Miracles Beginning to Happen

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Hello all,

I truly am humbled as I sit here today and write this email. This past week has been amazing and it was confirmed to me daily that this truly is not my work but The Lord's work and he is directing it. The work is picking up here and I have been able to meet so many great people. There are so many great people here that we meet while finding and within the ward. But here is the main story I want to share.

So I can't remember if I wrote about this last week but a little over a week ago me and Elder Bass met a girl on the sidewalk when we were on our way back to the car after one of our appointments weren't there. Well usually its hard to talk to people who are walking in this part of town because they usually have headphones in or they just completely avoid us. Sometimes we don't really try to talk to them much because usually they aren't as receptive but for some reason the Spirit told us to talk to this girl. She told us that she was looking to get closer to God and would love to meet us. We have been meeting with her, her mom and sometimes her sister but really only this girl was the only one who was super interested. She has been eating up everything we have shared with her and we have really been able to focus on her needs and questions as we were able to meet with her several times this past week. She has been SUPER solid and has read the Book of Mormon and prayed daily and made so much progress. It has been awesome to see her increase in her faith and see even little things improve--like the prayers she says

. She has wanted us to focus a lot on prayer and the atonement and how it can help her life. Well Saturday she texted us and asked if she could just meet with us. She shared with us that she was pregnant and that she really felt all alone because she felt like she had nobody that she could trust or talk to. She said that her mom is about to move and she is about to be all alone and might end up having to go to a shelter. Me and Elder Bass were able to focus on how much Jesus Christ and this gospel truly could bless her life and explained to her that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unlike any church and it would really be able to give her what she needed. We told her that her Father in Heaven truly was aware of her and as she continued to show faith she would be blessed and The Lord would take care of her. She ended up coming to church and had an amazing experience! The ward here did AMAZING at fellowshipping her and helping her feel the love. One of the members of the ward was talking to her and found out that she had not eaten in almost 2 days because she didn't have food. This Sister of our ward completely opened her arms and helped her and got her the help that she needed to start to get on her feet. She is excited to be baptized and has shared that she knows that we truly are representatives of the Lord and that the message that we share with her is true. It has been so amazing to allow myself to let the Spirit work through me and say the things that she needs to hear. Finding her was a miracle and I KNOW that that Lord really does direct our paths if we trust in him! I cant wait to see the progress she makes!!

We also met several interesting people, including a lady that claims she has had conversations with trees.... She said one of them showed her pictures in her head and then lifted her up 30 feet in the air and laughed at her... I promise there really are normal people in Michigan, we just meet so many people door knocking that the weird ones come out. The normal people are usually just working during the days that we are going door to door.

Anyways, the rest of the week was good. Tuesday night-Thursday morning we were on trade-offs with the district leader and his companion came to our area and Elder Bass went up there. Me and him were on bikes and he insisted that we take pictures on them since he thought they were so cool... So I included a picture of me on a bike below. I totally look like the stereotypical Mormon Missionary.... We also went on trade-offs with the zone leaders Friday Morning-Saturday morning. That was so much fun! I learned so much from Elder Elwood and we were able to teach several lessons together and they were awesome! Saturday morning the primary kids in the ward were in the Holt Hometown Festival parade and they asked us to walk beside them and throw candy and give out pass-along cards so that people would see us and recognize us. We saw several of the people that we are teaching and made sure that we threw them more candy! It was a lot of fun.

I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me this week! This truly is the Lord's work and it is AMAZING to be a part of it. It is an amazing feeling to be set-apart as a full-time representative for The Lords church. It has been great to receive revelation for the needs of the people we teach and to be a tool in the hand of the Lord to bring his children into his fold. I love this church. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am here in Michigan for a reason and that the Lord is going to do miracles through me. The Church is true! Thank you for all of the love, support and prayers!!

 

-Elder Bloskas

 

P.S. I also met one of the missionaries that was in a YouTube video that I saw before my mission. Look up "Singing Missionaries" or something like that and find it on YouTube. They are in a car and he is the one of the left. I took a picture with him since he is "famous"​. I look goofy but oh well..

Prinit-In-A-Minit

This week has been the best one yet. Me and Elder Bass are starting to see the fruits of our labors and are getting used to the area. We have been working hard and we have gotten to meet lots of great people. Elder Bass and I were on bikes (from Japan that our ward mission leader gave us to use) Tuesday. We rode our bikes a few miles to South Lansing (the northern part of our area) in the rain. We spent several hours knocking doors on a street in that area with it raining on and off. I think that several people felt bad for us and we talked to more people on that street than usual. We had several people that we had good conversations with and accepted return appointments. Me and Elder Bass have fun while we are working and really enjoyed that the bikes had bells that we rang the whole time as we were riding. Wednesday was filled with us having district meeting, eating at Steak-N-Shake, getting the car from the Sisters and going to the appointments we had that day. We had appointments all day Wednesday and Thursday but none of them worked out. All either cancelled or weren't home. Thursday is really when the work started to pick up. We met several great people and were able to have great appointments with new investigators that we had and less actives that we had been working with. On our way to one of our appointments I saw a sign (I included a picture of it) that pretty much describes South Lansing where we spent a lot of time knocking doors this past week. Its ghetto.. We ended up with 6 new investigators to teach and have been working with several less active members and they were great lessons. 2 of the investigators are 11 year old and 9 year old girls that are  of members that are less active members but have a desire to be baptized. It was a learning experience to teach them a lesson and teach it on a simpler level. It really helped me realize just how simple the gospel of Jesus Christ is and how we sometimes make it more difficult then it needs to be. We also got to teach a homeless man who was hanging out on his sisters porch. At first I was hesitant to want to continue to meet with him since we didn't know how dependable he would be but I figured that Jesus was homeless so I ought to at least give him a chance. He accepted a baptismal invitation and agreed to come to church yesterday. We had a member of the ward drop by to pick him up and his nephew came out with his shirt off and said "He isn't here, you might find him sleeping in the woods somewhere."

Finding miracle of the week: After one of our appointments canceled we were walking back to our car and met a 21 year old girl that was walking home and invited her to meet with us. She said that she was looking to get closer to God and would love to meet with us. We met with her and her mom Friday and Saturday evening and they agreed to come to church. The mother is crazy... She asked questions about anything and everything and seems to have a hard time focusing. Example: We were talking about how God will always bless us if we trust him and read the verse about the fowls in the air not worrying about what they will eat. She then asked us what the purpose of birds were and something about how there was water in the sky that she wondered if they drank. I'm not completely sure she understands what we are talking about but it makes it fun. Her daughter gets mad at her when she asks random questions. Anyways, the daughter is SOLID! She eats up everything we talk about and was excited when we talked about baptism! It was awesome. I got to be the one to extend the baptismal invitation and before I could even finish asking her she said "yes!" It really has been awesome. They over slept and didn't make it to church but we met with them last night about obedience and the importance of church, prayer, and scripture study and I think they are really going to do great! The daughter is especially excited and has been willing to read the chapters we have left for her to read in the Book of Mormon. I cant wait to see what happens with her!

I love the work here. The Lord is defiantly starting to hasten his work! I cant wait to see what happens in the lives of the people we are teaching. There is still SOO much that we need to do but the little bit of success that we have seen is what makes it worth it. I know that this gospel is worth it and I know that the Lord will continue to do miracles in my life! It's great being able to do the Lord's work. I know that The Lord lives and that his love for us is without end. I have been able to see that love as I have met with so many of Heavenly Father's children!! I'm thankful for all of the love and support y'all have given me! It is defiantly showing!

 

The Church is true,

Elder Bloskas​

This week has seemed like it has FLOWN by!! Me and Elder Bass were super busy and so the week just flew by. We had several lessons at the first of the week and we have an investigator named  Brittney that we have been teaching! We received a text from her earlier in the week that said that she would be home and we should come see her and "I miss you girls." I guess the Sister missionaries before us didn't tell her that they were leaving and that Elders were going to be moving into the area. Me and Elder Bass decided to not text her back and just show up and surprise her that we weren't sister missionaries. She looked a little shocked when we showed up but she invited us in and we were able to teach her a lesson. We talked with her and committed her to be baptized on September 6th and she said that she would prepare to be baptized on that day. She has had trouble recognizing an answer to her prayers but we have confidence that as we continue to teach her and prepare her to be baptized she will slowly gain an understanding of how God answers prayers through the Holy Ghost. I'm super excited to continue to work with her and see the progress she makes! Leona, the investigator that we had last week dropped us this week. She doesn't have a phone and she was in the hospital with some health issues when we went by her house this past week for an appointment we made with her. We were able to catch her later in the week and she talked to us and said that she wanted to stay with the church that she currently attends but appreciates how we had helped her come closer to Christ. All of the other investigators that the sisters were meeting with before we came also didn't show much interest in meeting with us anymore. I guess they enjoyed the social aspect of meeting with girls and weren't interested in meeting with us even though we share the same message. It has been hard "white washing" this area because neither one of us knows the area or the people super well. Since we are on a car rotation of having a car 2 weeks and then having one week without we lost our car Wednesday and walked all of the rest of this week. All of our appointments canceled on us on Friday so we spent almost all of Friday, Saturday, and anytime this week that we didn't have appointments knocking doors and trying to talk to people about the message that we share. I would say that we probably knocked on over 300 doors and we talked to over 130 people this past week. We were able to meet a lot of interesting people this past week and had several people offer us cold water! I love talking to people and I am starting to finally get used to talking to people and getting used to making sure that the people that open the doors to us know that the message that we share can benefit their lives. We had several people that we met this week that I know knew that they could probably benefit from meeting with us but preconceived ideas about our church and them being comfortable where they are hindered them from agreeing to meet with us. We had one lady Saturday that came out onto her porch and just wanted to argue with us about how "unbiblical" our church is and didn't listen when we showed her Bible verses that back up all of the questions that she had. I learned that when it comes to people like that, there is no use in having a long conversation with them because they are not open to anything we say and it is just a waste of time for them to try to argue with us. The Spirit can never be in situations where there is tension and so anytime somebody tries to argue or prove me and Elder Bass wrong we usually don't try to prove anything to them. Our message is unique in that we are only there to present information to people and then we turn it to them to pray about. Our jobs are never to convince anyone of anything but to allow them to have the information they need to pray to Heavenly Father about whether the things that we share with them are true. We had 2 people yesterday after church when we were door knocking that were trying to tell us that we were going to hell. One guy told me and Elder Bass that we "hadn't invited Jesus into our hearts" and that we needed to make sure that we were right with them because for all we knew we could fall off his porch and die and then we would go to hell. But as a whole the people of Holt either say they arent interested and slam the door in our face, or they are nice and just simply say they are not interested. We have a few appointments set up this week that are people that we met while door knocking. I'm excited to see where those go. I'll share 2 experiences that we had with people that was kinda interesting.

So the first one happened Thursday afternoon. Me and Elder Bass use the GPS that I brought and have put all of the less active members, part-member families, and investigators addresses in it. We then use those addresses if we ever are in an area that is close to them or if we have an appointment that cancels we go and see them. It is a pretty great system that we have set up. But since we were walking we were trying to figure out who we were going to go see next and decided to sit on the curb. Out of nowhere a man walks up to us with his baby in his hand and squats down and shows us his baby girl and asked if we were "Jesus People" and we got up and walked with him to his house. Turns out he is from Iraq and used to be Muslim but hates them now. We kept talking about how they are killing all of his friends and his family is in danger and asked us if we knew anyone famous that had the power to save them. He also said that he wants to follow Jesus and do his will for his life so he agreed to meet with us. We have seen him randomly in 2 different parts of Holt either on a bike or doing something else but he has had to cancel both appointments we have set up with him so I guess we will see how committed he is...

The second thing happened Saturday night. We met a guy on a nicer part of town that we had a great conversation with. He then told us about an experience that he had when he was younger where he had a dream where he saw a blue light and words appeared that said "I love you, and I always will." He said that he believed that it was God and that is something that he had always held dear. He made sure that we knew that God loved us and that he hoped that we truly knew that. It was pretty cool that he was willing to share such a personal experience with us.

Well, that's about it that happened this week. Just meeting a lot of people and getting used to the little bit of humidity that is in Michigan! But I love it here! I know a mission isn't going to be easy and it hasn't been easy at all so far but I know that it'll be worth it!! I think about and pray about all of y'all constantly! Thank you for all of the prayers and support!! I can testify that there truly is power in prayer and that our Heavenly Father is aware of our righteous desires and wants to bless all of his children!!

Thanks again,

Elder Bloskas

Pics from Michigan!

Here are pics from Cale's arrival in Michigan; w/ the Mission President and his wife; the transfer group with their trainers; Cale;  and with his trainer/companion; Elder Bass.

Pics from MTC in Provo, Utah

Cale and a statue at the MTC and with the branch President at the MTC.

First few days in Michigan!

Its a beautiful day here in Holt, MI!! Holt is a suburb of Lansing and is an awesome little community! I already love it here! My address here is: 2141 N. Aurelius Rd. #64, Holt, MI 48842. Feel free to send me letters here.  I will be here in Holt for at least the next 3 months. The last week has been kind of crazy. We left the MTC at 4:30a.m. Wednesday morning and got to the airport around 6. We went through security and then got to call home before our flight left at 7:45. We flew to Detroit, had an hour and half layover, and then got to Lansing around 2:30. When we got off the plane the mission president, his wife, and a few other missionaries were waiting for us with a huge sign. It was awesome to be able to see them and get such a warm greeting. We went back to the mission home, filled out some paper work and then the assistants to the president drove us to MSU campus. We spent a little bit of time talking to people that we saw on campus before going back to the mission home, eating dinner, and then going to sleep. The next morning we did a few trainings and then met our trainers and headed to our areas. My companion is Elder Bass! He is from Perry, Utah! He only has 3 months left before he goes home.  Me and my companion are "white washing", which means both of us are new to the area. Since we don't have many people that the previous missionaries are teaching, we have spent quite a bit of time door knocking. It has been hard work but I love it! The members here in the ward are awesome! We have had dinner at member's homes every single night so far and they are awesome!! I'm extremely excited to see what the Lord has in store for me here in Holt! I know that there are people here that have been prepared for us to teach and I can't wait to see miracles happen! It hasn't been easy and I know that the next 2 years won't be easy but I know that it will be worth it and the Lord will be with me every step of the way. It's great being able to be a missionary and to be able to not only have the name of Jesus Christ right beside mine on my badge but also right beside me as I'm doing his work!! There are so many great people here in Michigan and I cant wait to see what's in store for me over the next 2 years!!

-Elder Bloskas

P.S. I included pictures of my stay at the MTC. There is a picture of me and my companion, Elder Houston, and me and my district

Week 2 at the MTC

Good Afternoon,

It's a beautiful day here in Provo, UT! We just got back from going to the temple today and it was awesome to be able to take a break from our crazy schedules and spend some time there. 

This past week has flown by! I feel like it was only yesterday that I was I was writing y'all. This week has been super busy just like last week. Our schedules are jammed pack with classroom instruction, zone teaching, and us teaching investigators. They have several people that they have come to the MTC for us to teach, some are members who are converts that come and just act like they are non-members so they can help us, but a few are actual nonmembers who are interested in the church. This past week we were suppose to teach an investigator with 2 other companionships (since there are so many missionaries and few investigators) but they pulled me and my companion aside right before we were going to meet with him and said they were going to have us teach a different guy. We ended up teaching a guy named Eric, who use to be a taxi driver in Washington. He was a really cool guy and was definitely interested in what we were teaching. His wife joined the church a few years ago and that is what had him interested in the church. He said he had not been interested in religion since he was very young. I honesty think that he is already a member and just came to the MTC for us to be able to have some practice teaching. But, after the first lesson he committed to baptism and seemed to really love what were were teaching him as we continued to get him to pray, read the Book of Mormon, and start to apply Christ teachings to his life. It truly was an amazing experience as I was not only able to apply what I was learning in class about teaching but was also able to see the Holy Ghost guide me in the words that we were saying to him. It is an amazing feeling being able to allow the Holy Ghost to take control of the lesson and teach exactly what the investigator needs to here. There were several times where I would say something that I had never even thought about before and it was exactly what he needed to hear. I cant wait to get to Michigan and meet all of the people that The Lord is preparing for me to teach. 

Last night we said goodbye to all of the missionaries in our zone that are going to Farmington, NM, including my companion. Its crazy to think that I have only known those guys for a week and a half but we were able to bond so much and get so close during our time here at the MTC. There are several guys that I know that I will definitely keep in contact with during my mission and will be good friends with after my mission. 90% of our zone was sick at one point or another this past week with an upper respiratory infection. I ended up getting sick Thursday but was able to go to the clinic here on campus and have been taking medicine to help me feel better. It seems like everyday a new person is sick and they are getting medicine and getting a blessing of healing from one of us. This past Wednesday a missionary in my district was having a hard time and so me and a few other guys in the district decided that we were going to fast for her and really pray for her to be comforted and continue to enjoy her time here. We were able to see the blessings of our prayers the next day and she has been doing great since then! It is amazing how I have been able to see The Lord work through fasting, priesthood blessings, and prayer. The Lord is definitely aware of all of us and he takes care of those that are doing his work. It is amazing how I have been able to see The Lord work through me and I have had some amazing experiences seeing His hand in everything that I do!

Wednesday morning we are leaving the MTC at 3:30 a.m. to go to SLC to get on a plane to our mission. I believe there are 13 of us going to Lansing, 6 from my district and 7 from another zone that meets on the same floor as we do for class. We have gotten to meet them and talk to them a few times. I don't think our plane leaves until 7 something but they want us to be super early to make sure that we can get through security and to our gate in plenty of time. We are flying on Delta airlines to Detroit and then to Lansing. I think we get to Lansing just before noon on Wednesday! It's crazy to think that it is so close and I cant wait to get to Michigan and start hasting The Lords work there!

I'm so glad that I made this decision to serve a mission. I have learned SO much and I know that this is where The Lord wants me to be and needs me to be! Last night after our Sunday night devotional we got to watch a video of a talk that Elder Bednar, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, gave a few Christmas' ago. It was titled "Character of Christ" and it was an amazing talk! It focused on how the Savoir always "turned out" when the natural man would be selfish and turn in. Even in the hardest times of the Saviors Earthly ministry he was serving the people around Him and focusing on them and not himself. A few of the examples was Him praying for others and not for himself when he was meeting with the disciples, when he healed the ear of the guard that was taking him away to be crucified, and his concern for others when he says "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." It truly is amazing studying the life of Jesus Christ and trying to apply his teachings to our lives every single day. I know that as we try to find ways to "turn out" in times that we are struggling instead of focusing on ourselves, then I know we will be blessed and will be able to see The Lord do miracles in our lives!! I can't wait to see the miracles that The Lord has in store for me! I know that the work that I am doing is important. Thank you for all of the letters, emails, prayers, and support that I have received! I know that I wouldn't be able to do it without y'all! I have been praying for y'all and will continue to think and pray about y'all as I continue to serve the people in Michigan! Again, I'm sorry that I couldn't send pictures this week but I promise I'll send some once I get to the mission field!

I'm so grateful to be serving The Lord,

-Elder Bloskas