¡Una Semana en dentro a 2018!

¡Hola Fonzfam!

    I know it's the worst having to go back to school right after having such a long Christmas break, but hey, as you suffer through each day know that you're coming that much closer to the end of the school year. All the kids here started up about the same time, either on Tuesday or Wednesday. They don't seem to like school too much either so don't feel like you're the only ones haha. 

    ‎Some great things have happened this last week! For starters my old companion, Elder Moffat, messaged me and said Alexis getting baptized for real this next Sunday! That's right, My boy Alexis is going to get baptized!!! He's finally ready and willing to commit. It's been since September when we first found him as a referral from a less active woman of our ward. I'm so happy for him and I'm going to get permission to go over there to Hillsboro for it. 

    ‎Another awesome thing is that our mission is officially getting smart phones next month at our zone conference. They already have them all in the mission office, so my generation of missionaries will be lucky enough to have both tablets and a smart phone. But all the new missionaries will only have a phone. It's interesting how it's all going to work, but by now the church is pretty good at having things work out for each area's number and the safeguards put on each device. Our current phones are simple dinky little slider phones that make communication a little more difficult, especially as a Spanish missionary. Whenever we try to have a phone call using our current phones, it is a whole new type of Spanish to understand haha. At least now the clarity will be so much better and communication and organization will improve as our Area Book app will be on the phone as well. Having the tablets along with the smart phones will be really nice because videos are so much better with a bigger screen. Technology has really blessed the work as I've seen it be so powerful in the hands of those ready to share it.     ‎    ‎

    ‎Unfortunately there have been a few moments from this week that have been a little rough when it came down to our investigators with a baptismal date. We had to sadly drop their baptism date because our investigators are just not doing the little things. Reading, praying (actually they do this all the time), and coming to church seem to be some of the hardest things for them to do. Persistence and members is how we're going to be able to overcome this last week and improve our situation for next week.

    ‎One of the main highlights for my week though, to stay on the sunny side, was being able to bring another investigator to the Portland Temple visitor center for the first time. He and his son loved it and they had so many questions that we were able to answer using the different displays in the visitors center. Thanks to the help of those sisters and the Spirit that we felt during the whole lesson, he asked me one of the coolest questions I've heard on my mission, "How do I be sealed to my son?" He understands how families can be together forever and he wants to be able to have that one day. Right now he is progressing really well, he is just waiting for a personal answer to know that it's all true before he commits to anything, including baptism. But he is such an amazing person and a loving father to his son. I look forward to continually helping him develop his testimony in Christ.

    ‎This week I learned of President Monson's passing early Wednesday morning. To honor his passing my companion, Elder Montague, and I watched different talks he gave throughout his service as an apostle and servant of the Lord. Something Elder Carl B. Cook hit on yesterday in the Tualatin Stake Conference was how important the last words of the prophets are. In the scriptures it's kind of nice because they say, "...these are the last words of..." And it's easy for us to know what is really important for us. But we don't know when a modern day prophet is going to speak their last words. Luckily we easy access to them on Gospel Library or lds.org to be able to study them and reflect on them. The last conference that President Monson spoke at was April 2017, and if you remember it was about the Book of Mormon. One of my favorite parts from that talk was about having our testimony strengthened from the Book of Mormon. 

"However, once obtained, a testimony needs to be kept vital and alive through continued obedience to the commandments of God and through daily prayer and scripture study." 

I love you all so much and I mean it too. Please heed the words of our prophet and cherish them. He has shown us the will of our Father and we must follow it full stride. I pray that your week will be full of fun activities and that you won't feel bogged down by life. Always turn to the scriptures, search for comfort and answers from the words of the holy prophets both in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon.

With love from Portland,
Elder Fonnesbeck 

What an awesome experience being at the  Portland Temple's visitors center with Alejandro and Yhyr

Who said it rains in Portland? 

It's been really sunny and clear lately which has made for the most beautiful scenes!