Week 38 3/16/15

3/16/15

Hey everyone!

I just want to start of this week with a quote a learned this week...

"A wise old owl lived in an oak,

The more he saw, 

The less he spoke,

The less he spoke,

The more he heard,

Why can't we be like that wise old bird"

I love this! Its such an important life skill that ive been learning on my mission, and that is to listen! This week we had a zone training and a large seccion of it was just about the importance of listening. It truly is powerful though, when we really listen intently to someone, not worrying about what to say next, we truly know what there saying, that way we can truly help them. it also helps us feel of the love that person who listens to us. i know when im talking if someone listens i respect and love them back so much more. 

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
― Dale Carnegie

So, this week, i would encourage everyone, to become interested in other people, give them your full attention and show them you love them. its an awesome thing :)

As for the rest of my week, it went very well! I was sick from tuesday-saturday with a bad head cold, but thanks to my good friends musinex and dayquil i was able to still do some work and make it to all of the appointments we had! Now i am better and ready to work even harder for some of the time i missed due to sickness last week! should be a great week comming up!

A few really fun things happened though! Friday we had our second installment of saturday frisbee at the park, it went awesome! we had around 12 people playing and we were able to have a great gospel discussion and teaching moment after we finished playing. hopefully it will lead to great success in the work! 

We also met some amazing people tracting! some very solid people that we have now been teaching a few times. hopefully they will be able to come to church this sunday. one specifically named Sonae, is about a 30 year old black lady with a crazy desire to learn the truth! she has so much faith and i have great hopes she will be ready to accept the gospel :)

We also have a potential new hispanic family that the english elders found for us! so we are very excited about them and hope to work with them soon. Spanish is going well for me too! Me and my comp try and speak all day every day together in spanish, so, im doing great!

Love you all!

Week 37 3/9/15

Hello everyone!

I will start off by letting you know that i love my mission!!! it is just the most amazing decision i ever made in my life! im learning and growing so much every day, and every day just flies by! We have been staying way busy and so i will have to just give a summary of what we did this week but ill try and get the best parts!

Monday: We had an awesome district lunch and then a really fun branch family home evening! it was kind of sad to see elder gunther and ruano go, but the new district here is awesome!

Tuesday: We saw the Rudds and a bunch of other members to say goodbye for elder gunther, we were also trying to see our investigators one more time for him, so we were basically packed! i love busy days though!

Wednesday: Transfer day! so im still in altadena and i have elder Bott as a companion. He is in his last couple transfers of the mission and so we are finishing out strong for him! It will be awesome! I also have Elder Kellogg back in my district with Elder Faustin. Its a great group of guys and we are going to work as hard as possible to make our area the best! We spent the night helping a less active family move and hopefully they will come to church soon!

Thursday: We spent the morning helping more with moving and then had weekly planning, it always takes a while to do especially the first one of a transfer. but we were also able to teach stepfan as well as go and teach alfredo! he is doing so well too! he has been reading and praying! hopefully we will keep being able to see him!

Friday:Was district meeting! It was my first one and so i gave it on testimony! it was an awesome meeting because everyone was able to share their testimony on a scripture the loved and the spirit was just so strong! One of those kind of special moments you have sometimes that lets you know how true the scriptures really are. 

Saturday: Yet another packed day haha, we met the most prepared lady ever! we knocked on her door and she started telling us how she didnt like churches because none believed the truth. when we asked her what she believed it was exactly what we do! we opened the book of mormon to the scriptures showing what we believed and she was amazed! She seamed so excited to read and learn more and so we will be going back asap! We also had a great elders chorm activity where i learned how to make pastel de tres leche! (three milk cake) it was awesome!

Sunday: I woke up early to a text begging me to give a talk in church... so, in half an hour i had to prepare a talk on the importance of women in the church, in spanish...... but, it went awesome! i talked a lot about my mother and the great example of a woman she is. hard working, faithful, loving, kind, fearless, etc. i was so grateful the lord helped me speak well enough to be understood and so grateful to follow the spirit!

So yeah, that was just the skeleton version of what we did this week, but it was a great one! we have been busier than ever on my mission and working harder than ever and i love it! Here is a little video for yall to watch! :)

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/enduring-love

Service truly is love, i love this video for how truly it demonstrates true christlike love and service. I invite all of you to try and serve someone a little more the week! Vaccum or dust with out being asked, remove someones snow or help them in their yard, hold the door for someone. Develope a habit of helpfulness and not only will you bless the lives of others, but youll be blessed. Love you all!

Week 36 3/2/15

Hey everyone!

So,  it snowed in Alabama! That was something i never though i would see while being here!  When i left on my mission i thought i was saying goodbye to snow and temperatures under 50.... but turns out Alabama likes to surprise you and snow! It was a blast though, i didnt realize how much i missed snow until it was falling from the sky! but, i digress...

This week was an awesome one! it was the last full week of the transfer and so we did our best to finish out strong! we were a bit slowed down by things like snow, but... nothing could hold us down! Here is what we did. 

Monday: We went to the civil rights institute and it was awesome. The culture and history of Birmingham is really interesting. It was literally the center of the civil rights movement. I really hope i'll be able to go through it again some day because it really helps you see the cruelty and inhumanity that went on during segregation. If we learn from the past than we wont repeat it. so im glad i was able to learn something from history this week.

Tuesday: we had "amnesty day" So we spent a couple hours cleaning our apartment really good as per presidents orders haha. It is spotless right now. we also visited a few investigators and members.

Wednesday: It snowed! but not tell the evening. All day was wet and raining, we tracted and then we took cookies to the Rudds who just had a new baby boy named Russell! they are an awesome english family who lives close to us. Then we went and taught rodrick who is progressing well, just very slowly. then we threw a party for diego! he turned 12 and is a recent convert. It started snowing at his party and since he moved from honduras this year he had never seen snow. he loved it! We went outside and we ended up having an apartment wide snowball fight. It was a blast!

Thursday: Was another wet rainy day but we decided to tract and go to downtown and it clearned up and was sunny so we were able to talk to a bunch of people in downtown homewood. pretty fun overall.

Friday: we were crazy busy! we went to a chinease buffet with the sisters investigator named Maria. She is super awesome, like even bears her testimony in sacrament! then we had to visit a few less actives and then we were assigned to clean the church and then we had soccer night. so we were running all day haha.

Sturday: We had transfer calls! I will be staying in Altadena one more transfer and i think we figured out who im getting, im not sure yet though so i will let yall know wednesday! Elder gnther is leaving and being made a zone leader. he is an awesome missionary so it was a no brainer that that happened haha.

Sunday: was fast sunday and then we had an 8 year old get baptized. he was not a convert baptism but it was an awesome opportunity to have a bunch of investigators see a baptism and to get the branch unified. Almost 60 people came to the baptism! it was awesome! After we visited a few memebrs that had been sick and took pictures, we then taught a few lessons then went to the renterias house for a goodbye dinner. It was a good day!

So yeah, a busy week, but a fun one! 

I just want to leave yall with a quote that i love!

Discipline: Is just choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.

so, in everything we do, in keeping the commandments, in healthy living, in temperance, in patience. our choices have great power. but if we choose to take the easy way out, to not be disciplined and to choose the momentary wants, then we will never achieve what we truly want. In the gospel by choosing to live all the commandments we have to choose to give up things like coffee and alcohol. things that might be "fun" but by doing so we will be immensely blessed. by doing so we are disciplining ourselves to choose what we really want. Eternal life. I cant think of anything thats worth more than that. 

I hope we can all learn to discipline ourselves in some way a little better this week! that we might be disciplined disciples of Jesus Christ :)

Love yall!