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...

 

 

 

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

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!

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

Working without Working

Hola Everyone...

This week was really great...we had a great turnout yesterday in Church...we had about 30 people in the Gospel Principles class which is lots haha...Usually there are 10...so that means lots of Recient Converses, Investigators, and Menus Actives came...It was a perfect end to a hot week haha...I will share 2 stories from this week...

The First story is about a Companion exchange that I had with an Elder Gonzalez...About a week ago Elder Gonzalez had to go to the Hospital because his feet were all swollen and were hurting a lot..Turns out that he had a type of infection that made his feet swell and hurt....the doctor gave him orders to rest a week and to not work...The doctor was mainly worried about him walking everyday all day long...so we decided to do exchanges....My companion went with the Companion of Elder Gonzalez and I went with Elder Gonzalez....Elder Gonzalez asked if we were going to go to my house so he could keep the rule of NO WALKING...I told him that I dont do very well being in a house all day long...I told him that we were going to fulfill our purpose as missionaries but we werent going to walk too much...so we walked the two blocks to the bus stop and we got up on a bus...I told him that he could sit down in one seat...and that I would announce who we were and why we are here and we can both contact the whole bus....We took turns contacting the people as they got on the bus...We did that for the whole day...As we finished the Exchanges I told Elder Gonzalez that we cannot lose one moment in Gods Work...and even though we cannot walk we can still share the gospel...he and his companion put that into practice for the rest of his No Work Week haha...They contacted tons of people it was amazing....

The other experience that we had this week was that Eduardo (the youngman I mentioned 2 weeks ago) was in the hospítal doing some tests about some medication...He wasnt able to go to church last week because of these tests...and it seemed that he was going to be in there for another Sunday as well...we visited him Saturday....and he said that he would be leaving on the upcoming Wednesday..we were a little bummed because his Baptismal Date is planned for this Saturday and if he wouldnt have been able to go to church yesterday that baptism wouldnt have worked out...And here comes the miracle...After lots of prayers everything went well in the hospital and ...He was able to leave Sunday morning at 10 o clock..go home and get ready and he to church with us...It was so crazy... We hope everything goes well this week so that he can be baptized on Saturday....

Thanks for all of your prayers on my Behalf...

Love You Guys

Elder Child

Part of Contacting a Bus is that we hand the person who accept a visit our Agenda and they write their Address down so that we can go visit them...All of the extra pages of my agenda are full of addresses...haha

 

 

The Start of Summer in Febuary...

Hello Everyone...This week was crazy...We made a lot of visits, knocked a lot of doors and even found some more people to teach haha...I believe that summer has started already...because the heat is on haha we got up to 102 degrees this past week...which is a wonderful thing for a missionary to see and hear...haha People are saying that it is going to be a bad year for the heat...especially if we are having 102 degree weather in the month of February...

This week were able to do lots of service and teaching....

One man we are visiting is called Brother Carreon...he has been a member for 2 years and is blind...we were able to go Monday with a young man and visit him and surprise him with a birthday cake...haha This man is so interesting...it doesnt matter what is happening in his life he is super positive...He is probably the most positive person I have met...He thanks our Heavenly Father for absolutley everything....And i mean everything...He has taught me that it doesnt matter if you can see, if you can walk...Because everything is done for a reason and if Life seems a little hard...Always remember someone has it worse...And even if our life is hard we have the greatest blessing in the world which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ...

We keep on contacting on the Buses..and it is kind of funny because when we get on the bus...the driver already knows what we are going to do and so he adjusts the volume of the music so everyone can here what we are going to say...haha That makes me laugh.... So now we dont have to scream too loud for everyone to hear...

Here are a few experience for this week....

Love you All

Elder Child

PS. Happy Birthday Mom!!! Sure Love you!

 

                                    Us with the Brother Carreon with his Cheesecake!

 

 

                                               We were Contacting...and we found this...

 

 

                                                Our Ward made us Valentines Day cookies...