Just Try.

 On Thanksgiving Eve we went to Costco and grabbed everything that was expired, filled up several carts, and brought it all to a church where the whole community came and took whatever they wanted. 

It was a blast. The man in charge of the project had a very cow-boy accent. Also, the whole time every single fork-lift the Costco had was beeping and cruising around. We also grabbed 12 Pumpkin pies.

I accidentally ate corn dogs before Thanksgiving feast because I figured it'd be at dinner time but it actually started at 2:00. 

That evening we started handing out all of our pies to our neighbors and friends. One family was very excited about the pie and their son showed us a picture of the solar system he made. They're from Tamil Nadu which is the most southern part of India. They don't speak Hindi down there but they're still cool.

We went back to Tracey and Twinkle and they gave us the corrected versions of our flashcards along with several new ones! So we have a lot of homework now

We hopped on a call with President Larson. He said he had sunk into our Preach My Gospel App to see what all we've been doing and I felt a lil uneasy- that tells me I know we can do better than what we're doing right now. The call actually went really well though. He said we're doing exactly what he thinks we should do. So we're gonna keep going!

Some other Elders found a cool Indian woman who homeschools her son- so she already knows how to teach hindi and was overjoyed at the idea of teaching us to- so we went over for the first time and she is pretty serious. It felt like I was in an actual class. 

I went on an exchange with Elder Smalley and we had some beautiful talks about the gospel and life and "playing to win instead of playing to 'not lose." 

And then this morning we hiked mission peak. Very long. Very fun.

Ok. Now Leviticus chapter 5:6-7, 11 PART 2

So last week we talked about the lamb, the 2 turtle doves, and the handful of flour and how some people may have a lamb and be fully capable of giving it to God yet, choose not to because a lesser sacrifice is still acceptable and that's easier and more convenient for them.

This week is kinda the opposite.

When I started serving in the Fremont ASL branch I didn't know ASL. I wanted to serve and teach but I couldn't because I legitimately didn't know the language. But I still tried! I did language study, I paid attention during church, I said my prayers in ASL! 

I gave what I had. 

And that was ok! It was good!

Both of my companions were fluent and able to give so much more than me. 

I was only able to give a small handful of flour. My companions had much more than me, so they were able to give God sheep. 

Now, a year later, I am proud of what I was able to give God. Back then, I felt awful. I would watch Elder White and Elder Rigby teach entire lessons without a stutter (because you don't stutter in ASL lol) and then I would mess up my little part and feel like I failed because I wasn't as good as them.

Now I know that's a foolish and silly way to think. 

God expects us to do our best. He is pleased with every bit of effort we give. It doesn't matter if everybody you know is giving God sheep and you're stuck with nothing but turtle doves and flour. As long as you're trying your best and being honest with yourself He is pleased and He loves you!

Don't compare your sacrifices to the sacrifices of others. We are all unique. God has a unique and percent plan for all of his children. 

The most important sacrifice we can make, regardless of what you have or who you are, is our life.

Now, I don't mean to pull an Abinadi in Mosiah 17:10. I mean to really serve God every day, to be obedient to his commandments, to make and keep covenants! All the big things and more importantly-the small things! Waking up a few minutes early so you can read the Book of Mormon and pray, smiling, expressing gratitude, unloading the dishwasher for Mom! (And loading it if the sink is full!)

I hope this makes sense! God is pleased when we try! If all you have is flour it is ok that you're not giving Sheep! Keep going! 

God loves you and you make him happy when you try!

(flour)

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Flour and Sheep

 I lost my son this week. Elder Johnson flew home to Minnesota and will be back in 5 months. Training is such a special opportunity because you think you're gonna be teaching them and then they actually teach you more. That was true with Elder Johnson, Elder Howes, and Elder Searle(, and Elder Porter too!) I will always remember those days.

I think some Hindi program things really picked up this week. We had lunch at chick-fil-a with Srihari and just talked hindi the whole time. He's going back to India to pick out a wife. So that's…..cool…

Then we gadda go do language study with Tracey and Twinkle, the indians. They looked at our FAT stack of flashcards and grabbed markers and corrected everything. Then Tracey was even like "I will make more cards for you" so we're gonna come back to like 300 more.

I think you only need 10,000 words to be fluent so- at this rate we'll be there in no time. 

On Saturday we went to an Indian Buffet with one of our Indian members and we…ate like Indians.

Hands. 

No forks.

It was….an experience. 

We drove to San Jose and had some training/planning on how to run our own Social Media Page. And then we created the "Indian Followers of Christ" page. I'm very excited to use it and see what all we can do!

Elder Holladay converted me to frozen pizzas and they're cheap and yummy so. 

But then right after he converted me I had another Elder teach me all about "plant based whole foods" so now I wanna be a vegan. 

We had a fire member meal and they invited their non-member family to come too so it was a little bit of stress. We turned our charm and humor up and it was actually perfect. I felt like we were all friends at the end. We shared Leviticus 6:13 with them and how to "keep the fire burning" so good. 

Then Monday morning was zone conference. President Larson showed us all our mission statistics and how the most effective finding is all about MEMBERS. Knocking doors is kinda silly compared to social media or visiting members.

The problem really is pride and impatience. Missionaries think THEY can do it and they want instant results. But that's not how it works! As disciples of Jesus Christ we're in this work for the long game. (These are things I learned and thought about, not necessarily things President said)

Elder Holladay and I have been thinking alot about that and how when we chose to pursue hindi we were choosing to not really baptize very often. This will be a very long process and we are simply laying the foundation so that members and missionaries in 10 years can baptize all the indians. 

But if we never plant the seeds then the tree will never grow. 

That afternoon we met with Pugal, my best friend/ recent Indian convert. He literally wouldn't stop talking about how badly he wants to serve a mission. He's counting down the days till he's been a member for a year and can go to the temple! He even said he is moving to a new apartment so he can get away from his roommates and just focus on reading the Book of Mormon. 

He is such a pure example of faith! I love him so much and can't wait for him to serve a mission either!

That evening we performed "My Shepherd will Supply my Need" at a Tri-State interfaith celebration. Everybody else had some really cool stuff. There were prayers and scriptures and speeches and other dances and songs but….I think ours was the most powerful and striking. 

I love the 23rd psalm so much, you can ask Elder Holladay, there's almost never a day that goes by where I don't recite at least 1 verse to him. So, this was a really special song to sing and I enjoyed it alot. 

Then exchanges. I was with Elder Francom, what a beautiful personality he has. He has genuine humility and real fire burning for missionary work. His trainer was Elder Slade, whom I was with a year ago! So I had a blast hearing many wonderful stories about their time together. 

Ok. Last thing. In Leviticus chapter 5 there's a sequence of scriptures where God asks us to sacrifice a lamb and if you can't afford to sacrifice a lamb then sacrifice 2 turtle doves and if you can't afford that then you sacrifice a handful of flour. (Look at verse 6,7, and 11) 

There's 2 ways I wanna look at this and the first requires some imagination and we'll do the next one in a week. 

So, knowing the children of Israel were not always the best and sometimes actually really bad, imagine an Israelite man on his way to go Make a sacrifice and he's looking at his sheep and thinks "I really don't want to sacrifice any of my sheep- others who don't have sheep sacrifice turtle doves….maybe this time I'll just sacrifice turtle doves instead" 

So he goes and gives the priests some turtle doves. They assume he can't afford to give a sheep because he brought turtle doves and it goes great.

Soon it is time to go offer another sacrifice and he looks at his sheep….then some turtle doves. In no time at all he is bringing turtle doves again. A few sacrifices later he's looking at some flour and thinks "flour is also an acceptable offering…it would be so much easier than turtle doves…"

And boom. Now he's sacrificing handfuls of flour while he has a yard full of sheep. 

I'm sure this or things like this happened all the time with the children of Israel. And it happens with us today too! God has defined very clearly the sheep we are supposed to offer him and one flaxen cord at a time Satan tricks us into offering turtle doves and flour when we are fully capable and able to sacrifice sheep. 

Please recognize that turtle doves and flour are still good things! God accepts these offerings and they are still technically righteous things. It's a battle of Good, Better, and Best or rather Flour, Turtle Doves, and Sheep. 

So please find some turtle doves and flour that you're giving right now where you know you can be giving a sheep and come up with a plan on how you're gonna give a sheep.

And also

Keep the fire burning (levi 6:13)

Love you!

Fire

 

This week we spent a lot of time fixing the apartment and converting it from the 6-man mess it was to a nice, clean, open 2-man. I've tried so hard to get rid of the smells yet they still prevail.

There's a sweet lake near our apartments with a 2 mile sidewalk that goes all the way around and we started running around it in the mornings. 

We found a few more Indian member legends! First was Aparna. She gave us a culture dump and some background on what the Hinduism beliefs really are. Then we met Tracey and Twinkle. They are super Indian and converted from Sikhism! Their first language is Hindi and that's what they speak at home, so they're mega helpful and important for us. Tracey called us her sons and then hugged us. . .so that was cool.

We took our car to Wheel Works and then sat outside for 4 hours. I destroyed our flashcards and Elder Holladay managed to fall asleep. 

We were invited to a Diwali party up in Dublin (far away from where we live) and that was fun. All the Indians there knew Hindi but had a very “white” culture- so it was really weird. All the food was Indian so that was an epic. We counted dinner as our language study. Elder Holladay and I saw an ancient Indian woman sitting on a couch and thought surely she's Indian Indian and knows Hindi and we went to talk to her and she replied in full-on english! We had more of an Indian accent than she did! 

So- anything can happen and every person is unique I guess. 

Sunday was incredible. We had a friend who had been telling us he was going to come to church and then teach us some Hindi after church and then right before church started we got a text saying that he had a sudden change of plans but still wanted to meet with us. So we left that church and headed to Dublin becuase we had some indian friends potentially showing up there too. Right when we're about 1 ⁄ 2 way through the canyon we got a text from the elders in the first ward saying our Indian friend showed up to church. We thought we had really messed up- turns out it was actually a completely different Indian friend and he's also not an indian! Just a guy we had talked with on the streets! Crazy.

In Dublin a recent Indian convert had brought his cousin to church with him and so we sat with them at the Linger Longer and pulled as much Indian culture and Hindi as we could. Then we had a lesson with Brother Neff and his neighbor and just chatted about Hindi, Temples, The Word of Wisdom, and Indian culture. 

That evening we had a choir practice for “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" which is actually my favorite song. There's a mega interfaith choir thing happening and we got pulled into the choir!

Then, since Sunday was the height of Diwali, we went to the sikh temple and there was hardly room to hold your hands out. Every single place people could be was full. There was no parking anywhere- even the entire neighborhood surrounding the Gurdwara was absolutely full- every conceivable place a car could fit, had 2 cars. So- we didn’t get any food. But we chatted with a few people, read some posters. got a map of Punjab. 1 girl came up to us and started getting kind of heated. She thought we were there to proselytize which makes sense cuz we are missionaries lol. She went off about how many of her people are killed and all the oppression from other religions that Sikhs get every day. Honestly, we were there to learn about sikhism and Diwali and hopefully get a bite of curry. Eventually Elder Holladay got us out of there and we headed straight for our car which was a considerable distance away. 

Monday was San Jose day. We got training from the Social Media Sisters for some new ideas for FaceBook finding indians. We tried to visit a few Indians in the area but just met Spanish people instead. 

Tuesday just didn't exist. Elder Hollday had one of his mega migraine days so he stayed in bed and I tried to be productive and ran out of motivation fire real quick and ended up doing basically nothing.

We had a district council this week and I led a discussion about the Provo City Center temple and how we're all city centers right now, which is a very good thing. Many blessings come from the city center. But God plans on us becoming temples so He's gonna burn us down with life and trials and pains so through the atonement of Jesus Christ we can be rebuilt into a beautiful temple. 

I know for me the process of being burnt down and rebuilt was my experience with addiction. Addiction is so harmful and destructive to a person's mind. It degrades the way you see yourself and others as well. It changes how you see God and convinces you He doesn't love you. 

Feeling all of that and so much more for a few years really burnt me down to almost nothing. 

But when I made the choice to talk to bishop and read the Book of Mormon every day and start praying for real- everything changed. 

Turns out, I'm not worthless. I'm worth everything to God.

I also learned I can make my own choices regardless of how I'm feeling and whatever happens around me. 

Most importantly, I learned that the atonement of Jesus Christ is real. He has power to free you from anything. 

I am for sure not a temple yet but I do know I am on my way. 

I am thankful God loves me enough to burn me down.

I am a Indian.

 I picked up Elder Holladay on Thursday and we headed to our new apartment except that we actually didn't have one. So we we're like- guess we'll stay with the ASL Elders. So we have been living in the 6-man for almost a week. 

The

apartment smells awful. But! It was super fun. 

Elder Holladay and I have been absolutely destroying our flashcards. I feel so amazing when I can go through an entire stack without even hesitating. We're actually gonna do it! We're gonna learn enough hindi to go out and talk with all the indians. 

We started by contacting as many Indian members as we could and tryna figure out how we can help them and be friends with them. So my man, Brother Ramjl Kohli pulled up to church for the first time in a long time and met our Indian recent converts and they are all tight with eachother now. He kept telling us "Elder Holladay, Sunday IS a holladay."

We were invited to dinner by a legend in a ward from a different city, different stake and he's like "so have you guys met Shiva?" I knew the name because he's a indian recent convert up north and so we were like "nah" then he's like "well, you will tonight, I invited him over!"

Legend.

So we gotta eat dinner and talk Indian with my new best friend, Shiva. 

He converted from Hinduism- which is shocking because every other Indian member of the church I have met has come from Christian beliefs of some sort before joining. His faith is so strong. His family and friends have all abandoned him because of his faith- but he has only grown stronger and stronger.

We also attended the funeral of Richard George Dean King! some of you might know him?? He was the president of the Rotary Club at one point. Rotary is this worldwide organization that is all about helping people and organizing service projects and helping the world. His family also donated all of his ties to all the Elders who helped with his funeral! So now I have a few ties that have been all over the world and worn by the president of the Rotary club! 

We went to the Sihk temple in Fremont and got some free Indian food. "Gurdwaras" serve free food basically 24/7. Anybody can come and eat whatever they're serving. All you need to do is cover your head, take your shoes off, and wash your hands. It's not bad either- it's some really good Indian food and they always have an indian dessert! So- we talked to them and will be volunteering there! Diwali is this weekend (the celebration of light overcoming darkness.) 

It's a big deal celebration in hindu religion as well as sihk religion. They celebrate for a little different reasons but it's on the same day! Regardless, many many people will be at the Gurdwara during Diwali so they are happy to have our help. 

There's been alot of really cool miracles and beautiful things happening since we started. I know that this Hindi program is the right thing and I am so excited to be serving God in a different way and serving a different group of his children. 

Also the ASL elders got a new apartment yesterday, so now it is just the 2 of us (it already smells better) 

Love you all!

Keep the fire burning  levi 6:13

-Elder Owens

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New Storms

 What a silly week. Elder Johnson can juggle for like 30 seconds. I had 9 eggs for breakfast on one day. I pulled a hangnail off during a lesson and had to hide the blood til we got out, Elder Howes can make the Incredible Hulk face, and we drove to Pleasanton 3 times. The first and second were to help our dear Deaf Friend, Jennifer, write a talk because she's giving a talk in her English ward that she goes to sometimes. 

Then the last time, Sunday, I voice interpreted for her ward. And it was a challenge. Usually when she signs she's super easy to understand and it makes sense. But for some reason when she's giving a talk nothing made sense. 

So that was fun. Since we were In Pleasanton I stopped by and ate with my Ward Mission Leader from the beginning of my mission. 

We also had the trunk or treat! That was good. 

Then we did another one in ASL at the Deaf School. 

Also some general conference ASL interpreters showed up and asked to have us over so we could talk about the work. Basically we're doing a lot of silly things that don't really work and now we have a bunch of lists full of new stuff to do that does work!

And I won't really be involved! Because the Hindi Program starts tomorrow. So all my stuff is packed up. I gave some ties to my companions. Took my sticky notes down. Used the microwave for probably the last time…

I've been in the ASL program in the same apartment for 11 months. That's basically half my mission. It's been a very long and truly difficult and demanding journey. I spent a lot of time thinking I wasn't good enough and that I was the wrong person to be in my position. Now I'm on the other side and it's honestly breathtaking to look back.

Now I can have a confident ASL conversation with anybody. I enjoy interpreting and I enjoy the challenges! I don't know all the reasons God asked me to learn ASL, but I do know that part of it was so I could grow a bunch and have awful dark days and then end up on the other side and appreciate the light even more. 

Now…imma run into a new storm of trials. This time it will be in Hindi and smell like curry...