P-Day update week 47, 01/09/2023

 Bueeeno entonces!!!

This week has been such a great week! We've been working super hard and have been seeing a lot of ups in our work lately! Once again I find myself with little time to write, but it will be super sweet!!

My favorite Guatemalan named Elder Morales who is in area Los Lagos!

So I'm sure all my faithful readers remember Conchita and Larry, we have been teaching them since I got here to Alborada. They have been ready for baptism since I got here, but the only ting that has been stopping them is the fact that they aren't married! Up to this point it has been a very slow process helping them get everything ready for their wedding, but this week we finally were able to get their papers submitted and get a date for their wedding! It was kinda crazy getting everything, especially getting the witnesses there to the civil registry and getting copies of all their documents! After waiting at the building for two hours and eating a popsicle, our friends finally arrived and we were able to get them a date for their wedding, the 24th of this month! It was a very bittersweet moment for us, we´re happy that they are finally going to get married and then baptized, but I am sad that I probably won't be here to witness the baptism, and they also decided that they were going to start going to the extension of our war din Miradores, were the other Elders are. So we aren't going to be able to see them and visit them as often, but we know they're in good hands! I am just happy that the Lord is giving them this chance now after waiting so long!!

The view from the fancy Italian restaurant we ate in today!

As I mentioned last week, we have been focusing on visiting less active members, that has been probably our biggest focus! And this week we have really gotten into the meat of the inactive member visits! This week we probably knocked on the doors of 30+ inactive families, a lot of the time they weren't there, but have been able to start getting our member list a little more narrowed down! This week we finally had divisiones with the Assistants to the President, this is the first time in my whole 6 months or so since I've been here that we've been able to do them, mainly because they are always travelling! But when we were on divisiones we basically had a full day of visiting less active members of the church, but we had almost no success with a single door that we knocked on that day. Most of the people didn't live there anymore, and if they did they weren't there at that time to receive us! But near the end of the day we picked up the laundry and took it home, but we decided to visit one more family that lived nearby us that is really inactive! As we were on our way to the house we actually got stopped by another family that is inactive! We started talking with them and they let us come in, they talked about how much they miss going to church, and how it's been hard! After talking with them for a little while they asked us to give blessings to two little children in the family that have been sick. After the blessings we spoke a bit more and found out that one of the daughters and her husband isn't baptized, and really wants to go back to church to learn more! It was truly a miracle after a very long day, The Lord truly is aware of all his children, and his hands are in this work!

Hot sweaty back type divisions!

3 Nephi 11:5

Last week I believe that I mentioned that we put up our new ad, with a new way of doing it, that is focusing on making a video rather than just a post and some words! Well that little leap of faith with this new model of making our ads has pulled off so nicely! We have been seeing incredible success with this ad! We are only 9 days into the month but we have already had 45 people who have signed up to meet with the missionaries! This number might now seem super impressive right now, but if you take into consideration that last month we finished the month with only about 55 for the whole month, and we have almost that in the first ten days! It's been really great to see such a change in our success by just listening to the advice of our leaders! This ad is my magnum opus, my last ad that I will ever make in completion here in Alborada (Probably)! I'm really excited to see how it turns out!!

Y'all might have seen me hint to the transfers a few times in this email, that's because this is the last week of transfers coming up! I'll be honest, I've been here for 4 transfers which is not very common, and even less common in my assignment as coordinator, I'm actually the only coordinator that I've ever heard of that has been here for 4 transfers! And as we get closer and closer to transfers we start hearing more and more rumors or guesses about where people will go, I've been trying my hardest to keep my head on straight and not get too distracted from the work, but I feel like I'm definitely getting the boot from my beautiful zona Xalapa! In fact I was thinking about it the other day in our office meeting, but out of the 12 people that were there when I first got here, only 3 remain, the original crew is getting split up bit by bit. I love Xalapa but I love the Lord more, and I know he has better and more difficult things ready for me in other parts of this mission!!!

Kitten snuggling makes missionary visits 2x more powerful!!

That's about it for me here in Xalapa, I just wanted to invite you all to pray. Pray every day, as hard and sincerely as you can, there is no other way to make it through this life. Pray often. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!!

-Elder Garnica