P-Day update week 58, 03/27/2022

 Buenas tardes a todos!!

Alright y'all it's been an awesome week! A lot of stuff happened so I'll make sure to give y'all the details!!

My companion and me with our matching ties!!

Alright to start of out week, we went out and saw some new homes! That's right folks, my companion and I are moving! Let me be clear, the house is awesome, it's probably the best house I've had on my mission. It's a 2 story, 2 bed 2 bath, with a living room and kitchen! And it's just my companion and I living here so we get to enjoy all of it for ourselves (and we also have couches!). But not everything can be perfect right, even though the house itself is great, we've had some little issues with the people that live here in our little alley! My last two houses were great in the sense that our neighbors didn't really bother us, usually because they were too far away and we never interacted with them! But here it's been a little different, obviously I shouldn't go into too much detail, but there were a few instances that rubbed us the wrong way, and after some serious prayer we decided it would be best that the missionaries lived in a different place! So on Tuesday we spent a good chunk of our morning looking at three different houses. I have never really gone house shopping, I mean I'm a young guy and buying a house has never really been on my radar until now. It was an interesting experience, having been in sales I know their tactics, but I made sure to keep calm and receive all the information about the house without looking too excited and then asking about the rent, utilities, etc. But now ill explain a little bit about how it went with the places we saw. The first house was a little one bedroom dormitory in this castle looking building, at one point in time the missionaries lived there, but about 7 years ago they moved out. So we went and gave it a look but it definitely was not what we were looking for, it was super tiny and not very well maintained at all, we would have to make a lot of repairs and changes and we knew that the housing coordinator would not be down for that, so we went to the next house. The next two departments he showed us were basically the same house but one was much cleaner and had barely been painted. The house itself was great! 2 bedroom 1 bath, with a nice little kitchen and living room type deal, but he wanted a little more than we were willing to pay for the commodities of the house! We told him we would stay in touch if we decide to move forward, but I think my companion and I are going to have to keep up the search! Overall an interesting but fun experience house hunting! I hope we can find a place soon, where the missionaries who come in after us can do their work without distraction. Please pray that we can find a house, we kinda need the help!

The Zones of Teziutlan and Martinez!

wooshy

This week we had our Zone Conference! So usually in the zone conferences there are classes, talks, lunch brakes, and teaching role-plays. I don't know if y'all remember but my last Zone Conference in Xalapa they asked me to teach a class, this time they asked me to lead a role-play! They told me that my companion and I would demonstrate how to invite our friends in teaching to make and keep commitments. They told us on Saturday night, so that gave us plenty of time to study up Preach My Gospel, practice and really just get in the zone when it comes to extending Invitations! We also took some time on Sunday night to practice with the APs so they could make sure we would do a good job haha!! But my companion and I are always on lock when it comes to teaching!! So a few more practice runs and we were ready for Wednesday! After a very light breakfast, we met the Area Doctor and his wife Elder and Sister Frandsen! Sister Frandsen had heard a lot about my companion's story, about him losing his father but deciding to stay in the mission and keep serving! So she told him that she wants to film a quick interview with him about his story and make a video for one of the official church campaigns!! My companion is gonna be famous!! So we headed outside and filmed the video really quickly before starting the conference! Once the conference itself started we had a health lesson from Doctor Frandsen, about how to keep ourselves healthy here on the mission! Once that was over we started our training about the invitations. The APs introduced the topic and set some steps of how to make good invitations, and then they invited us up front for the role play with...President and Hermana Day as the "investigators"! As soon as we got settled we went right along with the role-play, it went really well! President and Hermana Day through us some curveballs that we weren't expecting, but my companion and I were able to handle it well!! Afterwards we had a quick review of the simulation, I'm pretty sure they're going to come to church this Sunday haha! From here the rest of the conference was pretty normal, Hermana Day talked about spiritual momentum, and President Day talked about putting Christ in the center of our lives! After that we had dominoes for lunch, took some cool photos and got out of there! Overall it was a very good conference!!

Us during our role-play

This week we have seen some crazy miracles!! Like I've mentioned, the past couple weeks gave been a struggle, really just a grind to get stuff rolling, but I feel like my companion and I have been building up some good momentum and trying to keep it going! And this week we saw the hand of the Lord! I want to explain one example in particular. So for some context, this week my companion and I have been putting a very big focus on making sure our friends have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we have been making it very clear that praying and asking God if this book is true is one of the most important things they will do in their life! Because if this book is true, their search for God has ended, their search for a church is over, and they have found the key to eternal life! And with that we had a lesson on Monday with a reference we received from our most recent converts, Laura. She introduced us to her aunt, Daniela, who also at one point was going to church with us when she was younger! We've been teaching her for a few weeks now, and on Monday we invited her to be baptized, but she said she was unsure, she felt like she had a lack of faith. So we invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon, but really make it a priority, and we told her we would text her the next day to see how it went! The next day we texted her, and she said she felt amazing after her prayer! She said she felt tranquil, she felt at peace and "the hole of faith I had before had been filled". So in our next lesson we explained a little bit about the Plan of Salvation, and at the end invited her to take the first step of going into the Celestial Kingdom, baptism! We told her we wanted to set the goal of the 16th of April, but she said no. She said she would prefer to be baptized sooner, on the 9th! A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one!! So we will be working closely with her to help her get ready for her baptism in about two weeks! We're so excited for her!!!

One last experience I want to share with you all about service. I have already talked a bit about Emma and Cash, two references we received from a recent convert. We have been working steady with them, we've had some really good lessons. But it's just been hard to find time because they are always busy with work! So the other day we decided we would show up to their work and offer to help so we could take some time and share a quick message with them! So we hopped in a combi and headed out! Once we arrived they were a little surprised to see us, but when we told them we were there to help, they seemed grateful for the offer and gave us some mops to help them clean the tarp they used for an event last night! As we worked with them we talked and joked around, we had a great time getting to know each other and being able to get this work done!! As we finished off we grabbed them for a second to ask how it went with their prayers about the Book of Mormon we invited them to do last time (same deal, we made sure they knew that it was something very important). Emma told us that she felt great, she felt tranquility and happiness! She said she received her answer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon! But when we asked Cash he said he didn't have the same experience. He said he didn't feel like that after, that he didn't have those feelings. But we felt prompted to ask him what was it that he felt exactly, after he prayed. And he told us that he felt gratitude for God for the work and life that he has. With that we shared with him the scripture I'm Galatians that talks about the fruits of the spirit! We asked him if he felt any of these after his prayer, and he said that he did. We then offered strong testimony of the fact that he felt the Spirit of God testifying to him about the truthfulness of this book. He then said that he understood, he knew that the Book of Mormon was true! After that moment I felt such joy to see these two souls have a testimony of the thing that has brought me so much peace! I'm so excited to see their progression in these next coming weeks!!

Little cat we found at a member's house

One last thing, please pray for my stomach! I got deathly ill this week for about two days, I'm doing better but I could use the help!!

Well that's all for this week! I love you all and I hope you have a great week full of Joy and peace! Thank you for all your prayers, I couldn't get a long without them!!

-Elder Garnica