Monday, March 28, 2016

The Hope of the Resurrection...

Hello Everyone!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break/ Easter Week...For us it was quite hard everyone was leaving for vacations and others were going to Family Meals and parties...It was crazy haha...

This week I was able to go back over to Pesquiera to do a baptismal interview...We are so pleased with the little branch over there it is progressing rapidly...All of the teenagers are inviting all of their friends and they just keep on coming...hahha They are having a Basketball and Soccer games at the church 3 or 4 times a week haha...It is really cool...

One experience that I had this week was as follows...Saturday night we were contacting just trying to be able to teach someone...everyone was pretty much busy...We were knocking doors for pretty much all day long...and we were about to call it a night...we were just exhausted haha...but we kept on going and tried knocking a few doors in another part of town...and the 3rd door we knocked a young couple answered the door...The women was quite uncontrolable and the man just looked really sad...We presented ourselves and we asked if we could enter their house and share the video message of Easter...she told us that they were about to leave their house to go to Family Members house because the womans grandfather had past away a day before...We explained our message a little more and they invited us to come in...We shared the Easter message and both started to cry when the video said that we could see our family members again after this life...The spirit was really strong, Afterwards we were able to bear our testimonies of the Resurrection and Life after Death...They accepted another appointment in a heartbeat...They told us that we were Angels that had fallen from Heaven...

After this experience I started thinking about how great of a knowlege we have....The knowlege that we WILL be able to see our family members and friends after this life...and If we do our part here we can live with them for eternity...We are so blessed to have this wonderful knowlege and such hope...

I love you all
Elder Child
 
Found a lady the other day just walking casually around with her pet monkey...
P.S. that is our house in the background haha :) yes I know we are spoiled
 
 
Here is Elder Gonzalez...On some Companion Exchanges...He acts just like Aaron Alder haha he is quite funny...
 
 
 

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Back to Back Companion Exchanges...

Hello Everyone...
Hope all had a great week last week...
We had a pretty crazy week contacting lots of people and trying to help our missionaries...This week we did two companion exchanges which means that I only had about 2 days to work in my own área haha...

We were able to have quite a bit of success in these exchanges contacting other people with the Video Iniciative of the Church for Easter...We love using the fact that the video is only 3 minutes long to be able to enter into the houses...Everyone has time for three minutes and to watch a video...haha It is a wonderful time of year to be able to share our message because almost automatically everyone is thinking at least a Little bit of Jesús Christ and the Resurrection...My first Exchange of the week I went to a Little town just outside of Hermosillo that is called Pesquiera (pronounced Peskeda) this town is full of people from Southern Mexico and Guatemala....This town lives off of the huge Grape fields and everyone comes up to work in these fields and then they just stay...its kind of a culture shock...there are very few people that are actually from that town haha...Everyone was looking at me like I was a crazy tall White man haha...But it was very nice to see the branch there growing rapidly and how everyone was just so kind and relaxed and open to our message...I loved it...It made me think about how my other brothers would have looked on their missions to these wonderful people...(Also I know why Ben looked so dang tall in all of the pictures he sent to us while he was on his missión) they are quite short :) This Exchange gave me a break from the busy fast paced life of Hermosillo...it was really nice to take a breath....

I was able to learn so much this week...I have gained a higher love for the Savior...watching and rewatching the Easter Video from the Church....and then seeing the change in the face and especialy in the eyes of the people when they realize how many blessings we have thanks to Jesús Christ....

I love you all and wish you a wonderful Easter!
Elder Child

P.S. Here is the link for the easter video  https://www.mormon.org/easter

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The Busy Life...

Hey Everyone...
 
Hope everything is going well in the States...This week has been really crazy...Lots of things have happened...I will try to relate a few of experiences...

The First happened when I was in some companion exchanges with one of our Missionary Secretaries in the Mission Offices....In this mission the Missionary Secretaries work half of the day in the offices then leave and the work the other half in their own area...They have so much work...So I went with Elder Zerkle who is the Financial Secretary...It was actually very interesting...I helped him Balance accounts and organize receipts of the mission (the job for newbies like me) Never in my life would i have thought that one missionary has so many responsibilities to keep the mission on track it is literally insane...Elder Zerkle was very patient with me guiding me along like an actual job...What really impressed me was that right when we left the offices he completely changed he left all of the office stuff in the offices and he started talking about his investigators and everything about his area...It was really cool to see a missionary that has a bunch of work on his plate but is very efficient and effective and does everything that he has to do...We had an excellent companion exchange...

An Update on Daniel...This week he has improved a ton..he has accompanied us many times this week and all of the members are getting to know him and are helping him out...Our Recent Convert Eduardo has taught Daniel and Us how to control ourselves through anxiety...and how to calm the strong pulse of strong addictions...I have learned more about pshychology in this week then i have in my whole life... We went Saturday to go visit Daniel and his parents were there and they told us that he had left...and they didnt know where he was at...that usually means he isnt doing very good things or he gets tempted to do those things...We were really scared...In that moment we offered a prayer with the family to ask specifically that he would come back safe and sound...literally 2 minutes later he walked in the door with a soda to share (apparently he went to buy a soda to share)...It was absolutely a miracle...

Another experience that has been kind of funny these past couple of weeks is that I am giving everyone hair cuts..haha I gave one to Daniel, My Companion and 3 or 4 other missionaries in these past weeks haha it is super funny and nice because I am getting more practice and I am getting pretty dang good..It is actually a surprise...It might just be in my blood...I see now why my Mom loves cutting hair...It is very relaxing...haha I am getting better on covering the mistakes I make too Heehee...

Thats all for this week
Thanks so much for your love and support...
Elder Child
 
                                                         All of us Visiting with Daniel!
 
 
                                                                     Cutting Hair!
 
 

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

18 Months in the Mission...

Hey Everyone...

We have had a crazy week this past week... I officially turned 18 months in the mission on Thursday haha...Its crazy to look back and see all of the things I have been able to do and be apart of...

This past week we got a new investigator....he is the son of an Older Married couple who are members...He is named Daniel...and he is fighting a very strong addiction to drugs...It is probably the strongest addiction that I have every seen in my life...he has had 13 years with the addiction and this week we did lots of plan making and goal setting and nothing seemed to work. This week we are trying to keep him busy with us...We have decided that instead of being on the street he can be with us everyday almost all day long feeling of the spirit and finding new friends...So we hope that will help this week...

Eduardo also recieved the Priesthood yesterday...he was so excited and so happy...

Sorry for such a short letter...hope to have more time next week to write...
Love Elder Child
 
 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Eduardo's Baptism

Hey Everyone....
Hope everyone had a good week...We had a busy one getting ready for Eduardo's Baptism...It was a great experience for everyone that was there....Eduardo was super happy to be baptized and to recieve the Gift of the Holy Ghost... He has felt a lot more peace in his home and his being since his baptism....He says that his Spirit is at rest :)...We are excited for him to progress in the Gospel of Jesus Christ...

Another Experience that was pretty cool but not that spiritual is when we were walking on a street and out of no where a Hummingbird almost hit me in the head haha...on this street there was a house with 3 hummingbird feeders and about 5 hummingbirds fighting for the nectar haha...There was one hummingbird that was so impatient with the others haha she was chasing the rest of them around fighting them for the nectar...(I am supposing it was a girl hummingbird because she wanted all the food she could get) hahaha So we took a few pictures...It was kind of cool to see so many hummingbirds at the same time...the People here say that they are only here during the springtime because the summer gets way to hot for them to stay....

Ok sorry for the short letter...Love you guys..
Elder Child
 
The Attack of the Hummingbird (the hummingbird in the back was the one that was a little angry at the rest for eating her food) :)
 
 
                                                              Eduardo's Baptism