Epistle 11.25.09

Good Wednesday Everyone!

I've been transferred. I'm now in the Gaithersburg area. I live in the same appartment I did when I was in Montgomery Village, so it's familiar, but I'm also doing something entirely new, I'm in my first Car area, so that should be fun.

My companion is Elder Luk. He is from Hong Kong and this is his second transfer. President did something new this transfer, he moved all of the trainers around with each other's trainees. I'm with Elder Kelly's "kid", Elder Kelly is with Elder Hawke's "kid" and Elder Hawkes is with Elder Levie's "kid". My trainee, Elder Grady is with a SOLID Elder named Elder Chandler, great guy.

I had a lot of fun in my 3 months return to the Inner City. The DC 3rd ward is one of President Mansell's favorite wards, and we had an All-Star district. Absolutely NO weak links, all just trying to keep up with each other, the best it gets.

Life is great out here. It really is. I wish all of you could see the world the way we see it, completely removed from distraction and care, we see the world as nothing more than Man's relationship with God, and everything else is just a distraction from that.

I love you all, I wish the best for you.

-Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 11.18.09

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Transfers is next week. Call outs is this coming Monday. I'd say chances are 50-50 I stay/go. I'm really not sure what is going to happen. makes life exciting!

Elder Walker, of the 1st quorum of the 70 was in our mission this week, and addressed us at zone conference. It was a very neat experience.

One of the things he talked about was in response to the fact that many of our missionaries are headed home soon, so he spoke a little about going home, and said something interesting.

He said something along the lines of, "People will tell you that it is impossible to keep your spirituality as high as it is here on your mission. They will say that it is not reasonible to try to keep the spirit that much. This is a LIE. Satan wants you to believe that you can't have the spirit with you all the time when you get home. If you do the things that bring the spirit, and avoid the things that drive the spirit away, you will have the spirit with you just as you do here. In fact, it might be even MORE important for you to have it when you get home, because you will be making critical life decisions, and you will be exposed to a lot more temptation."

I thought that was a very interesting thought.

I had another thought that was my own musings about Elder Walker, and about our mission. This transfer another large group of Elders will leave. Several of the Elders that are leaving have been pillars of this mission during their time here. In my own words, they are our "Heroes" they are the missionaries that we have looked to as examples this whole time, and they are leaving. They will soon all be gone, and the weight of the mission will fall on my generation. We will need to be the heroes to inspire the next generation of missionaries.

Now missions have the funny habit of being full of parallels with real life, packed into a condensed form in 2 years. Which is where Elder Walker came in to the thought. We in my generation have grown up with "Heroes" to look to. President Hinckley, President Monson. All of the brethren of the 12. We look to them as examples of how we can apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. We now that Jesus Christ is the perfect example, and in fact he is actually the example of being an example. Those who follow the example of Christ, become examples for those around them. They stand and do what he Himself would do, and show others the way towards Him. Now these men, who have been our heroes and examples, will eventually be gone. There will come a day when all of the church leaders I've known from my youth will be gone, and it will fall to MY generation, to US, to bear the weight of the kingdom. We will need to be the Apostles, the 70's, the Bishops, the Stake Presidents, the Mission Presidents, the Gospel Doctrine Teachers, the Ward Organists, the Primary Presidents. We will need to fill the kingdom with leadership, and if we don't, it will collapse. We will be the tools God has put in place, and we will have to do our parts.

A lot of musings this week. Remember this though, Christ is the example of being an example. He showed us how to show others how. Christianity does not implode, it explodes. It starts by changing the very core of your being, and then procedes outwards to bless and touch as many people as you possibly can.

I love you all.

Keep being great.

Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 11.11.09

The Date is WHAT!?

Time flies. How are all of you doing? I hope well.

It's been another fun week in the life. There are two weeks left in the transfer, it has just flown by.

I'm afraid I'm about out of time, but know that life out here is amazing, I'm having a blast, learning a lot, and growing a lot.

Tonight we will be ushering at an Inter-Faith concert, and that should be fun.

Love you all!

-Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 11.4.09

Hello All!

Another wonderful week in the exciting land of DC. The weather is starting to cool down here, reaching below freezing at night out in the suburbs, but staying in the 40's at night here in down town. Down town is definitely the place to be in the winter, staying a pretty constant 10 degrees warmer than out in the suburbs.

Last week apparently I was just doing far too well when I e-mailed you, so I made sure to balance it out by getting sick again. Another fever, this time grabbing Some Tylenol Cold and Airborne, instead of last time's Sudafed PE (I've got to have variety in life!) and a Friday spent getting some paperwork done inside with a fleece on and voila I'm back and having fun again!

This week I'll share another funny miracle story with you

Last Sunday was Fast Sunday, where we go without food and drink until dinner time to come closer to God, and Sunday night was a Family Home Evening at President Mansell's house, and we ended up not having any time to eat before heading off to President Mansell's house. We brought Amanuel, who was confirmed Oct. 25th, and his wife and daughter came, who have not yet begun investigating the church so that was a big deal. We also invited another Ethiopian we're working with named Dawit. When we went to pick up Dawit we ended up having to park across a busy street from his house. I called him and told him to come across the street and we were waiting for him, then I stood outside the car so he could see me when he left his house. Right as he got to the street corner a whole pack of cars came from both directions. We were running late, and in my state of fasting an image of Moses parting the red sea came to mind, so I said a quick prayer in my heart, asking God to part these cars as He had parted the Red Sea for Moses long ago, so that we could get going since we were already late. I looked to my left just as the traffic light there turned yellow. I looked to my right, this one was a bit more stubborn, the flashing crosswalk signal was still at 2 seconds, but obediently counted down 2, 1, 0, yellow light. Looked to my left, red light. Looked to my right, red light. Not 3 seconds after that silent prayer Dawit crossed the street and we went off to our Family Home Evening. Coincidence? You can think so if you like. I'll play it safe and call it a miracle, wouldn't want to write off anything God does for fear of condemnation, you know?

Well all is lovely in lovely Washington DC. We have a General Authority coming in a couple weeks (One of the 70), so that should be fun.

I love you all. Keep me posted on life!

-Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 10.28.09

Good Wednesday everyone!

Everything here is going well. To share the best experience of the week I'm going to copy and paste an excerpt from my weekly letter to my Mission President, in the interest of time.

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Last night we had an amazing experience. Two appointments dogged us, so we went to our backup of tracting a street on the other side of our area at 7:00 at night in the rain. We finished one side of the block, and at the corner on the other side was a church building. The house next to it wasn't on the property of the church, but it was a very nice looking house, and seemed like it just might be the preacher. With a grin and a bit of a joke about how we could convert the whole congregation by getting the preacher, we knocked on the door, only to have it answered by an older white man in ordinary clothes, but with a cross hanging from his neck. It turns out his name is Norm, and he is a Presbyterian minister. We sat down and I asked him some friendly questions about his denomination and the organization of his faith, very aware of my role as an official representative of our church, and knowing my duty to convey our respect for our Christian brethren. After a few minutes of that he said "now tell me about your church, you've very politely listened to me."

I very briefly outlined the basics of Christ's church, apostasy and restoration, and he commented "Oh if you had said you were Latter-Day-Saints I would have recognized you, I just didn't know the name of this "Munson" you spoke about" I explained he was the 16th president of the church and prophet of this dispensation (And that his name was Monson!).

I asked him if he had any questions that he wanted answers, intending for him to ask about our faith. He took the question differently and started detailing some details in the Bible he was searching for answers about. Specifially he referenced a time when it says within the councils of heaven an angel agrees to put a lying spirit within 400 prophets to send King Ahab to his death, that confused him, and he talked a little bit about his wondering if Everyone was saved or not, and specifically voiced his wonder about people who never hear about Christ. I bore my testimony to him that there were answers within our message, and God wanted him to have them. I asked him how, if God wanted him to know the answers, would God tell him. He answered through revelation. I agreed and asked, In the case of King Ahab how did God reveal the truth to him? And he answered "By sending a prophet". I again bore testimony that God had sent a prophet to us to answer all these things, and brought out The Book of Mormon, asking him what he knew of its origins. He explained he knew about the golden plates and translation in to English by God's power. I shared the promise from Moroni Chapter 10 with him and he explained he had heard the verses before, and had in fact received his first copy of the Book of Mormon while in High School. He explained he couldn't promise to reading the Book a lot because of how busy he was, and readily agreed when I suggested that we leave a couple of chapters. We left Alma 32 and 3 Nephi 11, and committed him to read them before we came to see him again and pray in the name of Christ to know whether they were true.

I believe this was the scariest, most intimidating experience I've yet had in my mission. It was made more scary because he was honestly listening to us, not simply rejecting what we had to say. That meant that we honestly had an opportunity to teach him, and I was terrified that I wouldn't know what to say.

Scared as I was, with a fervent prayer for guidance in my heart I spoke with a clarity and conviction, teaching in a way so perfectly situated, linking together every concern he had raised that I could never claim the words as my own.

It was biking home from that appointment that I was filled with a desire to be ever worthy of such experiences, and to stay clean from the world. I wanted to do it for Norm, and I wanted to do it for however many others I may yet be able to touch in my life.

As I stand today President, I feel very good.
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Well that was one of the more exciting experiences of this week.

Also, Amanuel was confirmed last Sunday. He is ready to go and help us teach all of the Ethiopians here. We run in to a TON of ethiopians, many of which speak very little English. We have been telling President Mansell that we need an Amharic program but in the meantime now we have Amanuel on our side, a man who truly fell in love with the Book of Mormon. He told us once, "Every time I read this book, I feel happy!" And on the day of his baptism he said, "Today is a very good day in my life". Yes it is Amanuel, yes it is.

I love you all. I hope you are all doing at least half as well as I am doing, because if you were you'd all be having a great time!

-Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 10.16.09

Hello everyone!

I have a new companion. His name is Elder Grady, from Bountiful, Utah. He seems like a very good guy, and I'm excited to work with him.

That also means another transfer in the City, on a Bike, in the Winter. Bring it on!

The weather has been crazy lately. Tuesday was about 70, and Wednesday was about 50, and no that is not an exaggeration. 20 degrees temperature drop in 24 hours, plus rain. Lots of rain. In the spring we had the short torrential downpours that stopped, now we're getting a more Seattle rain. lighter but constant. Actually the weather has been reminding me of Seattle a lot, which is sort of nice.

Amanuel was baptized last Saturday, which was a wonderful service. He was so well prepared. Plans are he will be confirmed on Sunday, but we'll see, his life is not easy and he is not in complete control of his schedule.

We also committed two new people to baptism on Tuesday, Tamika, a 22ish year old mother of one, and Shanea, a 24ish year old mother of two. Their dates are for November first and eighth respectively. They will both have to put a lot of work in to prepare, but I am absolutely confident the Lord will prepare the way when they do their part.

I love you all, and appreciate all your support.
I apologize my epistles are not as long as they might be, but as many of you are aware we do have time limits for time spent e-mailing.

Love you all!
-Elder Ted E. Bear

Epistle - 10.7.09

Welcome to October friends!

We've been dealing with a bit of sickness in my apartment, but I've developed a loving relationship with Sudafed, and all seems to be going OK.

General Conference was incredible. I really enjoyed it. After the Saturday Morning session of General Conference Amanuel, whom we've been working with, said that he didn't want to keep waiting to be baptized, and wanted to know why it couldn't be sooner. So we said it could be sooner, and he will now be baptized next Saturday. He just had his interview yesterday and was found ready. Fun stuff!

Today was the "Death Temple Trip" meaning all the missionaries who are going home next week went to the temple, +their companions, +a bunch of other missionaries that show up just to see the departing missionaries for the last time. There were a lot of Elders but it was a great experience. I love the Temple!

In other news, next week P-Day and Transfers will be on Friday, Oct. 16th, instead of the usual Wednesday. This is because President Mansell is busy hosting a Mission President's conference in our Visitor's Center. So you won't be hearing from me until next Friday. Hope you can last the extra two days!

And the most important part:

I love you all.
You are in my prayers.

-Elder Ted E. Bear