May 2, 2016 Kid’s Day
hey guys,
so this was a good week, we were able to finish it with
three baptisms, so the bishop is pretty happy, and we are pretty happy too.
the first was C, who i have talked about a little
bit before. i was super excited for his baptism because he’s not just a good
investigator, but has become a really good friend. he has had to overcome a lot
of trials to take the step of baptism, but he is going super strong and already
has the priesthood, and already has plans of when he will go home teaching this
week, and is going to pass the sacrament this next week, and he also wants to
go on a mission! he’s basically super cool
for the second baptism, we have to give a lot of credit to a
pair of sister missionaries, she’s a ten year old girl, daughter of a member,
who technically lives in our area but always stays with her grandma during the
week, so we could never teach her, except for after church, and the sisters
taught about half the lessons. lots of the time it’s hard for missionaries to
do work that will never be reflected in their own reports, but it’s good to
work like that sometimes, so that we can remember that it’s not so much about
numbers as it is about people
the third baptism is not actually ours, because he is 8
years old, but his dad is not active in the church, so we did a lot of running
around talking with the bishop and his grandma and people to get it to actually
happen. we did teach him one time just to make sure that he was ready, but it
was great that he could finally get baptized and it will be a great blessing to
his family.
so saturday we were in the church basically all day, from
like 9 in the morning to 7 at night. one of the baptisms was at 12, so we had
to go fill the font, and we stayed there for our study and to get ready and
everything. then after the baptism the member family that was going to feed us
brought us lunch in the church (wow, i couldn’t get that sentence to work in
english) then we had to make the programs for the baptisms at 5, we are in
mexico and so the baptism started an hour late, and we finished at about 7,
right as the ward was starting an activity.
so you know how in the u.s. every mothers or father’s day
how the kids always ask "well when is kids day?" and the parents are
always condescending kill joys and tell their kids to get a job before they get
their own day? well mexico is less kill joy than you guys, here there actually
is kids day, so saturday they had the kids day celebration. ... i still can’t
believe you guys for completely ruining my childhood.
but anyways, that’s it for now, be good, love you guys,
elder gandola
oh yeah, parents, sunday we get to call home, so i will
probably call sometime between 3 and 5 (my time) sunday
May 16, 2016
hey everybody,
well this week was a good one. we had transfers last week, i
stayed here in my area and elder S got sent to my last area in san luis.
my new companion is elder R, from colorado. he`s my second american
companion and the probably the first one that i will have for a whole transfer,
because i was only with elder P for three weeks. we get along well, and
the best part is that he has one transfer more than i do, so i don’t have to
deal with dying jokes anymore. he’s kind of a big guy (not fat big, just big
big) so it was funny when he got here, we started carrying his bags up the
stairs (we live on the 4th story) and i ask him, "what do you have in
these bags? they weigh a ton" turns out that he had about fourty pounds of
weights in his bags, in addition to all the other stuff, so that he could work
out.
so we worked normally after that, not anything super
noteworthy, though we did have a meeting with the mission president (who has 5
weeks until he finishes his mission.) and afterwards he invited us to go eat
tacos. he commented while we ate that he really liked the cabeza tacos, but wasn’t
a huge fan of the beef ones. so we were finishing up and he only had one more,
a beef taco, and he tells us, "wow, I’m full, i can’t eat any more, who
wants to help me with this last taco? elder gandola, do you want it?"
"yeah sure I’ll eat your taco" and then before i can even get it into
my mouth he pulls the waiter to the side and orders another one of
cabeza... turns out he just used me as a trash can so that he could eat what he
really wanted jaja. but that’s fine, because i love all tacos.
so i found a cool scripture in my study this week in mosiah
13:11. abinadi tells the wicked priests of noah, "And now I read unto you
the remainder of the commandments of God, for I perceive that they are not
written in your hearts." it’s interesting that it’s not enough to simply
know the commandments, or even to go through the motions of them if we don’t
have them written in our hearts. i think lots of times we think of the commandments
as things that God asks us to do in order to receive a reward of happiness and that’s
it, but we don’t really think about the fact that the commandments will never
change, that truly living and coming to love the commandments is the secret to happiness.
that’s why God is perfectly happy, because he obeys all commandments perfectly
and thus there is nothing that gets in the way of him being happy. if we can
stop trying to check the box of obedience and really learn to love obeying the
commandments, we can become likewise happy.
but anyways, that’s it for this week. love you guys, be good
elder gandola
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