Monday, May 23, 2016

Hey guys!!!

I guess here in Vega we are kind of spoiled with the investigators. This week only one of the people who had come to church last week came again, but we had another three people who came, and a couple who didn't come because their baby has chicken pox. We're hoping that in June the branch will start growing again!!

This week we had to make a difficult choice. Saturday there was a stake wide activity, members and missionaries were invited to travel to another little pueblo in what they call a 'Mormon battalion' effort. The goal was to visit less active members and find references for the missionaries. We had to decide if taking the three hour trip on Saturday would be worth it, knowing that we wouldn't be able to see our investigators the day before they had to go to church. We prayed and decided that the best approach was to have charity. We were only going to have 2 hours in the morning to visit our investigators.

Immediately after deciding we went to the first appointment of the day, and found a FAMILY OF FIVE that was excited to listen to the Gospel. They didn't make it to church this week but are interested and accepted their baptismal date. For me, it was a confirmation that God wanted me to make sacrifices for others, and that he would make up the difference.

We'll see if one of these days we get the missionaries over here to Vega to put them all to work!

Anyway, we're working hard and having a good time.

Monday May 16, 2016

[Note: items in blue brackets have been added for clarification]

Hey Guys!!

This week went a little bit better than the last one. Five people got to church, but the really exciting thing is that all of them are from different families where they have family members who also wanted to go but couldn't! We're really hoping that this week we can work with them to get them going to church with us too.

Changes were yesterday, but Elder Cáceres and I are going to stay together here in Vega, so at least until the 26th of June I'll have the chance to see what we can do, and then we´ll see If the Lord is going to let me stick around here for the last 6 weeks (hoping so!)

I'm grateful for the opportunity to be out here, and grateful for the example that you guys have set for me, that keeps me working to be better and not settle for letting things go my last few months.

We had a conference with Elder Falabella this week and so we were in Xalapa Thursday night and Friday during the day. We got on the bus here in Vega, and the Assistants [to the Mission President], Elder Ibáñez and Elder Marin were on the bus coming back from a conference on the north end of the misión, so we stayed in their house and ate pizza and root beer floats. (Apparently they had gone shopping on Monday). It was good to see them again, now that I am in my little corner of the misión.

Elder Falabella talked about the atonement and repentance, and the process of conversión in our lives. Then he talked to us about the importance of teaching families, and working with those less spiritual dad's who usually don't want to talk about us. He gave some good ideas about how to help people stay in the church, and it was a really great experience.

Let me throw some pictures up here,

This was district class! We decided to order some pizzas...

Here is a picture with all of my sons! We all ended up in the same conference here on the south side of the misión. These are all of the missionaries that I have trained.

And since it was p-day, I started teaching my convert about Christ's earthly ministry while we washed the clothes in his house and he pulled out his old book that the Jehovah's Witnesses had given him that had some images of things that Christ did. So, definitely taught the restored góspel with images from their book. And then he gave it to me as a gift haha. I guess I'll finally learn 'What the Bible really teaches'.

And the storage room [that mom and dad cleaned out] does look much better!

Can you find me?

Mission Conference Photo 1

Mission Conference Photo 2

Monday, May 9, 2016 (Pics)

You asked about my shoes.. they are holding in there! They are all sown up from where they have opened... Still comfortable though!

Monday, May 2, 2016

[Note: items in blue brackets have been added for clarification]

Hey guys!

We found a little cyber that has webcams that we are going to use [for Mother's Day]. Hopefully everything works out. Glad to hear you guys had a good time in Prescott! It has been really hot here!!! We have been working with a lot of people to help them accept the gospel, but sometimes they are very stubborn :).

Things have been going well with my companion. Next week we have a visit from Elder Falabella, of the [Quorum of the] Seventy.  We didn't get any investigators to church today, but we had a confirmation that was pending in and got 4 inactive members to come, so that was a win! we were up to 31 attending members again.

Did I send this one already?? We made a friend.