Week 13

Still not in quarantine so that's definitely a plus. This week has been interesting. Apparently Kentucky is one of the few states that still hasn't been put on quarantine and we are praying that it stays like that. Even Though we can still go out it's been hard to find people to teach because we can't go out and knock on doors and if someone has someone in their house who is "high risk" then we aren't allowed to go visit them. 

We've been trying to do alot of our lessons over video call and it's actually been going pretty good. It just takes a little longer to communicate over the phone lol. 

We had to send home quite a few missionaries for health reasons this week and it was really sad to see them have to go home before finishing but hopefully they will all get to come back out when this all dies down. By health reasons I mean all missionaries who have diabetes, sickness induced asthma, and other health problems that put them in the high risk zone had to be sent home. We are all just trying to stay motivated and keep our spirits up.

Also we are super excited for general conference this upcoming weekend. I'm expecting that it will be really spiritually uplifting. We have been sharing a lot about the first vision that Joseph Smith had with people to  prepare them for conference.*** If any of you who aren't members of our church are bored and stuck inside due to corona this Saturday or sunday and want some uplifting messages, general conference is a program that's aired where people share uplifting messages that help us better understand ourselves and our relationship with God.

*** my mom can give you more information like details and stuff like that. Also I will be trying to share things on Facebook because we are trying to do do more things over technology in these times but we aren't supposed to message people through Facebook unless it's to teach lessons. My Facebook is Just Ethan Amata. 

A quick thought for this week is that sometimes our prayers aren't answered in the way that we want them to be answered lol. For example this week I've found myself getting annoyed fairly easily and I've been praying for patience so that I can not feel annoyed with certain things. However after praying for patience more things started happening that understandably made me even more annoyed. That's when I realized that this thing that I see as a trial in front of me that I have to overcome this week, was actually an answer to my prayers. When I changed my mentality I realized that this thing would help develop an attribute of patience instead of just having the thing that annoyed me go away. So this was a really good example to me that "faith without works is dead" because I can have all the faith that I will receive patience from God but without me actively looking for ways I can use the situation I'm in to better myself, I would have learned nothing. 

Hope everyone has a great healthy week 

Please water my plant mom 

Elder Amata 

1) This is Edwardo. The sisters started teaching him and he absolutely loves the gospel. It has given him so much meaning in his live and he is super excited to be baptized. He wanted a tie for his baptism so we were trying to see which one would look best for him lol. 

2) my district for the last 6 weeks. We had to send Elder frederick home this week because he has asthma. (The one with his arm around me)

3)

VIDEO) we wanted to share something uplifting.

Week 12

Well I'm still out in the mission field for now. This week has been absolutely bonkers. At the beginning of the week we knew that things were getting bad with the virus because of all the businesses closing in Lexington. Kentucky is a little behind California in the whole total shutdown mode.

 We had exchanges on Wednesday and we visited a lady who had some terrible things happen in her life this week. We also had a lesson with a member who can't make it to church because of work and school. He's from a small country in Africa and he was a super cool guy and he said that he's not scared of coronavirus because he has his peppermint oil and it *kills the virus*. 

On Thursday we got put on "shelter in place" which basically means don't have any face to face contact unless it's absolutely necessary. It was pretty much quarantine lol. 

Friday  one of the members got groceries for all the spanish speaking missionaries in our district which is 7 people. It was a huge blessing. The members have really been taking care of the missionaries and it's been a huge help. 

We also found out that they are sending missionaries home. Any missionaries with health problems were going to be sent home and I have a history of asthma so I wasn't sure if I would be going home, I ended up having to wait until Sunday to find out that I'm able to stay out here but it was really good news.

On sunday we were told that we could go and visit people again but no door knocking. So we are trying to get as much missionary work done as we can before Kentucky gets put on actual quarantine because Thursday-Saturday were not fun days being stuck inside.

One thing that I wanted to share is that especially in these times there is always something we can do to lift others up. In Jacob ch 5 it gives the story of the olive tree and one thing that I took from studying "Come Follow Me" lesson this week is that there is work to do for all of us. In the story the workers of the vineyard are constantly working to have the trees produce good fruit. We had a lesson on Sunday with a family that we are teaching and the family member who taught the lesson drew a tree and we each put a "fruit" on the tree. The question that they asked was how can we produce good fruits and we each wrote something we could do this week to represent the fruit. So this week especially those in "quarantine" look for ways to uplift others. 

1) the olive tree with our "fruits"

2) Juan from the family we are teaching who always says that he wants to go out and knock doors with us hahaha.

3)The Bobadillas bringing us a meal 

4) The Bobadillas bringing us takis and hot cheetos 

5)district council 

Please water my plant mom 

Elder Amata

Week 11

Hola hola everyone it's been an interesting week with all this coronavirus stuff but it has been interesting to see how everyone is reacting to it. It's also a challenge not being able to have church meetings because when we meet people and they are interested we can't invite them to church lol. 

Also the weather here is really weird it will be sunny and warm one day out of the week and then cold wet and raining the rest of the week.  

Spanish is coming along pretty good, whenever I hear a word I don't know I put it in an app called quizlet so I can study and memorize it. I've also been using a lot of duolingo. We speak spanish every day but I still speak more English throughout the day than I do Spanish but I know it will come eventually. 

Surprisingly there's a good amount of Mexican places to eat so the other day we got gorditas and they were sooo good. 

We only get fed my members about 2 times a week which is less than I expected but honestly a blessing because I don't wanna get fat yet lol. 

On Sunday we were able to do a little church meeting in one of the members homes and we were able to invite a family we were teaching. So we prepared a little lesson to share in place of sacrament talks and then we ate some really good food after. So it just goes to show that coronavirus isn't going to stop us from sharing the gospel. 

Quick thought for this week is about pride and how when we start to get prideful in the sense that we give ourselves all the credit instead of recognizing the things that we have been blessed with from God and from others it can be a double edged sword. For example as an athlete it can be really easy to say look at all that I've accomplished, look at how well I'm doing, look at all these achievements that I've reached and forget to remember all of the blessings that we have been given. Blessings from God and also the people that have helped us get to where we are. Then when things get tough, maybe you aren't performing the best or you get injured it can be easy to get discouraged when you have this kind of attitude because then it also puts all of the failure on yourself, when sometimes life happens and there's nothing we can do about it. I saw it happen to a lot of athletes in high school and it happens to a lot of missionaries because they think that because no one is interested or they get a bunch of doors slammed in their face, that it must be because they just aren't a good missionary. But if we remember that like Job in the bible, we can be doing everything we are supposed to and we can still go through really hard times but we should have the mentality of measuring success by how honest our efforts are and always remember what you are blessed with because there are always things that you can look at and remember that you are blessed even in the smallest things. 

Please water my plant mom 

Elder Amata

Pictures :

1) district council and president interviews 

2) Sunday "church" with the Bobadillas and the family we are teaching and the hermanas 

3)hermana Soto got us mango Chile ice cream. They are a family that we are trying to get to come back to church and they are super cool 

4) no toilet paper at Walmart

Week 10

Hey so I'm still out here being a missionary and everything. It's actually a lot of fun. I got a ukulele so I've been trying to learn some hymns and stuff like that.

 I started running in the morning now that it's not super cold so we do our morning workout then run a mile. I'm trying to stay in shape the best I can lol.  

We did some service for a guy named Nate who had a super cool school bus that he made into basically an RV and it had solar panels on top and it ran on vegetable oil so it was pretty cool. Also, since we moved a ton of gravel for him he bought us some pizza and apparently they have drive through little Caesars. 

The weather here is super weird because one day it will be nice and almost warm then the next day it starts snowing. 

I've been making alot of fried rice and ramen noodles so its been pretty easy food wise. If anyone knows any good simple recipes I will gladly take those. 

We stopped by this one less active members house and she invited us in to eat and he made this really good soup and quesadillas and chicken feet and not gonna lie I was kinda nervous but they honestly didn't taste bad just a weird texture. 

One thing I really liked that I heard this week is that sometimes when we are going through life and we have different decisions in front of us. That when we are praying for help and guidance that sometimes we don't really get a feeling of, I should do this or I should do that. The phrase that was used was "the absence of a no" and I really liked the concept behind that because I personally experienced this. When deciding whether or not to go to school for a year or go on a mission first, I prayed a lot to know which one I should do and I didn't really get any specific answers. This would be my "absence of a no" because I knew that both were good and that eventually I would go so I decided that I would start signing up for school and see what happens. As the process of classes and schedule and all that continued I kept asking " is this what I'm supposed to do" and one day I got a pretty clear feeling that I needed to go on a mission right now instead of later. The description that I had heard about this    " absence of a no" is that sometimes we have to decide for ourselves but then listen and feel to see if the decision we made will be one that we should continue with. I think that's a really good principle because faith without works is dead and Heavenly Father isn't always going to give us everything we want but He will guide us as we make our own decisions. We have to do everything we can on our part first and the more we do on our part the more we can see the blessings of guidance. 

Please water my plant mom 

Elder Amata

Week 9

Hello everyone so this week went by pretty fast. We had zone conference this week which basically means that all the missionaries on our half of Kentucky (east) got together to share our experiences, listen to a speaker and improve our teaching skills. 
One of the people we just started teaching texted us before a lesson we had planned and said not to eat because he was going to feed us. He's a super cool guy named Joel and apparently it's not super common to have people you just started teaching offer to feed you. 
We got a good amount of snow for a few hours on Friday and it was really thick snow like it was falling in clumps so that was interesting. But, then it was back up to the 60s the next day lol. 
We had soccer this week and it was crazy because there were a lot of people there. But Sunday we got a family we are teaching to come to church. 

Something that I've been thinking about this week is that having trials and having hard times doesn't always mean a lack of blessings. When we had that one bible bash with the 16 year old girl one of the things she said is that God will never give us trials by putting evil in our lives. Her conclusion was that if we are going through hard times and suffering then it has to be from evil things. But I think that there is a difference between the things and people that are trying to tempt and discourage us and hard times in our lives, and that we may not have everything going right for us or when it takes a lot of work and effort to make it through all the things we have going on. 

In the story of Nephi and his family in the Book of Mormon I think there is a clear distinction between the opposition of his brothers to just about every he does, and the trials such as the journey through the wilderness or when his bow breaks and they don't have a way to get food. Even though they had a lot of hardships they were blessed with food, their children grew strong, and  they made it to the place they were trying to get to. 

1 Nephi ch 17 is a good example of trials vs people trying to discourage Nephi and their lack of faith. 

Anyways I don't have a lot of pictures but hope everyone has a good week. 

Please water my plant mom lol 

Elder Amata