Staying in Galveston

Things have been going great here and I’m not getting transferred and neither is Elder Mortenson so we will be here for six more weeks and I’m pumped for that. He is a really fun Elder. We are going to be really trying to speak as much Spanish this transfer as we can because that’s something that we can improve on. I’m pumped for that. It will give me a good chance to just practice all day and improve. I think it’s sweet that the mission helps us to improve little by little and to just be made better. I know I still have a lot to improve but I feel really happy with the way that I’ve changed and I hope never to lose the good habits that I’ve established.

This week we were able to get some of our less-actives to church and it was so sweet. We had a kid come who hasn’t come for 11 weeks! I love the youth. They are so great. They just make you want to be a better person. It’s been so fun to be able to see some of the classes just fill up since the past few weeks of really working with the less-actives and the church just feels great.

This week I was able to teach seminary again and we were able to talk about Alma 27-28 and it was super sweet. It’s really hard to get through all the things you want to say but it was cool getting to talk with the kids about what they liked about the chapters and to talk of the power of when God makes us promises. I think it’s amazing to think that God will NEVER break a promise if we do our part. The only reason we don’t receive a blessing that He promised is because we have fallen short, but no worries because He has given us a way to repent and start again and once we have truly repented He doesn’t even remember it. God has given us every possible blessing to help us come back to Him. We just need to do our part.

I also got to teach Elders quorum and it was really cool. It’s funny when you try to explain something and then ask a question and you just see a lot of blank faces. Haha. It’s like ‘Ok let me try again’. Good times.

Well I hope that ya’ll have a great week and are able to really see the Lord’s hand in all you do. Thanks so much for all your prayers. I know that that really does help us out here. I love all of you and hope all goes well this week.

Love,

Elder Birks

Bold enough to move small mountains

What’s up ya’ll? Well it sounds like ya’ll are super sick. That’s sad. Have fun getting better. It’s funny that when you’re sick you realize how blessed you were when you were healthy. I know that we see that from time to time, that the days when we have a runny nose or a cough, it’s just like ‘man life was so much easier when I didn’t always have to have a tissue or when I could talk and not have to stop and try not to cough’. I’ve been luckily not too sick as of this last week so I’ve been happy. I hope ya’ll get feeling better and are doing good by the end of the week.

Carissa, I’m sorry that your patient passed away. I’m sure that was way hard. I think it’s so crazy to think of how one day they are there and the next they’re not. I think it will be so cool when we go to heaven and we see all these young people running around and then they see us and come running over and it turns out that they are the people that we came to love here but who were living in an older body that held them back. Now they are like 24 and just loving life free from pain and all the problems that they had, or at least that’s how I hope it goes. I testify to you that there is more then just this life and that the next will be even better then we can imagine.

So this week we had the chance to do some service and help out some people with shoveling and moving a lot of dirt around and it was great. I love serving and getting to help out. I really have seen that the Lord will send us to serve people but that we have to be bold and willing to work. With this man we helped he started by telling us no and saying that we wouldn't be able to do it anyways. I was just like ‘how do you know until we try?’ so he let me pick up the wheelbarrow and just took it back and he was like ‘wow’. Then we helped for the next hour to run stuff around. We were able to help out and he was really grateful for it. I know that there will be times to be able to help others but we really have to be looking or they will pass us by. Well I hope you have a great week and I love ya’ll.

See ya,

Elder Birks

Miracle at the Hospital

Hey family,

 So sounds like ya’ll are doing lots of fun stuff.  So let me just start by saying that it is such a good idea to live the law of chastity! Man, when you talk to people that have kids from like 4 different people and just seem to always be having problems you realize that the family is from God and that He has a specific way that He wants us to have one.

I had a really cool experience this week. We had the chance to go to the hospital and give a blessing. As we got there we realized we didn’t know that person’s full name and that it would be almost impossible to find them. We then went and asked for help and got given like 3 different places that this person might be so we started going and just asking if they were there. The miracle that happened is the first place we went we found one of the members who works at the hospital and was able to really help us find this person who come to find out, was praying that we would find them. When we talked with them we were able to give the blessing and it was super cool. They started to cry and just felt the Spirit really strong and it was way cool. I know that God will help us find those who we need to find.

We were also super blessed to have some of our less-active members come to church this week. Actually we had one family go from less-active to Active!! I’m so pumped for them. Man, its been cool to watch them come back and to just see that they look happier.

Well I hope that ya’ll have a great week and that everything goes good and that all the little ones keep on doing good and having fun in the snow. Well I love ya’ll SOOOOO much and hope all is well.

Love,

Elder Birks

Learning little by little

Hey family,

Well this has been a sweet week. We were able to see a ton of people and random people let us in. We got to do service and turned down the money they wanted to pay us after. That was fun and then we were able to bike to a new part of the island for the first time. So yeah it’s been fun. Also we had a family come to church that hasn’t been there in a really long time so it was really great to get to see them there and watch them just look happy.

This week we had a focus given to us to really try and teach by testifying of what we know. To be able to do that we were asked to study the Preach My Gospel lessons sentence by sentence and try to find a scripture for them. It’s been super cool. You like come to understand exactly how the lesson works. I’ve felt like I could teach with a lot more of the Spirit. I think it’s super cool how God can really help us to learn things in that way, little by little or line upon line. I hope that ya’ll have been able to really see that in your life because it’s super cool. Ya’ll should try it out.

Well I just want ya’ll to know that I love ya and hope that you are having a great week and that everything is going good.

Elder Birks

(We got a memory card in the mail and here are a few pictures from it.)