Happy New Year - 2016!

     Hello everyone! How was your amazing Christmas week? This past week had some amazing moments! But let me start off by saying a huge happy birthday to my best friend Zack Kushlan today!! I Miss him!! 

    This week we had an amazing lesson with our Ethiopian friend Bereket again and that was such a blessing. It was then finished off closest to home with talking to my family on Skype.  I could never have imagined the power there is in Skyping home and looking into the eyes of my mother, with a love parallel to the the Savior, and three returned missionaries, and seeing their conviction to the Savior as they testified that this is where I am supposed to be. I have never felt so united with my family. I cannot express enough gratitude for my brother's testimonies of their missions and witness of the Savior. They are my heroes. I do not know where I would be without them. Following in the footsteps of my father and brothers is the best decision I have ever made. Shall we not go on in so great a cause! This is the greatest work on earth! I love my family so much and I miss them terribly, but that will not, rather cannot, exceed my love for the Savior. He is my Savior and He saved all of us. He saved me. Coming unto Him in this mission time has changed my life forever. I am so happy to be here. Seeing my family made me so happy but it made me realize even more how I am not even close to being ready to return to them, and they would never let me!  I have so many more people to serve, lessons to teach, and the gospel to share. 

     I will never be able to explain how 7 months have already passed but here I am finishing my 4th transfer. Time flies when you are having fun, and time flies when you are doing what's right. As we approach the New Year we have two choices. We can look back on what we have done or we can move forward into the new year. For me, moving into the only full year of my life that I will spend as a full time missionary, this is what I say:

22 Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad.

     On... On to the victory. We can do this! There is nothing we can not in the hands of the Lord! No road unconquerable! No height unreached! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad! We have a Savior Jesus Christ everyone! Never look back. There is no purpose in it. Move on and on to the victory!! Go forward not backward! He will walk with you every step of the way. Forget every mistake and wrongs others have made. He did. Especially move past the mistakes you made. He did. Make this the best year of your life. Make it one to remember. Give yourself to the Lord just one year and just try to put a limit on what He will give you. Try him. Give Him this year and He will pour the blessings from heaven into your life and there will not be room enough to receive them. Brethren, please... Shall we not go on in so great a cause? This new year, step into the first day running. Look at this new year for hope, change, new, better, clean, dreams, mending, renewal. Look to Him. Find the star! Wise men will always seek Him. Join them in their journey to Him. I will plan on doing so. Because if I do, I too, like the wise men, will return home "another way." Finish this next year another way. A better way. I will give my all this next year so that I can return home, another way. I love you all. I hope you had an amazing Christmas and I hope you are preparing for a great New Year!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken 

Merry Christmas!

     Merry Christmas everyone!  How is everyone doing? This week was so awesome!! We had a fun Christmas party with our zone and a lot of people came and that was way fun. We are in the furthest North zone of our mission and we are the only zone that is too far to go to the temple or go to the mission wide Christmas party so we had our own. We are kind of like a separate mission because we never go to the temple or really see any of the missionaries outside our zone. But there are a few things that help you get through the cold winter here up North. One of them being when your investigator, who is fluent in English, tells us that he is fluent because he watches Nicholas Cage movies to learn English haha. Of all the actors you would choose to learn English?? It better be like National Treasure or maybe Family Man because those are the only good ones that come to my mind! That one really got me. The second one is when it is Sooo cold and you pass one of the ten thousand vending machines and see that half are cold drinks and half are pre-heated hot chocolate or hot lemonade, but it is more sweet!! That needs to be in America so fast. It it literally the best thing ever. Lastly, I thought we had our problems with people texting or reading books while driving (I have seen it ok). But when people here literally have tv's built into their dashboards in their cars here... What?! How is that safe? Ya hey instead of putting a GPS right there by the steering wheel to help people get where they are going, let's put on the wheel of fortune while their driving to really test their focus... Good one!  

     There are two spiritual thoughts that I loved this week that I wanted to share with you, but I cannot take the credit for the first one this week. The first was something one of my good friends shared with me from home that has brought a new sense of focus during Sacrament meeting for me. When the Savior was in Gethsemane he drank of the "bitter cup," which he conveyed as one of the first messages to the people of the Americas when he visited them in 3 Nephi 11.

11 And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter bcup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.

     He drank from that bitter cup and then when the time was come he looked to the Heavens and said to the Father, "it is finished," in John 19:30. My friend paralleled that to when we all one by one take the cup to drink in remembrance of our Savior and when we drink and "it is finished," we set the cup in the tray. She listened to the cups one by one enter the tray that sacrament meeting as she found that new parallel of the Savior's sacrifice. I wonder if we truly realize how sacred that act and promise is of partaking of that sacrament and what the Savior did for us. I want to challenge you to really take upon you the promise to always remember our Savior and during that Sacrament time, to listen to cups drop as "it is finished," and think of our Savior. Always remember him. 

     Especially at this Christmas season when we celebrate His birth. This is the time when we can focus not just our thoughts and actions for a 1 hour meeting on Sunday's, but all of our thoughts, words, and deeds every day. We can show more love and charity to that boy in the manger. Every time you show your love or give service to someone this Christmas season, do you see your Savior in them? That is my second thought. Do you stop to look at those around you and find your Savior in your day? The Savior said,

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

     Do you not see Him in the lives of those you touch and those whom you serve? When the day cometh will the Lord say proudly unto us that we did those things? Do we serve the least of these His brethren, and in turn serve Him? Especially at this Christmas time. Go find "your Savior" in your day. Go serve Him that is beside you and I promise you will see that light of Christ in their eyes light up because of the Light of the World which is Jesus Christ the Lord. That is how we can serve the Lord at this Christmas time. I love this time. This will be the first Christmas in my life where I think I have finally given myself to Him. I can and will always be able to give more, but I think I am a lot further down that road. I love my Savior. He is my Light and my Way. I will hold to that light until I stand with Him again face to face and I hope he can say to me Mathew 25:35-36 proudly. Let us all work towards such a worthy goal and give of ourselves to our Heavenly Debtor!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken

Charity and Love!

     I looked and realized that this week is week 30 of my mission which is accurate but it doesn't seem possible!  How is everyone doing? I am doing soooo good! It is not raining today, which is a miracle in itself.  It is just an amazing day! 

     I will give you two quick stories really quickly from last week.  We had a crazy thunderstorm last week. So crazy. We are right next to the mountains here so it just echoes off the mountains and I seriously just cannot explain how loud it was, but it shook our apartment once and my companion sits up that night and asks me, "Do they have that in America?" Pretty funny! Then for haircuts here, a lot of places have a vacuum connected to the wall and they vacuum your head after. Actually pretty nice I will not lie. You do not have to go shower every time after because it gets all the hair sucked up! 

     But onto my thought of the week!! Today I woke up and I was just dead tired and thought how this was just like waking up at 6 on the Monday mornings when I was a deacon and we had school off, but we had to go and do flags. I remember thinking, please no, please no, please no!  I would always dread getting up and doing it until I actually got out doing it and I would love it and have fun. I look back at how I loved to serve everyone, but sometimes it was not truly a part of my core.  My first desire.  I would often be thinking of something else I could be doing at that time. I was so selfish before my mission and that is hard for me to look back on, but thanks to this gospel, change is its focus. I am changing on my mission little by little from this work, from training, from the examples of my leaders, and the advice they give me. This is one that really humbled me from President Nagano last week. "Your love will never surpass your level of charity." I want you to think about this for a second. Think about that sentence, that principle, that truth. We truly show our love to the Father by showing our love to those around us and serving. That means more than obedience and service in the eyes of others. That means obedience and service in your heart. Is it in your Heart where only the Lord can see? Courage is not doing what is right in the sight of others, it is choosing the right when no one is around. That does not only mean when you are alone. Your thoughts and your heart is always private and is between you and the Lord. Is charity truly at the center of your being and the true desire of your heart? I hope it is for all of us because our love is measured by our charity. The love of a relationship of husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, friends, etc. is always measured by sacrifice. Do you sacrifice for them? I will take it further though. Sacrifice means doing something and giving up something of equal or greater value, but what is more valuable than charity? 

2 Nephi 26:30

"wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing."

Moroni 7:46

46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail

1 Corinthians 13:13

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

     Charity should not be a sacrifice, it should be a joy in our lives. The greatest joy. It should be built into our soul, our being. Our love will only be at the level of our charity. So where do we stand? I hope this week we make charity our focus and charity the roots of our thoughts, words, and deeds. I love you all so much. I am working to change to never come home and be the same as I was because that is not enough to last in the world today, and it is not enough for the Lord. I hope we can all look at ourselves and say that charity has become a part of us, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love 

Elder Trevor Aiken