April 21, 2014

What a week!  It started out with interviews with President on Monday.  It was a lot of fun and it was awesome to be able to go to one of my old areas after the interview with President.  I got to go and say goodbye!  I really enjoyed it!  It's awesome to be able to go back after time and see the good that you have done in the lives of the people.  We had a lot planned and how they say here this week is "Holy Week".  It was fun.  We planned interchanges on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I left my area for both of the interchanges.  It was crazy on Wednesday I got to interview one of my old investigators for her baptism last week.  It was awesome talking to her and seeing really how much her life has changed and how much the gospel has blessed her life.  Her life has really changed.  It was fun seeing it and seeing the changes in her life.  She asked me to baptize her - it was an awesome experience.  Come to find out after we left the interview and throughout the day we find out that there wasn't going to be any transport on Thursday or Friday and that I was stuck there until Saturday.  It was crazy and the longest interchange I have ever been on.  I was so stressful because I wasn't in my own area basically the whole week but we had a lot of fun in the interviews.  I was able to learn and help the Elder I was with a lot.  It really blows me away how the time flies by.  God really knows his children and puts them in circumstances so that they can change and become better.  I look back on the places I've been and the people I have met and it really has been to help me change and be better.  Sadly the mission is coming to an end but it's been a good ride while it's lasted!!

April 14, 2014

This week was a good week.  I feel really weird coming down to the end of my mission.  I felt like this was one of the best weeks of all of my mission.  We worked really hard and had a lot of success in some aspects.  The sad thing is no one came to church this week.  It is sometimes so frustrating working the hardest you can and then not see the results that you want.  I did have sweet experiences this week.  I went with Pastor and Julissa in Campamento this week and we had a really awesome lesson.  We started talking with them and I asked Julissa how she felt about being baptized and it was really awesome; we felt the spirit so strong with her.  I was guided by the spirit to be able to help her feel better for her baptism.  We were talking and I just told her don't let the little things that men do interfere with what God has said.  God has told her that it is the true church and she needs to follow what she has felt.  I also went with a less active that I had met over a year ago.  He is now living with a girl and they are thinking about getting married.  About a month ago their little boy died and they have been having a really hard time but it was awesome to read in the Book of Mormon with them and see the tears come to their eyes and they they really knew that it was true.  This week as well we had interchanges on Friday and it was really sweet.  We helped a member go and buy water and she made us dinner and then gave us a reference.  We went to teach the reference that night and it was a young couple that had just moved into a little apartment; we taught them the Restoration and it was awesome.  The guy said that Joseph Smith was a good prophet and that he believe that the church is true.  It was so awesome.  Pray for them - the familia Ponce - so that they can get baptized soon.

April 7, 2014

This week was really awesome.  We got a call on Tuesday from an investigator of the other Elders; he wanted to meet with us!  It was really sweet because the Elders were having a hard time teaching him for his work and all that but we met with him and put a baptism date with him for Saturday.  It was a lot of fun.  We were working with him every day.  Every night when he got out of work he would call us and then get on his bike and we would meet up in the church.  It was sweet seeing him progress during the week.  We had originally placed the baptism date for Sunday but he called us and told us that he could not on Sunday but only on Saturday so we had to start running around on Saturday getting everything ready so that he could be baptized.  It was a really awesome day.  The conference was sooo awesome.  I really love it.  I liked what Elder Bednar taught about sharing the yoke of Christ.  Even though we can never pull the same share as he pulls but he invites us to share his yoke.  His burden really is easy and his yoke is light because we are on his side sharing it with him.  I really needed to learn that.  I feel like sometimes in life the things are really hard to continue.  We have to recognize that Christ is there to help us but we have to let him help us.  Oh we also had interviews with President this week; I love interviews with him.  It was fun to sit and talk with him.  He started explaining to me about all the changes he had seen me make here in the mission.  It is crazy how much one really changes when they give up all their desires to the Lord and try to look for what he wants!  Life is GOOD!  It's going to be a great week.

March 31, 2014

Things are good and time is flying by.  We had interchanges this week with the assistants and in my old area again!  The assistant's area is right by the temple and we had a lesson with an investigator family in the house of some temple workers; it made me realize the power there is in the temple.  I loved entering into their house and it felt so much like home because the spirit was there so strong.  Then this Saturday when we were on interchanges in my old area it was a lot of fun.  The Sisters had called me earlier in the week and had asked me if I could go baptize a little girl that I had been teaching over a year ago; it was awesome to be able to do it.  I was talking with the little girls mom who can't get baptized yet for some problems with the commandments and it really made me realize that the people really do feel the truth of our message.  Sometime they don't accept it in the moment but they really do feel the truth of it and even if years pass that feeling doesn't go away.  It's true that when the Holy Ghost speaks to someone it is something eternal.  I love this gospel and I know it is true.  It is the true source of happiness in this life.  This week is going to be great with General Conference!  We are seeing lots of differences in the branch and in the zone but this week determines everything.  Pray for us so that we can take a couple of families to General Conference this week!

March 24, 2014

Another week has come and gone and there aren't many left ahead of me.  It was transfer week - I stayed in my area with my companion; it will be a good transfer.  We have been really frustrated for the lack of success in the zone and in our own area.  We sat down to talk about it the day after the changes and finally we feel good about being together and the zone.  We have a lot of work to do but we made the plans necessary to be able to have success next month.  I have been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately; I set the goal to finish it before I come home and it has really been awesome.  Right now in the mission we have had a focus on the atonement in our studies.  I have noticed as I have been reading the Book of Mormon that it talks so much about Christ and his atonement.  I am so grateful to have the Book of Mormon because it really is the key to our knowledge of the Savior.  Without the Book of Mormon we wouldn't really understand the sacrifice that the Savior has done for us.  We really are so blessed as members of the church to have it.  I love this gospel and I love sharing it with the world.  Pray for us - we need it this week!  We are going to burn ourselves out this week inviting everyone to be baptized and to go to church.  It is going to be a lot of fun.

March 17, 2014

This week has come and gone.  I am going into my last transfer this week!!!  Crazy how fast time flies.  Time is just gone.  That's alright we are here to work until the end.  This week was a good week.  I got to do interchanges this week with one of my old areas; it was awesome.  We went to teach a family that I found and was teaching about a year ago.  It was so awesome to talk to them.  When I was teaching them a year ago the lady had a dream that the Church was true and when we gave her husband a blessing he was completely healed within a few days.  It was such a miracle being able to be with them again and being able to share with them the gospel.  We taught them the restoration and it was basically just a reminder for what I had taught them a year ago.  This week was also a multi-stake conference and it was really sweet because I got to see a lot of the people from my old area.  It made me realize without a doubt that no effort is wasted and that everything we do as missionaries is for a reason.  We also put a baptismal date with Brayan for this week.  It's going to be a lot of fun.

March 10, 2014

This week was awesome; I had some awesome experiences.  We had interchanges this week.  In the area where I stayed it was crazy because it started raining and it was a down pour; it was a lot of fun.  We were soaked within minutes so we just took advantage of it walking in the middle of the streets that were like rivers; it was so crazy!  As we were going to an appointment with the Branch President he got a call that the roof of a members business had fallen through and needed help taking all the clothes and shoes out of the building so we went to do that and in the process the power went out - it was such a disaster but so much fun at the same time.  There were like three missionaries there from the states and we all just started talking to each other in English and it was so much fun.  We had a good week.  We have a lot to do to get better this coming week.  I love the mission.  We are having fun and this is going to be a super busy week.