Almost Here

 Well.... it´s almost the end of this transfer.  I have 3.5 months here in this area.  I am almost sure to leave.  I am very spoiled in this area so I´m not entirely sure I want to leave, but at the same time, there aren´t doors that I haven´t knocked sooo.... I kinda need a change of scenery.  In the end it doesn´t matter a bit what I want to do or not because I´m in the hands of the Lord and I will be sent to whatever part I´m sent and I will go.  Such is my life and it is fantastic!  No sarcasm.

So we were supposed to have a baptism this Sunday, but her husband is whispering gossip about the church with his friends and she now has doubt about the law of tithing.  She isn’t sure if the Lord would ask her to pay something for blessings.  What are my thoughts on the matter?  When does He NOT ask something from us? We only recieve blessings after a test of our faith.  Not after we have found an easier way to live.  Besides that, He promises so many things if we only do one thing.  That´s one uneven trade that I am ALL for.  And He is too because of His unending love for us.  

What does she say when we ask her a direct question?  "Well what my husband and his friends are saying is that...."  WHAT THE DUCE!?!?!?!  WHO CARES WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY!?!?!  Is God saying that stuff?  No.  Then why does it matter?!  I am strongly pushing the whole Nephi and Laban story for her husband. As my Grandma says,  "Some people just need killin."  Now of course I don´t actually want him to come to any harm.  He takes care of his family.  He is just wrongly guided.  The teachings of Satan LOOK nice, but when you apply them, all you do is lose.  And that is what is happening. The whole family is losing blessings because one man allowed the words of Satan enter into his mind.  Then he thought on those words, and they entered his heart. 

The invitation in the introduction to the Book of Mormon is to read, meditate and pray to know if those things are true.  The problem is, people read and meditate the things of Satan too, and his teachings say NOT to pray to know if they are true.  And so people lose.  They lose big.

That´s about what sums up our week.  We are looking for new investigators but the work is hard and the hearts are harder.  Members here are great with food but terrible with teaching what they live and even worse at living what they are taught.  

Sunday morning, we got a call from the bishop of Maravillas asking us to speak in Sacrament. with 20 min before we took off to our first ward.  We prepared.  In prayer, I asked what I should speak about.  I then started thinking of certain points that had been in my head through the week and none seemed right.  So I picked up the Book of Mormon and started reading where I was in my reading, but it just wasn´t what the ward needed.  So I picked up my study journal and the Spirit gave an unquestionable, "Yes".  After a whole lot of reading and more prayers, I found where I had gone over Chapter 8 of Ether.  That was it.  I read the chapter and just couldn´t figure out what I was supposed to teach.  Then I read the last verse.  Bam.  That was it. I planned a talk but 5 min before I got up on the stand.   Something needed to change.  So I read the scripture again and thought about it.  I turned to Alma 48:13 and it hit me again.  

When I got up to talk, I hammered the entire ward for not reading the scriptures, for not living the gospel and for not sharing it with their friends.  I said some Spanish words that I didn´t know that I knew.  The power of revelation is real.  The gospel is true.  We are not perfect, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is. We can have that perfection in our lives every moment if we would just fill our hearts and minds with the teachings of the scriptures.  We can live that perfection with every action we make.  We can´t be perfect, but we have been given perfection.  Use it.  Live it.  Share it.  I love you all.  Remember the Lord in all your dealings.

This has been a rant by Elder Heath.

Not Much Time...

I DON´T HAVE MUCH TIME!!!! But here´s the update. We have no baptismal dates and no new baptisms. Hahaha. Yes I laughed at that. Satan is working awfully hard, but I know that my Father in Heaven is stronger. Erika said that her family won´t let her and her daughters be baptized. She really is sad about that. She will find strength in time to put more faith in the Lord. 

Liliana didn´t get married and only heaven knows why because after 3 years of attending church without being a member, she has stopped and she is suspiciously occupied EVERY time we try to talk to her. We only have contact with her through her esposo or her kids sooo..... yeah.

Irene has taken off to Mexico because her house lord has broken his leg. We don´t know when she will be back.

Juel didn´t attend church and decided to sleep for our last cita instead of show up. He then didn´t show for church.

We can´t visit a menos activo that we have been working with because her esposo thinks that we aren´t there to teach the word of Christ. He is a man with very very backward beliefs. The dad of the menos activo calls him El Diablo so that gives you a clue as to the kind of guy he is. We tried to teach him or at least open him up a little to hear a small part of our message but he just won´t budge. Well I´m done with that negative stuff. We have a member that lives close to her and they are already friends so we won´t lose contact easily.

Guadalupe Rodriguez came to church!!! I haven´t talked about her because she hasn´t made a lot of progress. But then her uncle stepped in and he is a member so we are very grateful for his help. She attended, liked it and wants to come back!!! WOOHOO!!!! We decided that Satan was working really hard on her because one her boys will be a fantastic missionary and bring many to the gospel of Christ. I´ll get pictures with them when I can. They are pretty cute but noise is thier favorite game. That makes lesson hard but we are moving forward. I am pretty excited for her. We have been teaching her more or less since the beginning of last transfer. But like I said, we are moving forward and she will begin to see blessings in her life.

That´s my time. I love you all so much!!! Until next week!!! Elder Heath.

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.