Chapter 64 - Light the World

12/5/2016

Manta Zone

I hope everyone is doing well! So I don't know if you have heard about the new Christmas video the church put out but it's called Light the World. It's really good and I encourage all of you to go watch it if you haven't yet or share it with friends and family if you've already seen it! There's also a paper that has 25 ways, 25 days. Every day in December there are things we can do to bring the spirit of Christmas, and more than anthing, the spirit of Christ, into our lives this month. It's really good, download it and print it off! We are doing it as missionaries and it's awesome!

So this week was really good. We extended 4 baptismal dates this week which was amazing and the people accepted and there are even more people that are prepared, this place seriously blows me away. I love it here, the people are amazing and have so much love...tierra prometida, en serio (promised land, seriously). We have worked a lot with the members this week as well and gone on splits and we are seeing the fruits. People also went to church that don't have baptismal dates and very soon we will be extending dates for them because they are so good. So good. Just so you're informed, the people who have baptismal dates (for the 24th of December by the way...can you say best Christmas gift ever? Eternal Salvation, yeah) anyway, their names are Yandry, Leli, Marjorie, and Daniel. and some other really great people you can pray for that went to church are Rocio, Ramon, and Michelle. Pray for them, they are such good people and they just need the gospel!

Sometimes we think life is hard but really we are the ones who make our own problems sometimes. Sometimes we just complicate life and create our own problems but really just need to take a step back, breath, look at things with reasoning, be humble, and it will all turn out okay. There is a phrase that Presidente Dennis would say that is Si no hay pruebas, no hay progreso (If there are no trials, there is no progress) and I truly believe that. We don't go anywhere if we haven't had to work for it.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week. Remember that God loves each one of you and He wants to hear your prayers. Remember that He answers through the scriptures, read them. Remember Him. Love you all.

Missionary Pictionary?

Lunch at Zone Conference

Chapter 63 - The Power of the Fast

11/28/2016
Hey Everyone!

So hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. They obviously don't celebrate that here, but it did cross my mind. I am so thankful for so many things and I don't have time to write them all! Well I just wanted to share an experience that we had this week. This week was so good. We are in a trio and so we did a lot of splits this week...yeah, divide and conquer. Anyway, this week we had a small problem..the family that got baptized last week, the Yagual Figeroa Family, well the mom needed to sign the paper that you need to sign when you get baptized, for herself and her kids and you're supposed to sign it right after the baptismal interview but there was confusion I guess and she didn't sign it. Anyway, so she got baptized (it wasn't till afterwards that we noticed that it wasn't signed) and we had to go get it signed and she was like so cold and was like I don't know why you need my signature and she did not want to sign the paper....ok huge problem... and the thing is is that her husband isn't a member and he was the one that was like, why do they need all this information and signatures (they have had bad experiences in the past with signing papers and stuff so that was not helping us) and anyway long story short, she did not want the paper but the elders form the office were calling us like crazy because they needed it fast and we were like, oh no, what do we do, she does not want to sign this paper. So what did we do? We fasted. and Wow. We fasted that she would open her heart and her husband's as well and also we fasted that the members would help us. Well, all I have to say is ask and ye shall receive because right after we started our fast, we went to the church and we found an hermana and she said she would go talk to her. She went and I don't know what she said, because we didn't go, but she signed the paper...it was like wow, immediate answer. We also saw a lot of other blessings and miracles afterwards and I am so thankful for this experience because it strengthend my testimony about fasting. I always knew why we fasted and why it's important and I knew God would help us and answer our prayers but it has never been so evident in my whole life. I am so grateful to be serving a mission and I'm grateful that the Lord strengthens our testimonies! Anyway I want to testify that fasting really does work. It is like an extra plea to God and if we do it with a sincere heart, He will answer us. It is a sacrifice but it is worth it. I love you all and hope you have the best week!