Elder John-Gregory Sierra

 THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR

Letter from Nov 27, 2014

We asked Elder Sierra what he was grateful for this year and this was his reply:

 1.) I am grateful for my freedom. Freedom is God-given and it allows us to choose for ourselves what path to take. As we obey His commandments, we can achieve the peak of spiritual freedom. We were never created to be bound or enslaved by anyone, or anything. 2.) I am grateful for my family. For the bonds I have with not only my parents, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, etc., but also with my friends that I consider my family as well. I am grateful that My Father in Heaven placed them in my path so that I could truly enjoy my life and share it with all of them. They enrich my life with happiness. 3.) I am grateful for the Atonement. I don't and will never understand the sacrifice of our Savior fully in my mortal life, but I can appreciate and apply it as much as possible. There is nothing more comforting than to know that my guilt can and will be swept away from my past mistakes. I can scratch it all away and move on. This to me will always be the most important part of the restored gospel that I share. The Restoration of Prophets, Apostles, Temples, and all the other little blessings are wonderful, but they are merely just icing on the cake. None of those things could exist without the Atonement. That is how Jesus Christ saved the world. 

D&C 46:7-8 

We must always remember to be thankful. Honestly, I do not believe the Lord really cares so much of receiving thanks, as much as he cares about us being able to see His acts of love and charity in our life. As we are thankful, not only do we show gratitude, but we notice the worth of what we have and it implies a greater meaning. It armors us against the adversary. We need never feel that we are alone, unloved, or forsaken. We should always be grateful that we are never alone. As long as we live in a state of Thanksgiving daily, Hell has no power over you. As a special servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I testify that we will always be protected by the Armor of Righteousness as we clad ourselves with love, gratitude, and purity. May we celebrate Thanksgiving daily. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

His letter:

Hey Mom,

Sorry for not mentioning that last monday was not gonna be P-Day. Hope you weren't too upset lol. Las familias Garcia y Villianueva estan haciendo muy bien. No sentiamos que estan listos para aceptar una invitacion por bautismo pero vamos a tener una actividad la proxima semana con todas de las iglesias en la comunidad. Se llama "Guardando Cristo en Navidad". Voy a cantar por el evento y invitabamos las familias para venir. Ojala que sienten el espiritu muchissimo que pueden reconocer que estan en el camino correcto. (The Garcia and Villanueva families doing very well. We don't feel they are ready to accept a baptismal invitation, however, we are having an activity next week with all the churches in our community. It's called Keeping Christ in Christmas. I will be singing at the event and we invited our families to come. Hopefully, they will feel the Spirit and can recognize that they are in the correct path.) 

Anyway, so work is going great. We are moving everything along. What is cool that we have noticed about our teaching pool is that all of our investigators found us, instead of us finding them. We are LOVIN it! We just need to keep the momentum rollin. I received one of the packages two days ago. I didn't get the other one yet, but the pink camo stocking sounds legit haha. Speaking of camo-style Christmas, I have begun an operation here in El Dorado, an operation that has been a family tradition for as long as I can remember. It will be a stake-wide activity with members and missionaries alike, bringing good cheer and hope to the poor in heart and spirit of El Dorado. Operation SECRET SANTA is BACK!! We will be donning the santa camo hats once again. We are already beginning to find homes and families that could use some serious Christmas joy. The phase one: "Mark Your Targets" has already begun. I will update you on that operation next coming P-Day. So the zone here would like to say, "THANKS FOR THAT PECAN PIE!!!!!" (I shared). It was AWESOME (as always)! We appreciate the treats you send us, thanks. Also, for today we are eating with some members. We've got like 4 families that invited us over. We feel ill-prepared to eat 4 Thanksgiving meals, but we will see what happens with the upcoming match on Elders vs. Food! Other than that, we just had a turkey bowl that was setup by yours truly (that's just tradition!) and it was a blast. We got some good hits and I had some pretty good runs. Caught the ball on the 50 yard line, then I ran it down to the end zone (got by 7 people). It was legit. I got hit pretty hard as well (totally blindsided), knocked all the wind out of me, but I'm all right. It was a lot of fun. I'll send you a picture of my team (we won). We played against some guys we found on the field already. So much fun (cuz we WON). We are having a great time right now. It's a full-day p-day. So about the tree, we will be working with some members on a Christmas tree farm this Saturday and they said we can buy a nice size one for cheap. We are gonna have all the elders at our place opening presents at our tree, so we are gonna get a good sized one. It'll be pretty sick! I wouldn't send any ornaments until I get the actual size of the tree. I'll send you a pic on my next p-day. So touching on the new baby, she is ADORABLE!! I hope I get to meet her someday. There is not much else to talk about right now. Love you Mom! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Elder Sierra

p.s. tell all the Family that I love them.