May 4, 2015 may the cuarto be with you

May 4, 2015

may the cuarto be with you

sup peeps,

so this week was interesting, first because of the whole opening an area thing, and second, because this area is basically the opposite of my first area. matehuala was a small town with a few people, aguas is huge, our area is impossible to walk across (though we ended up doing it a couple times because we got lost.) but basically we have to take public transportation everywhere. there are taxis and buses but what we use most are the combes (i think its pronounces for you guys like comb-bees) which are basically just big (tnt berry style) vans that you get rides in.

our area is way different too, we have the super-rich privadas that make you guys all look poor, we have the average old suburbs (though a bit mexicanized) and we have an area that is pretty poor. (still safe, our whole mission is),  the people are a lot less open. right now we are living with the secretaries right now, elder g and elder h, so our house is super duper fresa (strawberry or fancy, pick your favorite) and you might even think that we were loaded, except for the fact that we are all dead broke, and with all the transportation cost we managed to burn through our personal money and emergency fund, but it’s all reimbursable and we just got our  mensualidad so todo bien.

the work is good but still  bit slow. for the first five days we only had one lesson every day, but these last few days we have had like 5, so we are starting to get the hang of it. the assistants left us with 2 people preparing for baptism, so this saturday we have an 8 year old girl l, and the next week we will have the wife of a menos active, both of them are great.

well that’s it for now, but if i left anything out i can fill you in on sunday, still don’t know when we will call, but i will try so shoot for later. like 6 or 7 here (4 or 5 california time). yup, peace out.

eler gandola

ps oh yeah, be good, os amo

April 27, 2015

hola,

this week was great. first of all we saw a bunch of progress in a youth that we are teaching. he has recently received a clear answer of the truth of the church, and this week decided by himself to go on a mission. he explained his process to us. at first he was atheist, and not very happy with life. we started teaching him and he faked enthusiasm, but he thought we were crazy. but we kept persisting and he saw that we and the members were actually happy, and then he started thinking, "well why do they care so much, they don’t win anything if i read and pray, why would they be so persistent unless there was a chance of it being true. so he did the stuff,  he read and prayed and went to church, and like people will always receive with real intent, he got his answer. he will be baptized on the 9th.

we ended the week with a baptism, not ours but the guy is so great and has changed so much that we were as excited as if it were ours. my comp got to baptize him and he wanted me to confirm him but president didn’t know so he did it. again he wasn’t ours so i can’t really explain his whole story to  you but he is the bestest.

then saturday we were told that my and elder w’s companions would be training, so they traveled down to aguas and me and elder w (yes he was mean mom) were comps again. since our companions are training, we got transfers, so here i am in aguascalientes, jesus maria 2. me and my new companion are opening the area, and before it was the area of the assistants, so  we should have an interesting week finding our way around and finding all the people. good thing is that our area is the area of the mission  offices, so i will get all my packages without a month delay. you know, all those packages that you guys have sent me...

but anyways don’t have much time, but take care, love you guys.

micah

April 20, 2015 Ice Cream Man

greetings once again,

this week was another good week, but i dont really remember what we did becase missions are like that. but i will share some stories with you.

first of all we found some golden investigators again. we contacted them in like my second transfer, but they are never there, so we cant really teach them, but we were working and all of our appointments fell through, so i thought. "hey, lets go talk to them again," and they were there. so we go in and were teaching them, we were teaching about prophets and the priesthood, and i used the ice cream an example. for those of you who have not served missions since "our search for happiness" was written, the ice cream man example basically is just that if an ice cream man pulled you over and gave you a ticket, would you pay it? of course not, because he doesnt have that authority. so in the middle of my example, the woman (they are a couple) stopped us and said, "now look..." oh man, i thought they were going to progress. but she went on to say that she has been looking to get baptized but doesnt like the frivolity of many churches, so they were just thinking of baptizing each other, but when ishared the example, the husband realized, "i. would be... an ice cream man..." so good thing for the spirit prompting us to say stuff. it also made me realize even more how important it is to have that authority in the church today.

then later in the week i had my testimony of it strengthened even more as we were called to give a blessing. we give lots of blessings but this one was different, it was the friend of one of the investigators of the sister missioneries who recently lost his sight and a leg to diabetes. we got there and started talking to him, i was tired so i wasnt saying much, i think i only told him my name, but when we asked who he wanted to give the blessing he pointed at me and said, "him." so i said a quick prayer for guidance and gave the blessing. i have given blessings before but i have never felt so guided as the words were coming out of my mouth. i dont even remember what i said, but i know that it was from god and not from me. no i didnt heal him miraculously, nor even promise him to be healed, but talking to his friend he told us that he has taken comfort from it and can now sleep without medication.

anothewr thing that made me think happened when we contacted a reference. we recieved a reference of a woman who ha lost her son, and we were sent to talk to her with the warning that she is very catholic and possibly wont want anything to do with us. well, she didnt... until we let her know that the member had given us the reference, and then she immediately let us in. I was thinking about how good it is that that member is living the gospel, and that the woman could see her example and know that it was something good. made me wonder what people would say if some missionaries talked to someone and said that i had sent them. i hope that that would encourage them to listen, and if it wouldnt, then there would be some things that i need to change. as a missionary i have been living in such a way, because its my job, but know that there are still things i can improve. i would like to invite you all to think about things in your lives that you might be able to do a little bit better, so that when people hear that you are a member, they want to learn more.

well, thats all for this week, be good, love you guys.

elder gandola

April 13, 2015 Anakins (the chosen ones)

how’s it going

well I´ll just start by saying that the past three weeks have been rough. no i didn’t have salmonella, no i still haven’t gotten mugged (i know right, how lame is that?) but we have had little to no progression. more specifically we have had little to no lessons, we haven’t worked with the members, and the people weren’t doing what they needed to. the worst part is that it’s not our fault. we have been working together well, planning well, setting more appointments, etc. but everything just kinda seemed to fall through.

however, i am happy to report that this week has been different. we have still not had an excess of lessons, but have had about normal, which in contrast was great. and even better is the success that we have had finding people and teaching people by the spirit. we have been focusing a ton on focusing on commitments and helping the people cumplir with them (can’t remember what the word is in english) and it has been working miracles. this sunday we had 6 investigators at church, which for here is a ton. i shall tell you about them.

the first one is named ______, she has two kids ______ and _____ (they all went) we contacted them this week searching for a reference and they invited us in. she is catholic but thinks that a lot of things they do are wrong, but she doesn’t really see the need to change (but she is gaining a testimony). she has a lot of trials right now, her husband died 3 years ago and her older son (who was 12 at the time) is a bit rebellious. however he still listens and has even met with the zone leaders alone at their other house. the youngest is a rockstar, he is always the first one to accept commitments, and when we invited them to church, while the others were all thinking about what to say, he instantly responded, "i want to go!"

the next is _____, he is a kid of 17 years  (that comes out weird in english)  who we found because he was working in the shop of his grandfather, who we were teaching at the time. we hadn’t found him for like a month after that, when he showed  up at church about a month ago, because a young woman invited him (yeah we thought of that too, turns out that flirt to convert is good for getting guys to church, but really awkward in lessons) but anyways we started teaching him again. he is very smart, so we have been working on applying it to him intellectually, especially with the history of the church and the book of mormon. he texted us this morning telling us that he knows that its true.

the last is ______ and his son (11 years). we contacted him in his beer shop (not really a bar, just sells beer) because he was out front. he doesn’t drink, and has since left it and works as an ice cream man but we are teaching him and his son. they learn slowly but are great.

other than that we have a regular who was out of town. he attended 4 times before we realized that he wasnt one of the hermanas investigators. he lives like an hour away but still comes down every week. why? because he is a boss.

well i don’t have too much time, but that’s it for now. if you would like to include anyone in your prayers this week,  we have a, i,and u. thanks.

anyways, be good. love you.

micah

April 6, 2015

I'm tired, and i don't have much time, so this will be short

still alive, stil doing god.

conference was good, it was the best session i have seen, i'm assuming that it has more to do with me than the quality of the talks, like the quote by bishop Gerald cause, its not a change of landscape, its a change of eyes... something like that, (the text isn't up on lds.org yet, and i don't have headphones)

yup,

peace