P-Day update week 50, 01/30/2023
Hola! Buenas tardes a todos!!
A great week here in good old Saint John! Still working hard out here trying to gather scattered Israel!!
 |
| Behind us is the biggest wasp nest I've ever seen! |
This week hasn't been very different than last week, at least in the sense of work. We've stayed with our rhythm just trying to visit as many inactive families as we can and the rest of the time just teaching lessons! It's honestly perfect, everything we do is just straight find, teach, and baptize!! Now that I don't have to worry about all the Facebook stuff like I did in Xalapa, I feel like I'm a horse who just got let out of the starting gate!! Though I will always be grateful for the experiences I had in Alborada, and my magnum opus ad has gotten 130 references for the mission, so I'm glad I was able to leave it on a good note! But now that I'm here and free to just work as hard as I can to live my missionary purpose it feels so liberating!! And we've been continuing to see fruits form our labor here, just the other day when we were on divisions we visited an inactive family and met two young men who aren't members, and a few days after our lesson they went to church!! We've also still been working with Dalila, the woman we found last week, in fact when we went with her on Tuesday she accepted a date to be baptized!! This area is full of miracles, the hand of the Lord is so prevalent in our work it's hard to believe he's not physically dragging us to where we need to be, and to whom we need to meet! I have been able to grow a great connection with the spirit these past couple months and I've grown to absolutely love the work we do! We plan to keep it up and hopefully see even greater miracles as we thrust in our Sickles with all our might!!!
With all the success we have it's not hard to see one of the big reasons for that, my companion Elder Nuñez! He is such a great man and such a great missionary! It's clear that he's new in the mission, sometimes he doesn't know what to say when talking with someone or he isn't sure where to find the scripture he's thinking of, but I have truly seen him shine with his love and desire here!! I have seen him grow so much in our two short weeks together, and I'm beginning to thoroughly enjoy being a trainer! I was super nervous at first, but the great thing is that my son came in being ready to learn! As he has worked hard to listen and grow everyday I have truly seen a great change in him!! It's also been interesting to see him grow through the same things I went through in my training, even though one of the biggest hurdles for me when I first got here was the language, there is still a a lot of things that a new missionary has to overcome whether he is an American or not! One of those things is just being confident in oneself, when I first arrived I was really self conscious about my teaching, about my Spanish, and about how to find people! These things would always block up my mind, and I can see a little of that in my companion, but I have been making sure to give him ample opportunities to take the lead in teaching situations and just about everything else! I'm so lucky to have had such a great trainer when I first started, and I hope that I can be just as helpful for Elder Nuñez when our two transfers together are over!
 |
| It's been really cold at night and I've come to grow very close with my pawprint blanket! |
One of the things that has been the weirdest for me that last couple days, is just realizing how old I am in the mission! Having the chance to train a new missionary is making me reflect a lot on my own mission and all that has happened! In fact I realized that in one year from today, I will be home from my mission. When I thought about it it shocked me to realize that I'm already halfway through my mission, in two weeks I hit my year mark! They would always tell me that the time in the mission goes by fast, but I couldn't really understand that until now. And I can firmly add my testimony with every other missionary's, the time goes by wicked fast! I remember when I was in my training, it felt like just yesterday, but now I'm old and training a new missionary! This past year has been the fastest year of my life, but also the most full year of my life! The missionary schedule is just filled to the brim with 'stuff' every single day, and one comes to experience so much as they work and serve the Lord in this work that is so important! I'm so glad I chose to serve a mission, and I'm so glad I still have a whole year to dedicate to the Lord and his children!!!
Besides the fact that I'm really old now, I'm still learning and facing new challenges every day! One of the newest things for me is just having to be district leader for a very different district! In Xalapa my job as DL was easy, all the missionaries were perfectly obedient and were always working hard to improve! And also, it was the biggest district in the whole mission (it was the size of the smallest zone in the mission at that time!)! When I arrived here it was a bit of a change, now there are only two other companionships in the District, and they are different types of missionaries! Obviously they are all great, but a few of them have different necessities than I have had to face up to this point in my mission, but it has helped me stretch and become better! Obviously if being DL, or really just a missionary in general, was always sunshine and rainbows I would never really grow! So I'm happy to have this new opportunity!
 |
| One of our investigators gave us apple soda but he asked us if we would rather have beer. You'll have to guess what we're drinking in the photo haha!! |
This week we also had our Zone Conference! Zone conference in week 2 is a little weird, but I'm just rolling with it haha! It was honestly a really great conference, we had our interviews on Thursday and the conference itself on Friday! I think I mentioned last week, but Teziutlan right now is completely frozen! It has been so cold the past week! I think it's only gotten above 45 degrees once this week, and really that was today! So when everyone arrived to the zone conference we were all just cold and soaking wet! But the nice things is that after enough hugs from your missionary friends then it doesn't feel too bad haha!! Anyways this conference we talked a lot about really just one thing, obedience. Obedience has been one of the biggest focuses of President Day since he was called, I think its been really great! During these past couple months I've seen a great change in the mission, I wouldn't say the mission was necessarily disobedient before, but President Day has just brought us to another level! We had an activity in the Zone Conference where everyone had two pieces of paper, on one, they wrote where they were on an obedience scale from 1%-100%. Then with the other paper we wrote the things we were doing that are disobedient, whether small or large, we wrote them all! Then from there we read together the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites who after hearing the gospel, buried their weapons of war! Then President told us we would do the same. So he told us we would all come up and put our list of things into the paper shredder he brought, and finally bury our weapons of war! It was honestly really cool!! I feel like there wasn't a lot to bury for some, but the choice to finally put it all away and choose to be consecrated is something we could all learn to take!!
 |
| Little cat trying to find out why I was following him! |
"46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him."
I testify that as we all strive to love more and hate less, not only will we be happier in this life, but we open up the opportunity to face even greater happiness in the life to come!! I love you all more than you think! Have a great week and I'll see you soon!!
-Elder Garnica
Comments
Post a Comment