P-Day update week 56,03/13/2023

Hola hola!!

Another week of grinding, but a good week!!

This week was a lot like last week, but maybe just a little more successful! It's still been a real grinding as of late, just trying to keep this area moving straight a long, but we've seen same great miracles this week! So our friend Daniel who got baptized a few weeks ago is such a stud! We went and visited him last week and while we were there we met his sister and her boyfriend, Emma and Cash! We started to talk with them a bit to get to know them, and Cash told us that about 6 years ago he was also learning from the missionaries, but all of a sudden they stopped coming by. Cash was excited to talk with us again, and Emma went to church a few times when she was just a kid, so we talked very briefly and set a day to come back! When we returned, we talked with them about the Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! They were so attentive and responsive during the lesson! It was great to have the opportunity to meet with them and share this message, Cash even said it would be cool to be a missionary some day! He's only 19 so it's a possibility! They said they would read and pray about our message so we will see what happens with them!

This cool Frozen mural we found a block from where the north wind meets the sea!

As I've mentioned before, our biggest tool for finding new people to teach is through inactive members, and this week has been kinda slow so we had a lot of time to dedicate to finding people! On one occasion we had just finished talking with a family on the street about an inactive family we were looking for. As we started to make our way to the main street someone yelled at us "Why don't you ever come and visit me?" So our first thought was that she sounded a little drunk, and most likely nothing was going to come of us talking with her, but we went over to her little shop anyway and began to talk. As we talked to this woman, We'll call her Abish, she told us that she "went swimming in your church's pool 15 years ago with an Elder" we interpreted that as meaning that she got baptized. A lot of times someone can say they've been baptized but they weren't actually baptized, but we continued to talk with her. In her little shop she was talking with a friend, this friend had a lot of questions for us, about our name, our church, if we can dance, things of that nature. But we saw some real interest there, so we began to give a short lesson about faith and prayer. As we talked and shared scriptures we could see that Abish and her friend, Eileen, started to change their countenance. Or rather they seemed to be more relaxed as we talked, they opened up to us and mentioned that they have been going through a really hard time, and that this is something they really needed! As we finished off we set a day to come back and finished with a prayer, Eileen told us "I know that God doesn't make mistakes, there is a reason that he sent you two here today" I'm excited to see how they progress in these coming days, I'll make sure to keep y'all posted when Eileen gets baptized!!

Horse

Zona Futbul

So one kinda slow part of the week was our interviews with President Day. I know that when we have interviews we usually lose like 2.5 hours of our day mostly waiting, but I also love talking with President one on one and receiving his council! When we arrived I said hi to everyone that was there and we just began to talk and pass the time until we had the chance to be interviewed, but we showed up at 12:30, which was our allotted time, and the Elders from 10:30 still hadn't gone in yet! We knew we were going to be there for a while so we went across the street to buy some food and eat as we waited! I had a nice torta de maciza! Eating a torta like that when I first started my mission probably would have meant 2 days in bed and a hospital visit, but I have officially become accustomed to Mexico food! It only took me 13 months!!! Anyway after eating, we just chatted for a bit and we finally had the chance to go in for our interviews with President Day! It was a great interview, I've been doing super good and didn't really have any concerns, so we just chatted and talked a little about the new mission president! Because President Day is just the interim president, our new, new mission president comes in on June 30th! President Day told me that they will only have a few hours together, to mainly talk about the house, the cars, and little auxiliary stuff! He was told to not talk about the missionaries or the mission itself, but to let him get to know everyone and use his own best judgment and revelation! I think that's really cool, it gives him his own opportunity, and leads him to making his own conclusions! Anyway after that we finished off and gave president a big old hug before heading back to my area! All in all we were only there for 2.5 hours hahaha!! No matter!

White shirt protector 2.0

So this week we worked a lot with recent converts! They have invited us to work with those friends who have been baptized in the last year, and help them stay on the covenant path! We usually have about three recent converts come every week, but this week we made sure to have the majority of the converts in our area book come! Of the 9 people that were  baptized in the last year, 7 of them came this week! All of the friends that we taught and baptized were there, and also 4 others, so it was really cool! It was a nice silver lining because all of our investigators who had told us that they would come to church today, didn't come :/. That is probably the hardest part about this work, the fact that everyone has their own agency to chose what they do and don't want to do! It's hard because we know the things that they need to do to have a better connection with God and have more happiness, but we cannot force anyone to do those things! If we did it would be exactly like what Lucifer proposed to God in the premortal council I heaven, and that does not lead to real joy and progression! And it's really fine, we are going to see if we can invite more people and have stronger commitments this week so more friends can feel the enduring joy of living the Gospel, I mean that's what it's all about!! And if this work was too easy I would just get bored, so it's nice to have a challenge from time to time!!

I don't know why, but this little sticker killed me!

Oh how I fought with this cat to get a good picture!

That's it for this week! It was a hard fought battle this time around but those are the types of weeks that make us better, when we have to trust in the lord and lean on his strength and trust him more than our own imperfect understanding! I wanted to leave you all with a scripture that I read this week that really hit me!

It is found in the book of Alma, chapter 17 verse 10, it says:

"And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted."

This scripture just gives me so much hope! I know that everyone passes through hard times, everyone can feel alone and in need of comfort. But the Lord has promised to give us when we ask. As we ask the Lord to give us a portion of his spirit, to give us comfort in our times of struggle and hardship, he will visit and and tell us "Be comforted". I invite you all to act upon this scripture, when you are going through hard times, lean not upon your own understanding, but lean upon the Lord. Ask him yo comfort you, and he will. We do not need to face the the trials and pains of this mortal world alone, we have tools to help us, so use them! And I promise you that you will find more peace in your afflictions and more patience in suffering!!

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week! God be with you till we meet again!

-Elder Garnica