Exito!!!

So this was an interesting week. It was Saint Week with each day a different way to keep the commandments of the Lord that no one keeps the rest of the year because there is a week assigned for such a thing. You know.... Because Christ was only an example for our lives one week of each year....... Como sea (anyway)......

Our success was actually great in the first of the week. We had 5 fechas bautismales in the first 3 days. We had some great lessons and we found Irene (Ee-reh-neh). She has family in Waco Texas. She was there with them for some time and she wanted to go to church. She tried "Todos de las iglesias en America y nada tuvo lo que quise. Pero, una amiga de mi hija nos invito a su iglesia. Nos fuimos y eso iglesia fue perfecto!! Pero, quando regresi a Mexico, yo no pude encontrar la iglesia." (My Spanish is still far from perfect so don´t be surprised if there are errors) Some other Elders found her in the street one day and referenced her for us. When she saw us she all but screamed with joy!! IT WAS GREAT!!! Ella me caye buen. She loves to talk and has something to say on every principle. It makes our lessons long but I love them. Elder Montero on the other hand gets somewhat frustrated with her until she starts bashing on other churches. She is fantastic. She is 62 and looks 45. All Puebla women look younger than they are and all the chikas look older than they are. But anyway, that´s Irene. There is more to know about her but I am short on time. Her fecha is the 8th of May. She loves church, the book of Mormon and she has reasons why the church is true but not a firm testimony yet. She has to pray for that. I think she will.

Our other fechas need to be changed. We are still looking into having Liliana´s on saturday but Erika and her daughters didn´t show up for church so they need a new day. Erika´s dad is VERY catholic and is her boss so he is changing her schedule every time we have a cita. But that´s ok. We just stop by randomly when she doesn´t work and teach anyway. Mwahahaha!!!!

Brenda didn´t show up for church either. Her parents are also very catholic and  Elder Montero says that as long as she lives with them, she won´t be baptized. I´m not sure what will happen there. I will just pray and work.

We have a total of 8 people that we are confident can be baptized in the month of May. It´s all up to them. I don´t have time to go through them all but I will eventually as their progress peaks to something noteworthy.

The subject to this blog is Exito. Exito means Success. Sunday, we were expecting quite a few investigators. We had 4.  I am very satisfied with that number. In our last ward, we sat next to a family that we had helped reactivate.  In front of us sat another family that we had a hand in. We had 3 investigators in that hour of sacrament. The talks were about missionary work, the atonement and a stake message about diesmo.  It was very good. Afterward we talked to the non-member "esposo" of the menos activo that sat in front of us and he went off on his beliefs.  I tell ya, Satan has some crazy ideas in the minds of man.  I won´t go into them because it just isn´t worth your time, but they are far and wide with twist deep doctrine and none of the teachings of Christ as their base.  

We planched him. That is to say, we ironed him like our white shirts. But we were gentle and he accepted us to come by and talk more.  MAS EXITO!!!!  We really don´t think that he will get baptized because he is just strange with his beliefs, but our goal is for him to accept the gospel enough to allow his daughter of 8 years to be baptized.  She wants it.  He just isn´t sure.  So we will work with diligence,  pray in faith and preach with the power of the Almighty guiding our words.  Good heavens I love this work. La Obra de Jesucristo.

Being the 5th person to hold this title in my family,

I am Elder Heath (the 5th). Les Amo!!!

Knocking

Knocking                                                                                                                          

This was another GREAT week!! We finished with 3 fechas de bautismo. 1 on the 30th and 2 on the 1st of May. We will problably have another 2 because of the daughters of one of our investigators. They should be there for our next lesson tomorrow. 

Erika is one of our investigadores and she is the one with the two girls. We found her KNOCKING!!!! Elder Garcia(my trainer) said that knocking was pointless because noone wants anything when you knock. HA!!!! But anyway, back to the whole "missionary" thing I´m doin here. We taught her the first discussion and she was just right there with us. As we were talking about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, her daughters come home and sit themselves down very quietly. I was impressed. We finish the lesson and invite her to "Seguir el ejemplo de Jesucristo y ser bautizado". She accepted. We then turned to her daughters and offered the same invitation. They also want to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptised. That was awesome! We are going to put a date for the girls this next time. Carla is 15 and Hime? is 10 I believe. She was really quite. I am very excited about this family. No father though. they live with Erika´s dad.

So here´s an interesting story. Liliana has been attending church EVERY Sunday for the past 3 years and is not baptized. Her two sons are. One holds the Priesthood. She and her husband are getting married this week or next week and she will be baptized on the 30th. We really have our work cut out for us on that one so that´s great. She already knows everything, we just have to go over the lessons to make sure there aren´t any misunderstandings. Her esposo doesn´t want to be baptized. We are going to work on changing that. We have an appointment with them right after this. WOOT!!!

I already told you about Brenda. She is the other baptism on the 1st. She had a question the other day about why she needs to be baptized again. We straightened that out. She is back on track. WOOHOO!!!

We are putting a date for Juel in our next visit with him but I´m not sure when that will be. He didn´t show up to church on account that his little boy is sick. CUTE BABY!!!! But we will make a tri to his house tomorrow and get things nailed down. With Juel, not the baby.

We have successfully done all we can to help reactivate a family in the church. They are awesome and helping with a few of our investigadores. We have more but they are kind of iffy and I don´t have a lot to say about their progress. But such is the life of a missionary.

Ok. Cool story. Saturday after comida, we begin our fast for someone to come to church. They promised to fast as well. It´s a menos activo. Sunday roles around and the time for church too. She doesn´t show. But 3 people that we had stopped teaching showed up and the boyfriend of one of them decided to join the ride. 4 new investigadores in the capilla. We(and I mean Elder Montero) taught a lesson about Honor. That was way awesome. Especially when he used a story about a conversation we had. And here is how the cookie crumbled:

We were walking home one night after a long day of work(because EVERY day is a long day of work). He had a habit of put his hand right next to the door bells of doors as he passed by as if he were going to ring it and keep walking, but I had warned him earlier in our companionship that I don´t think he should. Well, this night he did. And he was just laughing and laughing and my reaction of startled amazement that he had just done that. I told him again that doing that is immature and not Christlike. He responded be mentioning the picture of Christ knocking at the door and said that he was simply knocking. I responded to that ridiculous plight by pointing out that Christ knocks, and then waits for us to open the door. He is NOT running away.

That really hit me. What do I do every day? I knock doors and wait for people to open and listen to our message of love, forgiveness and eternity with your family, God and Savior. What does Christ do at every turn in our lives? He knocks and waits for us to open to hear what He has to say for our eternal salvation so that we can return to live with Him through His eternal atonement. I knew that I was called to be a representative of Christ but so literally? Yes. SO literally. So here is my question to all of you. What is your reaction to His knocking?  Are you one to ignore it in hopes that He will leave eventually? Are one to open the door and say, "Oh gosh, I was actually just leaving so if you come back later maybe....... (not)." Or maybe you say, "I have my knowledge, my faith and my scripture. I don´t need anything else." Actually I bet we all do each of these at different points of our lives. But if we just open the door and hear what there is to be said with an open heart and an open mind searching always to become closer to Him and our Heavenly Father, we will have more time for everything we want to do, we will have more knowledge, faith and scripture and we won´t want him to go away no matter what hour of the day or night. He isn´t running away after He knocks. He is standing there without a door handle to open the door himself. How often will you open it? I hope every morning and night in prayer and every moment of your life as you glorify your Father in heaven through the very lives that you live.

I love you all so much. I hope that what I write here is of help to you. If you need anything more specific or just want to get some mail every now and then, write me!!! My address is on the blog. And yes, I do have time to reply.

Elder Heath

WOOHOO!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!! We have a golden investigator!!! Her name is Brenda!! She is 19 and really interested in the church! We had a lesson with her in the home of some less actives and it went GREAT!!! We started on the Plan of Salvation which was odd at first but it just seemed to fit. Then she said that her Grandma had just passed away and we were like ".........wow......." That was cool. Then we had a lesson her house with her parents. Her dad is set against us but her mom likes our message. The only problem is that she depends on her husband for everything and straight up told us that she feels uncomfortable around him so that was just really weird. But Brenda is GREAT!!! She runs her own business selling flowers and she works on Sundays, but she came to church yesterday no problem and I am positive that she is willing to make the sacrifice every week because she can feel the greatness of this message. I´M SO HAPPY!!! Her fecha for baptism isn´t until the 24th and it´s going to be hard since she really does work all the time but I think she will do what it takes to follow Christ.

 

Another great person we are teaching is named Juel. His wife is a member but she has been inactive because of her baby. She is now coming every Sunday. Juel was not baptised with her because he had some legal problems in a city that's way lejos. So the missionaries before said he couldn´t be baptised. We talked to him and he still wants to be baptised so that he can live with his wife and son (who is adorable and reminds me of my nephew Logan) for eternity. We found out that the problem he has isn´t legal at all. It´s just a problem with a guy that tried to kill him on the order of his mom and so Juel retaliated in self defense and almost killed the guy. But not quite. He was just in the hospital for 3 months. Juel walked away. He is SO cool. He repented for what he did because he just felt horrible for doing that to the guy. He left his life in order to leave behind him what had happened. I would definitely say that that is repentance. He loves reading el Libro de Mormon and learning more about the gospel. He has his questions but he sees the worth of what we say in response. I am very excited to teach him this week. We don´t have a fecha for him because my comp still needs to tell the Presidente what all happened but we both are very confident that since the problem is personal and not legal, all will be good.

 

We have these 2 ladies that we are teaching as well. The mom is really deeply rooted in her catholic childhood so her thoughts keep turning to "God and Jesus are the same", but the last lesson went great and I think she finally understands that they are seperate in body but the same in purpose. She is really interested in our church and learning more AND she has accepted the invitation to be baptised. We are going to invite her to have a specific fecha this week. Her daughter too. But she doesn´t have the problem of constantly turning to a catholic past. She actually heplps us explain things to her mom. She is on the ball!! She just needs to read and pray to know if it´s true. That is the only problem that we are facing with her. She hears us, she learns and she feels the Spirit, but she needs to ask for herself and be taught the truth of these things through sincere searching and prayer. I know that she can, she just needs to see that there is more to learn than what we as mere mortals cannot teach her.

 

I don´t know if I will be here to see the progress of these investigators. Changes are this next monday and I could be gone. It is possible that I stay in this area nd that would be great! I´d love to see Juel baptised after a year of thinking that he is too far gone. But the truth is that the Atonement of Christ is so powerful that you really have to try in order to actually be "too far gone". It is amazing the power of something that happened roughly 2000 years ago. 3 days and we have the option of eternity. All we have to do is take the first step and act on hope of things that seem too great to be true. But I testify that it is not. It is so wonderful that it has to be true because Heavenly Father loves us that much. Christ loves us so much that he transcended death and time for us. I don´t know about you, but I love my Heavenly Father and my savior Jesus Christ so much, that I am letting everyone I can in on these wonderful things that we have from Them. Be a missionary where you can, and I promise that you will better understand what you have been given and blessed with each time you bear testimony. Such is the power of the Holy Ghost.

 

I love you all so much!! I keep you in my prayers!!! Live without regret and without fear.

 

All White

 

Well this was an interesting week. We were full of appointments. Absolutely full. And most of them fell through because, "Oh.... Lo que paso es que estamos ocupados......" Yeah. I think you can figure that one out without google translator. We had a lot of rejection and a lot of problems. And my goodness it is IMPOSSIBLE to write in english!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! But it is better for talking I must say. At times in the lessons, I would slip an english word in there and get a confused look from the investigator. I was quick to pick up what that look meant. Of course, when I want to speak english, spanish comes out. I´m just in that between stage I guess. That was actually a part of my frustration this week. I couldn´t speak just one language. But in spite of the troubles, we did in fact have success. But it came after a little fighting.

 

So we had a baptism scheduled for sunday, (sorry I didn´t mention that in my last letter....) the last lesson for Alana Rivera Flores (that´s two last names and EVERYONE has two. Grr) was on thursday. Her baptismal interview was on friday and on sunday morning, my companion gets a call from Presidente Rex (Mission President) saying that there may be some problems that could keep Alana from being baptised. Elder Montero expained that some how the bishop of the ward was trying to keep that baptism from happening in his ward. I don´t know what the real reasons are but Elder Montero says that he doesn´t want another menos activo. Alana´s family in entirely comprised of of members that have not been to church in years. They run a business and work together and make it difficult for themselves to go. They see it differently but that just isn´t the point. The point is that we are not here to judge people for what they may or may not do. We can only look at the power of the Atonement and see each person as a child of God that needs the first ordinace of heaven. Bautismo. In the end, la obra de Jesucristo ganó y Alana se bautisó. FALICITACIONES ALANA!!!!! She looks so good in all white doesn´t she?

 

I was asked to share a short portion of my testimony before the bautismo. What came to my heart and mind was a bienvenido a la vida y camino de Jesucristo. It is beautiful to enter those sacred waters. It amazed me afterward just how short it was. But though it took seconds here, that covenant will last for eternity. It is a step in the path that has been set for us in the great plan that our loving Heavenly Father has for us. Sé que Jesucristo vive. Sé que su vida aquí en el mundo fue un ejemplo perfecto por todas de los hijos de nuestro Padre Celestial. Testifico del poder del Espíritu Santo en me vida y en el mundo. Los ordananzas de la Iglesia de Jesucristo son por eternidad y no ay un poder que puede rompiar esos sino nos mismos por medio de nuestro albedrio. Sean obediente en todos mementos in sus vidas y los bendiciones de cielo cayerán a fin de gue no pueden tomar todas. Yo quiero mucho ustedes. Gracias por sus oraciones. Los siento en mi vida cada dia. Adios.

 

Soy un representante de Jesucristo. Soy Elder Heath.

CHANGE!!!

  We worked this week - like.... a lot.  We have 10 nuevo investigatores,  30 referenias,  3 fechas de bautismo, 10 invitaciones por bautismo y 10 dijieron "Si". WOOHOO!!!   And not a one came to church.  Woopy.... But hey, I am doing all that I can here and I am seeing success.

Sadly this letter will be very short but it´s for a good reason. We have our entire night booked with appointments. That has been every night this week. Once we leave our comida appointment at 3 or 3:30, we don´t have time to do anything but walk and talk about what we are teaching for the next hour or so.  It has been GREAT!!!!   Our numbers for the week were the best they have every been for me in this area.  I know that it is in no small part because of my companion.  He is so great!  He works like a horse!  He whines like a mule but at least that makes him more horse than donkey.  Wow... that was funny.... I gotta remember that one.  Yes everyone, I am still proud of myself when I make a funny.  I don´t know if THAT will ever change.

Speaking of changes, I am only a little pink this Preperation Day. My face always goes pick because we aren´t in houses.  We are playing futbol real.  My hair is a LOT lighter.  My skin is pretty dark.  It will be darker after I serve in areas with more heat.  It´s pretty cool here but the days are getting a little bit hotter.  The climate won´t change much though.

 My Spanish has changed but the climate won´t.  My vocab is growing and my understanding is increasing poco en poco.  Everyone tells me that I speak like a native with my accent and that is GREAT to hear.  In time I will be able to blend in..... until they look up and see my face...... That won´t be changing either.

So on friday, we had divisions with the Lideres de Zona and I was with the junior companion Elder Stone.  We have 24 hour divisions because of the distance of our areas.  That was a lot of fun.  But what I want to talk about is my personal study saturday morning.  

I studied in the beginning of Jacob where he is really cracking down on the people for their disobedience and their whoredoms.  I learned that we are never instructed to do better with gladness in the heart of him who tells us.  It is always with deepest sorrow that they cannot lift us up with words of joy and congrats.  The Lord is the same.  Allow Him to lift you up with his love and his joy in your actions rather than cause Him to teach you what you already know.  

At the same time, my companion read.... I forget where, but it was about the prophet doing just the opposite of Jacob.  He beamed with joy that the people lived the laws of God and Showed their love and faith in every aspect of their lives.  General Conference is coming up.  The Prophet and the Apostles will be speaking to both the righteous and the wicked of the whole earth.  Be one that is lifted up instead of one that is broken into humility.  There is an EFY song that says, "My God loves broken things".  This is true.  He loves us to be humble and to turn to Him with all that we are so He can fix us and make us better.  But He loves more when we come to him in joy because we did not need to be broken, but because we love him so much that we do all we can to be just like Him.  We can´t be perfect, but we CAN be righteous.

Having already put my funny into this letter and not being able to get over myself because of it for the moment,

Elder Heath