Week 84- March 23, 2015-El Molino 4

Dear home,
This was an excellent week.
Mateo got baptized this past weekend! It was a really awesome
experience to be there and to see how strong he was feeling the
spirit. It was really great to be able to see him grow and change so
much. I got to, and will continue to, learn a lot from him. We had a
really great lesson with him on Wednesday with our Ward mission
leader. The spirit was really strong and afterwards, Mateo was
determined to leave alcohol and get baptized. It's been a,axing to see
the change in him as he has applied the gospel of Jesus Christ in his
life It was really cool because his family came as well! Hopefully
they were receptive to the spirit and will be more open to us visiting
them this week.
Other than that, we had a pretty good week as well. We found a less
active kid (17 years old) that moved into our Ward about 6 months ago.
He's a good kid, but has some problems with certain commandments, so
we are trying to start him up again. He is the only member of his
family, but his mom is really prepared! She has a testimony of the
Book of Mormon and is really prepared to come closer to God. The only
problem, is she has a lot of work, including on Sunday's. But
nevertheless, we are pretty excited to work with her.
Then we had another lesson with a new investigator who is Randy's
neighbor (the Guatemalan guy that moved in recently). That was crazy
he had A LOT of questions. We were there for like two hours and didn't
end up getting home til like 10:40. We kept trying to cut it, but he
had a lot to say. He has a lot of potential to, just gotta see if he
will keep his commitments. It's cool, because he read and investigated
the mormon.org website we gave him and he is a pretty sharp dude.
Lupita is also doing pretty well, she is slowly and steadily
progressing for baptism in April. So overall. Things are great! Love
you all!

Week 82-March 9, 2015

 Dear home,
This week went by really fast! We have transfers this weekend, so we
will see if I stay or not. I think I might be moving areas, though...
We will see.
 At the beginning of the week, we had a mission conference with Elder
 Brent H. Nielsen of the first quorum of the 70 and Brother Heaton, one
 of the directors from the Provo mtc. It was pretty cool. They were
 introducing the new iPad setup that we will be having in a few weeks.
 We are getting new iPads with updated everything. We won't have
 facebook for a month or two, but everything will be up to date. They
 (Nielsen and Heaton) talked a lot about the use of technology in our
 days and how the church wants to train is and help us use the
 technology we have now as a force for good. That being said, everyone
who has 6 months or less on their missions gets to keep the new iPads
 we're getting. So it looks like I'll have to get one the old fashioned
 way haha. But it was a really great meeting. It helped us understand
 our purpose with these new tools and how it is not just to use out
 here, but for the rest of our lives. I am excited to be such a small
 part of a huge cause! Oh! And we got to see the new "Because He Lives"
 Easter video and it is amazing. Make sure to watch/share it when it
 comes out!

 Then we had exchanges with Elder Low and Elder Bishop. I got to go
 with Elder Low in his area. We had a very interesting day. We were
 looking for a potential they had, but no answer. We decided to knock
 the neighbors door to see if we could find someone. It was a little
 open and really dark, but we knocked and a young guy about 22 years
 old came out. He was really nice and interested in what we had to
 share so he let us in. It smelled pretty rank, though. Which explained
 why he had the door open. Found out pretty soon that his profession
was a marijuana grower. Turns out you can make some good money off
 that hahah! But we taught him and he was very receptive and willing to
 learn. He kept talking about how he has been looking for a church in
 which he feels like he belongs. Where the spirit is, pretty much, he's
 gone through a lot material and spiritual mumbo-jumbo looking for it,
 but said he still hadn't. But we had a really great lesson where the
 spirit was strong and he recognized it as something new and very
 positive for him. It was cool. He kept offering us to smoke with him,
 so I guess that meant he liked us too hahaha. Goes to show, you can't
 judge who is ready to hear the gospel!

Then we walk out of that lesson and are trying to figure out where to
 go. We start walking down the street when all of a sudden we see this
 older Chinese gentleman with his old junky bike just fall over on the
 street. We run over and help him up and try to help him out. We walked
 a little bit towards where he said his house was, but he kept on
 falling over so we sat him down on some apartment steps next to us. He
 was pretty unresponsive, I thought I was about to witness a death!
 Then he kind of regained consciousness and started mumbling something.
 We took his phone and started calling people with his same last name
 (he told us his name) since he didn't want us to call the ambulance.
 As we're calling, the poor guy starts puking a little bit. After that
 he musters up enough strength and courage to get up and lean against
 the wall. He started telling us that he's good to start walking home,
 but no way! We call his family member who is on her way to make sure
 she is coming and all of a sudden, this guy just starts throwing up
 all over the place! I feel bad for the owner of the apartment haha.
 But to make a long story short, his sister finally arrived and he got
 him without dying and we walked his bike to his house.
 As for Mateo, he is doing great, we changed his date to the 22nd of
 March and is continuing to work towards it.
Love you all!

Elder Brent Nielsen of the first presidency. Came to do iPad training.
He is going to Fort Worth this week to introduce the iPads, so don't
be surprised when you see the Southlake elders with iPads!

Week 83- March 16, 2015- El Molino 4

Dear Home,
Transfer calls came this past week and we didn't get a call. I'll be
staying in El Molino with elder Stuart for another transfer. That went
by pretty quick! This transfer is only a 5 week transfer so I can only
imagine how fast this one is going to go.
This week I learned a lot about fellowshipping.
Luis, our recent convert, has tried going to the young single adult
Ward in our stake but really doesn't like it. Mainly because all the
people that go are poncho and won't speak Spanish in any of the
classes or talks they give. And luis doesn't understand English or
speak or haha (we've gotten him started on english class though).
Anytime he would come back from an activity or church there he would
be pretty mad at how it went. But the cool thing is, that there is a
new 24 year old RM from Guatemala that just moved into our area. He's
a pretty spunky guy, so we decided to bring him to a lesson with Luis.
Right off the bat they got a long super well and we're making a bunch
of jokes and all that. It was pretty entertaining to watch them just
talk. We shared the family : a proclamation to the world with him and
really helped him set a long term vision for himself. Randy
(Guatemalan rm) pumped him up a lot about going to the temple and
being obedient to the commandments. Luis committed to talk his boss
about getting Sunday's off. Just like that, his desires to progress in
the gospel went up.
The other great example was with Lupita. She's been doing great in
going to church. She hasn't missed church in like 7 weeks. But she
didn't really have a solid fellowshipper or someone to help her along
the way. We had tried a good mix of people, but never found a click.
Then about 2 weeks ago we found it in an unexpected way. We were
shuffling on out from sacrament and then all of a sudden this really
small, old, energetic el salvadorean lady in the branch goes up and
gives her a hug. It turns out they had known each other for a while in
some old lady club or something haha. But it's great because Hermana
Pastran (that's her name) will call Lupita like every day to check up
on her and they really look forward to seeing each other at church and
lessons. It helps a ton, especially since Lupitas understanding still
isn't too great. These two experiences really helped me understand the
importance of just being a good friend to someone.
Rudy and Fatima just had a baby a few days ago, so they have been a
little under the radar now. Mateo is doing pretty well, too. We are
not 100% on the date he has for now, he may need a little more time.
But we have found some pretty cool new people that we are excited to
work with as well. Onward and upward
Love you!

Week 81-March2, 2015

March 2, 2015

Yummy food for Pday today. Love this place!!

Dear home,

Good week.

We started off with a branch family home evening on Monday. It was a

 pretty fun activity in which we portrayed the plan of salvation

through a relay race and then we talked about how it relates to our

 Heavenly Father's plan for us. That was nice.

 We also had zone conference this week. This was pretty good. This

 Tuesday (tomorrow) we are having elder Nielsen of the 70 (the one I

 met a while ago in MLC) and some other higher ups from the church are

 coming to update some iPad stuff for us. Should be some big changes

 from what they were saying. So we shall see.

 Later on, we had exchanges. I got to go with our good old english man,

 Elder Bishop in El Sereno. Nothing too crazy there. Good stuff.

 We've had some pretty good progress with one of the less actives we

 are working with. His name is Helaman. He's a really good guy,

 returned missionary and all that. But he has a had a roller coaster of

 a life. About a month ago, he and his wife were on the brink of

 splitting up, but their kids barely held them together. We were able

 to talk to him when elder Stuart first got to the area and he pretty

 much told us that he's going to leave all excuses behind (blaming his

 wife, kids, work, school, etc..) and just start to come back to

 church. Which has been great, because he hasn't missed church since!

 And even greater, his nonmember wife came this past Sunday. She was

 pretty cold to us last time we tried to teach her along her husband,

 but when we visited the family yesterday, she was pretty happy! It's

 been great to see because I feel like so many people make excuses for

 everything when in reality it's just a lack of desire. If someone

 really wants to do something, they will just do it! I will always

 remember what one of the returning less actives we were working with

 in Pomona told us: "People always have time to listen to you [elders].

 All the excuses you hear from everyone are just because they don't

 want to change and they don't know what they are missing out on." So

 we are doing our best to help Helaman keep this streak he has going

 on.

 Other than that, investigators are doing pretty well. Mateo has his

 date for this weekend, but we may have to postpone it a week just to

 make sure his drinking is all good. But he has been doing great,

 otherwise. He had a cousin pass away this past week and we went over

 the plan of salvation with him. He's a great guy because he is very

 spiritual sensitive and really sharp. It was great to see him

 understand the plan that Heavenly Father has prepared for us.

 Love you all!

Week 81- March 2, 2015 - El Molino 3

Dear home,

Good week.

We started off with a branch family home evening on Monday. It was a

pretty fun activity in which we portrayed the plan of salvation

through a relay race and then we talked about how it relates to our

Heavenly Father's plan for us. That was nice.

We also had zone conference this week. This was pretty good. This

Tuesday (tomorrow) we are having elder Nielsen of the 70 (the one I

met a while ago in MLC) and some other higher ups from the church are

coming to update some iPad stuff for us. Should be some big changes

from what they were saying. So we shall see.

Later on, we had exchanges. I got to go with our good old english man,

Elder Bishop in El Sereno. Nothing too crazy there. Good stuff.

We've had some pretty good progress with one of the less actives we

are working with. His name is Helaman. He's a really good guy,

returned missionary and all that. But he has a had a roller coaster of

a life. About a month ago, he and his wife were on the brink of

splitting up, but their kids barely held them together. We were able

to talk to him when elder Stuart first got to the area and he pretty

much told us that he's going to leave all excuses behind (blaming his

wife, kids, work, school, etc..) and just start to come back to

church. Which has been great, because he hasn't missed church since!

And even greater, his nonmember wife came this past Sunday. She was

pretty cold to us last time we tried to teach her along her husband,

but when we visited the family yesterday, she was pretty happy! It's

been great to see because I feel like so many people make excuses for

everything when in reality it's just a lack of desire. If someone

really wants to do something, they will just do it! I will always

remember what one of the returning less actives we were working with

in Pomona told us: "People always have time to listen to you [elders].

All the excuses you hear from everyone are just because they don't

want to change and they don't know what they are missing out on." So

we are doing our best to help Helaman keep this streak he has going

on.

Other than that, investigators are doing pretty well. Mateo has his

date for this weekend, but we may have to postpone it a week just to

make sure his drinking is all good. But he has been doing great,

otherwise. He had a cousin pass away this past week and we went over

the plan of salvation with him. He's a great guy because he is very

spiritual sensitive and really sharp. It was great to see him

understand the plan that Heavenly Father has prepared for us.

Love you all!

Having a nice meal on p-day at Dog Haus

Visiting my frist area