Compression and Tensile

 7-26

Wooowww. Ok, a week ago we helped some guy clean out an awful storage unit. A few years ago he had to go to the hospital and some friends and realtors threw everything in his house into this storage unit.  Now it as time for him to get the stuff out. He had nobody else to help him so he called the church and asked for missionaries.

Everybody, if you're gonna do anything, especially pack a storage unit- do it right please. It is not worth the frustration and pain to have to deal with poorly packed boxes and disarray in every inch of stuff. Please do it the right way.

Anyways, eventually we finished up and we got to the car. I'm ready to deliver a hilarious line about how awful that service was when my companion looks up and says "Elder. . . There's a nail in my leg" sure enough there literally is a nail sticking out of his flesh. 

All-day-long-story short: we sat in 3 different urgent care/ emergency rooms for a while and finally actually got in at the "realest" ER we could find and after 3 hours some doctor “321”ed it and yanked it out. Man it was a lot bigger than we thought. Elder Searle got a tetanus shot and we headed out to go use our final hour of PDay.

Then Zone Conference the following day- wow. That was the most powerful zone Conference I've ever been to. Why? The absolutely pure testimonies given. President Larsen bore pure testimony of Jesus Christ and the Atonement for an hour. The spirit was undeniably strong, most of us felt it in our eyes lol. It is in my top 10 deepest desires to have a testimony so sure and so powerfully rooted that, if provided, I could stun a crowd like how President Larsen did. All I'd need to say is " I know Jesus Christ lives" and the spirit would zap their hearts and then they'd know the church is true too. 

I also found a package for me at Zone Conference. 

Wow mom, I'm afraid you have overdone it with the whole "hump day" thing. TBH with you all I actually had no clue what “Hump-Day” meant. I had to go to the family history center and look it up. Anyways now I get it. Thank you all so much for helping my mom make that wonderfully cute book. You're all so wonderful. And I promise to keep delivering quality letters but you have to promise that instead of telling my parents how good the Emails are you need to tell me instead lol. 

Ok. Then we had interviews. Wow. I have permission to do Hindi. The Hindi program will be started. I just have to train the new ASL elders first. We also had a powerful talk about repentance and guess who was taking notes. . . .President Larsen. 

"I've never considered that before" and " I've never thought about it like that" and "I love that so much" were phrases I heard…a few times.

What an incredible topic repentance is.

Then we went to a member's home for dinner and he walked us out to a playground he had built for his kids and taught us about "compression" and "tensile." Wow.

Specifically in regard to gate supports. This will be a challenge to explain over email. But I will try.

When you make a gate, it has support on one side, the other side is hanging. The side opposite the support wants to fall down. Imagine a “X” across the gate. If the side opposite the side that is connected to the fence were to hang down, one diagonal gets longer, while the other diagonal gets shorter. Think about the shape the rectangle gate wants to become. It's like a more diamond shape with 2 obtuse angles and 2 acute angles. Do you see it? 1 diagonal gets longer while the other gets shorter- if the gate were allowed to submit to the gravity. 

To combat this Gate-builders must either choose to use Tensile strength or Compressive strength. They can focus on either preventing one diagonal from gaining length; or they can focus on preventing the other diagonal from getting shorter. The solutions are different but both are actually used fairly commonly. Say you think compression is cooler, you would screw a wooden board to the gate that lines up with the diagonal that would get shorter- now it cant get shorter because the compression strength in the board is holding all the force. Ok, now tensile. You take a metal cord and attach it to the diagonal that is trying to get longer- now it can't because the cord is holding up all the force.

 Every time I think about this I am amazed. There is so much to learn from this principle. For example, sometimes you'll see a cord or a board attached to the gate incorrectly- on the wrong diagonal. When this happens is actually doing next to nothing to support the gate. It has to be on the right diagonal in order to do us any good. Kinda like THE GOSPEL. If you attach principles to your life incorrectly they will not help you. If you keep commandments but your heart’s not in the right place or it's done grudgingly you simply don't receive the blessings and support that you could if you would just put it all on the right diagonal(D&C 58:29). If you're going to church but it's not for the right reasons you're missing out on so much. 

The really beautiful and instructive piece of this idea is that proper alignment of the support actually lifts the fence up. It literally gives it support. . .a lot like the atonement of Jesus Christ. If you were to put the board or cord on the gate wrong then it takes a lot of work to take it all out and then put it on the right way- however, it is possible. We can do the same thing- that process is Repentance through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

Amazing right? God wrote the laws of physics in a way that teaches us about his Son’s sacrifice. 

Well, the next day we went park and contacting we met a wonderful Indian woman named Ann. She said her husband actually went to BYU! She was amazed at the respect and diligence we have for serving God. I shared the first vision with her in Hindi and watched as every word struck her soul. She was completely amazed to hear Hindi from a white person and also amazed at the spirit that was there as we stood by the park. I told her to come to church and learn more and to bring her husband with her. She said she would! 

I also had the opportunity to go on exchange with Elder Evenson, a wonderful Zone Leader. We stayed up till around 1:00 talking about repentance and it was powerful. We were in an area where a recent ASL convert lives and I was like- we should just visit her (understand, this is Tina Jones- she told us to never come back a week after her baptism and we have not been over since January) we went over and Tina looked kinda sad. Real quickly I started asking her questions like “Do you remember the spirit you felt? Do you not remember the feelings you had as we read from the Book of Mormon? Do you remember the love you felt at church? Do you remember the light from when you were baptized?” she said she did remember. She just stopped everything because her family told her “Mormons religion is not true” Tina gave us the names and facebooks of all these family members and asked us to teach them. Oh boy. We will try. Also a spanish doordash guy came over and elder Evenson translated to english which i translated to ASL and then back through. There was some mess up with the order and this guy was pretty upset. But it was a pretty funny experience lol. 

Well, that's enough for now, I love you all so much. Remember to make sure your alignment is right so that you can be lifted and supported by the gospel. (and if you thought this was good dont tell my mom, tell me lol)

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Lost a car, found a sheep.

 7-19-23

This week God taught me that He is always teaching me. It doesn't matter what I'm doing or what happens, He's always teaching me exactly what I need. I feel like my eyes have been opened and I can see all these amazing lessons- but it is so hard to keep these eyes open!

One lesson came Thursday evening. We have a member in our ward named Nathan. Nathan has Cerebral Palsy and cannot do anything for himself. He loves power rangers and has posters of Jason David Frank all over his room, along with pictures of prophets and apostles. He has a caretaker named Nick who is Persian and speaks a medium amount of English. We visit Nathan every week to help him out and study scriptures with him (he's the only member in his entire family) 

Honestly, going to visit Nathan has not always been my most favorite (it's actually never been my favorite.) I would rather spend time with people who are not members and Indians and Deaf people. He's none of those so naturally I feel like I'm wasting time. 

Anyways- usually we go at 12 pm but we couldn't make it till 8ish- no big deal(?)

This is when its time for Nathan to go to bed so without really knowing it we witnessed Nick get Nathan ready for bed. He brushed his teeth, took him out of the chair and put him in bed, changed his clothes, adjusted pillows and tucked him in and . . .everything. 

I was feeling uncomfortable, thinking maybe I shouldn't be here. Then I was feeling amazed, amazed at the love in every action of Nick. Everything he did for Nathan was just so powerful to me. It taught me about the atonement. Jesus did something for us we can't do for ourselves. Just like Nick lifts Nathan up and carries him to his bed, Jesus always picks us up- something we are not capable of doing on our own.

I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason God allowed CP to exist was for me to have that experience so I can have a better relationship with my Savior. 

Then on Sunday we went to teach our friend Bertrum. We met him a while back and were just trying to visit to find out if he's actually interested and if we can teach him. So we park in the visitors parking at his apartments and go to his place. He's home, invites us in and we all sit on his couch. In my mind I think ok, lets share a scripture and get outta here- he's not interested.  

I pull out Alma 13:28-29 and I finish and i hear "teach him the restoration" 

This scripture doesn't really go with that so somehow I take it and mold it and force it through. Ok- now I'm teaching the restoration. Easy. I finish and hear "invite him to be baptized" so I'm like no it's ok. Then I heard it again. Ok. So I invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by one who holds the proper priesthood authority to do so.

My brother Bertrum hesitates then says 

"Believe it or not, I was already baptized in the Mormon Church many years ago" I have no clue how old he is or how long ago 'many years' could have been because you know 'Black don't Crack' brother could be 32 or 75 idk. 

So I'm like …….what? 

He talks about bishops and wards and all this vernacular you basically only know if you're a member. So that was epic. We're gonna help him come back.

Then we went back to our car except that- all that left was a Pringle I swept out of the car before we got out. The. Car. Is. Not. There. 

Some locals yell out to us and explain it was towed literally 1 minute ago.

Why? This is clearly visitor parking! Why did we get towed? Why did I feel to stretch Bertrum's lesson? If we woulda got out earlier we could have prevented it! But no, I was instructed clearly to keep going.

 So we lost the car, but we found a sheep. 

We called our vehicle coordinator and he was super nice. Then he dropped the oof: it's gonna be a lot of money and we gadda pay.

However- no worries at all because I pay my tithing and I have faith that no matter what happens I'm gonna be ok. 

So we walk a bunch and eventually the day is over. 

Monday we got the car and Elder Killpack, the vehicle coordinator, helped everything happen. 

God used this to teach me alot about "Restitution" in the context of repentance. I have been pondering alot about Restitution. If you steal- you give it back. It makes sense that way but what about other sins? What about addictions like pornography and drugs? How would you practice Restitution with those? That has been the question I want to understand. When we had to pay for the car I felt fine. I actually felt great. On the entire drive back to our area I was learning about Restitution, why God wants us to "restore" what we messed up and what it does for us. Repentance is so much more than praying and asking God to forgive you. The more I learn the more I think really "Repentance" is the "discipleship lifestyle" 

I'm still learning from that experience now as I write it. There's only so much that I can express to you through Email but I'm trying my best lol. 

Tuesday night we met with a neat indian man named Sunny and the whole time he was saying things like "come on Owens, keep going i wanna hear the rest" and "ok what's next Owens" and at the end "if you say it I'll believe it" it was hilarious and humbling all at once. I realized it was up to me to make sure he learns everything right lol. It's up to me to make sure the spirit is there. I must do all I can to make every lesson the best lesson ever. He also let me practice the first vision in Hindi and said I was doing perfectly! That was not humbling at all- it was the opposite. I'll send a video later of me reading it in the album or something 

The next day Elder Holladay and I went on another Hindi Exchange, sadly not as incredible. I think God was teaching us "Ok, you can do this but just to let you know- it will be really hard. You will need to practice every day, you will have to completely reinvent how you find people, it's gonna be hard."

Because essentially nobody was interested in talking to us this time. Usually I can find a few Indians normally- but this was the most equipped missionaries for Indian finding in the mission, maybe in California, maybe in all of America. And we weren't able to do much lol. 

We still want to get it going anyways. 

Biggest take-away: God is always teaching me. I just need to open my eyes and try hard to learn. 

Love you all so very much. I hope you will do all you can to learn from God. I know He's trying to teach you.

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अच्छा सप्ताह

 7-12-23

Wow. . .

Ok this week was one of the most legendary ever. 

We were walking to the car Thursday morning and I see the most Indian looking Indian ever so I'm like, Well I have to go over there.

So I go over and introduce ourselves and then pump out every Hindi word I know and she's just stunned. So stunned she responds in English and tells us she didn't live there but my Hindi is very good. Then comes over to give us handshakes. I turn to see her trying to give one to Elder Searle who's literally holding a monster sausage link from the Tongan Elders and so the most awkward handshake followed. 

But hey, she complimented my Hindi.

Also met a legend woman from India named Pushpa and we powered through the restoration and right after I recite the first vision she looks up at us and said "Joseph Smith had 2 men come answer his prayers just like how God sent you 2 to come answer my prayers" 

Boom. Spirit hit me so hard I may have gotten a bruise. She told us she'd been praying to find a church to go to. She loves Jesus Christ so much and moving to America just a few months ago was really hard for her.

That's why God sent us to her.

Then we drove to San Jose and filmed Elder Searles Testimony in ASL. Wow. He did so incredibly well! 

The whole drive there and back I was In a deep state of pondering. Considering my experience with repentance last week I really really just want to be better. I want to always have no desire to sin. So I just thought about new habits I can set up and who I am compared with who I want to be. It was enlightening fr fr.

On Sunday President and Sister Larsen surprised us by coming to ASL branch. . 

Also,  you know Tactile? Like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan and signing in her hand? We have 2 Deaf Blind members and somebody has to tactile everything for them. 

I know ASL, I'm also super strong. So of course the obvious choice for tactiling is me. Usually we switch off but nobody else was there. So I tactiled all of church. Oof. My mind and body and everything was just- dead. But President and Sister Larson gave really good "talks" (signs?) 

Then we went to the Oakland Temple with our friend Emma for a temple tour. In the middle of the visitor center sisters lesson she turned to me and yelled "Elder Owens! I am ready!" 

She talked about how the spirit is just always telling her to go to church and she wants to go to the temple every day! So cool. 

Then I stole half the Hindi Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon?) the visitor center had. A musical director started signing really badly at us and tried to get us to Interpret for a musical we've already said no to 5 times. So we said no again. Then he asked again. We gave him our branch president's number and then he told both of us no. 

Deaf people are just incredibly picky when it comes to Interpreters and there's over 100 people 14X more qualified than me. And if I did the Deaf Community would just get upset. So.

As much as I wanted to do it, it's better if we don't and I trust President Peterson. So.  Then we were headed to the car and some guy yelled "Are you missionaries??" 

We are, so we said yes. He starts tearing up and explains he’s been inactive his whole life and he needs to become active so we helped him get in contact with the bishop of the ward he's in and some missionaries in his area and said a prayer. Hope everything goes well.

Next is the coolest thing ever. Embark is a language learning app for missionaries, like Duolingo but geared towards missionary work. I recently sent them an email asking for a Hindi course and on Monday I received many emails and texts and friend requests all from Emark Team People asking me about my experiences learning Hindi and all sorts of stuff. So I got Elder Holladay involved and we were just answering questions all day long. Basically they are amazed at how far we’ve come and are working on a Hindi Course to release “asap.” So we’re working with the Embark team to write curriculum and stuff for Hindi! Also, we’ve been working so hard on the first vision and feel pretty comfortable reading it, we just need to practice practice practice. I can't wait to have it memorized lol.

All of these Hindi things led to Elder Holladay and I doing the first ever Hindi Exchange. We learned as many prayer words as we could and prayed in the best Hindi we could, and then just went out and did Indian work all day. I know we're doing the right thing because we only saw 1 white person the whole day. Every single contact we made was with indians. All the Indians who usually aren’t home were home. We read from the Book of Mormon in Hindi with such power and spirit–it was amazing and truly exhilarating. The Indians' surprise and joy to hear 2 white teenage boys speaking in Hindi is so wonderful! We found so many Indians just by using our like 3 phrases and a handful of words. 

I know this is long and if you’re still reading I love you. But I wanna share a really powerful scripture  before I close lol. I was reading section 1 of Doctrine and Covenants, verse 23 says : “That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers.” 

The footnote on the word “weak” leads you to “strength” in the topical guide. I thought it was beautifully poetic and powerful that this kind of “weakness” being described is actually “strength” wow. This is also the verse Elder Rasband quotes in his talk “This Day” and as he read the phrase “weak and simple” he places his hand over his chest, as to imply that's him. So powerful. You can do the rest of the pondering yourself to learn all the things I did. Dont wanna give you all the answers. But there's at least 2 hours of personal study (so far) to do on this verse and the relationship between “weak and simple” and “strength” and Jesus Christ. 

Love you all so much! Have an incredible week!

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Repentance is great

 

Sorry, this gonna be short. Today been busy busy. Well, this whole week was busy busy. It feels so wonderful to be busy busy, we've been double booked at least once every day and out till 9:30 every night. I love being busy.

Anyways. This week I learned alot about humility and repentance. All I'll say is that we were helping at a move and we were the only people there to help. Nobody else showed up except a very grumpy old man which added negative help. It was pretty miserable. Hottest brightest part of the day, and were carrying dolly-fulls of stuff from one side of the complex to the other over and over and over. But I decided to he happy, and actually was the basically the whole time. Nobody else was. But I told my companion that the spirit was teaching me about repentance. Every time we unloaded our load it felt so great. Suddenly you have 200 pounds less to pull around. It's great. That's repentance. We related it to sacrament and daily repentance. Well this thought prompted some actions and changes to the way I'm being a missionary and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. With my year mark coming up in less than a year I really don't want to waste any more time. I want to be a pure legendary missionary now. I want to give everything to God and let him prevail every second of my life. I wanna be like Nephi and just have so much Trust in God that I keep the commandments no matter what is going on around me. I wanna be like Abinadi and just keep doing what God tells me to no matter what and just deliver the message from God. 

Also, me and Elder Holladay received permission from President Larsen to start the Hindi work fr fr. We can rake study time, do exchanges where we just do Hindi work, basically we have full permission to start pursuing this dream of ours. 

Watch our Facebooks because we're working on a special post in Hindi. 

Love you all. Have a fantastic week!

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