A Lot of Down Time...

This week I read a lot of the Book of Mormon, tons of Liahonas, and got to know some elders better in my zone!

I don't really have anything to report, other than I am happy and the recovery has been great! I will be back in the area this next week!

One special thing that happened this week is that I grew a lot closer to the Lord as a missionary. It's kind of weird, seeing as I was not working this week, but let me explain. As I had time to sit and study and think, I was able to see things from a different angle. Instead of being caught up in the heat of the work, and the stress of being a leader, I was able to see things clearer. 

While I have been stressed, I always thought, "I am doing everything I can," but in reality, I wasn't. I found some personal things that needed to be changed. I found some things that I can  do to be more like Christ is. And not only that, what the Lord wants from all of his children. He wants our love. For those of you who have seen the movie God's army, "The Lord gives us 100 reasons to believe, and then gives us one or two reasons not to believe, so that we have the right to chose." If we are looking for solid answers, if we are looking for signs or an easy path, we will find one. But that is not always what God wants. We need to be faithful and always follow his council. 

I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and that he wants all of us to come back to live with him, but that does not mean it will be easy. We need to fight for it every day. Like the Lord says in the parable of the Pearl of Great Price, we need to sell everything so that we may obtain the pearl of great price!! That means letting go
of addictions or bad habits, and letting go of any cultural, social, or family traditions that are not in keeping with the Lord. Sometimes we need to let go of our pride accept that we might be wrong and follow the Lord.

My faith has been tried a lot these last few weeks, but I am happy to say I hung in there. Many times I honestly wanted to give up, but I hung on, and know I have been lifted up!! :) Sometimes I think it's
cheesy when missionaries do this, but I want to invite everyone that reads this to follow Christ a little more in your lives, humble yourself before God that he can show you the right path, and stay strong in your faith when the troubles come. Lift those up around you that are in need of help, and never think "some other time, or some one else will" because "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God" not next week. TODAY! I love this gospel and everything I have learned on my mission. I know that my Savior lives, and I know he is guiding us in the last days!

fica fixe everyone! :)

Love,
Elder Naylor

Cool restaurant

My week in a nutshell

My Toe

Transport!!!

KA STA!!!

That little phrase, my friends, is the one thing that gets my blood boiling and makes me really not happy...

This week was another slow week. We had some great lessons, but when it came to the fourth quarter (aka church...), it all fell apart. I'm not sure what is going on in our area, but nobody seems to be worried about their salvation. We are trying very hard to make things happen, but its been a long, uphill battle.  I don't know what to do. I will not quit, and I will not leave these people in their unsaved state, but dang. I am getting hit in the face with a stone wall... I am trying very hard to follow the examples of the missionaries in the Book of Mormon. Every day is a quest for saving some of our brothers here in a foreign land.

That's all I have for this week. I will send pictures in separate emails.

New White shirt compared to older shirt

Todd's Flag

Love, 

Elder Naylor 

Onward, Ever Onward!

So, this week involved a lot of meetings, traveling, and a bit of disappointment.

 

First off, Francsica was not baptized this week. She says that she still needs more time. So we will keep working with her and hopefully she will be baptized here in the near future!! She knows the Church is true, she just doesn't want to make the covenant yet.

 

Next! We had interviews with the new mission president!! He is super awesome! His name is Elder Mathews. He will bring something new to the mission! He is a little different than Pres. Olivera, but I feel will still be just as good! So those went well, but my comp got sick. As we were coming back from our meetings, we had to get in this big work truck and ride to a place where we could take a taxi home. (I have become good at hitchhiking on this mission ;)) He was throwing up off the back for a time. Poor comp :)

 

Then, we had a meeting on the other side of the island the next day, so we kind of lost two full days of work... During the rest of the week we re-established contact with all of our investigators and it went well, until Sunday when no one came to church. No one right now has the desire to do the things they know they should. No matter how many times you tell them they need to, no matter how many scriptures you show that say to do this or you won't have salvation, if they don't want to, they don't.

 

We are working hard, and we set up some good transfer goals as a district. I am excited to get those up and running!!

 

That's all from Africa this week fellas! :)

 

Love,

Elder Naylor

PS: Family, hey sorry, I meant to send pics, but I forgot my camera today, so I will get on that next week!

Fourth of July!

After many weeks of very slow progress in this area, this week went a little bit better! Let's just say a lot of time was used waiting around for people to show up to meetings, and not having the meeting, and planning other meetings, and waiting for those... lots of meetings.

 

Did things get better at those meetings? I hope so. Our leadership here is making progress but still could use a little help.

 

BUT!! This week, we are going to have a baptism!!! If it all works out ok. Her name is Francisca, and we have been working with her since I got to this area! She finally has accepted to be baptized! I am so happy for her! She will be a great addition to the ward. She is a philosophy teacher here and she really understands how things should be! Plus she studies well! She will be very valuable to our ward! :) 

We also did a lot of walking this week and a lot of getting rejected! I am determined to find what the Lord wants us to do. He would not put me here just to waste time. I will find it!! :) Other than that, nothing super special happened.

 

The fourth was fun! We woke up and my comp (from Australia) was soooo excited for some reason, more excited then I was! :) He said, what do you do on the fourth? And I said "parade, fireworks, BBQ, and family," but I said those things would never happen here! Then we left our house and what happens? A wedding goes by with the bride and groom on top of a car waving and a trail of cars honking. The parade! Later that day we were walking and someone shot off fireworks. And then, that night we walked passed this lady cooking chicken on a grill, BBQ! Super funny, we laughed so hard!

 

The new mission president has come in, and I get to have an interview with him tomorrow!! I'm really looking forward to that! :) Also, Elder Young and I are here together for one more transfer!! :) I really like him! He acts kinda like the polys do! He has this dream in his life to own a pirate ship and to sail around and live on a beach in a little shack ;) I love this guy! Well I wish I could make these emails more exciting, but I am out of ideas! :)

 

Love you all!

Elder Naylor

 

Winning the fight! (And hitting his ONE YEAR mark!)

We are winning this fight!!!

 

It's true though! :) It's been a battle, but the frequency (of finding people?) is going up every week, and we found a ton of great potential investigators and less actives (members), and this next week we should have a lot of good stuff happen!

 

In terms of investigators, it's still kind of slow but-- Edgar came to church yesterday! He is making great steps, he just seems to have a doubt we can't figure out yet. Francisca set her baptism date for the end of July, so she has made a great step! We have another investigator named Adilson, who has been really closed to us, but in the last week he has really showed an interest and is starting to open up!

 

Other than that, this week we have been hit so many times with issues w/ the Bible. The BIBLE!!! People worship the Bible more than God! It's so bad here!!! They are so worried about little inconsequential details that they are losing their salvation over it!!!! 

 

Not to get to worked up but, we have found out how to avoid this. Don't fight!! Whatever you do, don't fight! You lose every time!! So we share our message, and ask them to pray, and give it all to the Spirit. If they fight the Spirit, it's a lot harder than us against them. It has been working pretty well! :) 

We are also training our ward leadership how to work! I feel like I am running this ward more than the Bishop is... let's just say I am learning how to run a ward pretty well! :) The Lord might have plan for that.... hope not but!

 

This week was still as rough as ever, but I feel we have turned the corner and can now see the light!

 

Everyone, I know that God loves us, and that Christ lives and this gospel is the only true gospel in the world. If you don't believe me, pray, because the Lord will show you. I know that in our weakest moments the Lord lifts us up. He proved it this week. I had a night where I sat down in pure frustration and just prayed. I prayed so hard that the Lord would give us something. Nothing came instantly, but things are starting to happen! I love you all wish you the best!

Family, if you could send me more pictures of my friends, that would be great! Either pull them off facebook, or out of the files we already have, I would like that! I am happy and growing and am loving my mission!!!! :) See ya in 1 ;)

 

Love, Elder Naylor

Feeling for missionaries in other missions...

Hey All! I really don't have much to say this week, other than I am sorry for elders (and sisters) that don't ever teach!!!! I am now feeling your pain.

 

We had a day where we visited 17 of our investigators, and they all were not home or had some lame excuse of why we could not talk with them. We found ourselves, a few times, just asking why is this not working? What does the Lord want us to do?

 

The only positive thing about this week is that through all of this hard work, I am learning a lot about God! I have had my faith stretched to great lengths. But its growing! We are learning how to really teach with power, and my prayers have gotten a lot better.

 

The main problem is, the people here just forget, or are lazy, and won't do anything. We had one investigator who was great! He was doing everything (reading, praying) and working towards a baptism date. Sunday he didn't show up, when all week he said he would. Then when we saw him later that day. We tried talking to him, but he completely ignored us...

 

So we are hoping for a better week this week, and we have some plans that should be good!

 

Love y'all,

Elder Naylor

3 Baptism Dates!

Hey everybody! This week was really, really slow. I don't have much to say, other than in my DL meeting in Praia, we learned a ton of stuff, and a lot of it was about setting goals and following up on them. We put all these things into practice and it made our week better, and we now have a really good vision of what we want to get done in our area!

Mom, I will get to see my current mission president before he leaves. He is doing interviews this week here on Fogo. That will be nice!! He is a great man and has influenced my life. I won't be surprised if he is called to be a Seventy(priesthood leadership) some day, not even a little. I already know the new mission president. He was serving here with his wife as couple missionary companionship when I got in, and he will be just as good!! No doubt in my mind! 

We did set 3 baptism dates! Two of them are in one family and they are golden!! Usually the doubt of being baptized the right away after having been baptized in a different religion is a huge problem here. But this time when he asked about it, I just said, "The scripture that says, 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism'," means one TRUE baptism (proper authority, proper manner, proper age). He responded w/ "Oh...ok!"  When we taught about the Book of Mormon, he said, "I have heard of this book, and read it a few times, but I don't have my own." We put one in his hands. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was for him to keep, but when he did, a huge smile came across his face!! 

Sunday was a major hard day... We had all these people planning to come to church. We were going to pick them up and walk to church in the morning, and we had members ready to help too, but nothing worked... No one came. The ones we visited later had excuses like "I was lazy," or "I didn't want to (when doing completely nothing!)." I was very disappointed. We did have a great meeting with our "soon to be" bishop and we made a bunch of plans for the next two weeks so that a ton of great things are going to happen!!! 

That's all for this week. The work is slow and a little frustrating, but we are starting to see some things fall into place! Oh, and freak thing! I saw a friend from high school here this week!!! When I was coming back from my meeting, she was in the airport! Super cool! Love you all!

Elder Naylor 

Friend from High School

Ice Cream

How we do Birthdays