8/6/12 Email from Elder Brad Dillard

Gee wiz this week flew! It was suuuuuccccchhh a great week, with a lot of challenges that eventually brought success. My companion and I have been at it all week trying to find people that are ready for the Gospel.

I find it interesting that in no matter what circumstance or situation we may be in out here we can always feel the Spirit. I have found that if we stay connected to our purpose and strive to always be worthy of the Spirit, we will be able to feel its influence and be lead by it in all places and through all things. I have an example for all of you. Last night after we had got out of dinner, we weren't entirely sure where we were going to go or what to do. We had planned the night before to see a few people in the area, but because our plans had fallen through earlier in the day, we ended up seeing those people earlier which left us with no plans for the evening. We saw a group of people sitting on some benches tucked back behind an old abandoned food market as we were driving past so we parked a little ways down the street and walked back to go talk to them. All of them were in their early 20's and they were all either drunk/high already, or well on their way ha. We start walking up to them and they all start yelling, "MORMONS!!!" haha it was great. As we talked with them we learned that even though all of them were living a really rough life style and they were all being held captive to drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, they still had a strong belief in God and had great faith.(even though they had a hard time showing it) Through the thick cloud of cigarette smoke, and the strong smell of alcohol, I was amazed at how strong the Spirit was. It was overwhelming! We had an absolutely fantastic conversation about Gods love, and His great Plan of Salvation that all of us are a part of, and my companion and I were able to stand before all of them and testify of Gods goodness and mercy.

They all live right near our church building, and I think it is safe to say that there is a pretty good chance that they will all be at church this next Sunday. It was such a great experience of feeling the Spirit and building a relationship with people that I normally wouldn't want to be around. I was reminded last night that regardless of what we have done, what we look like, where we have been, what situation we are in.. that we are all Gods children and He loves us all the same, and we are in this together. It is not our job to judge or put down, it is our job to uplift and encourage! Ahhhh I love my mission!

I love all of you. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Bradley Dillard 

8/6/12 email from Elder Devin Dilard

EXCITING NEWS!  They are splitting up the St. Cloud ward! It's too BIG!  Hahaha. I love this problem. It is going to be split into Sauk Rapids Ward and St Cloud Ward. It's going to be sad for many and yet exciting at the same time. They haven't let the members in on all of the details yet. That wont happen until the 19th.  I may or may not be here. Transfers is the 15th, next Wednesday. We have been working with the Bishop and the Stake President to decide where the missionaries will go. So we have been enlightened a bit more, but have been sworn to secrecy. It's exciting to see who the new bishop and all other auxiliaries will be. Fun! This will allow for more effective missionary work now that missionaries wont be competing for members to go out and teach with. This is all good.

Yesterday was an exciting day at church! All 6 Saldana children were confirmed in sacrament meeting. My arms were tired haha. It took the majority of Fast and Testimony meeting. SO SUPER AWESOME!  The Sister Missionaries were on Cloud 9 all day!

We have come across many awesome people this week and I wish I had the time to tell you about each and everyone of them. My heart is so full. It is such an amazing thing to have a great love for people I have only known for a few minutes. To help them and see the spirit touch them is such a priceless event, and I can never get enough! It's the delicious fruit on the Tree of Life for sure!

Remember me talking about Matt Williams last week? Well...He ended up having an emergency and couldn't make it to meet with us last Monday. His Dad went to the hospital. He did however, reschedule to meet with us the next day. We taught him the Restoration lesson in a quiet room in the Library. It was super spiritual. To actually witness him praying to God, who when he first talked with me didn't know he existed, was a thrilling experience. Now he knows that God is there. His words, "I know that this is good. Usually I am nervous and have anxiety when meeting new people, but ever since we sat down I have felt calm and clear headed. No heroine or drug has ever done this for me."

So COOL! He accepted the baptismal invite and will be working towards September 15th. He came to church yesterday and loved it. He hasn't been to church in 20 years he said. Hopefully we can meet his girlfriend soon and teach them the commandments so that they can enjoy more fully the blessings that our Lord wishes to give them.

With this new ward split, Elder Filby and I will lose most of our investigators. We will have to allow them to be taught by the sister missionaries. This will take away 3 or our investigators who have baptismal dates, and quite a few others. The Lord knows whats best:D  Plus the sisters are powerhouses for providing the Spirit.

I was privileged to head to Alexandria, MN again yesterday for another baptismal interview. This one was for a David Elhers! He is so cool! Alexandria elders are on fire, and the ward is so amazing! All of their baptisms have come from member referrals.

Headed to Bloomington tonight to spend a crazy night with the Assistants and other Zone leaders. 20 missionaries crammed into an apartment means no sleep again, haha. I love life!


Please have an amazing week!!!!!


Love,


Elder Devin Dillard

7/30/12 Pictures of Elder Devin Dillard

7/30/12 Pictures of Elder Brad Dillard

7/30/12 Email from Elder Devin Dillard

I will start by telling of the miracles this week! So a  family, who the St. Cloud Sister Missionaries have been teaching were baptized on Sunday! All 6 siblings! It was such an awesome day! The sisters have been working so hard for the past 3 months with them. So happy to see all of their hard work pay off. All my companion and I ever did to help out was go over and have marshmallow fights and teach a little bit. I have yet to see so many people at one baptism as I saw yesterday. The room was PACKED! It was such a great time, and our bishop was  privileged to perform the actual baptisms. It was SO COOL!

We had 2 other baptisms in the zone this weekend as well and had a total of 10 baptisms for the month! In our Zone this hasn't been done in a long time! The faith of these missionaries has quadrupled this month! So proud of them, my companion and I are just trying to keep up, hehe. I love it.

Last night we were lucky to teach 3 lessons in just 30 minutes!  We had all our plans and back-up plans fall through for the night and had no Idea what to do. We were driving by Lake George, a small lake with a nice walking path and we saw lots of people out enjoying the beautiful evening and felt prompted to just go and walk around there. As we did we saw a man (later learned his name is Greg) fishing for bass along the shore. We sat down next to him and just talked about fishing. After a few minutes a man tapped on my shoulder and asked if he could talk to me for a minute. So I stood up to talk to him while my companion finished teaching Greg about The Restoration. This other guys name is Matt. He said he was struggling with faith. He was never raised with a religious background and really knows he needs some kind of faith because he is struggling with Prescription Drug Addictions. He can't find anything that will work. Explained a little about how Christ can help us overcome adversity, how faith works, and how we receive answers to prayers. My favorite part of the whole conversation was when I asked Matt, "Why did you walk over and talk to me?"  He said, "I was over by the restrooms and something told me to talk to you. I didn't want to. No way did I. But I found myself moving towards you guys."  It was such a moving experience as I explained a little more of how the Spirit works and that this is how the spirit works within us as well as teaches us truth. We will be meeting him here at the library in about 30 minutes today. I'm looking forward to it.  We had a couple other great conversations with people last night. I know there is a reason for why plans sometimes fail why things don't go the way we want. Its His will, not mine, and my Father in Heaven knows all things. So grateful we were able to follow the promptings to go and chat with the fishermen.

I hope you all have an amazing week! Follow the Spirit! The church is true:D


I love you,


Elder Devin Dillard

Email from Elder Brad Dillard 7/30/12

Ohhh man! I have so much to tell all of you, I wish I had time to put it all into words.

 

These last few weeks have been wonderful. I don't know why my companion and I are being so blessed, but it sure does rock. Over the last few weeks, we have had many heart to heart conversations as to what each of us can do to improve, and become more converted. I think both of our testimonies have been strengthened as we told our conversion stories to each other and what it took for each of us to get out here. I am so greatful to be with a companion that knows why he is out here, and is truly converted to the gospel. He builds me up so much!

This morning, as we were having our companionship study, we got caught up talking about what it was like just before our missions, as we were preparing to come out and serve. It brought me backt to the all the wonderful and memorable experiences that I had that helped me become ready for full time service.

I really love this work. I think any missionary can admit, that there are many days where you just want to throw in the towell and call it a day. Those days are soooooo hard! But as I have gone through those days, I have come to realize why Heavenly Father gives them to us. I am convinced that whenever we are going through a hard time and feel like quiting, we are close to a miracle. Heavenly Father makes us work for each one of them. One experience that I have had recently was when my companion and I were tracting. We had spent the whole morning that Saturday out knocking doors, and had seen no success. It seemed that the only people that wanted to talk at all were those that were determined to pick us apart and prove us wrong. Then we had 3 doors in a row where people came to the door and then didnt open it. those ones are always awesome haha. So after the third one we walked back to the street and looked at each other, both of us were thinking its time to stop. But then at the same time we turned the other way and kept going. I dont know what was moving my legs because it sure wasn't me ha. The next door that we knocked on was one of the most prepared children of God I have ever tracted in to!! We had the greatest conversation on the door step in which we taught her all about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and the Spirit was just clothes lining all of us. It was miraculous. We left her with a prayer and set up a time to come back. It was sweeeeeeeeet!! 

Its cool that we determine our own success, not just out here on missions but throughout life. We will never quit having challenges and things will never be easy, but we have the ability to make every situation a learning experience. Faith and attitude is everything. Its so much easier said than done though. Thats what is frustrating. Anyway, my time is about up, but I want you all to know how greatful I am to be out here serving a mission. Its a beautiful thing to be out here serving the Lord. I love you all so so much. Have a good week will ya? 

 

Love,

 

Elder Bradley Dillard  

7/16/12 Email from Elder Devin Dillard

This week was an amazing one! Not only for Elder Filby and I but also for our whole Zone, consisting of 9 missionary companionships. Each companionship has out of the blue stepped it up this week and they are finding people left and right! I am so happy to see their faith increase. Seeing the great faith that my fellow missionaries have is only increasing mine! I am so grateful.

Monday Elder Filby and I drove down to Bloomington and had our P-Day with the rest of the Zone Leaders and Assistants in the mission. Some of my best friends out here. Such positive and spiritual missionaries. We played basketball until we had to go get ready for our interviews with President Clements. I was the first one to be interview so we quit playing ball earlier than the rest. The very first question President asked me was, "Do you feel you can sing the song of Redeeming love?"  What an inspired question because this is the very topic I have been studying the past week. Found in Alma 5:9. I am happy he asked me this because I feel stronger than I have before in my life that I am able to sing it! Not literally, but internally I feel so happy and just want to share with everyone what the Savior has done for me and for them! I shared this with my Mission President as well. He then asked me what I could do to become a more consecrated missionary. I said, "Planning."  I am a horrible planner. I can't plan worth a darn and this has been my focus for a while. Using my time more effectively. He shared some tips with me and then I asked him a question, "President, you have been out 1 whole year now on your mission. What have you learned?"  He snickered as to silently say, "Who's interviewing who now?"  What he told me was very special and I will paraphrase it, "I feel that I too have learned more deeply how to Sing the Song of Redeeming love. I have seen the promises made in my patriarchal blessing come true. That the Lord has guided not only my foot, but my hands, and my arms and my whole being in all that I do as I have sought Him out." He said this more fluently than I can recall, yet the spirit witnessed to me what he told me was true.

The Next day, Tuesday, was Zone Leader Counsel (ZLC).  I love ZLC. We learn so much! It's like a mini Zone Conference put on for just the leaders in the mission. Super powerful and spiritual.  Elder Filby and I were lucky to give an hour training during this counsel.  We trained on "Finding."  I started off the training by using a lot of "Fishing" analogies because as you know we are fishers of men.

So ZLC continued and then President stood up and said, " I just felt inspired to share this story with you all. Last night at 3:30am I awoke wide awake. This thought was clear in my mind, 'Effective planning will be a critical influence in your future happiness.' It took me a while to fall back asleep, but just seemed important to share."

WOW!  That touched my heart a whole lot. To me it felt like personal revelation because I had just been asking him about planning and the "how to's" and the "Whys."  I had to apologize to him later for waking him up, hehe. All he did was smile and say, "Thanks Alot!"

So many more miracles are happening and I am so very thankful to be apart of this great work. To experience the miracles that are still happening all around! They are real, so is our Father in Heaven and His Son and my Redeemer. What a wonderful time it is to be alive.


I miss you all! have a great great week!

Love,

Elder Devin Dillard