Sunday, November 29, 2015

Ty's Birthday

Thank you to all those who sent pictures wishing Tyler a Happy Birthday! They were put into a mini album and sent in a birthday box. 





















Today is a gift, that's why it's called the present

Yeah I just quoted Kung fu panda

First off, WARRRRRIORRRRRRRS!!!!!! I've been missing the games
obviously but I've been hearing a lot about what's been going on so
just thought I'd get that off my chest. 2nd, I'm district leader now!
So that'll be interesting but people have said that it helps you grow
a lot. Which may or may not still be something I need. So to sum up
this week I'm just going to say that it involved helping a lot of
people through life. I won't get too deep into the details from this
past week but I will say I love helping people in any way I can. But I
barely do anything. It's the spirit and the gospel that really truly
helps us. This past week I had a super cool experience where someone
was telling me how they just feel so helpless and hopeless and that
nothing ever works right for them. I honestly had no idea what to say.
So I just turned my thoughts to the spirit. In my mind I asked real
quick, Father in Heaven what can I share with this person to help
them. Then I had one of the coolest experiences I've had in a while.
My thoughts were turned to the Book of Mormon and then I thought of
Moroni 7:48 which goes as follows:

48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the
energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath
bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ;
that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this
hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

Now, for those who know me pretty well, you know I'm no scriptorian.
So I had no idea what the scripture said before I had the person read
it but I had such a strong feeling that the thought came from the
spirit and I followed it. After they read it, they started crying a
little and said that's exactly what I have to do. It was such an
awesome experience and it just proves that when we are in tune with
the spirit, we can work wonders!

Saturday night we had a baptism for this one lady who the other elders
are working with and that was another great demonstration of how much
this gospel helps people. She said how thankful she was for this
gospel and when she got out of the water she ran right to her sister
who is already a member and said how she literally felt like 1000
pounds was lifted off her shoulders. Then yesterday when she was
confirmed she was saying she could literally feel a difference and it
was really cool to see once again what this gospel can do for people.
The church is true people. Sin ninguna duda!

Now on a not so serious note, with some of the birthday money I
received last week, I went and bought a Mexican flag to put on my
proselyting bag and man was that a good idea! People were talking to
me left and right! I got the most street contacts I ever have in one
day on Saturday. I talked to 29 people on my own! I wanted to get 30
but I realized that my companion needed to talk a little so I pushed
him to go and get a contact. And I realized I haven't talked about my
trainee very much so here it goes! His name is Elder Wagley, he's from
Texas, he knows absolutely everything about the car industry and he's
gonna become an awesome missionary! So yeah that about does it from
this week! Here's the pictures! Sister Majano came to visit this week
too!!

1) Just like the old days (ignore my hat hair)
2) Soy de Puebla Puebla México
3) The girl the other elders baptized!




Ty's new hair cut!

Sister Majano sent me some pictures too! She went up to Brooklyn for the Baptism and brought a cake for Ty's birthday!









Monday, November 16, 2015

I ain't afraid of no POlice

Well first I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped my mom
with sending her pictures or notes and for everyone else who wished me
a happy birthday! It was definitely one to remember!! Now for the
recap of this week! The week was pretty slow but we still had some
good moments. We got back in with the less active family, the Luna's
and we also told them about the ward activity we were having Saturday 
night (in other words a birthday party disguised as a noche de
hispanidad😱) and they came! It was the first chug related thing
they've been to in a really long time too. And of course Joaquin
came!! That was my favorite part of the night. And he was having a lot
of fun with the members too. We also saw Ryan who's baptism date was
moved to the 28th and now we have to move it back again for more
complications. But it's okay because he will still be baptized soon.
And that's the most important thing! This Saturday the other elders
have a baptism though and apparently she wants me to sing a song
during the service...which is odd since I can't sing 😂😂

We also had a pretty fun experience on the bus a couple days ago. I
guess this lady was mad that she had to pay to get on because she had
a transfer ticket and she was just hammering on the bus driver. She
was saying stuff like you are a thief, you deserve nothing from any of
us but my favorite went something like this: I'm not scared of you or
the POlice! (She put a lot of emphasis on the po) the POlice is scared
of me! When they pull up and ask for ID and they see my face they go
oh snap and they already know who I am! The whole bus was laughing and
it was absolutely amazing 😂

Oh I also had an early birthday celebration with a pretty good food
challenge! There's this pizza place called Jr. Bella's and on
Thursdays a large cheese pizza pie is only $8.00 and last week the
zone leaders made a new challenge to see who could eat a whole one by
them self. Well I took them up on their challenge because I thought I
could hang...but I failed. Pictures will be included.

So that pretty much does it for this week! Hope you all are well and I
hope you enjoy this week's pictures!

1) It literally was a half a table of pizza
2) What was left
3) Selfie from the ward (birthday) party
4) District picture with Bishop and Joaquin!! After he saw this he
called himself a midget 😂
5) Now one with Hermano Wigglesworth and Joaquin. Hermano Wigglesworth
is straight from Britain and served his mission in Spain so he speaks
Spanish with a British/spaniard accen!
6) Ward singing happy birthday
7) My message to everyone here











We took Tyler's Big Head out to celebrate his birthday. We took him out to Chevys for dinner and they even sang to him! And brought him a hat AND ice cream! Tyler thought we all belonged in a Mental Hospital! We all had fun!!! (except Chris who was embarrassed and also thought we belonged in a Mental Hospital!) Here are a couple pictures and the video of them singing Happy Birthday!









Wednesday, November 11, 2015

My boy Joaquin

Well sorry for not writing anything last week! Allow me to explain
why...we had a super awesome week filled with lessons like crazy. 14
to be exact! That's the most I've had in one week!! It was awesome and
they were all filled with the spirit and we're making progress with a
lot of people now! Ryan now has a baptismal date for the 28th of this
month, Valentin is still working towards baptism. But yeah that's my
very quick update of what happened two weeks ago. Nothing too crazy
happened though. Yesterday has definitely been the best day of the
transfer though...JOAQUIN FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH!!! It only took about
10 weeks but it finally happened! I was so happy. Oh! And two weeks
ago a Peruvian lady was walking past the church one day and was
confused as to why the doors were closed so Sunday came around and she
decided to just walk in and check it out. She's been here for about a
month and last week was her first time coming to the church and she
loved it! So now she's a new investigator! Her name is Rita, she's
visiting New York until the first week of December and then she will
go back to Peru. So what we were thinking is prepare her enough to
send her info off to Peru and then hopefully she'll get baptized
there! Or we could baptize her here which would be just as awesome!
Okay now back to Joaquin.

The two of us have gotten super close and honestly, I don't ever want
to leave Midwood because of this guy. And to make everything better
he's Mexican, loves metal, watching sports (mainly soccer of course)
and he's a bro. Wednesday night we had a lesson with him and at the
end of the lesson he told me thank you for your support. You're doing
so much for me. And I was just like man I love you!!! Something else I
said about him is that he's the kind of guy that you get so annoyed
with since he won't come to church and then as soon as you talk with
him about the gospel and hear his prayers, you can't help but want to
give him a bro hug. He's definitely my favorite person thus far. And
now I'm going to help him stay active and have a desire to go to the
temple.

In other news, Wednesday I went on exchanges with elder Peña and
because I love doing role plays with others so much and make them
super crazy so elder Peña wanted to do the same to me since I'm always
the investigator. Well, he tried his best but I think I still
prevailed. That video is about 10 minutes but there is another one
where I was the investigator and I will add the video of that one :)

Okay now for a serious note. This past week I said something that was
both deep and intelligent. I don't have many of those moments so I
kind of want to elaborate on that. I was talking about life
experiences and stuff like that when I said, "The experiences we have
make up life, but it's what we do with those experiences that make up
OUR lives." Yeah deep, right? I feel like I've heard something like it
before but I'm still taking credit for it. Pretty much what I want to
say is that, yeah, life isn't easy. Life takes us down so many roads
we aren't ready for. That's what happens during life. But it's how we
learn from those experiences, what we do with them and whether we let
them weaken or strengthen us that makes the difference between our
lives and someone else's life. Y que es lo que tenemos? We have the
atonement of Christ! And we can use it each and every day so that he
can help us through every difficult time that we have.

So that was the serious moment of this letter! Hope everyone is doing
well! Now enjoy some pictures and the video of the role play!
1) the role play
2) Barclay's center
3) Oracle is still better
4) my nice early birthday surprise