Saturday, March 28, 2015

We've got it all this week: Birthday celebrations, P-Day fun and New Missionaries coming in

Elder Lyle's Birthday keeps on going...

My birthday party with the Pricoli's




All of us

P-Day Fun
We were walking around town when we found this awesome guys they were playing pots and pans and jugs and bottles for music in the street it was awesome.



New Missionaries coming in



3 generations...
My kid is a trainer

Easter Season

Well Family we are entering the Easter Season, and the church has made another amazing initiative: 
Because He Lives
It is awesome. Basically what it consists of is that we all:
Discover, Embrace and Share the Atonement of Jesus Christ

Us as missionaries for the next year will be working with the initiative to help others understand the Atonement of Christ, to learn more about him, who He is and how they can embrace fully the sacrifice that he made for us. I love being a missionary for this reason, helping others understand who Christ is.

This week we had transfers, so as always we received all the new missionaries, it is such an uplifting experience being with new missionaries. It is one of my most favorite things of being here. They are always so excited to share the gospel and wear their name tags with pride. They honestly make me a lot more excited to just go out and talk to everybody I see and tell them that Jesus Christ is their Savior, and that HE restored His Church in these latter days. There is no other experience like being a missionary. 
This week we have been teaching about the Atonement of Christ, and most people here don’t know that he suffered in Gethsemane, and if they know, they really quite don’t understand. So it is always the most amazing lesson to have with people. 
When we teach about the Atonement of Christ we always read:
Luke 22:39-44
39 “And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
40 And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

We cannot imagine the agony that our Savior suffered for us. He paid the price, drank the bitter cup, and suffered by himself, so that we must never have to. 

He is the Savior,
He is our older Brother, the only Son of God in the flesh.
He is the light of the world. 

This is a time to reflect on Him, and what he did for us. 
I love this Gospel, and I love my Savior. 

In Alma 7:11-13 we can also learn more about what our savior did for us:

11. “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12. And he will take upon him death, that he may loosethe bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
13. Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.”

He went out and did all of this for us, what are we willing to give in return. He suffered beyond what our minds can comprehend and all he asks of us is that we choose to be free of sin so that we can live once more with our Heavenly Father. Yet, many times we find ourselves following our own desires other than the eternal path that our Heavenly Father has set out before us. 
For that reason Christ died for us. So that even after wandering astray we might always return, to that straight and narrow path. We may wander, but the path is always there. We only must repent of our wrong doings and come back to following the commandments.
He died and was resurrected on the third day so that every human being who has ever existed might be resurrected. He suffered in Gethsemane so that those who want to repent and live once again with their Heavenly Father after the resurrection might do so. 

I know that my Savior lives. I know that he will always be there for me. 
I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ and that He is who directs it.

I love you 
Have an amazing Easter Week. 
Elder Lyle

Everyone visit this website!

Saturday, March 21, 2015

This week in the mission

This week was one heck of a week. It started off kind of complicated and then by Wednesday we had to get everything ready for transfers. Always busy in the Cali Colombian Mission

Thursday we were out all day in the area to proselyte, it was awesome. Elder Gomez and I had a great time, we love being missionaries its one of the best things that someone can do in their life; to immerse themselves completely in serving others. 
As we were in our area Thursday, we found ourselves in a moment that a missionary must go through often.

Our plan A fell through, our plan B fell through, and our plan C… Well what do we do now?

In that moment I had remembered that I had received a text with a referral. So I called the referral and told him that we were going to visit him. He answered as if he were waiting for us to call him, and said, "I wont be able to receive you guys right now but you can come at 8",  and I said, “of course we can go” although we were like, Oh boy we have a meeting with President at 7.  So we went to the meeting with President and at 8 told him, “Hey President we have to go to an appointment right now, but we will be right back” and we started to run. We had no idea exactly where he lived we just knew that he lived around the corner from President’s house in a place that we almost never go called Aguacatal. We are now running like mad up the street and its 8:30 and we still haven’t got to the house. We finally get to the closed community at like 8:40, its late, and we call him and tell him that we are outside. He told us to hold on that he was on his way down. He came down and brought us up to his house, his name is Felipe Paz, he is 23 years old and lives with his 2 little sisters, (19) and (15). They are awesome. We only had like 15 minutes to present ourselves and present the Book of Mormon very briefly. Although when we finished we asked them if they would pray and ask God if Jesus Christ truly had come here to the Americas. They said yes and we read Moroni 10:3-5 with them:

3. Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”

They understood perfectly what they had to do, and we ended quickly with a prayer.
We asked Felipe to pray and he told us that he didn’t know how. I quickly told him the steps to prayer and told him that we would hear his prayer. 
He bowed his head and started to pray, and he prayed so sincerely, you could feel the spirit so strongly, after the prayer no one wanted to talk. We told him that we would be in to visit him next week after he came back from his Grandparents farm (it’s a holiday weekend here in Colombia). And he said he would come back just to hear us.
I love it when we can have experiences like that. It’s the best

I love the mission, because the Lord prepares the way, and he prepares the hearts of His Children to receive His full and true Gospel in His time and in His way. 

I love this Gospel so much 
I know that it is true 
And I leave this all in the name of our Savior Amen.
Elder Lyle


Happy Happy 20th Birthday to Elder Lyle

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER LYLE!

The Elder's out celebrating 





Opening stuff up for my birthday
These are all the birthday cards that everyone had done for him, about 50 of you sent him cards before he left and a small package that we put in his suitcase. He has been carrying these around for almost 2 years!

ALL OF US

It was her birthday too

The baptism we had last week, Julian
He is the best



HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ELDER LYLE!


Elder Lyle turns 
Today

We hope he has a great P-Day
and doesn't have to wear to much of that crazy Colombian tradition of eggs & flour, but it is Rawly so he will probably be covered in it.

Have a Happy 20th Birthday Elder Lyle
Your family loves and misses you

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Keep Calm...

Mom

It is very hard to remain calm when it has been...
21 MONTHS!
Only 3 more to go...

Saturday, March 14, 2015

So...

So just to let you guys know, there wasn’t that much that happened this week. We spent all week just traveling in divisions here in Cali. 
Honestly some super amazingly spiritual experiences happened inviting people to get baptized. 
I love this gospel 

That’s all for this week to get you guys updated
Lots of love
Elder Lyle

Not much to say but we did get a lot of pictures this week...

Pictures from an activity at church




Pics from Elder Llaguno Birthday
It's a tradition here in Colombia to throw eggs and flour

Pics from P-day at the museo




Doing as the Lamanites do

Another good week to see these boys not only working hard but having a little fun

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Pictures of the best Mission in the WORLD!

The leaders of the Colombia Cali Mission
The best Mission in the WORLD!

Fotos de consejo
Elder Donoso & Elder Lyle, two of my favorites!


Elder Lyle, Elder ? & Elder Gomez

What you find on your camera


AWESOME WEEK

So this week was really awesome!
We started off with the missionaries in the south of Cali and we finished off with the missionaries in Buenaventura. 
The southern part of Cali has always been one of the "harder" parts of Cali you could say. And for a long time the missionaries have not had a lot of success finding people to teach there, the zone leaders especially. We knew that they were kind of discouraged so we went to surprise them Monday night and do divisions with them. We got there Monday night and we were standing in front of the door and we called them on the phone. One of the missionaries answered and I asked him how things were going and he told me that they were discouraged and upset because no one wants to listen to their message and that the only people that they had that were listening to the gospel decided it would be better to tell them just to not come back. 
That’s when Elder Gomez and I screamed
"YOU GUYS READY TO HAVE THE BEST DAY EVER TOMORROW!"
And we rang the doorbell. It was a super fun day and everyone finished the divisions with a lot more energy. 
I went with Elder Tolentino (from Peru). 

It is incredible to see how the Lord prepares the way for his children to hear his gospel. We made a goal to invite everyone to get baptized that we met and to contact someone in the street in between every appointment we had. 
Every single person that we invited to be baptized was able to feel the spirit and say yes. We found many new people that the Lord had prepared for us while we were out walking.

We are working on being BOLD here in the mission, and as we are bold people will be able to feel the spirit. 

As we were walking to one of our appointments I wanted to try and be just as bold as I could, so as we were crossing the street I saw a mom and her daughter and without even extending my hand I said "We want to visit and teach you!" and the mom kept on walking in the other direction as she said, "Well start walking!"… hahaha
I honestly didn’t quite know what to do, Elder Tolentino just had his mouth open and we both pivoted on our heels and started walking with them to their house. We started presenting ourselves on the way. We got to their house and taught them about the Book of Mormon.
After we taught them the mom asked us, "When can I go to church with you guys!?" then told us to write down her address so that we could come back and visit her. 
It was such an awesome moment to see how the Lord prepares his children and helps us to find each other in the precise moment.

I love being on errands for the Lord. It is one of the most amazing ways to live life. You can honestly feel how by just doing your best what the Lord wants you to do. You can be a tool by which He makes momentous things occur. 

Buenaventura was a lot of fun, it was weird going back to my last area and seeing everyone. 
We went and found a lot of people there in Buenaventura. Though I think the most incredible experience I had while I was in Buenaventura is that we went to teach Bryan’s Family.
Bryan will be one of the first missionaries to leave Buenaventura, he has already submitted his paperwork and everything.
(Bryan y Duvan are going on a mission)

Elder Campos and I were teaching him about 7 months ago because he didn’t want to come back to church and now he will be an awesome missionary. He is the only member of his family apart from his cousin. 
Last night we went to teach his mom and his sister. His sister wasn’t there but his mom was there. We started to teach his mom who had read the Book of Mormon earlier that day. We testified to her the power of the Book of Mormon and how it helps us repent and start a new life as we learn more about our Savior Jesus Christ. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes. Bryan was so excited and so thankful. I remember when I was serving in Buenaventura his family didn’t really even want to see us, let alone listen to us. 
However the Lord always goes about preparing the hearts of his children, and he has prepared Bryan’s mom’s heart just as he has prepared many of the hearts around us. 

We have to be BOLD

We are disciples of Jesus Christ, be BOLD. Speak as if from the voice of a trumpet. Let all the world know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ. That he is our Savior, and that every man and woman can learn more about him. 
Be Bold
We are Latter Day Saints

I love you all
Talk to you later

Elder Lyle