The Book of Mormon

Hey Family,

Hope you are all doing well. Sorry I don't have any pictures again. I need to be better at that. I just don't ever know what to take pictures of. Any ideas Stephen?

This week we have some incredible experiences with less actives but all of our baptismal dates fell through. Please pray that Charlie's mom and Joe's dad will give permission for them to be baptized. There is a new family that moved into our ward last week that has been less active for years. A friend of theirs told us where they lived. We stopped by and they all came to church. They are a large family and thus we deperately need them in our ward.

We went on splits for the first time last night! The Elders Quorum went on visitas to the less actives and we tagged along. Great fun and good to know that I can survive without Elder Barajas as far as Spanish goes. All the members ask how long I have been speaking and then say it is not fair that missionaries can learn a language in a few months when they have lived here for years and still don't know English. I feel like my Spanish is still terrible, but I know that Heavenly Father has answered prayers because He allows me to communicate enough to share what I know to be true and to understand. I have had a few experiences where I was listening and participating in conversations and at the end realized that it was all in Spanish. It is incredible that God can make that happen. If I was on my own, I doubt I could even introduce myself yet.

I have been reading through the Book of Mormon and just finished 3 Nephi. I loved reading about the Savior's ministry here in the Americas. We have been using the Book of Mormon as the foundation of everything we do. Just about every conversation it is mentioned and every lesson we read a chapter from its pages. It is incredible to think that people don't have the teaching of Christ found within the Book of Mormon. I am so grateful that I do. What a blessing.

We met some other wonderful people this week that were baptized in their country but lost contact with the church when they came here. One of these is a young man named Dwayne. He is 21 and from El Salvador and still wants to serve a mission. How great is that?

I love you all and pray for you regularly.

Love,

Elder Case

Continue in Patience

Hey Family,

Thanks for the letters and photos and emails! Thank you for your prayers. Prayer has taken on a new meaning for me recently as President Ashton has taught us what it means to pray always. He is incredible. I wish I could just take notes of him talking about the Gospel all day long.

The meeting with Elder Callister, Elder Ellis, Elder Echo Hawk, and Elder Gifford Nelson was great! I was wrong on the time. Two hours and not five, but it was good. Elder Echo Hawk was the first to speak and he said that Elder Callister asked him to share his conversion story. He did so for about 30 minutes. He said that he got baptized with his family when he was about 14 but didn't ever become converted. He wanted to play football but only weighed 140 so his young men's president made a diet and workout plan for him and in between his Junior and Senior year he gained 25 pounds and became the quarterback, but before he could ever play he had a fluke accident where he got hit in the eye with a football. The doctors told him he would probably never see again and they bandaged both of his eyes and sent him home to lay on his bed. He said after some time he decided to pray. He said it was the first time he had ever prayed on his own. he knelt down and told Heavenly Father that if he could regain his eyesight that he would accept his young men's president's challenge to read the Book of Mormon. He got his eyesight back, and the day he could read he began. Ten pages a night until he finished and then prayed and God answered him and he was converted. He also finally played in a football game. His first pass was a 65 yard touchdown. He then got a full scholarship to play for BYU where he said he played in every game for four years (it was funny to have him talk about a BYU football career with Elder Gifford Nelson sitting behind him). The thing that touched me most was that this young men's president saw the potential in Elder Echo Hawk that no one else did. I have been trying to do that with every single person I meet or see. Just like the story that President Monson told from Conference about the missionary that was so successful because he imagined the people he met dressed in white, each of those I meet have the potential to become like God.

How wonderful is that? It doesn't matter that right now they smoke and drink and don't keep any of the commandments, through the Atonement of Christ even the vilest of sinners can have Eternal Life (just like Alma the Younger).

Elder Callister taught the Plan of Salvation for an hour. That was incredible. He would ask us to tell him a scripture about a particular part of the Plan and the he would quote it and ask for the next and then quote it. He taught about how people today claim that we are spirit creations of God and not spirit children. He then asked the questions, "Can a creation become like its creator? Can a painting ever become a painter? But can a child become like his father?" He is a master teacher. He taught us why we do baptisms for the dead. He said that there is two reasons. Those who we are baptized for don't have bodies and there isn't water in the Spirit World (Zechariah 9:11). I wish that I could bring him along to teaching appointments.

We had a neat experience on Friday that I thought I would share. We received a referral of a less active lady in our ward. She lived in the farthest corner of our area. We had already been reiding our bikes all day and everything had fallen through. We ran out of minutes on our phone, so we couldn't call her to confirm the appointment we had set the week before. We rode all the way to the edge of our area (about 30 or 40 minutes because Houston doesn't have sidewalks so you have to ride through the jungle on the side of the road) and then found out she was out of our area. So we tried to contact some other people out there and had no success. We road all the way back and then started making phone calls (minutes are free after 7). Nothing had worked out but we had half an hour left. We finally prayed. Elder Barajas said the prayer and told Heavenly Father we had done our best but needed his help and guidance. We both felt that we needed to go visit a certain contact. We got there and instead of contacting the person we thought, we had an increadible discussion with an 18 year-old that was extremely interested and has been prepared.

It was amazing to me that though we had failed all day (or so I thought) that because of where we had been we were in his path at exactly the right time. God doesn't require us to be perfect, but He does want us to continue in patience and prayer and then He promises that he will provide. I am so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord and for His guiding hand in my life.

I love you all and am grateful for your prayers!

Love,

Elder Case

We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet

Hola Querido Familia,

I hope all is well! I sure do love you and appreciate your love and prayers. I pray for you often and am grateful for your examples and letters and emails.

Wasn't Conference wonderful? I was so excited for it this year and I couldn't figure out why. I finally realized that it is because I have been telling every single person I meet that they could listen to a prophet of God speak this weekend. As I continally bore testimony of that, I think it prepared me to listen with an open heart to the words that God wanted me to hear. I know that President Monson is the prophet of the earth today and that he truly does hold all the Priesthood keys. As we sang the congregation hymn, "We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet", the Spirit rushed over me and bore witness that he really is. As Bruse R. McConkie said, "I know of myself, independent of any other source" that he is Thomas S. Monson is a prophet and oh how grateful I am for that knowledge and testimony.

In his talk Sunday morning, I was focusing on things that he said or even just suggested to do. To me a suggestion from a living prophet is akin to Moroni's "exhortation" in the end of the Book of Mormon. What stood out to me most was that he told us to make an inventory of all the blessings we have ever received, large or small, in our lives. I began my list last night but ran out of time. As I wrote and pondered on the hand of the Lord in my life, much of what I wrote were names of people. I was amazed at how blessed I have been. Just like the hymn, "Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will suprise you what the Lord has done."

We listened to one hour of Conference in Spanish. I got to listen to Elder Scott in Spanish which was fun because he translates his own talks. Elder Holland's talk really spoke to me as well. I have spent my time thinking of my answer to his all-important question, "Do you love me?" I want nothing more than to be able to stand before my Savior at the last day and answer firmly, "Yes Lord, you know I love thee because of the life I have led." I loved the sentiment from Conference of King Lamoni's father being willing to give up all his sins to know God. The theme that was most prevailant to me was a mighty change of heart. I loved Elder Bowen's wording when he said that he was given a new heart. That is what we all have to experience and what I strive for each and every day.

We just received an email from President Ashton today informing us that on Saturday we will be meeting with the other Houston Missions. Elder Callister, Elder Ellis (again!), and Elder Echo Hawk are coming. They will talk to us from 8-1. That is going to be a wonderful 5 hour follow up to General Conference! I can't wait!

To explain the picture, I was gluing something and it didn't work out well. I first glued my hands together, then I glued the towell to my hand. It hurt a little fixing that. Elder Barajas was dying of laughter.

Anyways, things are going well. I love this work. We are working hard and trying to do things the Lord's way. I love you all and am so happy to hear that you are doing well.

Love,

Elder Case

Servants of the Lord

Hi Family,

Oh man what a week! I didn't take any pictures (sorry) but I have much to share with you. To begin, thank you for your prayers. They are answered. Whenever I ask for you to pray for something, there are miracles in the following days. Last week I talked about wanting to be able to teach with the Spirit better and Heavenly Father answered. On Monday night we visited a less-active family that we have visited a few times. The grandma is super active, the mom is semi active, but the dad hasn't been to church in years. We planned a lesson from Preach My Gospel. There is a chapter about the Book of Mormon and a section about how the Book of Mormon can answer every question. We read the section with them and asked each of them to think of a question. He said his question was why. I don't know exactly what happened, but 8 years ago he wronged by someone in the church. It was pretty bad and has ruined his life financially and spiritually. He said that whenever he comes to church it just makes the problem worse because he thinks about that man and then gets angry. He said that it was no use trying to help him because we would just tell him the same things (prayer, come anyways, read the scriptures, etc...) but that in the end no one could help him and we were just a couple of nice guys. When he said this, he said it with some anger and great resolve but as he finished speaking, the familiar feeling of the Spirit came. Once again, I was given the words to say. I did not want to say them though because I was afraid of his reaction. But I have learned that when the Spirit speaks, I have no choice but to listen.

I told him what the Holy Ghost told me. That as missionaries, we were more that just a couple of nice guys. We are representatives of Jesus Christ. I told him that he was wrong, there was someone who could help him, there still was hope, and he had suffered enough. I told him and bore witness of the Atonement of the Savior. That because He suffered and died, we did not need to if we would repent. I bore my testimony of the Atonement, that it is real and that it works. I had been memorizing a scripture that day. 3 Nephi 9:13

O all ye that are ^aspared because ye were more ^brighteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may ^cheal you?

I told him that I didn't know why I had been prompted to memorize that scripture but that I now knew that it was for him. That Christ is waiting and pleading for him to return unto him so that he can be healed. As I finished speaking, or rather delivering the message of the Spirit, every person in the room was crying. There was silence. The Spirit was burning within each one of us. Elder Barajas bore his testimony of the Spirit offered that we have a prayer, and then we left. It was incredible.

Then we had Zone Conference with Elder Ellis (he is a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy) on Friday. On Wednesday, I got a call from President Ashton's secretary informing me that President Ashton wanted me to come in for an interview with Elder Ellis on Friday before the conference started. That made me pretty nervous. But the interview was great. I thought President Ashton was going to be there but he wasn't. Just me and a General Authority for 15 or 20 minutes. What an incredible experience that was! Probably one I will never have again. The entire interview was him asking me what my questions were. I would ask and then we would study the scriptures together to get the answer. My first question was how to teach with the Spirit all the time. We read D&C 100 together and he explained that sometimes I would need to speak the thoughts that were put into my heart (like the above experience) but a lot of times the Spirit would be shed forth in bearing record in all things I should say. I will talk about that more in a second. He then asked about the family and who has served missions. He then asked how the mission was. He wanted to know how the missionaries were responding to the Ashtons in place of the Saylins and he committed me to be a defender of President Ashton and to sustain him in all that I can. He prayed for you all. He said the closing prayer and asked the Lord to protect, watch over and pour his Spirit out on you. It was an incredible experience.

Elder Barajas was chosen to speak. It was great. We learned so much that day and about halfway through I realized that every single person that spoke (there was six in total) was a set apart, full-time, representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was a strong thought. It was a powerful conference and the Spirit was strong. We had lunch after the conference and I realized that no one was sitting with Elder Ellis and his wife, so we took the liberty of doing so. That was another 30 minutes of being able to ask all of the questions I have had about the organizational structure of the seventy. It was really interesting. Him and his wife are super busy!

One last experience. After the interview and what I learned from Elder Ellis, I decided that if I wanted the Holy Ghost to bear record of what I said, I had to only say those things I knew to be true. I received a prompting that I needed to obtain a personal witness of each point of Preach My Gospel that I would be teaching. Saturday morning I started with God is Our Loving Heavenly Father. During studies, I received a spiritual confirmation that this was true. That night we had a lesson with a family and the second I bore my testimony that God is our Loving Heavenly Father, the Spirit came. The mom started crying and we were able to bear testimony of the Holy Ghost.

This work is true. I have witnessed far too much to ever deny that but even more so, I have received my own witness from the Holy Ghost that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored, that He lives and is my Savior, and that the Book of Mormon is true.

I love you all. We have 8 new investigators. Please prayer for Leroy and his family.

Elder Case

Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness (Moroni 10:32)

Hola again familia,

To explain the photos, I received a package this week and could not have been happier to see that it was sweet bread from Penny! Elder Barajas and I just feasted. So so good! The other is a picture of La Fiesta Patrias that our ward had. It was a great party to celebrate the independence of all the Latin American countries. It was on Friday and was a good time. Food from 10 or 12 different countries.

Hope that you are all doing well! Thank you for your prayers and love. Looks like everyone has been pretty busy but happy. We have Elder Ellis coming this week to tour our mission. We are very excited for this! We spent all day today doing a mission wide service project in which we cleaned and dejunked (is that a real word or just used in our family?) and organized everything the mission owned. We get to have a Zone Conference with him on Friday. I am really excited for that. He asked President Ashton to have all of us missionaries prepare a five minute talk on Luke 9:23-25. I have really enjoyed that assignment and taken quite a bit of time. I entitled my talk "Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness". On Friday in the Zone Conference, Elder Ellis will call out a few missionaries at random to give their talks. Should be fun. I will write mine up next week it I have time.

Anyways, some things I have been thinking about recently is what I am grateful for. I have realized how much I take for granted and how true the saying is that you don't appreciate something until it is gone. Some of the things I am grateful for is a bed and brakes that work. My brakes went out on my bike because of a weird glitch and I had a few interesting experiences, but I brought it back into the store and all is well.

Something else I have been thinking about is the role of the Holy Ghost in missionary work. We have been having some incredible finding situations and have four new investigators this week. What a blessing. Thank you for your prayers, they are surely being heard and answered. I have realized though that if these investigators don't feel the Spirit, they are not going to progress in the Gospel or keep committments. Elder Barajas and I have been talking and praying and studying how to teach with the Spirit. In Doctrine and Covenants it says something to the effect of "if ye have not the Spirit, ye shall not teach". I have realized that this is because without the Spirit we are just 19 year old boys with white shirts and ties.

I continue to feel the Spirit very strongly in my life through study, prayers, and the Sacrament, but I have realized that this is not enough, I need to be able to help others feel it. So if anyone has thoughts, experiences, or advice, please let me know. The work is going well. My ward is wonderful! Our bishop is 27 or 28 (David, I think you can empathize) and everyone is kind and beginning to catch the Spirit of the work.

We are being blessed greatly and I am so grateful to participate in this work. I remember a testimony meeting we had as a district in the MTC. I bore my testimony that this work was the greatest work on the earth and that it has been prophesied since the earliest times in scripture. I know that this is the Gathering of Israel and it truly is a marvellous work and a wonder.

Things are great! I love you all. Elder Barajas and I have become best friends. We sure do enjoy the work. I pray for you often.

Love,

Elder Case

The Power of Prayer

Hey Family!

Thank you for your prayers. I knew before I saw any emails that you have been praying for us to find investigators because we found them. I am so grateful for the power of prayer and for the opportunity to unite our faith through prayer.

The first picture shows our apartment after we spent five or six hours cleaning. We got bed bugs. The whole mission has been getting them. So we spent all day Monday and Tuesday cleaning and vacuuming every surface in our apartment. They are gone now though and life goes on. The rainbow was just the other day. It has been raining a lot, which cools things off, so we love it!

We have been blessed by your prayers. We have three new investigators that I think will all progress to baptism within the next month or two. I will share two experiences with you. The first happened when trying to contact a referral. Elder Barajas saw someone that he knew and asked if he had time to teach him right then. He said yes so we did. That was Thursday. He then came to the Elders Quorum BBQ Saturday night, after which we gave him a church tour. The Spirit was very powerful as we sat in the chapel and bore testimony of baptism and the Sacrament. He couldn't come to church because of work, but he is awesome. Please pray for him. His name is Junius. He needs prayers right now as we help him overcome an addiction.

The other story was last night. There was another referral that we were contacting. It was from Salt Lake. They text us referrals all the time and we have to contact them and report on it. We had already stopped by Gerald's house four or five times and he was never home. He works from the morning till 9 or 10 at night. He would never answer his phone either. It was about 8:30 and raining last night, we were a few minutes away from his house and didn't know what to do since everything else had fallen through. I pulled out my planner and was flipping through it and saw his name. We decided that we would stop by but that if he wasn't there we were giving up and reporting that he wasn't possible to contact. We knocked on the door and his son answered. We asked if Gerald was home. He came to the door, saw that we were wet and it was raining, and invited us in.

We talked to him a little bit and got to know him. Elder Barajas offered a very powerful prayer and then I began talking. I was about to the start the Restoration which starts with "God is our loving Heavenly Father" and then goes to "the Gospel blesses families". But instead I found myself talking about prayer. I had no idea what I was saying, but I bore testimony of prayer and then asked what prayer meant to him. He then explained that he had attended a church once that prayed like us. He said it was in Mexico (the same place that Elder Barajas' parents are from) and said the name was Latter-day Saints. He asked if we had heard of it. We explained again who we were. He then told us that when he attended our church, he felt overwhelming peace and happiness (we explained the Holy Ghost and the fruits of the Spirit as found in 1 Corinthians). He told us that he was about to get baptized but then he moved to the United States. Talk about a prepared investigator. It was a wonderful lesson that was guided by the Spirit. Thank you for your prayers. I know that without them we would not have found Gerald. Please pray for him to. We explained the Book of Mormon and he asked for a reading assignment. He promised to come to church next week and asked if we could teach him again.

I know that this is the work of the Lord. I have born my testimony hundreds of times about Joseph Smith. I know better than every that he is a prophet of God and that he was called by God to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth once again.

I love you all. Thank you for your prayers. I pray for you often.

Love,

Elder Case

The Tender Mercies of the Lord

Hey family,

Hope that you all enjoyed your Labor Day and birthdays. I am praying for you all and so grateful for your prayers. I spoke in church yesterday and my topic was "Maintaining a relationship with the Savior through prayer". That was a twenty minute talk and I was the concluding speaker. Luckily, I was able to apply what I learned while preparing and the Lord answered my fervent prayers and allowed me to express myself in Spanish for the whole time. One thing that I have been amazed with this week is that when we pray, we are truly talking to Heavenly Father. I have always known that, but this week I finally began to understand. When I pray now, I try and imagine that He is in the room and that I am talking to Him face to face. What a blessing.

After Sacrament meeting, Elder Barajas and I got to teach another class. We taught Gospel Principles on Tithing. It was fun. One of our recent converts asked if you have to pay tithing within a set time limit or if the important thing is just that you pay it. I told dad's story with trying to sell the suburban. It was perfect and brought the Spirit. I am grateful for tithing and the blessings we receive. When we closed, I bore my testimony and said that while the blessings of tithing are great, my dad has always said that the number one blessing is that it allows us to have a temple reccommend. I realized as I bore testimony of the this, that the verse in Malachi that says we won't have room to receive the blessings is really just referring to the temple and the covenants that we make there. It always goes back to the temple.

Well, as you can see from the pictures, we had the opportunity of having another baptism. The two that were baptized were Vincent and Karla. They are brother and sister. Karla is 15 and she was the first lesson I ever taught. My first day in the field we went to her house and Elder Barajas had me extend the baptismal commitment for September 8. She followed through. Her brother Vincent is a tender mercy. He has Down Syndrome and is Isaac's twin. Isaac is much more advanced than Vincent, but Vincent is bilingual when it comes to hearing. Can't really communicate. He loves church and everyone there loves him. When he smiles, everyone instantly is in a good mood. He just follows Elder Barajas and I around at church. I was the one that bapized him and it brought a flood of emotion. I thought of Isaac and how sacred of an opportunity it was to baptize one of Heavenly Father's most choice children. It was a powerful experience for me and one that I will be eternally grateful for.

Just to tell you how much Vincent and Isaac are alike, they had to wake him up from a nap for his baptism and when he got to the church he was throwing a huge fit. We offered him brownies and the fit was gone. It was hilarious. Oh we are so blessed.

Another blessing that I have been thinking about comes from my setting apart. Dad and David, you will probably remember that President Lewis told me that I would minister to those in my mission. I have already given a number of blessings on my mission. Two of them have been in Spanish. I have continued to find through these blessings of just how much the Lord loves us. I know you will all make fun of me from this, but to quote myself, I spoke of given blessing in my farewell talk and how everytime I gave a blessing I would always feel prompted to express to the person how much Heavenly Father loves us and that when I would, the Spirit would come. This is still true. I have thought about it and I realized that it is true because one of the roles of the Holy Ghost is to help us feel that love which often comes in the form of comfort. When we are told that we are loved with a perfect love by the Creator of all things, the Comforter comes and bears witness to our souls that it is true.

Well good things have been happening, we need more people to teach. Please pray for that. That we can develop the faith to find.

I love you all. This work is true.

Love,

Elder Case