"My Peace I Give Unto You"

Hey guys!

We had a good week despite a few setbacks.  The family that was to baptized this past weekend told us that the grandpa wants to get baptized too and asked his wife to wait for him so they could get baptized as a family.  So, she and her daughter and grandson decided to wait another week and a half until he gets off from work to be baptized with him.  We were a little sad to have them wait longer for the blessings they will receive from baptism but decided that it is still great that they have the desire to enter the gospel as a family and that they are still super excited about baptism.

We visited with the family of 6 that we found and taught them about the restoration of the gospel.  The spirit was felt strongly and we started to use the six steps, but they still have a few doubts and worries about changing from being catholics.  We cleared up a few concerns but were limited on time to resolve more of their doubts and concerns.  So, we put a sort of half baptismal date for next week that we are working towards so we are going back this week and going to set a firmer baptismal date for them and work more with them through the spirit.  We also have another family lined up to be baptized this Sunday.

Tuesday evening we were contacting to finish up the day.  Elder Wood was on one side of the street and I was on the other.  As I was contacting, I remembered what Elder Gutierrez and Elder Andrew, our zone leaders, had told us in our zone training meeting.  They said the purpose of contacting isn't to get an appointment, but to find the chosen of God in that given moment.  As I remembered that, I said a little prayer so that we could be helped to find that person who so desperately needed us. 

As Elder Wood and I reviewed that night the appointments we had set up, we talked about the potential of the people we had contacted.  Elder Wood said he found a cool lady who seemed pretty interested in what we had to share.  So, the next night, we went back to the appointments and all the others had fallen through.  She was the last one we had to meet with. As we looked for her house, we found that there was a closed gate with a little staircase leading up to the house.  We stood and waited for a minute or so when a person came out as he was leaving and said we could go through.  So, we knocked on her door, she invited us in and we talked with her and her son and daughter. (Judith, Luis, Abigail)  So we talked a little bit and she opened up to us and said she really needed peace in her life especially since her husband left her for another woman.  We explained about how through the atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ that we can receive that peace in our lives.  The spirit was super strong and we invited them to be baptized and they accepted!  It was a great experience and every time we have gone back since, we feel the spirit strongly with them.

Some cool things about that experience is that we had set a goal for that day to find a family of four who we would invite to be baptized, and we did! (she has another younger son who is 6)  So we got the four, and the little one will one day be baptized in a few more years.  Also, when Elder Wood had contacted her, she was off to the side of the sidewalk and a big group was passing by my companion and he felt to contact her instead of the big group.  And, when she felt the spirit and we asked her what she felt, she said she felt a lot of peace and that from the moment we stepped through her doorway, she could feel it.

Great week and another to come!  I love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Mexican Money

I don't know if anyone knew, but I'm a big fan of mayonnaise.
Especially if it's enough to last you a year!

Rollin' like a big shot!

Positive Mental Attitude & Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Hola hola!

Elder Wood and I had another amazing week finding and teaching people. We really focused on always having a positive mental attitude about the work and our investigators and also using what Presidnet Tervort told us about self-fulfilling prophecy. We had our best week yet and found many new investigators and whole families to teach. We have a family of 8 of four generations who we are getting ready to be baptized this weekend! We are way excited and they are too.

On Saturday we had a great experience with using the two mission tools I mentioned earlier. While planning on Friday night, Elder Wood asked me how many new investigators we were going to find the next day. I told him, "we are going to find a family of 6 who are going to want to be baptized." So we put it down as our goal. It was 6pm on Saturday and we had to go do an interview at 7 so we had an hour with no appointments. We weren´t too thrilled to do more and were really tired, but we got ourselves excited to go out and knock by saying it was our most favorite thing ever! Yeah! So we started knockng and on the second door we knocked, we found a family of 6 who let us in and we talked to them for a bit and taught them. Turns out, they were preparing to be baptized by two other elders more than a year and a half ago, but then changes came and the new elders never went back. So we talked about baptism some more and are getting them back on track to make that important promise with God. SO great! So we are receiving lots of blessings and spiritual experiences and we are very grateful for them.

Well, that`s a quick little update for the week. This morning for our preparation day we woke up early and went and hiked the mountain that is in our area with the other two elders from our ward, Elder De Hart and Elder Hurst. It was well worth it and we got some beautiful shots of the Mexico City valley. Later, we went to a member`s house in another area and made oreo truffles and pumpkin pie and she fed us alambre! (basically fajitas) Yum! 

So, we had a great week and will have yet another great one! Love you all!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Cool rose I saw when knocking

Beautiful Sunrise

View of Mexico City

Counsel From A Son

Hey dad!

Thanks for the counsel and stories this week.  There was a very special reason that as my motto I chose "have faith and be obedient".  Upon those principles lies our testimonies, the reason behind why we do what we do, why we serve the Lord and why we follow his gospel.  In our faith lies the conviction to rely on the Lord and seek his blessings, knowing that by following through, we shall receive the promised blessings.  In our obedience lies the power that is within each and every one of us to choose the right, to fulfill our destiny and become heirs to the celestial glory of our Heavenly Father.  Without faith, there cannot be obedience.   Without obedience, there is no faith.  We receive the blessings when we are ready for them, when we show that we are indeed worthy of them.  The Lord promises more of his blessings to those he can trust, to those he knows will continue to follow through and magnify their positions.  There is such great power in having faith and being obedient!  One thing President Tervort has told us recently is about self-fulfilling prophecy, or, making our own circumstances.  He said a successful person makes their own circumstances work for them or finds the right circumstances he needs instead of being content with what he has or complaining.   Many many times I have faced this in the mission, being faced with challenges or times when it just seems easier to stop working for the day.  I have always found though that the recipe of faith, diligence, and obedience never fails to work miracles in our lives and to create the circumstances that are good for us and benefit us.  We never stop improving in this life.  We keep growing in ways we maybe thought were impossible before.  As we look towards Christ and focus our lives around the life he lived, we can find peace at every turn, comfort in every hard situation, and success in our trials.

I love you dad.  Please continue to show mom the love you have for her.  I can only imagine, from what little I know about love and how I love you guys as a family, how much you must love my mom.  Express your love to her in little ways day by day as Elder Richard G. Scott has counseled many times.  Go to the temple with her once a week, if possible.  The bond you two have will grow much stronger by focusing on the blessings we receive from the temple and family worship together and fun recreational activities and focusing on having the Christ-like attributes in our lives such as love, forgiveness, patience, repentance, faith, charity, humility, and many more.

I look to you as a great example of good, dad.  I love to reflect on the tremendous amount of faith you had to recognize the truth, embrace it, and follow it, now for more than 30 years.  Let your light so shine that people may see your good example and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Have a great week and always remember to be better every day.

¡ten fe y se obediente!

todo mi amor,
Elder San Diego

Knock With Faith!

Hey!

Not much time to write this week but here it goes!

Elder Wood and I had an amazing week and enjoyed the company of the Spirit with us all week in our labors. We continued to have great experiences through showing our diligence and faith to the Lord. When we would have all the appointments we had planned fall through, we would knock with faith, knowing the Lord would provide for us a family to talk to so we could use time effectively in our day to teach his children.

We always had a place in mind of where to knock in case appointments fell and so when they did, we would knock where we had planned to. We were tremendously blessed to find three families in this way and when we had knocked, they invited us in, we figured out their needs and preached according to those needs. When the Spirit was felt among us, we taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited them to baptism. They accepted! They are excited to know more and we are getting them all ready to be baptized and receive the blessings that are theirs in their lives.

The funny thing about all of this was when we turned to knocking, we didn´t have to wait long to receive the blessings and had these experiences in the 2nd or 3rd house we would knock showing that the Lord has blessings immediately available to those who plan and follow through with faith.We are just having a great time with the work and it is going super well!

Congratulations United States of America for winning first place in the Olympic Games!

We will have a great week and I hope you all do too!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,
Elder San Diego

Senior Photos Anyone?

Making Oreo Truffles!

The Lord Will Bless His Missionaries Who Are Diligent!

Hey everybody!

Elder Wood and I sure had a great week, starting out with celebrating his birthday on Tuesday and later celebrating our 1 year mark! I can´t believe a whole year has gone by already! Just one more year to do work!

So, we basically just had a great week of work. We found a ton of people and taught some great lessons. One experience was particularly good and it goes like this: We didn´t find one of our appointments so we decided to start knocking some more. We found one side alleyway of houses and decided to enter and knock. We started with the first few houses and worked our way to the back. As we were knocking, we got the usual rude responses from people and were a little disappointed in the people from those houses. We got near the back and were close to just calling it quits for the complex when we saw a guy, who was smoking, enter into his house. We decided that if we wanted the Lord´s blessings, we had to knock ever single door we found and talk to every single person we met inside. We went to his door, knocked, and he came to meet us at the door with a friendly smile and handshake. We asked if we could enter in to talk to him and he invited us in. His name was Christian and he was a truly great guy. We got to know him a bit and figured out some of his needs from the get-go. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he was very receptive to the message. When the Spirit came to testify of the truth we had taught, we recognized it with him and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to be baptized. He responded that he would love to be baptized! We put him on date to be baptized August 18th to get everything figured out to marry him and his wife. Just goes to show that the Lord will bless His missionaries who are diligent and that you can never judge anyone until you know them. Great experience and we will sure have more to come!

Happy Birthday to my little brother, Michael! Hope you had a great one! We also had two baptisms this past week of some old investigators of Elder Wood! Their names are Erik and Koko and were two friends that were really prepared to change and receive the gospel in their lives and who were helped out to receive the gospel by one of their friends who is a recent convert. It was great teaching them a little more and being able to baptize them! Super cool. Well, I´m running out of time, but I had a great week and hope you all do too!

¡Ten fe y se obediente!

Todo mi amor,

Elder San Diego

Elder Wood´s birthday celebration!

Erik and Koko´s baptism!