervently been praying to find 'the one'. I was determined to give it my all on the streets for about three and a half hours of sweating. Well at the very end of our contacting time we decided to do one more street in a neighborhood we had received revelation on that day. Well with no one really outside in the neighborhood I had a good feeling that we should just do one more street and not deny the revelation we had received. So, we headed down. That is when we met Jonathan. He was at the end of the street and was prepared. In fact, he had recently been talking to a coworker about different religions (a couple days earlier). His coworker mentioned us and basically told him that we do not believe in God or Jesus Christ. He didn’t really believe that, but he didn’t fight him on it. His coworker told him to talk to the guys in white shirts and ties next time they drop by. When we started talking to him, he pointed out that it was a crazy coincidence that he really didn’t see us often especially with the fact that he had been looking to grow his relationship with God once more. I told him that it was a miracle (explaining that he was the answer to our prayer to find the one). The spirit was super strong and the whole family even came out to talk. They are not just willing but eager to have us come back! It was amazing and God has blessed me so much this week. That I am sure of. So, I now invite you to think of a coincidence that happened this last week that you didn’t give God the credit for being a miracle.

 

Love, Elder Ethan Tufts

PHOTOS

Good to know they have the finest luxury cars in La Feria, TX

A mansion we saw with the coolest palm trees in the yard.

Belated Easter package, but not by much.

Beautiful murals at a Memorial Park.

We saw this great bell at a Mehodist church while proselytizing.

Another beautiful Texas sunset...

La Feria, Week 1- "There’s Miles of Land in Front of Us..." (just not as much as Taft)

Well, this past week is not nearly as interesting since my new companion is very lackluster but that is perfectly okay. Just not as many crazy fun stories.

I am now in La Feria, an area touching the border and removed from Harlingen. The people here speak a surprising amount of English but I am still a Spanish missionary so that is good. My companion is Elder Burgess and he is from New Mexico. He has been out here for 10 months now. He is a nice mix between an 'embarrassing Dad' vibe and a Sanford personality. It is going to be a funny transfer. 

 

Honestly, the best part of my week was going to transfers with Elders Reese, Walton and Lowder. It was seriously a great time. We got up at 4 am because McAllen is so far from Corpus. We also had to grab the Sisters’ car and while there, they gave me a ukulele!!!!!! It is so awesome! I almost cried it was such a nice gift to me. They even painted Donald Duck on the back and the Disney logo on the bottom. I can’t help but play it now. I seriously love it so much and it has made my week. I have just played it when we are contacting, and it has really helped a lot as people see us less as salesmen. I am very glad.

 

Also, General Conference was awesome. We watched it at one of our friends’ houses and the Spirit was strong (along with the screaming of one of their kids, haha). In all of my prayers for the past few months (hundreds maybe thousands of prayers) I have included my gratitude for the temple and a blessing on those who need to be in it now but cannot. So, when the prophet concluded by talking about temples, I felt such a strong testimony that the Lord has heard each and every one of my prayers. I am so grateful for a Savior who hears and answers prayers. I encourage you to be open and honest in your prayers with Him. He is there to help you out! Tonight, say a prayer where you just have a conversation with an old friend and role model.

 

Truly may God bless you!

Elder Ethan Tufts

ethan.tufts@missionary.org

 

So many puppies in Texas

 The new companion, Elder Burgess

The Donald Duck Ukulele

Conference Week on the internet

The best drink ever. Donald Duck, in every flavor at the Family Dollar Store

Us with our member friends at their home, watching General Conference last weekend.

In the Beginning

 First off, please email me (ethan.tufts@missionary.org). I love hearing from you and can't state how happy I would be to see an email from you! Even if it is just the super basic, "nice job" I would love that!

Well week two is in the books and I am happy to report that I haven't been crushed by the steep learning of Espanol. 

Progress:

This week we have learned a lot and I have even been saying all of my prayers in Spanish (granted it is definitely not the most eloquent). We have started to dive into conjugations and I feel like I am actually learning the inner workings of the language instead of just random vocabulary. I have the missionary purpose memorized and am working on getting the first vision account memorized. Honestly when I joined the MTC I sort of thought that I would pick up the Spanish and experience the gift of tongues. Although I definitely know that God is helping me with this, I am going to be completely honest with you in saying that I go to bed most nights feeling like I am never going to get the language and that whatever progress I made was minimal compared to the massive feat. This also wraps into my testimony section nicely for this week so I will finish these feelings there. 

District:

Wow. First of all, my companion is truly the biggest stud and keeps our district all together. He even made a website for our district. It is a super good looking website too! I feel like our companionship honestly is the heart of the district. We come up with ideas together and then he schedules the particular activities (such as a game night over zoom) and then I conduct the meetings and keep everything fun and spiritual. It is seriously such an awesome duo and I am glad to have him. So for the district this week, we started playing a game on Zoom where we change the theme of our background pics daily to jazz it up a little for the teachers! It was a great week of ideas. I will attach some of my favorites at the bottom!

   !!!Missionary shoutout time!!! 

Hermana Scott: This week was a very sad week for the district as one of our members, Hermana Scott, was released on Wednesday. She was such a great strength to our district and was always the first to bring a discussion from basic overview to a deep discussion about God and the gospel. She was always very open with how she felt. I feel like that was essential to our district, as it would have taken a lot longer for all of us strangers to truly open up and be vulnerable. She was always very happy on the Zoom. She shared such a powerful testimony at the end of how she knew that what she was doing was right and that she was sad to leave us but infinitely hopeful for the future. She is truly a great example to me of courage and trust in Christ's everlasting mercy for all and she will be missed. 

Elder Scott: The other missionary for the shout out this week actually asked to be in it and so that made my day as I know someone is at least appreciating my original idea. His name is Elder Scott and lives in Lethbridge Canada! He is such a funny member of the district and I could not imagine it without him. One day he was just fidgeting  with his rubik's cube under his desk for like 5 minutes on the zoom. No one had the guts to call him out so it was super noisey in the background. So we tease him about that a lot now. Honesty, Elder Scott was probably the first to become a legend in our group since he is in Canada— we were all really interested in that the first couple of days. He is super funny about Canada and it seems like 90% of the things that he says makes me just laugh. I seriously have so many funny stories of him. He is great and REALLY lightens up the mood of the district. 

Testimony: Well as I talked about earlier, I have really been having a hard time with learning Spanish and have been trying everything I can, but not finding the results that I want. So this week I have been working to tell myself that "who the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies." (Elder Andersen) At first when I was told this, I thought that it just simply meant that the Lord will (in a way) give me a heavenly steroid to really help me perform a certain ability at an insane level of mastery. However, I am coming to realize that the Lord will help us when we need, but sometimes it might take a little time for that help. That we can seem stuck sometimes and think that God is just putting us through another trial. I do this alot and just think, "oh boy another obstacle to become strong" and I just put my head down and power through it. I have been trying this mentality for the Spanish and have been very discouraged in how slow I am progressing. I forget all too often that the other part of this obstacle is the finish that I can reach. Getting caught up in the difficulty of the trial I lose sight of what great reward is at the end, so it is easy for me to be discouraged and give up. I have tried to see the light at the end of the tunnel for these last couple of days and it has made it so much easier for me. So, I encourage all of you to look a little bit more at the end reward of what trial you are in. I know that as you do this, you will become a lot happier and more trusting in God.

I am so grateful for everyone who has prayed for me during this very difficult time and I cant express how much it helps to know that I have people behind me through this! 

Love, 

-Elder Tufts

Ethan Tufts