P-Day update week 62, 04/24/2023

 Muy buenas tardes a todos!!

Okay this week went really well for us! We've been working hard and seeing great results, I'm very excited to see what Independencia has instore for us here!

Finally deciding to eat the Buc-ee's treat my family sent me. You'll be missed my dear friend!

The word of wisdom, it's serious stuff!

To start off our week, like I mentioned in my last blog post, we went to Xalaoa to go to the Mission Leadership Council (MLC)! It was awesome! We arrived at about 7pm on Monday night, and had time to go eat dinner, since we hadn't eaten up to this point! We went to a place called Oriental Wok, it's a popular Asian place in the middle of Xalapa! On Mondays and Fridays there it's two for one on all sushi rolls, so we each ordered one roll and we're able to pick a little bit from everyone, it was super good!! From there we had a little Dairy Queen dessert and headed to our house to get ready for the next day.

The MLC itself was awesome! We arrived at the stake building the following day at about 8:15, it was cool to see so many of my missionary friends again! We had a quick breakfast with everyone and started the council! We mainly talked about 3 things, the first being how to resolve problems with missionaries, or rather how to help them find a solution to resolve their problems! We talked a bit about how we can be more efficient in finding people, and then finished off with a lesson about faith and miracles from Hermana Day! She explained to us a process of how we can see miracles through our faith! She said it starts out with a desire or a necessity for something which then requires confidence or faith in God that he can help us, and that leads us to doing what we can, taking the actions required. Then after we have done all we can, we keep going with faith, and have an increase in our faith, and from there we see miracles and the power of God! She put the example of the brother of Jared, who did all he could to help his people cross the sea in the ships, but he couldn't put lights in the boats, so that is when he had to put it in the hands of the lord and wait for a miracle! Hermana Day said that we can all experiment with this pattern in our own lives (in fact I'll talk a little but later about bow we saw this take effect with us)! After that we finished off with some brief words of emphasis from President Day and then we finished with a prayer. We had a quick lunch of hotdogs, salad, and cookies from Costco while we talked with one another! After lunch we all headed out to the bus station to head home, while in the bus station we actually found some backpackers from the US there in Xalapa, it was weird listening to English out of nowhere in the middle of Mexico haha! We arrived in Martínez at about 7:30pm, we just dropped our bags off at the house and headed out to a lesson! My first MLC as a new Zone Leader went really well, I still don't really know what I'm doing, but little by little I'm learning!!

Every time we have an MLC, we have a zone council that week to inform the zone on what President had shared with us. So this past Friday we had our zone council! We decided that we wanted everyone to arrive about 30 minutes early to study the scriptures before we started our council so that we could invite the spirit! After our short personal studies we jumped right into it! President told us how Important it was to make sure our Zone received all the information we did in Zone Council, so that's what we did, while still trying to keep it to a decent time! It went really well, mu companion and I are still pretty knew but giving a Zone council os very similar to a district council but just with more people, and we also had the help from the Sister Training Leaders (STLs). We had planned everything out a few days before with the STLs and were able to keep it short and sweet, my companion told me that this MLC didn't really have a whole lot of new information so it was easier to keep it simple! Now we just have to see how they all do with this new spiritual rejuvenation!

My amazing Mission Presidents!

Cows in the dark

One of the things we talked about in the MLC that we emphasized in the zone council was how to find people effectively! Missionary work is great, everyone loves teaching and answering questions and helping people make covenants with God! But sometimes finding new people isn't as exciting and spirit filling, but it really can be! The STLs talked about how we need to be sure that we have fervent prayers where we ask our Heavenly Father to put the right people in our path to hear this message. As we walk in the street, as we are on our way to lessons we should use that opportunity to talk with everyone that we can, listening constantly to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, that is how we can find people! We don't even need to dedicate an hour in our daily planning to finding people, but if we listen to the spirit as we travel, we will find the elect! And that us exactly what my companion and I tried to do this week! Whenever we were traveling and we saw an opportunity to contact someone and invite them to hear about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, we took it! We really experienced this model that Hermana Day taught us in the process of following the guidance of the STLs! We had the desire to find new friends to teach and we knew that God was going to place them in our path if we gave ear to the Holy Ghost. And as we did all we could to act and talk with these people when we felt prompted to do so, we saw our faith increasing and our trust increasing, and we truly saw miracles this week! It's been so much fun working this week alongside my companion, he's really just amazing, and we have seen the hand of the Lord in our work this week, we worked hard and were able to find 17 new friends to help and guide on this path to our Heavenly Father!

One of those miracles we had this week was a family we found, as we were talking towards our food appointment we walked past a house where we saw a young boy and his mother! We greeted them like normal, but I felt like we needed to talk with them. We were already late to our food appointment so I put it out of my mind, and after the appointment I had completely forgotten. But a day or so passed by and my companion and I were walking in that same neighborhood when I remembered that kid, we decided to stop by and do a little contact! We knocked the door and he came out with his mom and sister, as it turns out they had listened to the missionaries before, but they stopped coming by all of a sudden they said! We asked them if we could come in and share a quick message with them, and they said yes. The two kids are called Caleb (9yrs) and Anna (16yrs) the mom spent our visit doing other things the room so we don't really know her too well yet! But we went in and began to teach the Restoration message, it was a great lesson! We saw that they were very receptive and excited to have us there and talk about this message! We left that lesson with the determination to help this family join the fold of God and be baptized! Later that week we stooped by again and tried to teach them about the Plan of Salvation, but as we taught, they cut us off and said "we actually already know about that one" which followed THEM teaching US the plan of salvation! We were a little taken a back by how smart these kids were, it's not very common for our friends in teaching to know the lessons from memory after having only heard it once before! So we tried to teach lesson 3, but the same thing happened, they still remembered everything! It was really a miracle! So we decided talk about Jesus Christ and his importance in both of these messages, and we finished off the lesson inviting them to church! But they said they needed to ask permission from their parents first, and that their dad didn't get home until very late! So we offered to call them later that day to invite them to church, and they accepted. As we were getting ready to leave their dad actually entered in! We began to introduce ourselves and talk with him, and as it turns out he's actually a member of the church! He was baptized in 98' and hasn't been to church in a very long time, but said that he was willing to get back on the path for his kids! Now we just need to see if he can come to church this Sunday, please pray that Varon can get the day off and go to church with his family this Sunday!!!

Sushi! (yay!)

Cat with really blue eyes!!

The last thing I wanted to talk about is a friend we have been teaching! Her name is Kristen, she's the caregiver/girlfriend of a disabled member in our ward named David! She has been to church about 7 times, but hasn't been baptized because no one has really invited her to yet! We have had the opportunity to get to know her pretty well over these last couple weeks with our fairly constant visits, she has such a desire to change and start fresh, and just be an overall happier person! With that desire we knew that the key for her is baptism, it's the thing that she is looking for to have this change! This past week we stopped by a few times, and in our last visit we talked about baptism and how it is our opportunity to be reborn, and start fresh! We invited her to prepare to be baptized this coming Sunday, the 30th of April, and without any hesitation she said yes! It's honestly been very interesting teaching her with David, he is a very knowledgeable man, even though he is passing through many physical trials, he is showing that strength can come from more than just our body! He's a beast! We're very excited to help Kristen enter the waters of baptism this coming Sunday, and take this next step into living with out Heavenly Father again! There is a tiny problem though, they live together and aren't married hahah! I think it's just me, I always seem to find really strong and committed investigators that aren't married! But because they are over 65 and don't sleep together, really she just lives there because she has nowhere else to go and takes care of him with his medical needs, President Day said it should be fine that she gets baptized this Sunday, but he has to check with the area presidency. Please pray as well that Kristen can get baptized this Sunday and have the change she is looking for!!

That's if for this week! It's been a great week, and I've really seen the hand of the Lord as he is preparing the way for us, I invite you all to try and implement this pattern of faith that leads to miracles that I explained! I know that if you wait, hope, and expect miracles, you will see them once you give all you can!! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!

-Elder Garnica