P-Day update week 34, 10/10/2022

 Hola Hola!!

Another great week filled with joy and peace here in the promised land!! The work has been good, nothing too crazy but continuing to work hard, and enjoying the process!!!

Baptism of Angy!!

So first things first, each Monday (P-day) one companionship is in charge of organizing the activity, this past week it was on us and the sisters in our district! We decided to play pool in the morning with the zone and then go eat at a nearby restaurant! So we went and played pool for quite a while, which was really fun! We found a nice family friendly spot and were able to play without any troubles, and it seems I've gotten a lot worse than what I thought! And after that, the hermanas brought us to a Chinese buffet! As soon as I saw the food I had a feeling in my stomach that this probably wasn't going to sit well with me, but as the foolish child I am, I ignored that and went to town. The food was really good, and pretty cheap, after eating I felt very satisfied! But as I woke up and got ready the next day, I found out I was in fact not okay! I ended up being very very much not okay haha! As I tried to get ready I found that I couldn't really do much, my stomach was on a mission, and I did not have the strength to impede said mission! So from about 8am to 8pm I fought, I spent about half the time in the bed and the other half sprinting for the bathroom, it was pretty rough! But the nice thing is that this is the first time I've really gotten sick since I was in Zacapoaxtla, I mean when I was there I was getting sick like every other week! We also found out that just about everyone in the zone also got sick from the restaurant, though most weren't really that bad. I guess I learned a valuable lesson, Chinese buffets in Xalapa are not the same as they are back home, I miss you 88!!

Pic of our favorite guy making our double order of Tacos al Pastor! You can't beat it with the pineapple salsa!

Also the good news is that after a day of being really sick, the next day I was mostly okay, still a little weird, but much better. So we could get back to work!!! And our first order of business was to finish our ad for the month, we were supposed to have it ready and submitted by the first of the month, so it was time to get it finished! This month we decided to make our ad about family history work, we thought it prudent thanks to the very exciting holiday coming up, the day of the dead! We obviously try to make ads that would be useful and applicable to the people living here in Mexico, so we were super excited to get to work and see the results that'll come from this ad! So we've been thinking about this ad for a while, in fact we've been starting to plan our ad for the month about 30 days prior to when we need to publish it, that way we can give ourselves plenty of time to receive revelation for our ad, and make sure its good! And we can't actually take credit for this idea, it comes from one of the secretaries in the mission who suggested it to us during one of our Monday meetings, thank you Elder Ruiz! But we ended up posting it (eventually) and it started popping up on people's Facebook pages, and it's already doing really well! Last month our ad brought us 60 references (or something along those lines) after its full thirty day run. Our ad this month has been out for about 4 days and has brought in 22 references!! This is one of the best ads we've made so far, we're super proud and have big hopes that it'll help these people gain stronger testimonies of Christ and his plan for their families! Something interesting though that I thought I would share, usually when we post our ads we get a lot of bad comments, the usual people trying to destroy our faith and that of those looking for the truth. Usually very uninformed people being mean, but with this ad we haven't seen basically any of that so far, I mean there isn't anything to debuttle, it's been really nice to see people in the comment section just talking about how much they like the message and how they hope they can learn more about their family history, and how to help them in their eternal progression!! Big win for team Jesus!! I'll keep y'all updated on what happens with it throughout the month!

For the past month or so, our Elders Quorum group has been planning a service project to help a sister in our ward. This sister has a little shop near our house in "La Reserva" like a lot of people in this country, her shop doubles as her home, and it has been falling apart as of late. Her roof has literally been falling in on her, we can't even walk straight up when we're there! Especially with it being a tin roof we needed to get it fixed, because it just wasn't good! So we planned as an Elders Quorum to come out one Saturday the 8th at 8, to go and help her. We probably had 15+ people who said they would be able to make it, and the day of the service project comes and we get there, and there is one other person there. Not exactly what we had expected, but after a while about 6 other people showed up. Obviously we didn't have the amount of people we thought we'd had, but we just kinda had to roll with it! So we started by just taking off the roof she had, then sorting the roofing that was still usable and the parts that weren't. We got that done in probably 30 min!!! They really work crazy fast and efficiently here! From there it was a lot of discussing how we were going to make this work, and eventually we started putting in the new framing for the roof! At that time we (my companion and I) had to leave because we had a very important event that day! But as we made our way through the day we heard that they worked on it from 8am to 4pm straight! With just a quick break because the sister made them food, and they got it all done! It was such a great experience, it was the first time in my life I had ever felt the spirit while doing service, it was weird because it wasn't exactly a "still and quiet moment" yet the spirit still testified to me that what we were doing was the Lord's will, and he was pleased. Being a missionary is such a blessing, it's truly incredible how much the Lord talks with his children if they would just try and be good, and try and listen! 

Men at work!

So the big event that caused us to have to leave the service project early was a baptism! Our friend Angy, who we've been teaching for about a month before I got here, decided to be baptized! Angy is a 9 year old girl who's family travels a lot, they are members but don't really go to church a lot. But her mom really wanted to get back to church, and give Angy the chance to be a part of Christ's restored New Testament church! Angy is such a smart kid, every lesson we've had with her has been great, she's so receptive to the gospel and already has such a strong testimony of the church and of Christ! At times I've thought about if a child so young could really understand the promise they're making with God, but after spending time with Angy it's clear to see that not only does she know what she's doing, she truly wants to do it as well! Anyway with today being her baptism we actually had to go to the church at around 7am to get the font filled up so she could have water, and warm water as well! It's actually been a little bit of a fight, because this whole week the church building hasn't had water, so we've been worried about whether it's going to work, but the building guy came and helped us out that same day so we could get it going! And when it was actually time for the baptism at 12, we just sat back and enjoyed it. The sister wanted to plan everything, the program, the man to do the ordinance, the food, the music, the decorations, everything! It was soo pretty!! Usually we don't do a whole lot for our baptismal services, but the hermana really set the bar way higher for us from now on! It was truly a very spiritual experience, and really nice to see her take this step, now we just need to help the whole family keep going to church and make sure they can get the most out of being members of the true church, and give the most to those around them as well!!!

The pico (peak) de Orisaba looked so clear on the day of the baptism!

Alright so this week it was finally our turn again to teach the English classes! I don't know if y'all remember (or if I even mentioned it) but our very first English class that we had, had an attendance of 6 people. Well this class that we taught yesterday had an attendance of 10 people! Each week it has been getting bigger and bigger, with more non-member friends coming too! It was really fun to teach the class again, I find that when people really truly have a desire to learn, they do. It's as simple as that, even if they sometimes don't learn as fast as other people, they learn. Slow and steady! And the nice thing is that they all stayed for the spiritual thought afterwards, it was fun because I shared something in Spanish, and my companion translated it into English to keep the spirit of the class there! I really have high hopes for where these classes are going to go! Just the other day, in fact, we received permission from the stake to put up a banner outside the church to advertise our classes (I'm becoming more and more of a marketing specialist everyday haha!). The other missionaries in the rest of the mission are also starting with their English classes and are starting to receive big results, President Perkins really has some great Ideas!!! I'll keep y'all updated if anything changes on the classes, but just know that I think they're going to be great!

This week we also had the chance to go contacting the street with some youth from another ward to help the missionaries there find some new people! We usually don't do a lot of contacting in the street thanks to having plenty of people that are ready now to listen and be taught, so it was nice to be able to do something like that again, I forgot how much fun it is! It was really exciting to have the youth accompany us, we had a young man in particular with us named Mosiah, he is 17 and is getting ready to leave on his mission in the coming year or two. He took the opportunity to ask us a lot of questions about the work, and how we fight through being nervous or awkward when we talk with people! I actually see a lot of myself in him, but I didn't really have anyone to ask, but I was able to get rid of that when I knocked doors for Google Fiber, so I guess I got lucky haha! And we also had the chance to find some really good people for the missionaries to now teach in their area, hopefully with that we can help strengthen the stake and make sure the lord's presence is felt here more strongly!!

A very buff dog

This cat ran for the hills 0.5 seconds later

So that's about it this week! I don't have time to write a spiritual message, but just know that God loves you more than you can ever know, he is always watching you and always there for you when you need him, he may be physically far, but he is never spiritually further than a prayer can take you! I love you all and I hope you have a fantabulous week!!!

-Elder Garnica