P-Day update week 32, 09/26/2022

 Hola!!

This week went by super fast, I don't know why because I feel like we didn't have any really big things, but here we are!!

They shaved one of the dogs that lives in our building! She looks terrible XD!

So like I said, this week has gone by so crazy fast, Like I blinked and it was over! I feel like my entire time here in Mexico is going by so very fast, I mean in 2.5 weeks I hit my 8 month mark as being a missionary! And I feel like my time here in Alborada has been going by really fast. It's honestly been one of the hardest things about being a missionary lately, I feel like my biggest enemy is time, and unfortunately I can't exactly slow it down! I've really just been learning how important it is to take advantage of every moment, to take every second that God gives us and make it count! You can't get time back, but you can make sure to use the short time we have on this earth to do some real good! Anyway time flies here on the mission, And I feel like this week was very similar to last week, just grinding and trying to find people, so it might not be super interesting hahaha!!

I believe I have talked about divisiones before on here, but a quick recap is: a District Leader switches out his companion with a missionary from a different companionship in his district and trains the missionary, sees how they're doing, and helps them grow! This week, Elder Parker did divisiones with one of the companionships in our district, one of the office companionships! So for a little bit of background, every mission in the world, (as far as I know) has certain missionaries with special assignments to do a lot of auxiliary work in the mission office. These missionaries usually handle things like finances, bus tickets, ordering materials, finding houses for missionaries, and all those kind of behind the scenes mission necessities! These missionaries (the secretaries they call them) are in our district as well! So this last division we did was with the secretaries of finances and of materials. That morning we got up, I packed my bag and we headed out to the offices of the mission. Because our area is right next to that of the secretaries we usually just walk to the offices when we need to go there, and it only takes us about 25-30 minutes! We arrived and gave our greetings to the office and then Elder Parker headed out the door with his new companion for a day(Elder Ruiz)! For the most part the division was fairly normal, nothing too crazy, except the fact that I was in the office! After about 15 minutes of just studying my scriptures while the other secretaries worked hard, I sent a message to Elder Ruiz and asked him what I could do. He responded and gave me a list of some busy work to do while he was gone, which involved getting confirmation numbers from orders he placed and sending them out to their respective missionaries so they can go get em from the store, and packing up the new plaques that came in for the missionaries! Besides that time spent doing secretary work, the rest of the division was fairly normal, all four of the secretaries live together so that night I got to have a little nostalgic blast from the past of living with another companionship!

Pumpkin Spice frappe!

Fancy Italian restaurant!!

Like I said earlier, this week wasn't too different from last week, We kept up our hard work and made sure to stay focused! This week we also had to dedicate some time to our facebook ad that we're dropping in the next couple days, it's been pretty nice, now that I more or less understand how to do it, I can let myself be creative with it and make sure it helps people! This month we actually decided to make our family history work, we thought it the perfect topic thanks to the whole day of the dead festivities that will be going on! And we have been able to get some really nice ideas flowing from that and I think it's going to be a great Ad! we also have been having a fair amount of success with our last ad, we actually found out that a person was baptized last month thanks to our ad, so that was really cool to see some fruits from our labors! But anyway, we've dedicated a lot of time to getting in contact with our friends, mainly the people that we haven't talked to in a while! I'll admit that I don't particularly love contacting people by phone and text when we could be out hitting the streets and finding people, but I also need to remember that the most efficient work usually isn't the most entertaining! With our contacting efforts this week we've actually been able to get in contact with people we haven't talked to in a while and it was really nice, we even had a few lessons with some of them and have sparked the flame of the gospel, that's what it's all about!!

This week we were able to help a couple people place baptismal goals for themselves (dates on which they will be baptized) and it seems like a while since that has happened haha!! The first person was our friend Cash, as you all know, Cash was found a couple weeks ago and we've had one lesson with him, until last Thursday when we were able to meet with him again! In this second lesson we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the steps that it outlines for each one of us to help us one day return to live with Him and our Heavenly Father! As we went through, talking about Christ's divine plan for all of us, how important it is to have a foundation of faith, and the great gift that is repentance, we made our way to baptism. As we began to explain the importance of it, and how it will bless his life and the life of his family we felt prompted to invite him to be baptized! We first decided to finish the last two points of the lesson, The Gift of The Holy Ghost and Enduring to the end. But once we had explained all of that we shared our testimonies and invited him to be baptized by someone who holds the Priesthood of God, and he accepted! He talked more about how he feels when we talk about these things, and how he feels when we talk about baptism and says he rarely feels this at peace! As we got ready to close we also invited him to say the closing prayer, he has expressed in the past that when he has tried to pray out loud he has never been able to finish it because of his anxiety. But we asked if he would give it a try and he accepted, and it was wonderful! He expressed himself with our Heavenly Father for the first time in real honest prayer, and he said he felt great! It was so wonderful, and I will let you all know any updates with him on his journey in these coming weeks!

Cool rainy shot under umbrella

Hidden Mickey?!?

We also have been teaching this girl named Anny, she is the daughter of a member in the ward, and they were on vacation for a long time and Anny wasn't able to get baptized before she turned nine, so we started coming over and talking with her and teaching her, though the truth is that she already has a nice knowledge of the church and of Christ, she just needs someone to set up her baptism! So this last time that we went with her we invited her to be baptized and she said yes! We set a goal with her and headed out, it always impresses me how much someone young like her can know when it comes to God and how much of  testimony they can already have!!

Truthfully that's about it this week, kind of a short entry but hopefully more stuff can happen this week coming up to excite my faithful listeners, or I guess you all would be readers, but never mind that! I did want to let you all know that this week I wasn't injured at all! That was a big surprise to Hermana Perkins, because as she said in our office meeting "I'm basically made of glass" So I thought I'd let y'all know that I've built a reputation in the mission as being made of glass :/. But besides that it has been a really fulfilling week, the work is moving right along here in the deep deep south!!

Really pretty cat, also very friendly, let me pet him!

This past week I listened to a talk from Elder Uchtdorf, Who by the way is quickly becoming my favorite speaker from the General Authorities! The talk I listened to was called "On being genuine". First of all, go and listen to it before I say anything else! But this is a great talk! He talks about a couple important things, like pride and goals. Goals is the thing I want to focus on right now, In the talk he asks a question "What is our ministry?" Why are we here, and what can we do while we are here? He says something really important, he asks us how one can measure personal testimony, love of God and compassion for others? It's difficult, no? He later goes on to say "Many of the things you can count, do  not count. And many of the things you cannot count, really do count." So I guess what I'm trying to emphasize is that the amount of money in your bank account or how many friends you have on facebook, or how many people read your mission blog (hehe) doesn't really matter. The things that really matter are the things you can't really count, like one's personal love for the Savior, I love the Savior with all my heart and I know that as I focus on following him, even if it means losing out on other worldly countable things, I will find eternal peace. I know God lives, I know that Christ died for me, and in his blood my sins are washed away. The Holy Ghost has made these things known to me, and I cannot deny them. I invite you all to receive this same confirmation. I love you all, truly, have a wonderful week!!

-Elder Garnica