Monday, June 27, 2016

Hey Guys!

IM STAYING IN VEGA!!

It's official, I am in my last change in my 5th and final area of the mission. My companion, Elder Flores, arrives tomorrow. Elder Cáceres is going to Xalapa with a good friend of mine. I have 6 weeks to make the absolute most of every minute I have to build God's kingdom!

It's been a great week. We were running around fixing up the new house of prayer, which is actually very old because the original owner was a general in the Mexican revolution. We repainted, stained some doors, and everything. We sent 14 members to the temple on Saturday, and when they got back a handful of them stuck around to help us clean.

I also have a little story. If you remember the families that we baptized a couple of months ago, you might remember a 14 year old boy named Octavio. He's a little bit wild, but I get along really well with him and he goes to church EVERY SUNDAY even if his parents can't make it. He got home late because he was helping paint some doors in the house of prayer after the temple trip, and the branch president asked his mom to forgive them.

His mom said that there was no problem, that she was just happy that her son had been able to live his dream. She said that every night since we had left him a picture of the temple, that he had kept it under his pillow, and was waiting for the day that he would be able to go to the temple.

Yeah, it was a good week.

Lots of love,

Elder Wadman

Monday, June 20, 2016

Hey guys!

Glad to hear that there will be AC when I get home, although I've gotten pretty used to ridiculous temperatures and the only solution being turning on a fan and trying to sleep... 

Sounds like the house is going to be very different when I get home! I imagine that between the new driveway, the new La Cañada, and other little things, I'll hardly recognize the place!!

This week we are gearing up to change into the new house of prayer that has MORE THAN 2 ROOMS and DOESN'T FLOOD WHEN IT RAINS!!! So that is the exciting news that we've got going.

We found a really wonderful family the other day on a bus and we started to teach them. They are really interested in going to church and finding out if the Book of Mormon is true, but this Sunday went out of town because the mother of the husband is very sick and they go on weekends to visit. We'll see what we can do so they can try and get both things done. We're having a good time and I'm freaking out because next Sunday I find out where I will spend my LAST CHANGE in the mission. Let's hope I can stick around here to see these families get baptized!

It's been a big challenge keeping the converts active and living the commandments, but I guess that's how God feels about all of us all the time, so we're not going to lose hope so easily.

Love you guys and glad you're there supporting me,

Elder Wadman

Mtz. de la Torre Zone

Monday, June 13, 2016

Hey Guys!!

It was a pretty good week! We got a chance to go to a conference in Martinez and President Greer talked about the Book of Mormon. It was basically the same conference he gave when I was pretty new in the mission, but he gave some good insights about how to teach the people without just telling them everything and imagining that they believe you. We talked a lot about the promise in Moroni 10. Several people got to church, especially exciting was a sister and her husband who finally made it after weeks of unimaginable last minute crises that kept them from getting to church. We're going to work hard to make sure they keep going!

Monday, June 6, 2016

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

Hey Guys!

Glad to hear that you all got back home ok! We got lots of rain out here!! The money also got here a little bit late, -see photo-

We've been working hard and trying to get everything to run smoothly. We have a poor sister who has been trying forever to get to church. Her husband and her were headed to church and dropped their son off with their mother in law - hes young and they didn't want to bring him this time, and he fell down and cracked his head open! Hoping that things will FINALLY work out for them this week! We had some other people come to church who are progressing really well, but we're having a really rough time helping the fathers of the family to get excited about going to church, that's been the biggest challenge, since they generally have to get married and if the husband stays home he starts to get annoyed that his wife isn't making him lunch instead of being at church. Ay vamos... [Oh us]

We also activated a single mom and her brother! She's been to church for the last three weeks now. I attached a little photo when we stopped by and it turned out to be her sons birthday.

Don't worry-- we definitely taught her sister the restoration in the middle of the birthday party. She had felt bad for telling us to not visit her family when we went- her husband and in laws are Pentecostal and don't want to know anything about us, but she had lots of questions. Maybe someday things will work out so that the family can learn about the restored gospel.

Anyway, can't believe I actually have to be doing paperwork for Princeton now! Seems like a lot of stuff. Also, I said that I wanted 235 meals for the semester because I mean outside of cereal I'm pretty lazy when it comes to making food..

Lots of love,

Elder Wadman

Monday, May 29, 2016

Hey guys!

This week has been good, although we are kind of running around a ton and we don't have much time! We've had a great chance this week to work with the family of some of the investigators that have been coming to church, and it looks like a father that we have been teaching may be able to come with them now! He changed jobs and now will only work from Monday to Saturday, so we're hoping that we can help him to come with his family this next week.

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