P-Day update week 27, 08/22/2022

 Hola Hola!!

This week has gone by sooo fast! My companion has been a little sick, but we still tried to have a successful week, and saw some miracles!! But once again, a little crunched for time so I'll try to make it quick!!

Carl's Junior

Thanks to Xalapa being the "main city" in the mission we are the first place to have a Zone Conference. So that means we get it in week three!! On Wednesday we started off our Zone Conference activities with interviews. We got there early and ate cookies as people started getting their interviews, it's always nice to have time to talk with the zone! Everyone is so nice and we all get along very well!! After a good bit of time talking and eating cookies, it was my turn to have my interviews with President and Hermana Perkins!! They always give the best advice! And I'm so happy to have them as my mission leaders! Hermana Perkins has been a big help, just talking about my life up until the mission, some of the trials I faced and the things that helped me become the person I am now! It's been nice having someone to talk to that listens and is genuinely very interested in getting to know me! And of course President Perkins is a very spiritually powerful person, when he talks you can feel the spirit, every time I get the chance to meet with him he always answers my questions. Even sometimes when I don't ask, he gives me the answers I need! After having talked with them both and eaten a sufficient amount of cookies, Elder Parker and I decided to head out!

Zone Conference!

Photo "de Rancho"

All the baldies again!!

Interviews are only 50% of the whole conference time, so then came the actual conference itself! Here in Xalapa there are two zones, Zona Xalapa and Zona Macuiltepec. We usually get to see a lot of the Macuil missionaries since our weekly basketball game is in both our zones, but we haven't seen them all, so I was pretty excited to see some people that I haven't had the chance to see up until now! So we got there and I greeted a lot of my friends, and now we were able to see all of the people that ended up shaving their heads!! The fact that so many have done it was just so crazy, some people in the mission say it's a disease, but I think it's a gift hahaha!! Anyway after conversing with the other zone and eating we made our way into the chapel for the conference itself! It was so good! Because I had COVID last transfer I wasn't able to go, so I was very excited to be at this conference! And it didn't disappoint, It was such a great experience! The big thing they focused on this conference was once again working with the members, I think they are definitely pushing this point across, and for good reason. We had a special guest, the stake president of the Macuil stake, and he told us that of 1,000 people that are found by contacting in the street, only 60 something will get baptized, for social media references about 80 will get baptized out of 1,000, and for references from members, 600 people will get baptized out of 1,000!! Obviously we know that numbers do not tell the whole story, but it can help us have a perspective that the way in which we can find the elect of God is through friends! It makes me very excited to get into the swing of that! So the rest of the conference was basically the same stuff we talked about in the MLC a few weeks ago but just phrased differently, so not a whole lot new. But just a very spiritual place, every time we have a zone conference it's always such a special experience!! After the conference we finished off with a lunch of sandwiches and Pepsi! not too bad!

This week we've had the wonderful opportunity to meet some new people and make new friends! One of the people we met this week is named Emily. It was very interesting how we met Emily, we were walking down the street after knocking on some doors and Emily stopped us on the street to ask if we were missionaries. we say yes, we are, and she says that she's been looking to find the truth for so long and has been having some trouble finding it, obviously we were a little taken aback for a second. I mean usually we are the people contacting on the street but this time she was the one to contact us! We also offered to help her carry her groceries home, usually people say no to us offering service, but she actually said yes! So we talked as we headed to her house and dropped off her groceries, she talked about how much of a hard time she's been having lately. Especially about the trials she's been facing with her children, she says she hasn't seen them in a very long time, and they only live about 15 minutes away! We told her about the blessings of the gospel and how it helps unite families and she said she would love for us to drop by and teach her! So this week we went by two times to teach her, our first lesson was very spiritual, and very emotional for her. She poured out all of her feelings to us, and we were able to give her a new tool to find peace, The Book of Mormon! She gladly accepted it and we made time to go by again, the second time the lesson went great as well! It looks like right now she needs some friends and so we will continue to drop by fairly often to see how she is, I know that she can find the peace she's looking for as she searches more deeply for Christ! We're very excited to see where she is able to go!

We also had the chance to meet a woman named Lacey, she is the wife of a member in our ward. They recently moved here to Xalapa about two weeks ago, and Lacey said she wanted a copy of The Book of Mormon, her husband beat us to the punch, but they said they still wanted to meet with us! So on Wednesday we set up a time to meet at the church with Lacey and her Husband Emilio, they were very punctual, which is usually a good sign! After some quick introductions we headed to a class room to have our lesson. That's when the normal stuff ended! As we started talking about them, we asked Lacey if she's had the chance to read anything from the book, she said she had read the entire first book of Nephi!! In one day! That definitely caught us off guard, and then  she told us she new the book was true!! A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! So we started our lesson from there and taught about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We taught the entire lesson, and as we read some verses in the Book of Mormon I realized that her book was covered in markings already, the book was a little old so I assumed it was from other people, but she said she had marked it up with all the verses she liked! She mentioned a lot of amazing spiritual experiences she's had in her life and all the things the Lord has placed in her path that has led her to this moment! I've met a lot of people that I believed to be prepared by God to be baptized and become active covenant keeping members of his church. But this was just different, I'm not sure how to describe it, but if she told me she has already been a member her entire life It would be hard to not believe her! After we finished with our lesson, it was time to invite her to act, usually after our first lesson with somebody and after teaching the restoration we invite them to read The Book of Mormon and pray to ask God if it is true. But considering the current circumstances, we knew that she was ready for a different invitation, so we took her and her husband to the room next door, and showed her the Baptismal font. We opened the doors to the font and explained a bit about baptism and invited her to prepare to be baptized in September, she said yes! In fact she already knew we were going to invite her to be baptized, she told her sister and mother that day before the lesson that she was going to meet with people so they could teach her how to be baptized!! I have such high expectations for her and her husband, I guarantee they will do amazing things!

Honey Bunches of Oats!!

Speaking of baptism, this past Sunday was the baptism of Sheryl! But just like baptismal services go, it didn't turn out perfect, in fact it was a little bit of a struggle trying to get everything sorted out in the beginning. You see, on Sunday morning we should have gone to the church to fill up the font at about 6AM so it would be filled in time for the baptism. But at about 9AM we realized that we had completely forgotten, so we got ready really quick and rushed over to the stake center! We got there and started to fill up the font, but we realized that the water was draining out and not staying in, so we went outside to check the drain valve and someone had locked it! The latch always has the lock on it but it is never actually locked, so we started to freak out a bit! We called just about everyone in the ward and the only person who had keys for it (the Bishop) was in Puebla, about 5 hours away! We had no idea what to do, the other ward's bishop didn't have keys either! So we did the only thing we could think of at the time, and said a prayer. We told Heavenly Father that we tried everything we could, and right now we just needed him to do the rest. Right after the prayer our friends Emilio and Lacey showed up, we told them the situation and then they started to brainstorm with us. We came up with an idea to block the drain! So we headed inside and got a plastic bag with a pressured plunger! We stuck the plastic bag over the drain, then on top of that we put the plunger. And it worked!!! Right after saying our prayer we received an answer from our friend Emilio and his wife, God answers prayers! From there the baptismal service went off without a hitch, after Sheryl and I got changed and walked into the font, I quickly pulled off the drain plugs and put them to the side, and the ordinance went off perfectly! The Service was very well planned out and the speakers gave great testimonies as we saw this new soul walk into the waters of baptism! I'm so proud of her and her decision, now just to see how many other great things come from her desire to follow Christ!

Sheryl's baptism

This week has been a week full of great food aswell!! It all started on Wednesday when a member in the ward sent us a message telling us that we would be going to eat at a Japanese buffet for food today, he told us to go there and tell the owner that he sent us and we would eat! The restaurant is in one of the malls in our area called "Plaza Animas", I was a little skeptical with the whole mall food court Japanese buffet deal, but we didn't really have any other choice. But I was very pleasantly surprised! They brought us out miso soup to start off with and then we went straight into the sushi and main dish! It was sooo good! I'm not sure if y'all remember when I ate sushi in Xalapa a few months ago, but this sushi was probably just as good if not better than that last time! Every time we would finish our plate of sushi they would bring out another one with different types of roles on it, It was honestly very comforting to just eat endless sushi again. Reminds me of the 88 Chinese Buffet!! But our food adventures don't end there. One day this week an hermana wasn't able to go with us for food so she gave us some money and let us just go out to eat somewhere, and as a companionship we made the decision to go to Carl's Junior (Hardees for us normal people). We've actually been planning to try and go here for a while, they say it's the best fast food burger you can get in Mexico, so when the day came I was very ready! I had a western bacon burger, a classic burger and some waffle fries! I mean there's not too much to say on the matter, it tasted just like it would taste in the U.S.A.! My last food adventure this week was simple, yet the most profound. As you all know, I got my hands on a Costco card last week , and one of my items I got was a double box of Honey Bunches of Oats! You see you can't find it anywhere else, except for Costco and Sam's club, so it had to be one of my first purchases! And it didn't disappoint wither, just like my abuelita used to male!

Japanese Buffet

Sushi so good you gotta go back with your buddies!

Sushiiiii

That's about it for this week, sorry I was so late to get it uploaded, yesterday was just crazy (My president gave me a black eye)! But like always I will  leave you all with a spiritual thought. This week I've been trying to focus on Humility, each week we are tasked with choosing a Christlike attribute we want to build that week, this week I focused on growing my humility. I normally wouldn't consider myself a very humble person, but I want to change that. We know that humility is one of the most important attributes of Christ to develop, for the meek shall inherit the earth. that is the promise from the Lord, what more of a reason do we need? I just want to let you all know that Heavenly Father is so happy when you try to grow and become a better person, and when you are really trying to change with the spirit of prayer, he will help you. I promise you all that as you go to the Lord in Humility and ask how you can improve, and are ready to act. He will make it known unto you! I love you all!! have a splendid week!!

-Elder Garnica

A lady offered to give me this kitten for free, my biggest temptation on the mission so far!

The shiner my Mission President gave me when we were playing basketball!!!