Missionary Work - Preach My Gospel 101

Hello everyone out there!!! So we had an amazing week this week and the reason of the amazingness is outlined in the stories below.

So this week has been an amazing one!! 

• We are still teaching the same young man and we had a couple great lessons with him this week. The coolest one was the fact that we had a Temple tour and a baptism to attend planned out for him on Saturday and he came to both of them with his mom too - and they had a blast going! They loved the spirit they felt at the Temple and the same with the baptisms. He said that the baptism took a lot shorter than he thought and that he was looking forward to his on the 22nd of November. We mentioned that we needed to get a certain amount of lessons in before his interview and baptism and they said to have us come over everyday!! So we have a set lesson with them Tuesday-Friday until his baptism. His mom is so excited he is wanting to do this. She wants him to go on a mission (We will be discussing it after his baptism, and she wants him to get to the temple, get married in it and have a happy Mormon family)!!! It is so awesome to be apart of it all and to be able to close out my mission with such a solid person being taught, baptized with someone else coming back into the church. He is integrating perfectly with the Young Men and even helped set up and run games at the ward Halloween party!
• Last night we went over to a members house who said one of the kids living with them had a lot of questions about the church and was interested in talking with us. He is interested in anything about God.  We talked and taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he loved the sound of not just a Heaven and a Hell, but that there are "More options" to make sure everyone is happy and where they deserve. So the work is picking up and going great, it is an amazing opportunity to be a part of it all. 

So as you can see great things are continuing to happen here in the Lake Forest Ward!!! I am excited to say I will be staying here for my final 6 weeks of my mission which will be so awesome!! I will have the blessing to continue to work with people that I have mentioned and other people that the Lord has in store for us to find. It is always a long road on a mission, but it is people like these that make all of the tough times worth it. 

In my talk yesterday, I must say, as far as Church sacrament meeting talks go, It was pretty much awesome (Said with much Humility)!!!!  I went a little over my time (20 Minutes, not 20 over, total of 20 assigned 15) so yikes! Lots of people came up and said how good it was and how much they enjoyed it. I had 2 people ask for copies of it!!!   One girl came up after 2nd hour and started talking about how the week was. How she found some stuff out that kind of just make it tougher to go through each day. She mentioned she did not want to come to church today. She then said how glad she was that she came because of the fact that she "felt" my talk was given directly to her. She said she could truly feel that Christ was capable of being in her life and that He knew exactly how she was feeling and was there for her. It was one of the most powerful moments since being out, actually have someone tell you that you answered a concern they had because you had the ability to follow the spirit and be guided and directed to put the things in and talk about and elaborate on the things the spirit guided you to. So that was just a really awesome moment and one that I for sure will not forget...

#challenge completed! #StartingStrong #CaliforniaIrivineMission #FinishStrong

Anyways there is not to much to report on. I hope all is going well for all of you and hope miracles happen for you this week. I started this thing to help keep me focused this last transfer called the 42 day countdown.  I had missionaries write down a challenge for me to complete everyday (Missionary related or not) and today was the first day. The first challenge (Actually applies to every monday of the transfer) is to get up and study from 5:00 am to 6:30 work out from 6:30 to 7:00 get ready from 7:00 to 8:00 then normal studies from 8:00 to 10:00. I did it this morning and I actually really liked it. I am so awake right now and I got awake super quick. I am going to try and do it every Monday Wednesday and Friday, and hopefully by the time I come home I am doing it everyday. My goal with it is 5:00 am to 6:00 am work out 6:15 to 6:45 Shower get ready 6:45 to 7:00 make breakfast and 7:00 to 8:00 eat and have studies. So we shall see what happens and hopefully I am in the habit when I come home. 

Anyways thank you for all you do and hope all is well. Thank you for everything !!!! :)

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Teaching Serving and missin family birthdays

Happy Birthday Father!!! hope your day is going somewhat a little better...

Football Fans from the beginning  pretty funny note here
Amric came home from the hospital
 in a "COWBOYS" sleeper and supported ASU the next day~~~~

now all the sports and Rugby too!

Anyways this week was awesome!! We picked up a new investigator and set a baptismal date with him for the 22nd of November, so week 4 of next transfer, so if all goes well! He is such an awesome kid. It's a Mom and Son - He loves it all and is soaking it all up. More updates to follow and hopefully all continues to go well!!!

From an excitement stand point that is about it. Not to much else to say.

In response to fathers email, I am freaking out a little bit so thank you for the email, it really did help a lot. I know how much you have done for me and I know how much will continue to do, so Thank you so much for all of that. My plan for school is as you know end up transferring to a school with a good business program, so I have 2 years to think about it. We will cross that bridge when I get there.  I miss you a lot and cannot wait to be able to watch sports and stuff with you!!

Mom response- I feel like something weird is going on and you have something planned. Let's make sure it isn't to crazy :) I like your counsel about not using the phone in sacrament meetings, I really do. There is a guy in our ward who is a regional manager over Vivint, covers the whole western part of the united states, and he turns his phone on Airplane mode (Can use scriptures and all of that but no txt or calls) and he keeps it like that all Sunday so no one from work can get a hold of him, then he just goes in 2 hours early on monday to address anything he needs to. Thought that was a really cool thing to do, you not going to straight up not ever use it, but use it wisely. Glad to hear all is going well and that you sound happy. :)

All in all things are going great. I am loving the missionary and the area. Transfers are a week from tomorrow so we will find out on Saturday night if I stay in Lake Forest for my last transfer or if I get moved somewhere for my last one. So we shall see. Anyways I love you both so much and thank you so much for all you do. I really do appreciate it so much!! Love you always!!

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Teaching the Gospel is a Miracle happening...

Hey family hope all is going well for you this week and that you had a wonderful Sunday experience yesterday!! :) This week ended up being really good for us and we had a lot of fun and saw of cool things come about. 

http://meetthemormons.com/post/99500117644/meet-the-mormons-new-movie?cid=HPWE100814481

We spent the first few days of the week going through and sharing the flyers for the Meet the Mormons movie to the members in the ward, it was really fun to see how excited a lot of the members were for this movie to come out and how excited they were to share it with their friends, it turned out being an awesome experience and one that I am sure will help bring a lot of people into the church at least give a better understanding.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-08-013-daily-bread-experience?category=mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2013&lang=eng

Friday we had a cool experience stopping by former investigators.

• We stopped by and he was super excited to see us and ask us to come in to his home. We sat and talked for a little bit got to know each other and he said he would love to have us over for lessons, so we set up that appointment I am grateful and super excited to discuss the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. He was raised Roman Catholic and in his religious journey, he has come back to this faith as his true religion and in that religion it is written down the apostasy didn't happen and is having a hard time accepting that it truly happened, so we shall see. 
• The other cool experience was this former member. We stopped by her house and she was super excited to see us too.  She still remembered the missionaries that started teaching her like 5 years ago, so that is impressive. She told us that she wanted to have us over and set up an appointment for a lesson.
  

The ward is going good, we are working hard and doing all we can to work our butts off to show the ward we are working and doing the things necessary to bring our own people to church and into the waters of baptism. So, hopefully as we pick up our own work the ward will start to come out to play too and help us, but we wont be waiting for them, we are just going to go and see great things happen I know it!!!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-128-obeying-spiritual-promptings?lang=eng

Example of giving a priesthood blessing to someone who is sick

• Last night we had this awesome experience, we were walking around at about 7:30 and as we were going back to the car a thought ran through my mind lets go see someone and the name was specific.  It is night time on a Sunday good criteria for at least a "hello!" - we have not been able to catch this guy for 2 months almost. While we are walking around we come across a man with 2 kids walking around and so we go and talk to him, and offer him a Restoration pamphlet which he takes and we continue on our way. We see the door to this guys house that we have been prompted to go see and it is open, we knock with no answer, we then ring the door bell and about 25 seconds later (we usually leave at 30) a girl comes to the door. She's like elders how are you? we are like oh hey we are looking for so and so. She is like "Oh yeah he is my Father-in-law, he is out walking my 2 kids (remember the pamphlet guy, that was him) but you have the right house." Thank you for coming and She goes on to say "My husband has been really sick all day and I have been asking to get a blessing but he hasn't accepted, but now that you are here could you give him one?" We of course respond; we can, so we go in, give him the blessing, after we are done he says to his wife, How did you get a hold of the missionaries? She says honestly I didn't,  they just stopped by looking for your dad. So he said "elders tell your families thank you for supporting you because you are answering prayers and helping a lot of people." It was a really cool experience especially after a testimony meeting talking about following promptings, it was just so awesome to see it all play out and to look back on all the things that had to happen to get us to where we were at that time. 

Anyways not to much else to report on for the week. Miracles are going to happen I just know it!! You FAMILY are the best and I know Heavenly Father has a work for me to do as I close up my mission. Have a great week and know how much I appreciate all you do for me!!

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Oct. 6

Conference and Family Everywhere this weekend!

So this week has been a fun one, that is for sure. We did lots of service this week and that was really nice helped the week go by really quickly. We showed up at a members house and said hey another member told us you might need help with some house work so we are here, and oh man did we have fun, we ripped up the carpet and padding and tack board, oh before all of that we moved the furniture. So that was fun.
 Lets see what else happened....

OH Yeah Conference!!

So conference was really good!!!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/approaching-the-throne-of-god-with-confidence?lang=eng

The only talks I remember out on the frontal lobe of my mind is the Elder Jorg Klebingat

he was so good, he totally took his 1 opportunity to speak in conference and called out the whole church for being disobedient in some way or another. I loved it!!! 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/choose-wisely?lang=eng

Quentin's talk in Priesthood was really good. I love that he said "If you delay getting married because you want to finish school or get a good job you are not showing sufficient enough faith." that was hilarious! I thought of all my mid-single friends in my last ward and how they were feeling when he said that. 

I like that President Monson is sticking to his guns about not announcing any temples, good for him! Dean M. Davies, cant remember for sure what he talked about, but I can distinctly remember having a prompting to go back and study his talk once I can, so I will be doing that as soon as I can. 

Hmmmm....As always every talk was good, the foreign language ones were difficult to pay attention to; 1-because I wanted to hear them talk in their own language and just let the spirit teach me, and 2- I thought we would have captions not a voice over. But it was still really cool to see that the church is letting everyone have that option now!!!

I got my toe nail partially removed on Friday, that was fun so I am still feeling that a little bit. So the whole in grown and hurt edges are going away so we shall see what it looks and feels like in 2 weeks when i go in to get the other toe removed. 

We went on a hike this morning, realized how out of shape I am even though I have lost a lot of weight, but that was really fun this morning. It was the comp, 4 sisters and myself, so it was all good. These pics are of what it look liked at the look out point (1600 ft ). 

An elder and 2 sisters and I are starting a weight lose competition where we are going to track % weight lose and the person that wins (loses most % of weight between now and the 9th of December ) will get 10 dollars from each of the other 3 that don't lose the most % of weight so we shall see how that goes for all of us. 

Thank you both for all that you do, I forgot my atonement study binder so I do not have my challenge for this week.

Hey! I met Anona's sister. So I walk into my Relief Society Presidents house to drop some stuff off and this guy says to me; "Is your name really Elder Sobczak (said it correctly)"!     I reply yes - he says do you have a brother named Austin? I was like yes. He was like that is crazy My wife's sister is married to Austin. So then in walked Ana Hardin and it was really wierd and cool, super small world. AWESOME!

Anyways, that is all for the week. Go see Meet The Mormons this week  http://meetthemormons.com/post/99500117644/meet-the-mormons-new-movie?cid=HPWE100814481 if you can, it is such a good movie!!! 

Love you both so much!!

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014