December 28, 2010

December 28, 2010

Hey everyone. I need to start off by telling you that numbers on your mission do not matter. They don't reflect at all what kind of missionary you are. You can be the best missionary in the whole world and never get a baptism. It is all about running into the right people at the right place and at the right time. I am trying my best to simply prove to God that I can be trusted with running into those elect and prepared souls.

Now, I would like to announce that I have my first baptism scheduled for January 15. She is a lady who showed up at the Spanish Branch Christmas Party, and she immediately got transferred to us. We met with her once, taught her the first lesson about the restoration, and she accepted our invitation to be baptized! She spirit was very strong. She has been to church a few times, and things are looking good. We are actually teaching her again tonight, so keep us in your prayers. Today I am on travels with our District Leader, his name is Elder Call. He is going home at the end of next transfer, and has already been a Zone Leader. He is super solid, and I am excited to see how he does things. Hopefully I can learn a whole lot from him today.

I honestly don't have much to report this week. I'm just doing my best, working hard, and trying to have a good attitude. If I had to say one thing this week it would be to simply never lose faith. God will put us through whatever he needs to to prepare us, and mold us into the people we need to become. Even God, having all his power, cannot force us to change. We have been and always will be co-existent with God. He does not have power over our conscious selves, and he never will. It is all up to us whether we will heed to his promptings. He will do all he can to clear the way, but he will never force us down the path. It’s all up to us. So I guess just simply never lose faith, and it really will all be okay in the end. A scripture I memorized this week was Ether 12:6. It says "...I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." You need to put forth and SHOW your faith before you receive an answer. We need to make the leap BEFORE we see God waiting below to catch us and lift us up higher than we were before. Never let your faith falter.

With much love,

Elder Porter

Wow. I am a missionary. I'm on my mission. I don't think it'll ever sink in completely. These are the days I will hopefully come to love, and talk about all my life. I can't believe I'm actually doing it. I'm legitimately growing up. It's so weird and amazing. If I didn't know that God is on my side, I don't know how me or anybody else could possibly ever get through life. It gives us such good perspective and motivation. Without feeling God's love and Christ's spirit, I do not know who people make it through life. I am so grateful for the testimony and knowledge I have of the gospel. Understanding Christ's atonement is everything. He went through what I'm going through; He's felt what I'm feeling right now. I am never alone. And if people chose to follow this same path, neither are they. I pray every day that God will lead those who are prepared into our path. The work will go forward and proceed at His pace. I know it will. I hope and pray more than anything that the spirit will transform me into the missionary, and into the man that I am supposed to be.  It's the only way I or anybody else can even come close to achieving our potential. Striving with all of our human strength to follow Christ's example is so inexpressibly important to our development as Heavenly Father's children. It is the only way we can leave this life knowing we've done enough. My young and unlearned mind doesn't know words that can substantially express the amazing amount of joy that my heart and soul feels every single time I bear my testimony of the simple truths of the gospel that I have an unshakable belief and strong conviction of. The spirit testifies to me every day that the things I as a missionary boldly declare to the world are true and endlessly sustained by God himself. God sustains his missionaries in their calling. Even I do not know the magnitude of this promise and truth. I know that on my mission, I will have amazing experiences. I am so new to this. I know nothing, as I talked about at my farewell. I really don't. I am worthless without God and his spirit. So many missionaries have so much more experience than me. I hope to be half the missionary that some of them are by the time my time is done here. I'll be honest. I was not humble when IA left on my mission. I was overly confident. I relied on my natural gift of talking with people to be enough. I was beaten down and humbled in the MTC. I have come so much farther than anybody reading this could possibly understand in the past month. I have learned so many important things about myself. I have already been changed forever in more ways than one. If I came home right now, I would be so much farther ahead in my life than I was a month ago. For anybody wondering if a mission is for them or not, for anybody who does not know with an unshakable conviction that God lives, and loves us so ridiculously beyond our comprehension it is unimaginable, I urge you to sincerely humble yourself before God in heartfelt prayer. Plead with Him to feel his love for you. Pray to know if Joseph Smith is the man of God that I right now, am claiming him to be. Show God your desire is sincere by reading the Book of Mormon. And I swear to you before God that you will gain a testimony of this gospel. You will come to know that there is a modern prophet on the earth that right now holds priesthood authority straight from Jesus Christ. You will know by the heart piercing power of the Holy Ghost that you must serve a mission. God has looked at your individually, and has prepared people for YOU. You are the only one that can present the message of the gospel in a way that they will open their heart and accept it. And if you do not accept your calling, you are mocking God. You will be judged and justice will be served for the good that you did not do, but could have if you served a mission. Don't do that to yourself. If you don't know if you will serve, or are doubting any aspect of the gospel, then simply read the Book of Mormon. Moroni 10;4-5 states..."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. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."...I testify that this promise is real! I have felt the only true converting power brought to me by this promise from a prophet of God. Do not assume that a mission isn't for you. Take that decision before God for him to make for you. If you don't do that, then you're being real stupid. Straight up. I don't know who this testimony is for, but it is for someone. I felt strongly impressed that I needed to say these things for someone. Whoever you are, you know what to do. Bring it to God. Follow his commandments, and trust in Him that no matter what happens, it will all work out the way it is supposed to in the end. God has trusted you with so much knowledge and power. All this truth comes with responsibility. You know what to do.

Wow. So anyways. This week was real good. Lots of work and lots of freezing cold finding hours--almost 30 this week. We did teach 13 investigator lessons, which is very good. Yesterday we simply focused on getting our member lessons in for the week. I love getting to know the members. We stopped by someone who gave us some really good advice as missionaries. It really is all about understanding the atonement. If you understand that, and your need to share it with people, everything else will fall into place, I know it.

This week we got a perfect "golden" investigator. She's gone through lots of tough times, and is searching for something more in her life. She came to church with us, and she stayed for the whole 3 hours. We make sure she was smothered with love and attention in relief society. It went really well, and she wants to come again next week, and she is bringing her 14 year old son as well. She is so ready. We are teaching the restoration on Wednesday, and we are going to try to set a baptismal date. Pray for us to have the spirit with us. If she feels it I believe she'll instantly recognize this is what she is looking for. The gospel can bring people so much happiness in their lives. I wish everyone was humble enough to listen to our message. Oh well, God always provides. Those who are ready will be lead to us, or we will be lead to them. All is well. Keep praying for me, I can literally feel your prayers and the extra strength they give me every day. I'm not even kidding. It's crazy. Anyways. Love you all. Emails are better than mail. Mail takes like a week and a half. I'd love to hear from everyone.

Love,

Elder Matt Porter

December 13, 2010

Hello everyone! I want you all to know that it is freezing today! It is currently -16 degrees C in downtown London, Canada. The wind is somewhere around 40 km/hr, and it is 98% humidity. For all of those in summy warm mild wintered Utah, it means you have no idea how cold it is! Woohooo!! No no, but Ontario is wonderful. I like my mission a lot thus far. It is a lot different than Utah, thats for sure, but all is well. As of tonight I will have hit my official 1 week mark in the field, haha! I'm catching on really really fast, its great. Whenever the AP's or Zone Leaders call to check on Elder Lee and I, Elder Lee always says "Man, training is sooo overrated. I haven't had to do anything yet! Elder Porter is already a seasoned and trained missionary!" Haha, so it makes me wayyy happy to know that some legitimate missionaries already have a good opinion of me. But lets be hoenst, none of us missionaries would be anything without the guidence of the spirit. We would just be nerdy annoying teenagers trudging through subzero temperature and blizzards wasting some of the most valuable years of our life. I want to start off by saying that the spirit is there. And if you don't  think the spirit is guiding you in your life, it is simply because you don't know where to look for it. You simply haven't recognized it in your life. I challange everyone reading this to take just a few seconds and think about how your prayers have been answered, or how you have been blessed by the guidence of the spirit. We just don't all know how to recognize the Lords hand in our life. I feel like if we really spent time learning how the Lord has blessed us, then our appreciation and understanding of the gospel would skyrocket. That is one of the best things I have done while I've been here. I've learned how to recognize the Lords hand in my life.

Saturday was a good day. Our numbers lookded great. We had 2 new investigators on Saturday alone, and taught 4 investigator lessons, all to strangers on the street who decided to stop and listen to us. Our goal is 10 investigator lessons a week, and 3 new investigators a week, so this was a real good day. We stopped by a former investigator who has been dropped lots of times over the past few years. He simply hasn't decided to keep his commitments or to come to church or admit that he knows he needs to be baptized. Elder Lee and I decided to visit him. He  graciously let us in, and was real nice to us. He started talking to us, and it was our time to respond to his questions and statements, and I looked at my companion because I wasn't quite sure what to say. Elder Lee started to say something and then stopped. He turned his head towards me and gave me the "missionary eye." It is the look you give your companion when you don't know what to say or get stuck, haha. I was really confused as to why he gave it to me, becuase I knew exactly what to say. So I started replying to this mans questions and things he said. Elder Lee didn't say ANYTHING for honestly 20 minutes. I was super confused and a little frustrated that he wasn't helping me out at all. The conversation went really great. He ended telling Elder Lee and I that he had been meeting the the Jehovah's Witness missionaries again, and that he felt like he was at a crossroads in his life. He needed to chose their church or ours. I told him my own personal spiritual conversion story, about the difficult times I had as a sophomore in high school, trying to decide which direction I wanted to take my life in. I related it to his situation, and opened the Book of Mormon to Moroni 10:4-5. It is Mormoni's promise at the end of the Book of Mormon. He tells us to pray after we have heard these things, and the truth of it WILL be manifest unto you by the power of the Holy Spirit. For by the Holy Spirit ye may know the truth of all things. I bore powerful testimony to him that this promise can work for any quiestions we have in our life. The spirit was sooo ridiculously strong, and he didn't say anything the whole time I was talking. He just sat there pondering what I had said. I felt like we should hurry and close with a prayer and leave. I asked him to say it and he accepted. He sincerely prayed to our Heavenly Father to please recieve an answer as to which church he should join. Elder Lee and I then quickly left so he could feel the spirit that he had while we were there. The second we got outisde, I turned to Elder Lee, slightly frustrated, and asked "Why the heck didn't you help me out or say anything at all?!" Elder Lee replied and said that he felt prompted not to say anything, and that that was the first time he had ever seen a missionary present the spirit or the gospel in a way that it got through to that man. He felt like I had in me what that man needed to hear. It made sense. And I'm so incredibly grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing us with promptings, and with the spirit. It makes our work possible. We as misisonaries have done everything we can for this man. It is completely up to him now. He is accountable for whatever decision he choses. That is as far as my job goes. I obviously hope and pray that he choses what he knows is best. I know he will experience more happiness and blessings if he choses to be baptized.

I have another cool story from last night as well. Elder Lee and I had prayed to know which street in specific we should try tracting. Tracting is usually very ineffective. So we were wanting to recieve inspiration as to where EXACTLY we should go to find one of God's elect children that had been prepared to hear our message. After our prayer we both looked at the map. And absolutely nothing came to me. Nothing at all. Elder Lee pointed to a street. He said, "I didn't feel much, but I think this is the right direction we need to head in". That was good enough for me, so we made it our plan for Sunday night to tract that street. Sunday night finally came, and we headed out for that street. It was about an hour walk, and on the way, I just felt like that wasn't the right street. I felt like we were going in the right direction, but not to the right destination. It was kinda weird. We we kept on walking, and as we were getting closer to the street we had decided on, we passed a street on our left. I felt a super strong impression, or had a really strong and persistant thought that we needed to knock on this streeet instead. I felt like us going in this direction had simply lead us to this street. God wanted to show me what it is like to have specific spiritual promptings, because I had been asking him for specific promptings all in my prayers during the last week. I stopped Elder Lee and yelled through the wind that we needed to go down this street instead. He agreed, and sure enough, the first door we knock on, a super nice looking lady lets us in and has a wonderful chat with us. She invited us back to learn more, and I feel like success is definately a possibility. Especially with the Lord on our side. All it took was ONE door. Haha! The spirit is the greatest thing ever. I know that Heavenly Father will lead us and guide us through the spirit as we strive to become tools in his hands. If we humble ourselfs, and agree to do His work in His way, why would he withhold miricles? He wouldn't. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If we sincerely do all we can to do His work in His way, we are invinsible. Unstoppable. The spirit will guide us and tell us to do things we wouldn't be able to do on our own. I know that the power of prayer is real, and that God loves us as individual childre, and wants to helps us succeed. He is always with all of us. We just need to be at a place in our lives that we are willing and able to hear his promptings and tender quiet voice of guidence. I love my mission and the gospel so much. Whenever I get discouraged I just think of the Saviors atonement. He sacraficed everything for us. He has gone through everything that we have. And so much more. He understands how we feel, and he wants us to keep going. All is well. God will bless us. Please keep praying for me, and for all the other missionaries. We feel your strength that you command the heavens to grant unto us. It is real. Love you all so much. Thank you for all the love and support that you send me.

With all of God's love,
Elder Porter

First days in Canada!

Wow. The only way to say how things are is that they are absolutely crazy!

I am going to start off with the funny/negative and say that during my first full day in Canada, I have honestly never been even close to as cold as I was in my whole life. Not even kidding. It was something like -14 C, with 10 k/h winds and 90% humidity. The humid wind cuts straight through all your clothes and chills you to the bone. Not fun. It is really funny that I have to walk around in it all day. It makes you laugh as you are walking on the sidewalk freezing about to die. You just need to make things funny or you would want to die. But its okay, things are good here.

I guess I should start off my saying that my P-day is actually on MONDAY. It used to be Wednesday a year ago or so, but it has been changed to Monday since then. My trainer said I could e-mail my family and everyone else as soon as we could because I hadn't been able to do it for about a week. So expect a regular update every Monday. The reason I wasn't able to update it until now is that there was too much snow. Seriously. So check this out...

Dad, remember how you were joking around, saying how they would ship me off to where we got the most snow in the whole mission? Well guess what? They shipped me off to where they get the most snow in the whole mission! Woohooo! I'm living in a city called London. It is about 3 hours West of Brampton, which is our mission headquarters. Branpton is about 15 minutes West of Toronto. So it is just on the outside edges there. So the day we flew from Salt Lake to Toronto, we had our flight cancelled, and then got a new one that was delayed twice, so it was real tough getting here. The reason it was so hard is that it snowed A METER AND A HALF in London. Do you realize how much that is? It is like 4 feet. Over 4 feet in some places. Absolutely ridiculous. Driving here was wayyy sketchy, but we made it alive luckily. Toronto didn't get as much snow at all, but that is why our flight was delayed.

I live in an area that is called "The Snow Belt". Haha, isn't that funny? I think it is funny. And the funniest part is that we do not have a car. Every other companionship in our area has one except for us, which is way awesome! We litterally get to walk for 2 hours through 4 foot deep snow to go teach investigators that sometimes end up ditching on us. But that is alright, more street contacting hours for us! It is extremely hard to find people that are willing to stop and talk to us when it is around 5-10 degrees F. The wind is what makes it absolutely unbearably cold. I am proud to report that my winter gear will be adequate. My garments, thermals, shirt, sweater, coat liner, and coat are enough to keep me bareably warm. My boots are great and keep my feet warm most of the time. So that is a lot of exciting things already! To sum it up, I live in London, it is called the snow belt, it snows unimaginable amounts, and things are very hard, but good. It snowed so much that the busses were cancelled, and the whole city shut down. No busses, no library, and no government building were open in downtown.

We get an hour and a half to do emails out in the field...which is sooo excellent compared to the 30 ridiculous minutes we got in the MTC. This is like heaven. So I will be able to write home again on Monday. But normaly it will only be once a week. And I get to call home on Christmas which is excellent.

So I'm sure you are excited to hear about my first few days in the real missionfield! I got through customs and everything alright. We took a real sketchy tiny propellar plane from Detroit to Toronto. It was kinda scary going through the giant storm in it, but we didn't die so that is good. President Brower picked up me, Elder Nash(companion from MTC, he's from Ireland), Elder Silva (He is from Brazil, and I didn't know him in the MTC), and Sister Cheng (she is from HongHong, and I had met her once or twice in the MTC.) We were the only 4 new missionaries this transfer, which is a pretty small group. So President picked us up from the airport on Monday night, around 8 or 9, and we drove with the AP's to the mission home in Brampton, about 15 minutes away. The AP's are Elder Messik, and Elder McKee. They are both amazing teachers, and they somehow make you have a desire to be like them. They are both awesome and super nice guys. We got to the mission home in Brampton and we had a nice big turkey dinner made my Sister Brower. She is an amazing cook! She is the sweetest and funniest lady ever. I really like her a lot. After dinner, it was pretty late so we just took a few pictures and Elder Nash, Elder Silva, and I went with the AP's to an appartment in Brampton to stay the night. They call it the Mission Mansion! It is no mansion or something, but 6 missionaries live in it, which is pretty much unheard of. It is always 2 or 4 living together. But 6 live here. The AP's, the Brampton Zone Leaders, and the Spanish speaking missionaries in Brampton. There are a ton of extra beds in the basement for new missionaries to stay the night like we did, so the 3 of us stayed there that night and got to sleep in until 7:30 which was amazingly wonderful. We had gotten up at 3:00AM to go to the airport the day before so sleeping in was amazing. We got ready real quick and went back to the mission home with the AP's to meet the 3 trainers. We weren't assigned to anyone yet, but we got to meet them. We had some quick training from the AP's, and some meetings and interviews with President Brower, and then we were assigned our companions. I love President Brower so so much. You can just tell that he sincerely and genuinely loves and cares for you so so much. It is such a good thing. Because moving to another country, away from your family and friends that you love, to somewhere where you don't know anyone, and it is always cold is really scary. This whole thing is extremely nervewracking and horrifying in some ways. Everything will be okay though.

So after my interviews and things, I was assigned my trainer companion, who's name is Elder Lee! He is straight up asian, and is origionally from South Korea, but he has lived in Alberta with his family for a number of years. He is a GREAT trainer. He has said some really nice things about me. When the AP's called him last night to see how I was doing, he said "What? Elder Porter? Oh man don't worry! I feel like he is already trained. Seriously. He's got it." So that was really really nice to hear him talk about me like that. It gives me some more confidence. And confidence is super important.

He is really good at street contacting which is kinda scary at first. You can tell people don't want to talk to you in the freezing cold wind. Some people are actually really really rude to the missionaries. I have been cussed out more than I ever have been in my life in the past 3 days. For real. But it is all okay when you find people that are interested or are really nice to you. I have already talked to hundreds of people, and it is great to talk to people and hear about their lives. Last night it started snowing again, and we stopped a man who proclaimed to be an athiest. He was extremely persistent in his belief that there could not be a God. I firmly held my ground and bore my testimony, and he didn't really know what to say. No progress was made, but a week ago there is no way I could see myself doing that. It is great to see myself growing and getting better so so fast. I feel like I will do really well once I catch on to the trends of the work and really get into a solid missionary mode. It will take some time, but it will come. I totally respect all the missionaries for hanging in there. I didn't realize how much of a sacrafice this all really is. I had been in the happy magical MTC land where everything goes your way. That is in no way how the mission field actually is. People say things and ask questions that would stump you unless you had the spirit with you. Without the spirit you would be eaten up by people in the world. Most people are not happy to see you, and even for a nice guy like me it is hard to keep smiling and tell them to have a nice day after they cuss you out or tell you to go to Hell and stuff. Please keep praying for me. I need it so much. This is impossible work without the Lord and prayers. I know we can do it if we always stive to do His work in His way.

The discouragement is overshadowed when you have success. We visited a semi/not-active member yesterday. She absolutely loves the missionaries, and has a testimony, but she doesnt go to church much. It makes no sense at all. She is a funny lady with a really strong personality. She is the kinda person that gets things done. We visited her and Elder Lee put me on the spot and had me share a spiritual thought. I talked about leaving my home that I love so so much, and leaving my best friends that I thought I could never go without, and I talked about how we simply need to put faith in the Lord and everything will happen how it is supposed to. I also talked about the Plan of Salvation and how we will always be with our famililes again. And she started crying! It was amazing. She told me in 19 years of meeting with missionaries all the time, I was the first missionary that made her cry. It took her 17 years to get baptized, so I was extremely proud of myself. I know the spirit told me what to say so I could touch her heart in the right way. Her 13 year old daughter Samantha is not baptized, but she loves us and gets along with us too. I think Elder Lee and I have a really good chance and presenting the Lord's message in the right way to help Samantha see why she needs to be baptized. I really think it could happen. I found out that the average baptism numbers for my mission in 2 years is about 5-6. I know numbers don't matter, but it is still nice to know.

Oh, I forgot to say. So I know when I lived in Utah I thought places like south Orem and South Salt Lake were ghetto. Well let me tell you. Any of you soft people living in Utah have no idea what a ghetto is. We live around LEGIT ghetto's. The chinese missionaries in our district have had their car shot before! They said they had to file a really strange accident report, haha. Also, you can hear gunshots sometimes in the apartment complexes around our area. Lots of druglords and drug deals. There are a few places where we aren't supposed to tract a lot. But don't worry, the Lord will keep us safe. It will all be okay. Elder Lee and his past companions have had success acting off impressions they had to tract in those complexes before. The Lord will always provide as we strive to follow his promptings. Especially as missionaries. Anyways, I will try to keep you updated with how my progress and the work is coming along here in the Ontario, London 2nd ward. Elder Lee and I are going to work miricles here. I can feel it. We are both missionaries with great faith, and I know good things are going to happen here. I love you all so so much! My new address is...

45 Pondmills #207
London, Ontario
N5Z 4W5
CANADA

Pray for the Lords work to go forth, and for the missionaries to find his elect and prepared people! Miricles happen in the mission field. Love you all so much!

Elder Porter

Sending Letters to the MTC

Matt will be leaving the MTC on Monday, December 6 at 4:00 am!  Matt suggests that you either wait to mail him letters until he gets his Canadian address, or send them through "Dear Elder", or another similar website that will deliver the letters daily.  I have used "MTCDeliver.com" successfully.  Thanks to everyone sending him letters!

The letter he sent today is posted below.

November 30, 2010

Hello everybody! The MTC is just great. We learn SO much every single day. It is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant. There is wayyy too much to take it. The spirit is sooo strong every single minute that you are focusing. I love it. I can honestly feel myself being taught by the spirit, and I can feel myself every day becoming more and more prepared for the real mission field.

Most of the time we have here is either class time, or personal/companion study time. The classes are great, and I feel like I am learning an unbelievable amount through my study time. I am pretty much reading straight through the BOM, and it is so different and great reading it with the unmeasureable amount of influence from the Holy Ghost. You get so much more out of it if you have your purpose in mind.

Thanksgiving was fantastic. Elder Holland came and spoke to all the missionaries, and it was amazing! We were pretty close. Me and Elder Nash get reserved seating for all the meetings and devotionals because he is an international missionary. Its great. He said something that I thought was really cool...He said if you are always striving to do the Lord's work in the Lord's way, then there are litterally no limits to what can happen. Anything is possible. Just think about it! It is so true. We are devoting every personal and earthly thing we have here to the Lord, so why in the world would he not work miricles all the time for us? I know without a doubt that if you show the Lord that you are striving to serve him with everything you have, then there are NO limits. None at all. I am so glad that I figured this out so soon and understand it so well. I think it will make my mission be so much better.

On an unhappy note, we had Elder Tippetts from out district go home late last week. He just left. We could tell he was definately struggling with the idea of being a missionary, but it was still sad to see him leave. We almost had another Elder in our district go home with him, but me and my companion talked to him and commited him to stay, and he is doing a lot better now. He'll be fine if he always focuses on his purpose as a missionary.

Elder Nash and I are pretty much unstopable. I prayed so so much to have a good companion while I was here, and Elder Nash is an answer to all my prayers. He wants to work so hard, and so do I. We are both leaders for our whole district, and we teach amazingly well together. We have both figured out how to teach with the spirit so so early in our missions, and we can both bring it in whenever we feel like we need to. It is so great. Even teaching other missionaries is such a great experience.

OH! I almost forgot. Yesterday I had one of the coolest experiences of my life. It was probably the strongest I have felt the spirit, ever.....So here at the MTC you have something called the TRC. Which stands for Teaching Resource Center. We do it once a week, every Monday. They have volunters that come and pretend to be real investigators. They tell us that most are active LDS members just giving of their time, but occasionally they get less-active or non-members that come there to be taught. We all thought that it probably never happens that way, because it would just be too much hastle to go through. So yesterday we had a TRC, and we thought we were going to be teaching this lady again named Kate Barlow. The first time we met with her we just discussed prayer and how God loves her as an individual. We commited her to pray for God's love and fore peace. So we went to the TRC, knocked on the door, expecting Kate to answer, and guess what? Kate didn't answer. It was a NON-MEMBER kid from my high school that graduated a year earlier than me. WOAH. Yeah. Wasn't expecting that. He didn't act like he recognized me, so we went in and were kinda confused at first, and then I just started the into to the first lesson which is on the restoration and Joseph Smith and the basics of our religion. I was freaking out because I knew that this wasn't practise anymore, this was a REAL missionary lesson! I was praying so ridiculously hard that it would go well. I knew we needed to spirit with us or we were done for. We went on to teach about how God the Father loves us all as individuals, and how we can feel his love if we ask to feel it. We continued to tell the story of the First Vision, and the spirit was stronger than I have ever felt in my whole life. As I described when God visited Joseph Smith, it was unbelievable. I wasn't saying words from me, I was literally saying words that were being put into my mouth. The kid we were teaching started crying because the spirit was so strong, and he took is SO well!!!! It was the greatest experience EVER to actually teach someone that I knew. It was absolutely amazing. He told us that after our lesson and the experience we had that he could not deny the truth of what we taught and testified of. He told us that he had a meeting with the missionaries, but they had to cancel, so they sent him to the MTC to be taught by missionaries in training. It was such a miricle that I had that opportunity to teach a REAL lesson being a missionary less than two weeks. I can't even describe the amazingness of what happened. The spirit was so ridiculously strong, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. He was crying all through the closing prayer as well. It was soo cool. I am a real missionary! Haha, and after the lesson we were walking back and I told Elder Nash all about everything, and he was freaking out with me, it was great. So that was absolutely amazing.

I love you all, and miss you so much. I will have more than 30 minutes of computer time once I am in Canada. This is my last P-Day from the MTC, so make sure when anybody replies to my letters this week, they wait to send it until they have my Canadian apartment address.

Love you all!

Elder Porter

Tuesday, November 23, 201

Hello everybody! Things here at the MTC are going great. It is Tuesday, which is my P-Day every week. I can only write emails and letters on P-Day, so this is pretty exciting time. My companions name is Elder Nash, and he is from IRELAND! He lives on the Dingle Peninsula (mom please fix my spelling). He has a pretty thick accent and everything, so it is wayyy awesome. He is a really good worker, which is exactly what I wanted. I made sure to pray really hard for a companion who wanted to work and do a good job, and not mess around at all or waste any time. A lot of missionaries here just don't get it yet, and waste way too much time. It is really discouraging sometimes to see that not everybody cares. We are both leaders for our district, and we really do set a good example for everyone. My companion was called as District Leader the second day here, so that’s good. We do work and make a really good team. We both have learned to teach by the spirit in the first week! So we do really well during the practice investigators and stuff. I love teaching, and I feel like I am going to be great once I get into the system in Canada and everything. Exciting times!

Our schedule is unbelievably packed. We have class almost all day, and then personal and companion study times. You don't even have time to think of home or feel bad for yourself, which is really nice. I have been praying real hard to be able to realize the responsibility of my calling, so I can have an unstoppable desire to focus. And guess what...it worked! I have been able to focus great. My homesickness and missing people doesn't matter, because the Lord has simply blessed me to not think of them during the day. It is all working out wonderfully. It is so great to hear from my close friends and get letters from family. Make sure to keep sending them! It really makes your whole day when you receive a letter or a package. You asked if the schedule is tiring...and yes. It is absolutely exhausting. You don't have ANY extra time at all; your whole day from the time you get up to the time you go to bed is packed. Which is good I suppose. Mother, you asked if I hung up all my suits, and the answer is yes, haha. They are all hung up. And if I may say so myself, I am a super attractive missionary! Haha my Euro Suit is freakin good looking and I love it to death. I'll try to send pictures once I get everything figured out. Our Saturdays are just like any normal day. The schedule is exactly the same I believe. And yes, we get to go to the temple on P-Days. This is my first P-Day, and we have them every Tuesday. So I can respond to everything on Tuesday. And luckily we do get enough time to respond to most things. I even had some time to write some real quality decent sized letters, so that helped relieve some stress for sure. You asked about the food, and it is sometimes super good and sometimes super bad! It is all you can eat, and I have gained 6 pounds already. So that is interesting, haha!! On Thanksgiving we just have a bunch of extra firesides and service and stuff I believe. I'm not really sure.

So the first week here has been pretty good. The first few days were extremely lonely and long. Things are getting WAY better though. The days all blend together, and the days are going way faster. I'm already wanting to get out there in Canada though...I feel like I have learned tons already! Elder Nash and I are both going to the same mission in Canada...so that is nice. Maybe we will even be companions again someday! Well, time is running out, so I'm going to get going. Tell everybody that I love them, and make sure they keep sending letters! Haha, they really are soooo exciting to get.

Love you all! Thanks for all your support

Elder Porter

Farewell Talk!

For those of you who requested to see my talk, here it is!

Good morning brothers and sisters! I would like to first thank you all for coming out today. It really does mean so much to me to have so many of my closest friends and family members here to support me. I’m not able to thank you enough. I also need to thank my many leaders that I have had throughout my youth in this ward. You have had a bigger influence on me than shows. You have all been such great examples to me, and helped shape me into the young man that I am today.

As I began my early preparation for this talk, I went through subject after subject, trying to decide what I should attempt to teach you about today. As I was trying to decide what to focus on, I quite quickly came to the realization, that I frankly don’t know much of anything. I don’t know enough about any specific gospel principle or life lesson to teach any of you very much on my own. I simply don’t know much. The only way me or you will get any substance out of any talk I, or anybody else can give, is if we both have the spirit with us. So it only made sense to me that that is what I should speak on this afternoon.And for this reason I pray that we can both learn by the quiet promptings and specific whisperings and instructions that Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us, if we are willing to search and listen for them.

Just after we are baptized into the church, in our confirmation prayer, we are told to “Receive the Holy Ghost.” This is such an amazing gift that we are able to receive. By that statement we are told that it is our responsibility and privliage to always have His Spirit to be with us…And every week, as we partake of the sacrament we renew our baptisimal covenants through the sacramental prayer, in which the words are said..”That they may always have his spirit to be with them…”

I had a good friend give a farewell talk just a few weeks ago, and as he brought up that exact point in his talk, it really hit me. And since then, I have gained an even stronger testimony that if you honestly and sincerely strive to always remember the Savior, you will be blessed with the gifts and comforting power and feelings of the Holy Ghost.

As I have made a true change in my life to always try to remember Jesus Christ, my testimony has been strengthened. Through constantly feeling the Sprit, I have come to know, and I testify that God lives and loves each and every one of us. He loves all of his children, and is anxious to support us in our practical and spiritual challenges.

I have recently felt the power that God will bestow upon you if you are worthy, and seek for it. And as I am leaving on my mission in the next few days, I have been wanting and will need all the help I could possibly receive.

In D&C 42:15-16, it says…”Teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands by the power of my spirit. And ye are to be taught from on high. Sanctify yourselves and ye shall be endowed with power, that ye may give even as I have spoken…”

What an amazing promise…”Sanctify yourselves and ye shall be endowed with power. As a soon-to-be missionary, this statement means so much to me.

I know that God truly wants to help us, and that if we continually strive to sanctify, and keep ourselves worthy, that he will endow us with power, and he will, through the spirit, send us personal revelation and help guide us as we sincerely and humbly search for Him. I know this because I have lived it, and it does work, and we truly are able to become clean by the amazing gift and power of the atonement which any single one of us are able to activate if we so desire.

One of the only things Heavenly Father asks of us before we will abundantly feel the spirit, is that we live our lives worthily to accept this gift. We need to earn his trust by living worthy.

Parents, would you let your unresponsible, young, or immature child use or borrow one of your most prized or precious possessions? I would assume that the answer is certainly no. We as Heavenly Father’s children must strive, and have a desire to understand the magnitude of such a wonderful and powerful gift as the Holy Spirit, and God, in his love, is willing to let us use the limitless power of, if we prove ourselves worthy. We should strive to be spiritually mature by doing the little things that Christ and Heavenly Father ask of us. Daily scripture and gospel study, morning and evening prayer, a goal to perform small and simple acts of service every day, paying our tithing, and striving to always remember Christ our Savior by partaking of the sacrament every week. By doing these simple things, not only will you strengthen your own character, come closer to God, and obtain more knowledge, but you will have an increase in spiritual strength, and you will be proving to God that you understand, and that you are wanting, and worthy of the boundless power of the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

I believe that sincerely striving for the gifts of the spirit is just as important as being worthy of them. You can be worthy for the Holy Ghost, but unless you are striving for, and want the Holy Spirit, you won’t be able to feel, or use it very often at all.

The Book of Mormon prophet Alma showed us the need for a spiritual witness when he bore his testimony to the wicket people of Zarahemla. As a young man, Alma was converted after being chastised by an angel of God. He had beheld and experienced physical evidence of God and heaven, but listen to how he describes his knowledge of God in his testimony…

…”Behold, I say unto you, they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God, Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And I know I do know of myself that they are true, for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit, and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me…”

So even though Alma had seen physical evidence with his own eyes, it still took the convincing power of the Holy Ghost to give him the burning testimony that me, and so many other people are striving to obtain.

In Moroni 10:5 it says…”And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”…

In Alma’s testimony, notice that he did not give one ounce of credit to his heavenly visitor for the reasons he chose to build up and come unto God’s church. He stated that he believed in God because he had a desire to know these things for himself, and he acted upon that desire. He did ask of God weather these things were true or not. And to obtain and build up a testimony similar to Alma’s, you must do the same thing. You need to sincerely ask.

In Matthew 7;7-8 it reads…”Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For everyone that asketh recieveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened…”

I testify that if you follow the words of Matthew, and the example of Alma, that you will receive a true, burning testimony of the love and power of God. If you sincerely act on your desire, you will find what you are looking for.

So once we are worthy, once we have a desire, and once we act on our desire to obtain a testimony, and receive the full power and gifts of the Holy Ghost, we will be eledgible for more meaningful and frequent personal revelation.

In a recent General Conference, Julie Beck gave a talk concerning personal revelation. In her talk, she testified that (quote) “The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life.” (unquote)

Revelation is communication from God to His children. And in my life thus far, has been debatably the most valuable spiritual gift given to me personally.

If you continually receive guidance from the Spirit by keeping yourself worthy and striving to do better, you will radiate the Light of Christ. The Light of Christ is exactly what the words imply…enlightenment, knowledge, and an uplifting, ennobling, persevering influence that will eventually grow within you and come because of your true intent to follow and be like Jesus Christ. Through living your life like this, you will be endowed with power as I spoke about earlier. You will achieve a constant spiritual state of mind where you will almost constantly be receiving personal revelation. I know that if we live like this, that we will always be acting in God’s name. We will be doing his will. And that is exactly what my goal in life is.

-Testimony

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen