April 29, 2013

This week has been interesting.  I just love when our plans fall through.  Viernes we had all of our plans set and ready for the night; all our plans were set in stone and we were really excited and then the power went out!  That is the worst thing in the world for a missionary here - when the power goes out - No power = no food, no working and you get really bored!  It was really funny - me and my companion were starving so I started to get creative.  I found a tin can, candles and a little metal cooling rack and we cooked food using that.  This week was awesome too - we found an awesome investigator - Felipe!  We taught him on Monday and then we haven't been able to go back because he has been working as a taxi driver in a different city  We saw him on Saturday and he had read from the introduction of the Book of Mormon and was about to finish 1st Nephi.  We were super excited.  Sunday came around and all of our investigators had bailed and didn't have plans to go to church.  I just started calling everyone I could to invite them.  I called Leonardo and he was like well I have this and this to do but I will try.  As we were sitting there starting the meeting he showed up!  We were both super excited.  We are really seeing the blessing even when things are rough.  We have been praying to have people come to church so that they can progress and we have been working our butts off and the Lord is answering our prayers.  He really hears and answers.  A lot of work to do but deep praying for us and we will have success!

April 22, 2013

We had a lot of success this week and it was great.  Starting out on Thursday I had interchanges with one of the Zone Leaders so that he could do Bernardos interview and he passed.  That night Elder Marin and I had a little party to celebrate our year in the mission.  Yesterday we had Bernardos baptism - it was Awesome!  He had me a little worried at first because he showed up 15 minutes late to his baptism - he really had me stressing!  One of my favorite things to do is to talk to the people after their baptism to ask them how they feel.  It just is a surety that this is the true Gospel because they all tell us how pure that they feel.  It was awesome.  Then yesterday after church we went visiting with one of the leaders from the branch and ended up finding a couple of positive families to be teaching.  The work is picking up and it looks like May will be a great month and if all goes well we will be baptizing families!  My companion and I are focusing in on teaching just families and whatever other chosen person that we can find.  Really when we put our mind to a purpose the Lord helps us fulfill it but if we don't have a purpose we don't do anything!  We have it in our minds that we are going to find, teach and baptize families and we have really been seeing the Lord bless us with many miracles in the process.  As we were teaching a family this week I asked the sister if she had received an answer to her prayers yet.  She paused for a minute and started to tell us that she had had a dream and that she thought it was her answer telling her that this is the true church.  It was awesome to see.  Now we just need to focus in on the husband so that he can have the same experience and receive his answer.  I know the Lord answers always to our prayers but we just have to look for the way he is responding.

April 15, 2013

It was an awesome week.  My companion and I are getting work done.  I have no idea where all the time is going but at least we are accomplishing something with out time!  The highlight of the week is that we HAVE A BAPTISM DATE!  This Sunday we are going to have a baptism.  A guy we just started visiting a little while ago, we went and visited him this week and started talking to him about baptism and he accepted a date and doesn't have any problems right now in being ready for his baptism.  It is awesome.  We are having a lot of fun and visiting a lot of people.  Normally in the area they  haven't been teaching much but now we are teaching more than 20 lessons and closing in on 30 lessons a week.  We are starting to see a difference in the area.  One thing President taught us a little while ago that I loved - He said when we leave the house what we have in mind is what we do!  It's true and we have been putting into our minds to teach a lot of people and to find new people.  It is awesome to see how the Lord blesses us just when we have a change of mentality.  The work is picking up.  My companion tells me every day he doesn't know what happens with all the time.  We leave and work hard and the time flies by.  Sometimes there isn't enough time to get everything we want done.  The Lord always helps us get everything done that he wants.  The Lord lives and loves us.  He helps us if we ask for it.  The majority of the time though we are too stupid to ask for help.  It's a no brainer if you need help ask him!  He answers!

April 8, 2013

Conference was awesome.  I loved Elder Holland's talk!  That man is powerful.  I love hearing his testimony and I just hope mine is powerful like his when I bear it to the investigators.  We had a good week.  We have been focusing a lot on finding new people to teach and we found 12 and 3 new families.  I just have to put my mind to finding and I love it.  We left one night just walking down a road and I told my companion as we were walking if there were any people in the street or if there was a door open we would stop and contact them.  We started walking and there was no one!  We contacted a couple of open doors and no one wanted anything to do with us; that's alright, we just going!  We finally were getting to the end of the street and I was getting anxious to find someone.  We passed a door and I saw it was closed but a light was on.  We walked past it and it was just like someone turned me around to go and contact the door.  It was about 8:40 at night and we knocked the door.  A girl came to the door and was talking to us.  She just had the door open a little bit but I got my hand in enough to shake hands.  We shared a little bit there on the door step and she told us we could come in and share a message.  We ended up finding a new family of 5!  It was awesome!  I started later this week just praying and leaving the house with the idea in mind to find new families.  We have been able to do it.  We did it 4 days straight.  It was awesome.  It really is true that the Lord blesses us with the way to be able to do it.  It has been crazy to see miracle after miracle this week being able to find new people.  The Lord is preparing the people we just have to be obedient and open our eyes.  I know this is the work of the Lord!  He lives and He loves us!  He did call Joseph Smith to be a prophet to restore the church here on the earth today.  Thomas S Monson is God's prophet here on the earth.  We have a cause to be happy because God lives and loves us!  We are members of the true church!  Be Happy!

April 1, 2013

I don't know what is happening - I feel like March just started and now it is April!! YIKES!!!  It has been a really interesting and really good week.  We started the week with Monday and the power was out so we couldn't leave and visit because that would be stupid and dangerous.  I was on exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders that night and we spent the whole night sharing stories and we even had to kill a mouse so that made for an interesting start of the week.  The next day we just got straight to work and had an awesome day.  This week we had a lot of success.  We were able to lift our numbers up higher than they have been in months find a bunch of new people.  It was crazy to see the difference in this week and last week.  It is just like what happened with Joseph Smith right before God and Jesus Christ came he was tempted by Satan and that is like what happened to us.  Last week was really sucky and this week was awesome.  I started this week that it doesn't matter who it is I at least would say hello to everyone; it was a great blessing.  It has really showed me that God guides the people to us that need us.  In the process of just talking to everyone we had 5 people contact  us.  They either asked for Books of Mormon or for us to go visit them.  The Lord really is preparing people but we have to sacrifice to be able to receive these blessings.  There really are two sides of the veil in this work.  There are people on the other side that are changing the hearts of the people so that they accept us.  The missionary work is going further along than it has in months in this area.  The members don't help at all and don't want any part of it.  It's kind of funny, I get to teach every Sunday in church and at this point all the people are starting to either really love me or really hate me.  Those that are fulfilling their callings really love me and those that are sinners and don't do anything really hate me because the spirit always puts words in my mouth that they don't like to hear.  I have really learned one thing in the past couple of weeks - it is to follow the spirit.  The spirit really can guide us in everything we do if we just pay attention.  Sometimes we follow the spirit and we don't realize it until after.  I invite you all to look for the spirit in your lives and fulfill your callings.  God hates when people don't compete. Ecclesiastes 5:5

March 25, 2013

This week has been interesting.  If something could have gone wrong this week it surely went wrong - that is for sure.  Everything fell through this week - it was kind of an ugly week.  Our baptism dates fell through; everyone that was progressing isn't right now.  No one could come to church and when we were contacting no one wanted to receive us.  It was great fun.  Me and my companion really learned a lot.  Sometimes it is not about what you are able to accomplish during the week - it is about the effort that you put into working.  The Lord doesn't bless us for the results, the Lord blesses us for the efforts that we make.  I was really able to learn a lot about that and see the Lord bless us.  We were able to finish the week really well though.  Yesterday we had District Conference and one of the converts received the Melchizedek Priesthood.  It really was a blessing and to be able to see someone progress and to be able to have such a sacred responsibility.  Then in afternoon we went looking for a contact and we found him.  We had a really awesome lesson with him and we just talked with him and he said that before he was able to go to church and that he loved it and feels that the church is true but sometimes the circumstances effect your life and that he felt bad that he hasn't been back.  He just expressed a sincere desire to change his life and to be able to make his relationship with God better.  It made me realize what a great blessing it is to  no matter where we are in life we can always repent and make it back.  God loves us all so much that repentance is always there for us.  Let's take advantage of it then - we all should repent daily to partake of these blessings.

March 18, 2013

It was a great week.  Besides the fact that I had to travel just about every day this week, that's alright - it was fun!  Tuesday me and one of the Elders in my district went to Tegucigalpa for a meeting for the leaders and we were there just about all day.  We got back at about 6 that night so I just told him that he was stuck with me for the rest of the night and we were going to go and take advantage of the situation.  We went and spent about all night knocking doors (which is great fun with a good companion)!  We went and were rejected like 10 consecutive houses it was rough!  We then just passed by a member to see how they were and then went contacting again.  The first door we knocked, the people asked who it was and we just responded "the missionaries", the lady and her husband then opened the door and told us to enter.  They are a family and super positive; we have hopes to put a baptism date with them.  Another lade that we are visiting (Lela) is super nice.  We went to teach her the other day and she told us that she wanted to be baptized so clearly we put a date with her.  The highlight of the whole week was that we got to see the broadcast of the temple dedication.  It was so awesome; I am so grateful to speak English and to have understood the words that left President Uchtdorf's mouth!  It was awesome!  It was just a testimony builder that this really is the Lord's church.  I learned and understood a lot more as well about the Lord's blessing in the temple.  I also noticed that the prophet and apostles are all happy and fun loving guys!  It's true - this gospel brings happiness so why the heck aren't we happy all the time.  Sometimes we just have to close our eyes to the bad things and only see the blessings.