¡Feliz Navidad! - Merry Christmas!

 ¡Feliz Navidad!

What a work-filled week it has been! Elder Valdovinos and I worked hard this past week, doing all we could to find and teach more people before the end of the change. Although we didn´t have too much success with teaching lots of people, we were blessed to find some really fantastic people who want to talk after they get back from vacations. We were also very blessed to baptize one of our investigators on Christmas Day! Whoo! Her name is Itzayana, she is 18, her family is the one that gives us free huaraches, and she is just super. I had the privilege of baptizing her and it was a fantastic baptismal service on a fantastic Christmas afternoon. Today, I got transferred to the other side of the mission to another area and my new companion is Elder Lozano. He is a really cool kid and is from Monterrey. Being that he is from north Mexico, he speaks really fast so it has been a little strange adjusting to his speed and accent today, but all is well. I like how my companions so far have been natives from Mexico, so I can practice my Spanish and get that much better!

Well, everything is going well here. Just gearing up to do work in this new area! Hope you all are doing well and having a good time enjoying the holidays! I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Elder Lozano

Compañero y Yo 

Itzayana´s Baptism!

Itzayana´s Family

Trust In The Lord With All Thy Heart

¡Hola!

This was a pretty tough week. Pretty much every appointment for every day fell through, leaving us pretty disappointed. But it´s ok! Everything is always alright because we just keep working away and inviting people to come unto Christ and take part in their salvation. We knocked a bunch more this week and found some more new investigators including this cool family of four. Not too much more to report this week other than that. We worked and had a great time doing it. On Thursday we had our mission Christmas party and had a fun time. Sunday was the birthday of that wonderful woman who gave birth to me, whom I lovingly call my mother! I still keep getting older but she always just stays 34 years old. I don´t know how she does it! 

On a spiritual note, I want to share my favorite scripture. In Proverbs 3:5-6 we read,"Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." It is such an easy thing to follow the counsel this scripture gives us, but sometimes we just make it so hard. That is one of the challenges of ourselves that we all have to conquer in order to truly find peace and that pure happiness that comes from following the counsel of the Lord. We are like rebellious teenagers. We think we know it all, that we have all the power and capabilities to do what we want and that our way is the best way. What we must learn from this scripture, however, is that we must first trust with all of our heart and lean not unto our own understanding. As we truly trust in the Lord with all the faculties of our heart, and not worry about what we know or what we think is best, we come to find that the Lord´s way truly is the best way we can possibly take in our lives. From my own personal mortal experience, I know that my parents have always suggested the best possible route for me to take. In the end, however, it was always my decision to make and my consequences to suffer and pain to experience if I decided to try my own way which turned out to not be the best. I also know that when I followed their counsel, it was always much easier to do something and there were no difficulties to face. This is the same with our Heavenly Father. He will always let us know what is the best way because He already knows through experience what really is the best way. But, He will never make us follow with His suggestions. The decision is ours to make. We can choose pain and misery from trying to rely on ourselves and try figure it out on our own, or we can simply humble ourselves and take the advice of a loving Father in Heaven and make it easier for ourselves and cause ourselves less pain. So, once we have trusted in the Lord with all our heart and have put aside our pride and imperfect understanding so we can better follow the perfect love and understanding of God, we must acknowledge Him in all things, giving thanks for our blessings and for our trials, which refine us, and asking humbly for His guidance and direction in our lives. Then, if we do all this, we are promised that He shall direct us in all that we do and that, above all, we will have His help, love, and Spirit to be with us.

Well, as we near this time of Christmas, my wish is that we all can reflect on the love of Christ for each and every one of us. He came to us of humble birth. We can come to Him in humble spirits. He taught. We can listen and believe. He was perfectly obedient. We too can be perfectly obedient. He showed us the way. We can walk in it. He sacrificed all for us. We can gain all through Him. Merry Christmas everybody. May you all love one another and may we all strive to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Remember all that Christ came for, and all He promises us hereafter. I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Torta, yum.  This is a torta cubana which has hot dog, ham, egg, white cheese, yellow cheese, and another type of meat that I can´t remember the name with tomato, avocado, and chipotle sauce.  To say the least, tortas here are pretty good.

Faith Precedes The Miracle

Hey hey hey!

What a great week it has been here in Mexico! Lots of success, lots of failure, but all throughout, lots of happiness.

Last Tuesday Elder Valdovinos and I knocked for the most part of the day and had a good time. We also found out that our investigator Monica and her daughters moved away so we were very disappointed with that.

On Wednesday, we had a very full day of appointments because of the tremendous amount of knocking we did the day before. We met with part of a family who we are really excited for. We talked with the mom, Rosa, and her two daughters, Eli and Anateli. They are super ready to listen to the message that we have to share. The daughter Anateli is a great example of faith to me and so I want to share her story real quick with you. Anateli is 21 years old. In July of the year, she and her family were involved in a car crash. The others came away fine, but she was left paralyzed from below the shoulders. The doctors told her that it would be a long time before she would be able to move her body again. To their surprise, she proved them wrong. She has movement in her arms now and is working day by day to regain all movement. I feel she is such a great example of faith and we can all learn from her. She has never in her head questioned why this happened to her, but has only relied even more on her Father in Heaven and her Savior, Jesus Christ. Sometimes, this happens to us in a different sense. We get paralyzed by the challenges of life and the hardships that we must face. We get paralyzed by the worldliness all around us and lose our sense of who we are. But, no matter the struggles we have, we can always be healed. Both spiritually and physically. We must turn to our Lord with full purpose of heart, which means that we must rely on Him and give Him our total trust and follow what He wants for us instead of what we think we want. By using the principle of faith, which means we have a belief in God and His ability to help and heal us and that we also ACT according to what He wants, we come to find that we are free from what paralyzes us and can move forward with Him. So, what we must do is use our faith by praying for help, reading His council to us in the scriptures, and do His will and act how He would have us act. Then, and only then, can we truly come to know God and Jesus Christ more in our lives and feel of their love for us.

Well, on Thursday we met with one new investigator, Iris, and had a great lesson with her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She felt the Spirit as we taught about the cleansing effect of a baptism and she committed to be baptized! Yeah! 

Friday, we talked with a big family about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. We have great hopes for some of them to accept a baptismal invitation. Cool story: one of the uncles (his name is Manuel) in the family is great friends with Jonathan. They run a puesto (like a little restaurant) of huaraches (words can´t describe it. it is delicious! look it up) as a family and he told us to stop by and eat one. So, we stopped by in the night and were surprised when he said that it was all free for us! Whoa! So we ate and were happily filled with Mexican goodness. Now here comes the cool part. They also told us that we can stop by once a day and eat another free huarache!! One for each! Can you say benefits?

Saturday was crazy. All our appointments fell through so we turned to plan B. Knocking! We got a few lessons and some return appointments out of it so it was pretty good. Later in the night, our ward had a talent show. So we went and had a good time with the members and some investigators who came also. Funny story: while they were trying to get the sound to work, I was just chillin like a villain with strawberry fillin when all of a sudden everybody got up and started going outside. I was confused for a little bit, as I thought they were doing some sort of game or something. I again relaxed and leaned against the wall only to feel it move like a wave. Not good. So, I thought to myself: Hmm, people are leaving, the wall feels like a wave, so, I must be in an earthquake. So, I followed everyone outside. Come to find out, it was a 6.5 earthquake but the epicenter was somewhere south of the city, so it felt pretty weak over here. Cool stuff. Later, some members challenged us to basketball. So what did we do? Accepted and beat them of course! Good stuff. 

Sunday was really good and there was a great Spirit there. Felipe and Jimena came to church and enjoyed it so we are excited to see them tomorrow. Later Sunday night, we met with a cool investigator, Hector, and had a great talk with him. He even accepted to be baptized! Woohoo!

Today was p-day again and we played soccer in the morning and now here I am writing my e-mail.

Good stuff happening here in good ol Mexico City!  I love you all!  Do great in all you do!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

What Are Your Righteous Desires?

Hey hey everyone!

Sorry about no update last week; we were pretty busy the whole day and I didn´t have time to write. Excuses aside, you just get to read two weeks worth of stuff!

Last week was pretty much a blur of the same thing. We knocked and knocked and taught and taught and contacted and contacted and came away with a few successes. We found this one lady, Rosalinda, through contacting. She was really cool and receptive to the Spirit. We taught her all the lessons and had invited her to be baptized numerous times, but in the end, she told us this week that she doesn´t want to be baptized. But, a cool story from last week is that we ran into one of our former investigators last week, Gilberto, in the street. We talked for about a minute and he told us to come back to his house so we could talk a little more. We were excited about that opportunity and returned and taught his two kids Daniella (19) and Christian (10) because he was a bit preoccupied. We invited them to be baptized and Christian came through and said yes to baptism. He then came to church the next day and loved it! All we are waiting on now is for his mom to agree with Gilberto and let him be baptized. So, that was a pretty cool little miracle from last week. Funny story from last week: On p-day we went to a sort-of mall place and wandered around for a bit. After a good time of wandering, we had hunger, so we went to the food court in search of scrumptious cooked things to satisfy our stomachs. You know what we ate? Chinese food. Yup, even here in Mexico City. No matter where you are in the world, they will hunt you down and try to sell you some of their Chinese goodness. What was even stranger was hearing them speak Spanish. Weird.

Anyway, as far as this week goes, we did a lot of knocking. Lots and lots of knocking. But! Good news! While knocking, we found this one man named Felipe. He invited us in and we taught him about the Restoration of the true church of Jesus Christ. He was very receptive and we had good hopes for him. When we passed by the next day to teach him again, we were very suprised. We gave him 3 Nephi 11 to read and also the pamphlet about the Restoration. He read them both and even read further than what we gave him to read and he even started to read from the beginning of the Book of Mormon! Wow! He said that he feels peaceful when he reads the Book of Mormon and that he likes it because it is direct and simple. We told him that his feelings were the Holy Spirit confirming to him that the Book of Mormon is true. We then taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to be baptized. He had a few questions and we solved those pretty quick and again invited him to be baptized. He said he wants to talk with his wife about it first so they can be a family about it in making this decision. So we are excited and praying for him and his family and preparing to talk with the rest of them soon and inviting them all to be baptized.

Okay, time for some sad news. None of our investigators came to church so that means no baptisms happened that happy 3rd of December. But, we haven´t doubted yet so we are just working harder to get them all to church so we can baptize them! Now it´s time for my funny stories this week. On Wednesday, I ate something called pescueso. Now I know what you are thinking, what is pescueso? Well, pescueso is a good ol thing we know as chicken neck! Yum! It was good and there was just enough meat to satisfy the mid-day munchies. Then, on Friday we got offered marijuana! Crazy kid, offering us marijuana. At least he had a sharing attitude?

Well, time for me to go. But! Some faith inspiring thoughts I need to share first. In Alma 29:4 we read about how God will grant us that which we desire, whether it be unto eternal life or unto death. All that we desire, we will receive. However, if we are not receiving what we desire, it is because we are not working hard enough for it. Thus, if we work hard for what we desire and align our will with God´s so we are both desiring the same thing, then we will receive tremendous miracles in our lives. Now go and ponder that and let God grant you blessings according to righteous desires! 

I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Mark Your Calendars for December 3rd!

¡HOLA!

Lots of good work this week and lots of people progressing!

This week Elder Valdovinos and I finished knocking in our area, so we started on round two of knocking and had great success!  We met a lady named Patricia and taught her about the Plan of Salvation.  She loved it and we are making plans for her to be baptized.  We also met with a woman named Andrea who had talked with the missionaries ten years before, but the missionaries were transferred and none ever came back.  We taught her a little about the Restoration again and she loves talking with us.  We hope to commit her to a baptismal date this week and have her baptized on the 3rd of December!

For the most part, this week was pretty calm as we knocked and contacted a bunch of people.  We finally met back up with one of our investigators, Sanjuana, on Friday and taught her and her grand-daughters about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Spirit was storng in the lesson.  They loved listening to us and learning more about the gospel. Sanjuana came to church this week and knows that she needs to get baptized in the correct form by Jesus Christ's example, so we are setting her up to also be baptized on the 3rd of December.  We promised her that as she obeys these commandments from God, that she will be blessed in her life and will have more peace in all she does.  I know this to be true!  When we have faith and are obedient to God´s commandments, He is able to open the windows of heaven and work miracles in our lives.

On Saturday, one of the wards in our stake had a youth missionary activity.  They were paired up to go out with the missionaries and spend the whole day with us doing awesome missionary stuff!  It was a neat activity and we had a lot of fun knocking and teaching with our assigned youth.  We taught Patricia about the Restoration of the true church of Christ and she was very receptive.  We extended a baptismal invitation which she accepted, so we are working on making that commitment firm, resolving all her questions and preparing her for baptism on the 3rd of December!

On Sunday, Sanjuana came to church with us; which was really awesome!  Jonathan also came to church on his own!  He is doing great!  He's continuing to read the Book of Mormon and praying daily!  What a great guy!  I know that he will be so good and firm in following the gospel.  Later, we met Sanjuana´s daughter and taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she accepted to be baptized.  She says that her daughters can continue talking with us and also be baptized, so we hope to baptize all of them on December 3rd!

Today was the usual p-day except we played football today as a zone against another zone.  Pretty fun.  I threw for two touchdowns and got one pick (interception), so it was a good day.

We are working really hard and I know that through our efforts, we will be blessed by God with families to baptize.  Fun stuff!  Lots and lots of hope and anticipation for December 3rd and the rest of this year!

I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,
Elder San Diego

En Primer Lugar mi Bautismo - My First Baptism

Hey hey!

Wow, another week gone already! I don`t know how it`s possible, but this week has been even faster than all the others.

On Tuesday, we met with this cool couple, Benjamin and Jimena. They have two small girls and are strong Christians. Good start. So we taught them a little bit and are going to keep meeting with them. I know that as they keep being open and receptive to our message, they will be open and receptive to the Spirit which will tell them that this is the only true church of Jesus Christ and that they need to follow their response. 

On Wednesday, we had a multi-zone meeting at 8am and had some great instruction from President Tervort and one of the area seventies. They talked a little bit about Mosiah 12-16 which are some great chapters of when Abinadi is teaching King Noah and his priests. So, naturally, I encourage you all to read those chapters! They are great and full of the Spirit. Later in the night, Jonathan had his interview! Yay! He is way excited and so are we.

On Thursday, we had a great day of knocking and contacting. We met with a family and feel they are really great so we are going to focus on them. Later, we met with Jonathan and gave him a blessing to help him feel calm and peaceful since he was really stressed out with a job he had to get done. In the afternoon, we received a nice cold downpour to walk in, so that was cool. 

Friday was a great day. We started off visiting a contact named Sanjuana. We taught her and her grand-daughter about the Restoration and they felt the Spirit very strong. We invited them to be baptized and they are going to pray about it and read the Book of Mormon. I know they will receive an even stronger confirmation of the truth through the Spirit as they do this. So, as you can imagine, we are excited to meet with them again. We visited Jonathan again and an amazing thing happened! He is an industrial mechanic, so he makes different parts for businesses and hospitals. He felt stressed on Thursday because he had a project to complete, but the business called him and wanted it finished earlier or they would cut a big chunk of his pay. So he was pretty stressed out and that`s why we gave him a blessing. I know that priesthood blessings are from our loving Father in Heaven given directly to us through a worthy priesthood holder. When we met with Jonathan, he told us that he got all the work done super fast and a few hours earlier than expected! Wow! I know that as we show our faith in God and are obedient to His commandments, He blesses us with miracles in our lives.  Later, we met with the family we had contacted on Thursday. The mom is Cecilia and she has three sons: Angel Gael (8), Angel Gabriel (6), and Angel Ariel (2). (I call them "Los Angeles" hehe.) We watched the Restoration movie with them. They are really cool, and we are going to work on getting them to church and being baptized. Cool story from Friday: I ate tacos made with cow brain! Yeah! Funny thing is, they were really good. 

Saturday was great! We finally had some success! Jonathan was baptized! Woohoo! I can`t describe how happy it made me feel, and I was the one that got to baptize him! Way cool experience!

On Sunday, Jonathan was confirmed! We are so happy for him and he feels so happy. I know this true and lasting happiness comes in and through the gospel of Jesus Christ and by following His example in our lives. Later, God gave us a gift! A lady named Andrea walked up to us and said she wanted to meet with us. She had talking with missionaries about 10 years ago, but they got transferred and she didn`t know how to get in touch with them. We are really excited to meet with her and hopefully commit her to baptism! 

Today was another good p-day. We went to downtown Mexico City and I bought a few cool bags and a jacket. Cool story is that I bought two tamales, two bags, a jacket, a suit pin, and lunch for all about the equivalent of twenty-three American dollars. Cool stuff. Oh! Shout-out to Cole Patterson! Today we were walking and two women introduced themselves to us as members of the church from Germany! Cool.

Well, that`s about it for this week. Keep doing great in all you do! I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Jonathan's Baptism

Elder Valdovinos, Jonathan & Elder San Diego

"Luiz Offers You His Protection!"

Hey everyone!

Yet another week has gone by and boy was it fast!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday was Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). It was fun learning a little more about it and seeing the people here participating in that traditional holiday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were pretty similar. We had some investigators who told us they didn´t want to keep following with the lessons or be baptized so we had to drop them. So, in light of that, we knocked and knocked and knocked some more trying to find some new people who are interested and want to listen to this message. Funny story from Thursday: while I was knocking doors, I found a drunk guy sleeping on his patio. I called Elder Valdovinos over to take a look and join me in trying to wake him up. Like anyone else would do, Elder Valdovinos and I got little pebbles and pieces of vegetation to throw at him. We yelled and knocked on his gate and tried everything in the book, but he was out cold! He didn´t even move as we did all of this. Crazy. Elder Valdovinos and I had a good laugh at that.

Friday we knocked some more and met with some of our investigators. We met with a lady named Rosalia who is really cool. She likes talking with us and listening and wants to come to church with us. She is interested, so we are going to work hard to teach her all she needs to know and have her feel the Spirit to know this church is true so she can make the decision to be baptized. Her son is also interested, but we have yet to meet him.  From what she says, he sounds cool and willing to listen and is excited about it too. We also met the uncle of one of our investigators, Jonathan. His name is Luiz and he thanked us for all we have done for Jonathan and said he would like to talk with us one day. He also said that if anyone messes with us to just tell him and he will go beat them up. Yeah, we roll with security down here.

On Saturday we met with a young couple that another missionary gave to us as a reference. They are great. Their names are Mitchel and Brenda and together they have a little baby girl who is one month old. They have met with the missionaries before so they have been taught about half the lessons and love it. Elder Valdovinos and I taught them a little more and invited them to be baptized and they accepted! Woohoo! We haven´t set a specific date for them to be baptized yet since we have to get them married first, but it will be really soon.

Sunday was long but so good. Jonathan came to church this week and liked it and has his baptismal interview this Wednesday and his baptism on Saturday. Needless to say, we are all pretty excited. Just a little fact about Jonathan: before, he used to drink 50 liters of cerveza every week. Yes, 50. Last week he was down to only 2 liters and having no problem. We suggested for him to quit and abandon it forever and he agreed! I know that all things are possible as we turn to the Lord and ask for his help in our lives and rely on him. Such a truly amazing experience. Later, we met with some investigators, Gregorio and his two daughters Liliana and Ariadna. We invited Gregorio and Liliana to be baptized, but Gregorio said no, he wants to take more time to decide. However, Liliana said she wants to be baptized. She first needs the permission of her dad so we are praying that he will let her be baptized. When we were walking home, a drunk joven (youth) told us "Saca para una cahuama (a cahuama is a big bottle of cerveza)." (Give me your money so I can buy a cerveza) We just told him we had nothing and kept walking. Pretty funny.

Today we played soccer as a zone again and my team did pretty good. We all wore our Mexico jerseys and had a great time. I am getting pretty good at the good ol ball handling skills and scoring goals. Today I scored two goals! Yeah. I even tried a Chilena (bicycle kick) today and it almost went in but the goalie just had to be there to stop it and take away my glory.

Lots of good stuff happening here in Mexico! I know without a shadow of a doubt that this Church and gospel are true. There would be no reason to be out here if it wasn´t that way. I have people all day try to tell me that I am wrong and have been deceived, but I know deep within the truthfulness of all that I know and teach to others. I have received my witness from God and there is no way for me to deny what I know. I love this gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the fulness of the truth which God has to offer us. I know this with all my heart and soul. I bear testimony that it is true and invite anyone who is curious about it to learn more and test God to ask him if it is true and see by their own experience if it is indeed good. I know anyone who does this will receive from God their answer and his love and presence in their life.

I love you all! Keep doing great in all you do!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,
Elder San Diego