Week 43 4/21/15

4/21/15

Hey yall!

Fortunately this week the whole letter is not in a gray outline! so thats cool. However, i dont really have to much time to write today! we have to get going soon to meet some people at the church to play basketball! but, ill leave a few awesome highlights of the week! (also the start of a new transfer!)

On friday we had one of the best family home evenings ever in a members house! The Cuenca family (who is our branch presidents family) invited our investigators Guadalupe and her family to it! It was awesome because the Cuencas were super friendly with this family at church on sunday and became instant friends and then they set up this FHE and just invited us to come and teach. We taught about The Restoration While focusing on the BOM and Prophets. They loved it! They are very catholic still, but they seam to love the idea of prophets and they love missionary work! The spirit was so incredibly strong the whole time! What a huge blessing and Emaus experience! 

Ive also been super excited with my new district! Theres Me and Elder Bott, Elder Kellogg and Elder Virtue (both of whom ive served with) as well as Sister Johnson and Sister Acosta. We had a district meeting friday that went spectacular! everyone seams to be fun as well as dedicated to the work. We worked on how to better contact at district meeting and had the most random and absured situations ever! it was awesome! 

Um... Other then that, this new transfer has been great as well because we had a baptism on saturday! More specifically the other elders had a baptism, but weve all been working with the young man named lorenzo for a while. He is such a stud! He asked us to be baptized and even though he is now the only member in his family, by bearing his testimony at his baptism it brought tears to his mothers and fathers eyes. The spirit was so incredibly strong!!! He is such an example to me of faith and determination.

Anyways, thats it for now! im just going to end by sharing this awesome new video!!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2015-04-001-bearing-our-burdens-with-hope?category=mormon-messages-2015&cid=HP_TU_4-14-2015_dPTH_fMC_xLIDyL1-C_&lang=eng

its based off one of my favorite conference talks! hope yall enjoy! have a great week!

Week 42 4/13/15

4/13/15

hey Everyone!

So, i dont know exactly why everything is in like a gray outline..... but, thats ok! I will write anyway! and this is going to be a bit of a long ish letter because there has been so many awesome things that have happened this week! It seriously has been one of the best weeks of my mission! When you work hard, Play hard, and Pray Harder, the lord will bless you! :)

So this is what happened.

Monday: 

Was a super good P-day that ended in a FHE at a members house! a young man named Lorenzo (who I have to give a baptismal interview to this week) Was able to come! he loved it, and will be getting baptized this saturday!! Elder Faustin and Kellogg have been working with him for a long time so we are really excited for him!

Tuesday:

Was a bit interesting to tell the truth, We had to basically take two other missionaries around all day to doctors appointments and things because they cant drive and we live in the area where most all of the big hospitals are. So, that was a bit interesting, but me and elder bott were able to teach a lot of great lessons to random people in downtown birmingham! so good day all in all.

Wednesday:

Was Awesome! We Went walking to an apartment complex to tract and on the way ran into tons and tons of hispanic people! we taught a ton of lessons and have some new awesome potential investigators from it! Then, Later we threw a suprise party with the other missionaries for an investigator named Alex. He was turning 20 and so we just got some pizzas and hung out and he loved it! he is comming to church and hopefully will be getting baptized soon as well.

Thursday:

We had an Awesome activity with the cuenca family in our branch! its bassically an activity that helps members be better missionaries and helps them trust us that we are good missionaries and working our hardest! We are going to be halping them teach their family who lives close by! it was awesome!

Friday:

Was such an amazing day! we had a great zone training the first part of the day, then I felt like i was supposed to go see Nandi and Larry even though the other elders are working with them... we went with the english elders and ended up setting a bap date with them for the 26th! it was awesome!! Then we had an awesome lesson with a man named carlos, then we taught an awesome lesson to guadalupe and her family. (theres 6 of them!) we invited them to church and they just love the BOM. Then while walking back home a man named Kong stoped us and we are going to go teach him soon as well! It was serisouly a miricle day!

Saturday:

One quick Emaus Experience, We have been having trouble with seeing an investigator of ours named Alfredo, and so on saturday we rounded up a member whom we went with on a whim of the spirit to try and see Alfredo. He ended up being there and after showing the video of President Hollands talk in Conference we started to talk about baptism. The spirit came so strongly and we set a baptismal date for the 2nd of May. It was amazing! Then, the next day at church the experience continued as Alfredo was able to make it to church as well as 5 of the 6 members of a hispanic family (guadalupes family) we have been working with this last week! The branch really rallied around all of them, inviting them to family home evenings, being friendly and loving. Truly fellowshipping them. It was one of the greatest Sundays of my life.

So that kind of covered sunday too, but it was awesome!!  I want you guys to know that if we are obedient to the commandment and work hard, the lord will bless us with innumerable blessings!! Its been just a fantastic week. Love yall!

Week 41 4/6/15

4/6/15

Hello everyone!!

Well, this week has really just flown by!! It is crazy to me how the longer ive been on my mission, the faster it seams to go by. It really feels like i was just emailing yesterday and yet here i am a week later and with more stuff to tell than i possibly could in one letter haha. im going to try and let you guys know a little about whats going on though! Ill start with some investigators.

 We are Still working with Alfredo, unfortunately he has been working a lot recently.... so we really need to see him and get him to church this sunday with his girlfriend Lucia!!! He wants to learn and he said he wants to get baptized, we just got to get him into the dang font! haha. More so into the church, but we gotta keep that end goal in mind you know? ;) I love hm though, i have the faith! Me and Elder Bott just got to go harder than ever to make it happen. So LETS GO!! haha.

We also met some awesome new people as well through a crazy way.... I GOT MY FIRST REFERRAL FROM AN ENGLISH MISSIONARY!!!! woah..... that like never ever happens haha.It was a good one too! Its a big hispanic fam and the kids have already read through Nephi chapter 4! so thats really cool. We are really excited cuz they would be such a blessing to the spanish branch! we are going to work are hardest with them too :) their names are guadalupe and lilia (plus like 4 kids and lilias husband) if you want to pray for them. They are a great family.

We also have ran into a ton of college kids this week! This guy named shawn is really interested in the church. He is just astonished how every single question he has ever had about the bible and his own church, our church seams to have an answer for! Its crazy how the truth works like that haha. He is a great humble man though, hopefully we will be able to see him as well as all the rest of our people soon!

So, Lots of good people and lots of good things happening! we are just going to keep praying in faith and working hard!

In other news, this week, like i said, went by insanely fast! i think part of that was because we were so busy! From monday evening untill tuesday i was on exchange with the zone leaders, then wednesday was an extremely beautiful day and so we just went around the park and played soccer with people and taught a ton of people about the gospel. super productive and fun! Then between weekly planning and district meeting and soccer night and conference, we were so busy it just went by in the blink of an eye! so great week all and all.

The highlight was for sure conference though! I Loved elder Hollands talk in the sunday morning session, if you havent had a chance to listen to it yet, here is the link....

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2015/04?lang=eng&vid=4154894180001&cid=10

It truly testifys of what the savior has done for us, he truly has "refused to let us fall". No matter how many times we have fallen away from the path of righteousness in our lives, he always is waiting to catch us so that we will not fall.He loves us immensely, so much so that he suffered for every single one of our sins, literally bleeding from every pore! I know that my savior Jesus Christ lives I know that he loves us. I know that he never will let me fall, nor will he EVER let you fall. I hope you all loved conference as much as i did! If you missed part of it, check it out right here!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/04?cid=HP_SU_4-5-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

Love you all!

Week 40 3/30/15

3/30/15

Hey everyone!

So great to be able to talk to yall, Its been a pretty good week, but a tough one at the same time! we've had t fight illness and fatigue and all sorts of stuff, luckily though we have had the lord on our side and its been an awesome time anyway!

So, I dont have the most time to write today! however,ill just give a breif summary of my week!

Monday it started of with an awesome dinner at the monroys house, we challenged them to find on of their friends who is ready for the gospel and will be teaching the friend of theirs shortly i beleive!

Tuesday we woke up and bott was intensly sick. we arent sure what he had, but it was some sort of really bad cold. So, for fear of him being contagious and so that he cold rest, we ended up not being able to go out and work tuesday. Let me tell you, that is the hardest thing as a missionary! Espessially when you arent the one sick! So, i ended up reading a lot of scriptures that day. haha

Wednesday, Elder Bott was starting to feel better, but we were only aloud to go to a few of our appointments. We went and saw nandi and Larry and then later in the day we were able to go to a members house for a dinner appointment. Nandi and Larry are awesome! They've now been to church twice and they love it! Sadly, we had to hand them off to the english elders because its a lot easier for them to work with them, but we will still be teaching nandi and larry side by side with the english ward. We are super excited for them!!

Thursday, Elder Bott was feeling much better and we were lucky enough to be able to have our temple trip! The temple is just such an amazing place! It is truly a house of god on this earth, and so it was an awesome experience getting to go through the temple. We dont get to often as missionaries, but when we do, its worth the wait! I always learn so much!

Friday, We had a great district meating, we were able to see nandi and larry again, andwe had a great futbol night! Super great day!

Saturday, we did service for a member (helping clean a house) Then we had a frisbee day in the park! a few new people came and so it was a great way to find new people. Sadly it was pretty cold though so not to many people came, hopefully we will have some better weather this next saturday to be able to find more people!

Saturday, We had church and a convivio after, then we met this super cool guy named victor while tracting! he is a young hispanic man and was very interested in the book of mormon. Hopefully we will be able to keep working with him!

So, all in all, a good week! dispite being slowed down a day we still did awesome!

Im like out of time so i just want to leave you with a poem!

"There is no chance, no victory, no fate, can circumvent, nor hinder, nor control. The firm resolve of a determined soul."

love you all!