Thursday, December 24, 2015

Feliz navidad!

Hey guys! Feliz Navidad! 
Man what a week! Its been awesome! We´ve been working hard even with the holidays coming up, we still got alot of the polite rejections from caring people (not) but we still taught a lot and have had a lot more investigators because of this season! 
I had AMAZING experiences this past week, experiences where Ive only seen on movies, and they actually happened! Ok so heres how it went down : We are doing our normal ALB right, knocking and talking. And one day I told my comp, we´ve knocked these houses before, but lets do them again. So we go, and the last house that we find are an inactive family. She said we can come back another day, so we did. She recieved us and everything and said that she wants us to teach her daughters so they can get baptized. and shes been wanting to return to church, and shes been waiting for a reply from her prayers. And this specific day she prayed again, thats when we knocked the first time. She almost started crying when she told us this story. That was incredible. Now they are doing everything they can to return :) 
ok, story number Dos: 
Since we are opening the area in MiraFlores, we are meeting some members. And we met Noel, who just returned from his mission from London! (his english accent is the coolest thing ever!) and one of the first things he told us is that he wants to visit his little borther and teach him a little bit more about the church and he told us to return this certain day because he would be home. So this day comes and we had a bunch of appointments all around the same time (oops) and we had to choose which ones to postpone and which to visit now. I had a hunch to visit Eddie, his borther, and this time. So we stop by and he was super happy to see us! He told us that the hermanas used to visit and teach him but the stopped for a long time now. And that on his way home he was strolling around and he was meditating, and the church kept popping into his head, he told us that he knew it was true and that was the path he needed to take. But of course this isnt easy, so he was pondering what the next step should be. Then he went home, after a while, we show up. He told us this story and said we were an answer to his prayers! This is the sign he needed! And remember, we almost postponed this visit. And hes doing everthing he can to prepare for baptism, we have a date for next saturday! :)  MY FIRST BAPTISM :)
Next story:
 We were contacting, and we were rejexted.. alottt. But we kept going. Long story short, we found this girl, Bolep. The first time we met her we talked to her casually. She told us that she was catholic and stuff but my comp asked, Why? then Are you there because of family tradition, or have you prayed and know that is the place the Lord wants you to be? So we left her with that, and she said we can come back some day that we are around. Next time we went she recieved us and everything, we taught the Restauracion, and she liked it. I asked her how she feels, because we totally felt the Spirit there with us, and then she told us her story. After we left the first time we contacted her she was really questioning what we asked her, and she actually prayed about it. And she asked for guidance to see where she should be. We stopped by like a week later, we totally forgot abvout her lol, and that day she said a certain prayer for guidance on what she should different this year, she prayed about this because this certain day was her birthday! She said that she knew this was her sign, and that something about what we are talking about really stands out to her. She feels like this is what the Lord wants her to do, but of course we told her to pray again about to confirm. But man what an experience! 
These experiences all started just because I had a hunch about something. Something inside said Go there. or Knock this street. I learned alot this week, mostly about relying on the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I know that Lord is watching over us and is guiding us to the prepared people. 

Well tomorrow I talk to the family for Christmas! I cant wait! :)

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Our Ward Building!

 Check out the ward building here!! is HUGE 3 stories!!! and only ONE ward meet here!! But they want to split it soon, make it two wards and a branch somewhere else.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Our Christmas decorations!!!

 
 Check out our Christmas decorations in our house!!! Were determined to have the best Christmas ever!!!!                
And a picture before our Christmas Ward party!! Our investigators loved it!,,,,




Being a great missionary, takes great responsibility.

Oh man what a week! The day after I wrote last week was changes. I didnt think we would get changed since its only been 4 weeks with my comp in this area that we opened! (the next 2 changes are 8 weeks) But yeah, my comp Elder Westberg got changed!! Like whattt! Right when we were getting things rolling! I didnt want another companion because we were doing so well and we were really good companions and i didnt want to deal with someone difficult or who didnt wanna work. So we went to changes meeting and met our next comps. I got Elder Carter. He is soo cool!! Like you guys have no idea! If we went to Highschool together we would definately would have been best friends! We have so many common interests. Like Music! Thats all we talk about in our free time! Its all about that Zepellin, beatles, eagles, paul mccartney, elton john stuff!lol And he plays guitar too! We have so much fun! and we are both hard workers! But heres the thing... Our ward is HUGE! about 260 assistance every week. Our area used to be zone! There were 4 missionaries total last week. They took out the hermanas, so now theres only 2 missinaries. But wait theres more! Like i said, they took out my senior companion too. Now theres only one. Me. That new guy. Only has a month in and is still learning how to be a missionary, barley knows the area because we opened it a few weeks ago. Well I was stressed to the max! Also because since the hermanas werent here, thats a whole other colonia to learn! so we had to open that area too! But once we got situated, we went to work! I tried to be as patient as possible as my comp has to learn thi huge area and all of the 200+ members, and hes getting it down fast! So were working SUPER hard! But heres my favorite part, that i didnt realize until after a couple days, i took charge! Usually Elder Westberg was that guy in charge all of the time since he had more experience and stuff, but now that hes not here... well i had to. Its wierd because im like the Senior companion already!(And i only have barely over a month) Im usually leading all of the lessons and the ALBs and correlation meetings and phone calls! My comp doesnt care at all! He actually likes it better like that because his last comp didnt do anything! Im having so much fun! But its not easy at alllll in this situation. But theres something that Elder Westberg told me which i think is true, the Lord prepared me for this hard situation in my youth, and now its time to put it to use. I took on this challenge head on this week and already seeing results! I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH! Mostly for one reason: The members. They Love us sooo much! They say that we are theyre favoirtes taht theyve had in a while! They are always inviting us over, and give us delicious food, and always give us rides everywhere!! and references! They love working with us too! I never want to leave here! at least im spending Christmas here! :)

Saturday, December 19, 2015

I love my Mission!!!

 Hey guys!
Man i love this! I love being out on the mission so much! Sometimes I cant believe im actually here! Dont get me wrong, its not easy. But nothing that is worth it is easy right? Im learning so much here! I lovvve it!lol i love the culture here! the people are so awesome! the ward here is soooo nice! They are so humble even though they are super rich! like...wow. lol but they have gotten to like the new missionaries that opened up the area. we are getting a bunch of references now! Something i like about this culture is that they are all soccer fanatics! lol Like the other week Barcelona and Real Madrid played against each other and that day EVERYONE wore their jerseys! And we would be in a lesson and you can here from every direction when some team makes a goal! Everyone screams its funny! It takes away the spirit sometimes so that gets annoying... but its still funny. But the other day, Honduras and Mexico played! Oh no. Everyone that meets me automatically knows im Mexican and they all asked me that day who im going for lol of course I said Honduras! (cough cough...Mexico;) But yeah the people love mexico though, especially the food!  
Any way, the missionary work is going good! We fasted this week for missionary work, and sure enough, one of our investigators showed up for church and he loved it!! And we are working with like 5 other positive investigators, and especially  with Nelson! Hes still giving us a chance :) We walk around a lot all day and try to talk to everyone but its not easy finding people. Well it kind of is, they usally say Claro, si ustedes hablan de Dios esta bien! But theyre usually super catholic or evangleical. The hard part is finding the chosen people the Lord has prepared for us, but I know theyre out there! We've found some too :)  I love all of your prayers and emails! I am having a great time doing the Lords work because I know hes watching over us! Tomorrow is changes, I hope we dont get transfered anywhere!