This week was a pretty good week.  There was a lot of moving around and a lot of driving to other places.  We had a zone training meeting this week and for this month we are emphasizing teaching, and that is good, because my teaching has just gone well.  Want to know why? I think that the past 50 meetings I have taught 49.5 how to begin teachings and firsts.  So I’ve been getting a lot better at that! Which is fun, because we get to emphasize that Heavenly Father gave us a way to return to His presence and it's called the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I definitely think that this last week has helped me a lot with becoming more humble.  I am a pretty prideful guy and don’t give into a lot of things, but lately I have been doing my absolute best, well I guess I’ve tried, to become more humble.  It is still a work in progress, but it is an amazing Christ-like attribute. Mosiah 3:19 if you want more.  This week we got to meet with one of the families that are preparing for baptism and hopefully they will be baptized this Wednesday! They have been preparing for about 2 and a half months and it’s amazing to finally see them be prepared to make this step toward Celestial Glory! We had a lot of investigators at church yesterday so that made our week really good.  I also got to see my MTC teacher and he came to a couple meetings with us.  This week is just a week of endurance, when I mean endurance I mean the endurance of a normal week.  We have up and down weeks for a reason and the weeks in the middle for a reason too.  The Lord is shaping us and I have seen Him shaping me into the person I can become.  The Lord knows exactly what we need! Remember that.  Love you all, have a good week!

Elder Porcelli

 

Andrew with Elder Wahl, his MTC Teacher that is visiting Vanadzor this week!!!

 

 

Best Week Ever!

This week was even better than last week.  It was really good to pretty much have a pay day. I think about Fish Lake a lot. I want to go fishing and go to bowrie and eat good food.  This week I’ve grown closer to the Savior more than I think I ever have.  I have never relied on him so much.  And the best part is; now I can feel the actual influence and change inside of me.  there's a feeling that I’ve never felt before in my life that I can now feel, and it comes every time I think about my Savior and his atoning sacrifice and the power he has that is given from Heavenly Father to help me and my personal weaknesses.  I’ve never been so grateful in my life.  In everything that I do in my life, until the Lord tells me to stop, I am going to do everything for Him.  I’ve never felt so good or happy or clean.  I’ve never noticed how big of a debt I have to pay to him! And all he asks me to do is follow him and keep his commandments and he WILL do the rest.  It’s amazing what the atonement can do and how much change it brings into people’s lives if they just allow it.  I’ve never felt so grateful to have been born into our family, and that God has allowed me to grow up in this gospel and to have the experiences that I have had.  The thing that means the most to me though, are the experiences that I had as a kid and how I forgot them over time, and since doing the things I have been doing, the Lord has had mercy on me and has allowed me to remember them.  There are experiences that I forgot about years ago and now I can remember.  This mission is the biggest blessing I have ever had in my life other than my family.  People can say all they want about the church or Joseph smith or the book of Mormon.  But I know what I know, I know what I’ve felt, I know what I’ve seen.  I have heard the voice of the Lord and I will proclaim his word forever.  We have an obligation to share this gospel and I am trying my best to share it with the strength that I have, and my strength is not enough and that's how I know that the Savior loves me.  He has given me his strength.  I have had many times where I didn’t know what I was saying but I knew that the Savior was speaking through me.  I have felt the presence of angels.  These people are amazing, it's hard, but it's worth every second! My companion is super awesome and we talk about this stuff all the time! This message started out for my family but then I felt like this should be for whoever is struggling, whoever is alone, or for whoever feels like they have nowhere to turn to.  Just remember you are never alone.  Have an awesome week! We should have a couple baptisms this week! 

Last Week of May

So this week was a little different than usual.  We only had about 4 and a half proselyting days in our area.  We went down to Yerevan for the weekend for a mission conference and stake conference.  Elders Bennett and Hallstrom came and spoke to us with their wives.  It was a really good meeting that we had and we talked a lot about how everything is happening on the Lord's time.  I felt the spirit a lot during that meeting, confirming a lot of what these amazing people were saying.  We have been focusing a lot on the Atonement and faith lately.  I feel that as a child of God we have to understand and recognize that the Atonement is the way by which all things are made possible, and faith is directly connected to that.  We haven’t been doing super well in our area, we get nice numbers but we haven’t been having the baptisms that we thought we would have had.  So, we have been using the atonement a lot to change our missionary work and to change our attitudes to help grow our faith, and it is paying off.  We should be having a couple baptisms in the next few weeks and it's been an amazing journey with these people we are teaching! There is a scripture that I feel very strongly about 2 Nephi 25:23 23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

After all we can do, it is not enough, but it's by the grace of God that we are saved.  We have been relating that to missionary work that after all we can do it's not enough and through the Lord the miracles are made possible, but first we have to exercise our faith.  I know I might be a little confusing but I have tried my best in my sick state to make sense.  Remember that God is great and merciful and he is always waiting to bless us! 

 

SKYPE Week... Happy Mother's Day 2015

SKYPE WEEK - Happy Mother's Day!!!! 2015
Well this week was a really good week in terms of changing attitudes and turning weaknesses into strengths! We also had a super cool zone training meeting which got us all super pumped.  I want to talk about the main point of the zone training meeting.  And that is, 3 Nephi 5:13 13 Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.

We also talked about how this relates to "Fear no man!"  God is no respecter of persons.  We should never fear man! We should always be going out of our way for someone else.  As a missionary this line means the world to you! I don’t how many people I’ve gone up to and just started talking to even if they are 6'6 and 300 pounds.  There is no fear to fear.  That was just a fun thing that was really cool this week.  But, the main focus of my letter is relying on the Lord, because he will show you what you need to do.  I tend to always relate back to this scripture Ether 12:27, 27 and if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that

 they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they 

humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
 He always keeps his promises! He gives us these trials that we face and the weaknesses we have for a reason, and I think one of the biggest reasons is to build faith! We can’t stretch our faith without trying it.  I have seen over the past couple months a lot of weaknesses that have come to me and I know that every time that I have gone to the Lord and asked him for help, he has always tried my faith and then I saw the results after my faith was tried! And in turn, my faith grew! Christ said in the bible that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains! We all have that ability in ourselves; we just need to find it in our Savior! He will always make our weaknesses strong if we come unto him and trust him! Also, Happy Mother’s day to all of the wonderful mothers out there! Thank you for all that you do for everyone and ill give a shout out to every mom for helping us become like the stripling warriors!!! Alma 56:43-48

 47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their

fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, 

God would deliver them.

 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

Happy, Sad, Happy, Life Stinks, Happy Again

Everything at the start of the week just wasn’t going very well.  But, at our district meeting President came and I and my companion had interviews.  After those interviews he came out with us to our appointments for the day and then that night me and my companion talked a lot.  We have completely changed our missions.  We were both companions with the most successful missionaries in the mission and we got to talking about everything because we were doing below-par work.  I can tell you now that my mission has completely changed because of one scripture, Matthew 10:39, is my new favorite scripture.  It has had the most impact on me so far in my life.  And I applied it.  The past two weeks we had found a total of 0 new investigators and this week in 4 days we found 11.  All because I changed my attitude about everything.  We are working harder than I have ever worked in my life and it brings so much happiness.  
 

I told president about what happened the week before and I he told me to try and look at it differently and see what God is trying to tell me.  It made me feel weird because the people were being really rude, but, he has a point.  I've studied a lot about finding faith in Christ, and it is still a work in progress, but I have experienced the rewards of at least putting forth my effort.  

Also, one of my favorite things to hear and read about is people giving thanks to God! It says in DC 46:32 and DC 59:7 that we need to always give thanks to God for our blessings.  And I always think of Captain Moroni when I think about people giving thanks in Alma 48:11-13 it talks about the reason why he was such a great man of God and it's because he gave thanks continually for all the blessings that he had! We need to acknowledge that all good things come from God and when we don’t give thanks to Him for them, he might take them away because WE take them for granted.  

Everything is looking up, I received an answer to my prayers last week, I saw I miracle happen and I feel happy.  I love you guys and hope that everything is going okay, and mom don’t worry about my plaque, it's okay.  

Love you all!

 

This week has been a pretty rough week in terms of pretty much everything in missionary work.  We have a couple of investigators that can get baptized at any given time, they just need to come to church and they make up the excuse of I need to work! It'€™s frustrating because they are putting off their salvation.  I have gotten insulted more than I ever have been on mission in the last week alone, all on my language ability.   It's annoying because I have people tell me that I'm amazing at the language and then people that say I canno€™t understand you because you are American and some that say speak English because I can'€™t understand a thing that you just said.  But, you know, everything is a test, it's all for a reason, I haven't quite figured out the reason yet so that's going to be an interesting journey.  This week has just been really dull; I didn'€™t have a lot of spiritual experiences or uplifting experiences, probably because I wasn'€™t looking for a lot of them.  Never do that! It is a bad idea ha ha, you will regret it.  I think it all comes down to patience and finding Christ in your life.  If you are ever going through a rough time, just remember the Savior has been there.  No matter how bad you feel or how long it takes or how immovable that mountain of a trial is, he's always going to be there. You might ask hundreds of times before you receive your answer or your peacefulness, but there's a reason and a blessing.  3 Nephi 14:7-8 has been on my mind constantly the past couple of days.  I feel like it has a lot of meaning towards the atonement as well.  It just takes time.  I need to learn that lesson.  But one thing I do know that is true, with all of my heart and mind, is that he will answer your call.  I know it'€™s hard, believe me, but just show forth your faith by taking action, with the intent to act upon the answer you receive or change the behavior you had before to become more like Christ.  It works. 


We moved into the sisters apartment! ha ha

Well, this week was probably  the most up and down week that i have had! This week was transfers week and so i got my new stud companion.  This week has been super different because we didnt get the chance to meet with a lot of our investigators.  Its also been really hard and stressful because the entire ward is riding on me right now and all of the members are dumping on me.  But, i know that with stress comes growth, and from growth, we can become closer to the Savior through his grace! We didnt have a lot of new things happen this week but there has definitely been a lot of maturing on my part because for the next couple of weeks everything is on me because i know this ward and area.  i did read something in preach my gospel that really stuck out to me! It says that no one can know about spiritual truths without prayer.  It is super true, through prayer is how we receive a lot of the confirmations of the truths about the gospel from God.  When it's from the spirit, it's from God and if it's from God no one can deny it.  Alma 26:22 says that through prayer and repentance we can find out about the mysteries of God that no other man knoweth.  Alma 7:23 says ask the Lord for whatsoever thing ye stand in need both temporal and spiritual and it will be given to you through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.  No matter what you can always go to God for help and he will help you, that's a promise from prophets of God! and from every missionary in the world.  I hope everything you do shows love for Christ! i dont mean that super literally but just remember we are trying to become more like the Savior in this life and we cant do that without his grace