Monday, March 28, 2016

This week was very very busy!!  In the zone we had a lot of baptismal interviews to do and a lot of things to verify.  We had a lot of success in the whole zone and in our ward.  Alexandra was able to get baptized.  It was a really good experience.  We were a little nervous because she was scared but she absolutely loved it and her mom who is not a member also loved it.  There are a lot of tips, ties, promos, prima, etc, who live in her house so we are hoping to have more success there.  But everything turned out good.  Also there was a guy that is awesome that got baptized!  He is so cool.  He was not our investigator but we found him and passed the reference to the hermanas and they helped him out a lot and he is doing way good now.  Another girl wanted to get baptized but she was really scared.  The first time her whole body didn't get all the way under so they had to do it again and she was terrified.  We were waiting for an hour and a half and she finally got baptized after that.  It was good and in the end everything turned out alright.

Also this was a good week because _____ got out of the hospital!!!  She is finally back in her house.  We thought that she was going to be very sad and down but she is the same.  We couldn't get in to teach a lesson this past week but we were able to talk to her.  We have the first return visit with her tonight so hopefully everything goes well and she is still excited to learn about the gospel.  Her and her daughter both seemed like they still are so that will be interesting to see.  

It was so awesome this past week to be able to teach people about Jesus Christ because He was resurrected and still lives.  It seriously seems like when it is a holiday the hearts of the people are softened.  There are a lot of different traditions here that people do.  They call it la semana santa.  Some of the days they will only eat fish and they have a bunch of other traditions as well that I will tell you all about later on.  But it is interesting and definitely different from the states.  Sunday was kind of sad because people didn't remember the resurrection that much.  Down here it is not something that people really focus on in the culture.  So we made sure to tell everyone about it and to watch the video that the church made with todos so that they could all feel the spirit and gain testimonies and it worked with a lot of people.  The spirit was defnitely very strong this past week.  

Also from this past week I testify that the spirit talks to us and tells us the things that we need to do.  We had an experience that was very cool and we were able to help out a less active and get him out of a situation that he should not have been in but only because we followed what we felt we needed to do.  The spirit helps us and guides us and lets us know what we need to do.   I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!  

Monday, March 21, 2016

Hola familia!!!  This week was A LOT better.  The past couple weeks were super duper tough with investigators being sick and not being able to find new people and people not going to church but we have been praying to God to help us get new people to teach.  

During the week we still hadn't had that much success but we had an interchange and we helped out those Elders for a day.  Then when we were back in our sectors we just decided it was time to buckle down.  And we did, we had a super good day!!  It was awesome.  One of the most successful days of my whole entire mission in finding people to teach.  But one thing that I can say from that whole day is that God works in mysterious ways.  We had contacted a lady in the street a day before and then we went to find her and the people that were in the house said that she doesn't live there but told us to go try another door because they thought she lived there.  We knocked on the other door and the lady did not want to see us but told us to knock on another door and we did.  And in that house there was a FAMILY!!  They let us in and the whole family came and listened and we watched the aleluya video with them for the pascua.  It was so awesome!!  After that they asked a bunch of questions and we answered their questions.  We have another appointment for this week so we are super excited for the appointment this week.  It is interesting how God works.  We were rejected at two different houses but we were led to that family.  There are not coincidences.  God plans everything.  It is so wonderful.

Also another testimony that he works in mysterious ways is that we received a reference this week from the church and went to find him but he lives in Spain but put his address down because he is going to come here in a couple weeks.  We found the grandkids there and taught them and took out another appointment with them.  We were going to that appointment but we knocked on the door and they weren't there but the mom came out and she started asking and she said that her Dad used to talk all the time with missionaries but she never had but she was super interested.  So she let us go in and we talked for a little bit.  Shared a principle and took out another appointment but she was super excited to learn more about the gospel and we have an appointment for this week also so hopefully all of that goes well.  

But the lesson that I have learned this week is that God sees that it is necessary to test his people sometimes.  We have trials in our lives but we are not to get down on them.  We need to learn from them, get better, have patience and move on.  We have learned a lot about that in these last couple of weeks. Elder Robbins from the presidency of the seventy told us that a successful missionary is one who goes from failure to failure without getting down.  So we all just need to do that throughout our whole lives.  I know that God loves me and loves each and every one of you.  

I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!  

Monday, March 14, 2016

This week was good!  I am still with Elder Clark so I am going to be sending him home at the end of this change!!!!  We are super excited to still be here together.  There were some good changes in the zone.  One of them especially, my companion Elder Jones from the CCM, got put into our zone and is training so that is tough because they don't know much about the sector because they are both new there but he is awesome and they are doing so good. 

One great thing that happened this past week is that there is a girl who is 12 and has wanted to get baptized and goes to church all the time but her parents were against it.  We had a list of less actives and we were searching through it and we found her grandpa and went to visit.  He wasn't there but the girl's mom came out and was telling us that her daughter really wants to get baptized and that she was ok with it.  We talked more and she signed the baptismal record so that is super exciting!  We are shooting to have her baptized this weekend so hopefully all of that goes well.  

One bummer is that hermana ____ is still sick!  She is still in the hospital but we go by her house like every single day to see if she is there.  Hopefully this week she gets home from the hospital so we can teach her. 

We had a meeting with Elder Robbins from the presidency of the 70 Thursday and with Elder Montoya also.  It was soooo cool!  Afterwards we had a meeting with all the leaders in the mission and Elder Montoya was there with us and WOW.  It was great.  He talked very directly but with a lot of love. It was such a good meeting.  General authorities are so inspired.  Every opportunity we have to meet with them is such a special experience.  

Yesterday we had another meeting with the area 70.  Me, my comp, President Larson and the stake president.  It was another super cool meeting and we discussed some of the needs of the wards that are in the stake.  

We found a random family this week.  A guy was cleaning his windows and we told him to come down and he did and he let us in and we were able to teach them and so hopefully they are interested. We have another appointment to go back so it should be fun.  Also we are teaching a young couple and in just a couple of weeks they are making so much progress.  They went to church by themselves yesterday so that was great to see.  

So I had to write this really fast because I didnt have too much time today but I love you all!!  Have a great week!  MARCH MADNESS.

Monday, March 7, 2016

This week was highly stressful.  We had a lot of appointments fall through.  But the Lord is definitely testing our patience and diligence.  We had a couple of good lessons this week.  Besides all the appointments falling through the lessons we did have were good.  We had a lesson with this lady that is the daughter of recent converts.  She is having problems with her husband and is about to have a baby.  I think I talked about her last week.  But if not I will talk more about it.   In the lesson we read the Book of Mormon to help her understand more and she felt good and at the end of the lesson she told us that she wants to get baptized.  Her only problem is going to church because sometimes she doesn't feel too good so we are hoping that in these weeks we can get her to church.  

Other than that we had a SWEET contact last night.  We were in the street kind of disappointed because of all the lessons that had fallen through.  And we were about to have a lesson with a new family and it fell.  So we were bummed but then a guy came up to us and said that he is a member in another ward.  So then he told us that his daughter lives in our sector and that he wants us to go teach her.  We told him to take us to the house to be able to present us to his daughter and he did and we met her.  She is a mom and lives with her husband and 3 kids.  She told us that she used to go to church activities and participate in the church but then she moved and stopped going to church.  She even went to seminary when she was younger and loved it!  Her name is  _____.  We have a lesson with her tonight and so we will see how that goes.  Hopefully she will want to accept and be baptized.

Another good lesson we had was with a 22 year old that we met a while ago.  When we started the lesson we were prompted to teach him about God.  He had different ideas about who God is because in the past he had participated in another religion.  Elder Holland in the Liahona taught that the investigators will progress more if they understand who God is and his true nature.  So we started teaching and it was interesting because at the start of my mission I marked a couple of scriptures in my Bible with some tabs and I felt a while ago like taking them out because I had never used them but something told me to leave them in.  I did and in the lesson I ended up using those scriptures probably for about the first time in my mission.  It is so awesome how the spirit works!! I am glad that I did not take out those tabs!

_____ this week was sick and in the hospital all week long!  So that was a bummer because 1/ we couldn't teach her or give her a blessing and 2/ she couldn't go to church.  We are hoping and praying that this week she will get better so we can help her progress towards baptism.  

That is how our week went.  Tomorrow are transfers so we are praying that we stay together one more change.  We find out tonight!!   I love you all family!

 

Monday, February 29, 2016

Hello my family!  This week was stressful.  But it was good!  Everyone always said that January and February are the worst months of summer and last year it was true but wow, it is so hot.  I feel like I complain about the weather a lot.  But it is hot and it is not getting colder.  But oh well, what can ya do?  

One thing that is good that happened yesterday is that it was the last day of carnavales here.  Carnavales is every Sunday of February.  Here it apparently has gotten smaller and smaller over the years but it is basically where people just have water fights and paint fights.  Yesterday, the last Sunday of the month, is the biggest one so there was just a bunch of parties and everything but now it is over so that is good.  We don't have to worry about people getting us wet.  One day this week there was a guy in the street and he started chasing us with a giant bucket of water and water balloons.  We had to run so he didn't get us wet.  Even though it probably would have felt good haha.

This past week hermana _____ came to church again!  We were really nervous that she wasn't going to go because she said that she had to do a couple of things on Sunday so we were going to her house on Sunday morning to remind her about church and we found her in the street already wakling to church with her son!  So that was awesome and such a relief.  It was great.  She is doing good.  We also had the first lesson with her husband.  He is a little doubtful.  He isn't very religious but we really want to focus in on him so that they can be an eternal family.  The only problem is that he works and basically is only in his house on Saturday.  He is pretty much always in his job.  But if we can get him to come to church and progress we know that the whole family will be able to progress even better.  

We had a lesson that was SO COOL this week.  Some recent converts called us and told us that their daughter wanted to listen to us so we went over and talked to her.  We had met her in the past but she was doubtful because she has been in another religion and her husband and family are all part of the other religion.  But we were teaching her about the restoration and she basically said how can she know that everything is true if it is not written in the Bible?  And then we just got into the prayer and the Book of Mormon and the spirit was testifying so strong and she accepted baptism!  So this week we will see how that goes with her.  Hopefully she can complete all the commitments we gave to her so she can receive her answer.

One more cool thing that happened was that the Hermanas in our ward had two baptisms.  One of them was an investigator that we taught the first lesson to.  We taught him and he accepted baptism but he didn't live in our sector so we passed him to the hermanas and he got baptized this past saturday!  So that was exciting, he is sweet and he says that he wants to go on a mission.

That is all the news from this week.  I am doing well.  I hope that you all have a great week!!  Have fun, be safe, choose the right.