Week 54

 Hey greetings from Kentucky. It's been pretty cold here the last couple weeks. I have officially been out for over a year on the the mission! It's crazy to think that last year I had just left home. 

I'm doing good here in Louisville there are alot of people from alot of different places that I've met. It's been really cool to help people see the blessings that come from learning about the gospel and helping them understand why Jesus is our savior and what that actually means.

 There is a person that we are working with right now who has been a member of our church for many years but he was really struggling with things like depression and anxiety. We showed him a video where one of our church leaders  talks about his experience with mental illness and how we belive that God has given us modern medicine to help bless everyone. He talks about how if you were to have apendicitis you would get a blessing and go to the hospital, he continues to talk about how mental illness is the same. 

We shared this with our friend and he said that he just felt like he had never looked at it like that before. We teach that God can help us overcome any obstacles but sometimes he puts the tools we need right in front of us and we don't use them because we don't want to be judged or look weak. We encouraged our friend to ask God for direction and when we came back the next week he said that he was now taking medication and that he felt like a burden had been lifted because he accepted that he couldn't just do it alone.

I share that story because it really helped me understand humility in a way that I hadn't thought of before. This amazing friend of ours was able to tell our Heavly Father that he needed help and was humble enough to let someone else help and allow God to work through a docter to help him start to overcome the challenge he is facing. 

That's pretty much it for this week but I hope everyone is doing good! 

Elder Ethan Amata 

OK now time for pictures 

1)I have served around elder Madsen for most of my mission and this was the last haircut that I have him because he goes home tomorrow so we took a picture 

2) My friend sent me some really good ramen for my birthday and someone here gave me this hat they said was from the Philippines 

3)we got just enough snow to make a snowman the other day 

4)we did some service with some other missionaries at a food bank

 

5)us in a lesson with our friend Tony who is super cool 

6)my mom isn't gonna like this one hahaha but they had a really good deal on monsters at the gas station and I can't pass up a good deal 

7)The Spanish speaking missionaries of Louisville 

                                 

                                                     

 I just wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas. This is my first Christmas away from home and it was different for sure. 

We were invited over to have Christmas breakfast with a couple who serve as  missionaries that help coordinate all the mission vehicles. 

Then we got to talk to our families and I was able to see that they were enjoying the nice California weather lol. It was nice to be able to see and talk to everyone and still feel like part of the family even though I wasn't able to be there in person. 

Things have started to slow down a little bit but we are still teaching people. We are also doing english classes with some people and that has been really cool to help them learn because I can understand the struggle of learning a new language.

 Also thank you for all the birthday wishes it does feel strange to be 20. 

I've almost been out for a whole year and it's crazy to think all that has happened in the time that i've been out. Most of it doesn't even feel real because things went a little crazy soon after I left in January. 

All I know is that through it all God has a plan and he knows me personally. When it comes to Christmas I love how even if you don't really celebrate the birth of Christ as the focus of Christmas you cannot deny that at the very least He is the cause for a holiday that makes people happy and that brings family together. 

I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and that we can see the change that the holliday has on those around us.

Elder Ethan Amata

For the pictures it's just some random things and some food lol.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving!

This week was a little slow but we got to have 2 Thanksgiving dinners so that was fun and I got absolutely stuffed lol. One was with our mission president who is a really cool guy from Idaho so we sat at different tables and talked and had a good time. The other one was with a family in the congregation who invited us over later in the evening. 

Covid cases are going up in Kentucky so it's possible that we have to go back into shelter in place but for now we are still able to safely visit people. Honestly the thought of going back to shelter in place scares me a little because I love getting to talk to people face to face but all I know is that whatever is in store has a purpose. 

There's a scripture in the book of Mormon that is one of my favorites, that says 

"But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." 2 nephi 2 :24 

So I am trying to have this scripture be the motto or theme or something like that for my mission because I definitely didn't expect covid when I signed up for a mission but I did sign up to do what God wants and needs me to do so I guess there's probably something that can be learned from all this. Have a good week .

-Elder Amata 

Sorry this is the only picture I took this week but let me tell you, that cat was fluffy 

 Hey so things are getting interesting lol. 

So I got moved to Louisville and the name of our area is Ola which means wave so that's kinda cool. One thing that isn't very fun is that I tested positive for covid 19 but my symptoms were pretty much the same as a normal flu so cough sore throat body aches and stuff like that so we are currently under quarantine until further notice which is not super fun but there's not much that I can do about that. So we do a lot of studying and a lot of playing guitar and piano and stuff like that when we run out of people to call. Other than that its pretty chill for now.

There was something I read the other day that kinda put me in my place because I didn't have the best attitude about the whole quarantine thing.

 Its in Romans 5 verses 3-5

"3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

And basically this got me thinking about how something like true patience is something that would be really nice to have especially with all of this covid stuff and being on the other side of the country away from friends and family and not being able to go out of my apartment. However in this scripture it tells us that when it comes to patience that we gain it through trials that test our patience. So I'm just trying to take this quarantine as an opportunity to be tried and tested. That also means that the more trials of patience that we go through the better we will be equipped to handle future situations. So to sum this all up I need to look at this trail kinda like cardio... It kinda sucks in the moment but every time you do cardio it makes future cardio suck a little less... and its supposed to be good for you or something like that but i think that's just a myth lol.

Hope everyone has a great week or two depending on when I email again haha. If you want to send me anything you can send it to      

1325 Eastern Parkway

Louisville, Kentucky 40204

Week 41

 Hey this is going to be kind of a short email but this week was great.

We have been able to talk to alot of people as we are out and about and I'm super grateful that we are still able to go to church and that we are still able to have lessons with people in their houses. 

We also have had the opportunity to do a lot of service for members. We helped someone set up a huge tent in their backyard and we helped someone else move.

Today on our prep day we were able to go and take a tour of Keeneland race track where they do horse races and things like that and it was really cool. 

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Week 40

 Hey its been a little bit since I've gotten an email out. I'm still in Lexington Kentucky teaching people in spanish.

We moved into a new apartment that's actually in the area that we are assigned to and it's a lot nicer than the old one and now we don't have to bike across the city.  We also live in the same apartment complex as some other missionaries that cover the same area as us but they speak english. So, we have been doing things with them on our Prep day like laundry and stuff like that. 

So recently we have been focusing a lot more on facebook so we have been making post for both an english and spanish page and they want us to comment and try to start conversations and see if people are interested in learning about our message. 

Something funny that happened this week is that we were riding our bikes when we saw someone who we usually stop and talk to named uday. When we stopped we said hi and asked if he needed any help with anything and he said YEA SOMEONE GRAB THAT CHICKEN (pointing to a chicken running around his yard. So I grabbed the chicken and we put him in a cardboard box with another chicken and Uday told us that he was gonna make some chicken so good that it would put KFC outa business lol. The cool thing is that we were able to share a part from the bible and have a good conversation with him about what his beliefs are and what we believe. 

Pictures !

1) The bobadillas brought us tortas asn they were really good so I figured I would include this picture for the memories

3)GRAB THAT CKICKEN 

4)our new apartment 

2)me and my companions (Cluff ME Robinson)

5) We helped this family move and their dog was really territorial and would not stop barking at so my goal by the end of the day was to be able to hold her without her freaking out.

Week 33

 We have biked a lot in the last couple days. 

Things here in Lexington are going great. We have been able to teach a lot of our friends and we have been able to enjoy the nice weather with a lot less humidity the last week. 

This is the last week of our 6 week period and we find out whether or not we are moving areas on Saturday so if you have anything to send me wait until my next email just in case I'm not at the same apartment.

 As I've mentioned before, we share a car with the sister missionaries so for half the week we get the car. The strange thing is that we don't actually live in the area that we are in charge of so we have to cross the city to be able to get to our assigned area for missionary work.

 Also, because there is only one Spanish congregation we have members who live in the satellite cities who like to feed us. On Friday we had a family who wanted to feed us who lived in a town called Midway that is 18 miles away from our apartment. Luckily, there are some missionaries who live in a small city called Versailles that is only 7 miles from Midway. These missionaries took us and and our bikes to Versailles and we proceeded to Midway. After a great meal and a really good talk with the family we rode the 18 miles home over the rolling hills of Kentucky that were frustrating to to say the least. I will include a picture of a map and how far we rode our bikes. 

I want to share a scripture this week from the Bible that says 

"And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." (Mark 14:36)

When I read this in Mark it made me think a speech that was given about how Jesus suffered and died for us. One thing that really stood out to me was that Jesus was the only perfect person to ever have lived yet even he asked the Father to take away his trials.

 The reason that I want to focus on this scripture is because a lot of the time I think that we are really hard on ourselves especially when we are already going through hard times. The times when we feel like we could be handling our circumstances better or we feel like we just can't be christlike because we aren't perfect. What I gain from this is that someone a lot better and who had a lot more communication with God still had a hard time. I Also think that it shows that even if we do everything we need to be doing like going to church and following the things God has asked us to do, that life isn't meant to be easy.

 We are put on the earth to learn and grow and the only way we can learn is to do hard things. Being happy doesn't mean that we will always be able to feel good, it means that we choose to look for the good even when we feel sad, lonely, frustrated, upset, and to the point of breaking.

I hope that everyone has a great week.

Elder Amata

1) A cool printing that we found that was a little strange 

2) The other set of spanish elders in the city and Hermano Bobadilla 

3)A sunset picture from the 18 mile bike ride home 

4) we didn't have enough clips for the bikes so I used my belt to add some extra security to the bike rack lol