Baseball, Halloween, and Football..... Who cares when you've got a black tag on your chest like a bullet proof ve

Hey there good ole family who is living in absolute Zion, and make no mistake about it Utah is the happiest, Cheerfullest, Bestest, and Gooder place on earth and it's a place that if I could wouldn't go back to in a long long time.

It hit me this week that I only have so much time left on the mission and I'm starting to take some serious evaluations of what has been done and what needs to happen. Fall is a little depressing to me because it's the beginning of death and the start of a lone dark winter. This is a winter which i feel will open its jaws and swallow me right up. If I could i would take of blow drier and melt all the snow like Calvin and Hobbes.

 

 SO this week Elder Sauer and I had to ring some necks and pull some teeth to get some info for stake coordination. I'm so glad that the next stake coordination is in January and I'll be long gone before that one comes around. For your Info Stake Coordination requires to get all the info for every recent convert in the stake for the past year and getting all their stats such as wether or not they have Home teachers, Gone to the temple, Active, How many NML's, and a calling. It's a big pain in the neck and we had to do it on a whole new format and it took awhile and it only takes like 5 minutes to present it all in the meeting and talk about the needs of the missionaries in the stake.

 

I did get to go the Bloomington on exchanges and commited one of my former investigators to come to church and she came. Merissa came and is going to taught by the Elders who are in that area. I love Bloomington and Im glad to see that we actually have missionionaries who like to do work in the area. It kills me inside to have had missionaries their who were piling out and nothing was getting done. I feel like I've almost been a bad missionary because I don't feel successful. Elder Sauer and I work so hard to get the zone going and to get our investigators to commit but when everyone you teach here is on social security and on disablility and doesn't have a car it becomes hard to get members to the lessons and to have them even dare go to the areas where we teach to pick up our investigators for church and there don't open their doors when they say yes yes Yes! when we invite them to church, and even have them say " yes i'll be there as long as there's a breath in my body" and then a no show.   I couldn't even imagine how our Father in Heaven must feel when his children disobey and don't accept the free gift of Christ's perfect Atonement, I've fallen into that trap before but I dig bite and claw everyday that I can do what I've been sent to do. I'll Go where you want me to go. I'll say what you want me to say.

 

Our zone in the past 2 weeks has gone from 2 to 7 to 10 baptismal dates and it looks like it will be on the rise and we can see some great miricles as we as a mission press towards the goal of 400 baptisms. We have 103 dates in the mission and 285 total for the year... Please pray that we can have 400 to Heaven

 

I'm starting to be a good tennis player, I'm composing a good collection of pink ties, I have a good family, I've never been to college, I'll be married in a couple months this time next year, I ran a squirrel over this past week, I need more G's, I'm 6 foot 2 a lean and mean 205, I represent the man on the cross, My name is Elder Gonzalez and I'm a Mormon 

Fall Miracles

Well Family I just want you to know that I'm not worried about what the Utes are doing at this time because I'm not watching and praying for them during the games like I always do and they always win. I'm glad that Yall got to go and watch BYU get humbled by Oregon St. that really makes my day to see the Mo Mo Mormans come to church all frustrated and tied up because they're not getting the success that they've fasted for. Something that really bothers me is when i hear about mormons fasting for BYU sports and especially when I hear about some lady putting that man who belongs to our church in the temple prayer list. That's just jacked up.

  So we are seeing some great miracles here in Peoria and it all happened after we had zone training meeting. So our ztm is focused on "Teaching People, Not Lessons" and of course the Doctrine of Christ. I cannot express to you enough how much the Doctrine of Christ means to me. It's the only thing that really matters in life and when we start to take it for granted is when we send ourselves on a rocky road to Hell literally 2 Nephi 2:2 gives us the whole point of Satans purpose hear on earth. DON"T ever take the Doctrine of Christ for granted Jesus himself said "this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God,and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" -John 17:3 If you don't know who you're praying to or what the attributes of God are then "Faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement" doen't do much for ya and all the rest of the Doctrine isn't having much of a bang on ya then expected.

 

  I do want to say that I'm not excited for the cold weather because everyone goes inside and it's much harder to get in contact with people and I just don't like the cold as it is.

 

Thoughout the zone we have 7 new people with baptismal dates and that's a big improvement for us. Elder Sauer and I are going to be getting some dates here set pretty soon, and we're also going to be super bold with everyone that we talk to and just tell them that we have a marvelous truthfull message that will sweep you off your feet and into the baptismal font.

 

 That's cool that you got to go camping, that's something that i miss doing. I plan on going into the desert on some random weekends in my tacoma with my newly wedded wife and just having a night in the open and just getting some fresh air whenever we need it. I just want yall to know that I had another record week with chick mail...... 4 letters from my lovly friends back in the 801 and some that aren't even in Utah hahaha. It gets me everytime when I open the mail and I get a wiff of some chick perfume.......... only 10 1/2 more months. I'm really not trunky at all only at lunch time, because i know that if i went home today that i would be broke and people will only be at school and all, and life out here is just great. I get a van that I don't pay for, if i'm low on gas then i just swipe this card which fills my tank up. I wear a suit with some sick tie everyday and a "cute name badge" and me future wife says when i send her pictures in the mail, and i get to room with some other dude named Elder Sauer for free.    and i get to preach to truth until i drop and then i wake up and workout and take some "dark matter" steroids and do it all over again.

 

  President straight up told Elder Sauer and i that we will be together for 3 transfers and so I'll be here in Peoria until December 27th yea Christmas in da hood

 

                    Love ya   Elder Gonzalez     Still running these streets in Peoria Illinois   

Still Floating (from October 1, 2012)

Hey there family

 

  So this past week was a ton better then the past few mostly because we had some investigators to church and have a new lady with a baptismal date. Her name is Debra Owens and she is in the hood hood crooked ghetto, like someone got shot in the face there this past week hood. She is a way sweet lady who is more or less just raised in that atmospere and is black and so she fits right in with everything else.

 

that's cool that you now have a new car I guess that will make things interesting when I get home...... 4th car !!!

 

I really really want a Tornado to blow through this town that would be sweet.

 

So I heard a joke down in the south side it goes like this ..... What's the most confusing holiday in the ghetto?  Father's Day, because no one knows who their father is hahahaha.. This is an issue that I would like to address. Society these days, or perhaps the hood of Peoria is just a swirling pot of sin and needs some serious fixing, that's where Elder Sauer and I come in. We denouce wickedness fearlessly and do it with the Book of Mormon.  We stand as beacons of truth or at times we stand as wanna FBI agents who can pull up to a street and have every brotha go back inside hahaha it's a thing of beauty, but I'll tell ya what there ain't no way that you're going to get me to go down there in the night time with all the commotion that goes on down there. I hope that I'm on the Lord's side because he may need to block some bullets for me.

 

I want to talk about faith.... faith is something that i wish to get more of as the brethern will be addressing the world as to what needs to be done in order to get our heads on straight and how faith is going to be to only thing that stays constant in a changing world that's decided to play dead posom in the middle of the road..

 

There is a program the church is doing and it's called the Mormon next door. It's a presentation about the church to be presented and other churches upon their request as to what the mormons really believe and practice. SO we had pastor Bob of the united methodist church( that's where we do service on saturday morning) ask us to prepare a 7 minute presentation about the church and then have 40 minutes to answer questions from the congregation. So after having that offer we already knew that we needed to implement the church presentation on the beliefs and recruited the help of the 1st councilor in the stake presidency, and the stake's public affairs specialists. So what it was was this. A information presentation of the 2 religious affiliations of the current presidential canidates. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the United Christian Church. Each church was to get 7 minutes each of presentation on beliefs and practices and then 40 minutes open discussion. We ended up going to a different room then the one that was planned because there must have been 100 people wanting to hear what we have to say, and so we got started 10 minutes late since the room that we were in wasn't big enough. It went well. Pastor Bob was mostly accurate on his information and some of the questions came like " why do you focus big on family history?" " how do you know if the person sittin next to you is worthy to be there in the temple?" "why would you send missionaries to already christian people?" So President Mackay took most of the questions because the stake is supposed to be in charge of situations like this but one and only one question got directed towards me.and it was " Why do you wear suits, and will you contiue being a minister of the gospel after your time is up?"  I was sweating it way bad but I just told them that " we wear these clothes to easily recognize ourselves as reprentatives of the church and of the faith, and that after the mission I will and almost all returned missionaries will go into a professional field with the community." and that was my moment of fame in the Methodist church.... so bad did I want to talk about some other subjects but I'm glad that President mackay took us for backup and that hopefully when we do service there next time we will get some more teaching oppurtunities and some referrals.

 

Life is good and I can't wait to listen to conference.... All of you should take hand written notes of what the spirit teaches you  and then study those after the conference is over

 

13 months out.... Elder Gonzalez   Peoria Ililnois