20 February 2012

Don´t have much to write today. We worked really hard this week but at the end of the week it seemed like everything just fell through with our fechas! No se something happened with all of them. It seems like they caught the ¨lie and say we aren´t home sickeness for the missionaries¨. On top of that it rained this sunday and that means that it was hard for people to come to church. So we are a bit down this weekend but we will be working hard this week to see how everything goes. It could have just been a bad day for every investigator at the same time!

On friday we went to presidents house to have a meeting with the zone leaders. It was great to see all my friends in the mission again! This will be our last time meeting as zone leaders together before we head off to our respective countries lol. I´ll miss these guys but the great thing is that we will all be in touch through tecnologia.

Today we ate lunch with Familia Guerrero at mcdonalds. I sent a picture! I love this family so much and it was great to see them. Santiago was born on the 16th of January and has grown so much and they told me great news that Juli´s divorce papers will be ending in 6 months and then they can get married and Pablo will be baptized! It was a miracle because it was going to take 3 years but now it happened to take 6 months! They want me to be there when they get married in the temple. They have set it as their goal to get married in the temple.

So the bad week turned out good and I´m excited for the week ahead!

Love you guys!

13 February 2012

Hey family!

Thanks for the letter and I can´t believe it is already valentines day haha. You don´t really look forward to this day on the mision haha. Besides that everything sounds great at home and thanks for the updates on everyone because I like to know whats going on. I´ll be home in 4 weeks! I can´t believe how short that will be and today I recieved my flight ticket and going away surveys etc from the mission.

This week had been a crazy week. As a zone we had visits from the Asistentes Viajantes to capicitar the zone all week. From Tuesday to Friday we were traveling with them to capacitar the areas.We basically ate hot dogs and kiosko food all week!! We were not able to get back to our area until Friday at night. It felt so weird not being in our area for a whole week and I really felt the need for having to care for our investigators. Being away from them and not being with them really does make you sad because you always want to be there to help them out especially when they are progressing towards baptism. Satan will always try to attack the people in his small ways to have them not come to church on Sunday.

So with all this captication it was an amazing experience to help the zone and listening to the workshops of the asistentes. Elder Guiterrez, an old companion of mine, is now an asistente. He´s one of the smartest gospel relate people I have met. He will be an apostol for sure.. I´m calling it haha. We are both heading home together. But I learned a lot and I wish I had learned this stuff at the beginning of the mission. But I am still applying what I have learned in my last couple of weeks to do all I can to help the investigators but also the missionaries in my zone.

With the little time we had in the area we still completed with 80% of the Key Indicators... some areas can´t even complete that in one week. We worked so hard in those last two days. Sunday morning we went out to look for our fechas but everyone was sick, went to the hospital, or couldn´t make it. So we only had 3 people come to church this week but that just means we will have to work harder and this week we will have a full week! I haven´t had a full week in a while!

On sunday after church we had an asado with the Flia. Merlo. So we enjoyed a great asado with all the family and talked with the father too about the family and we invited him to come to church on sunday and he said he will come! I hope to complete this family before I leave but I know he will take time but we are starting and putting forth a great effort. Milagros told me she loves the book of mormon mckenna gave her but she says his very hard to read haha but she loves it. I´ll take a picture when I can with her and the book.

I recieved my flight plans today. That was not a good email to recieve but don´t worry I won´t get ¨trunky¨

I´ll try to send some pictures over.

06 February 2012

Hey mom!

Sounds like everyone is doing well at home! I totally forgot about the superbowl but sounds like Eli is taking on his brother Payton with more championships now. I´m pretty lost on football right now so I´ll just stick with Baseball and Futbol haha.

This week has beena full week and we have had little time to work but we completed with all the goals we set and the basic goals of the mision. In fact we reached 100% and more this week. We have been tearing it up here in the area. Heavenly Father has been blessing us generiously.

During the week it has been super hot and rainy. Of coarse we always get soaked in the rain and many people don´t let us in hah. When we pass by the investigators they let us in :) Shows how awesome they are! The families we have are progressing and the new family we found last week is doing great. The two daughters are super excited about the church and came again this week! One is 19, 16 and 8 and they all came by themselves without their mom and dad.

Flia Merlo loves us so much that if we don´t stop by the house at 3:00 on tuesdays or thursday or saturdays, even if we are a tad late they always call us and say ¨where are you guys!!¨. Milagros has been reading and she ended the book of mormon drawing book so I gave her the gift from McKenna on suday and she loved it! she gave me a big hug and says thanks to Mckenna. She thinks McKenna is a strange name haha. I seriously love Milagros.

So this sunday we had 16 people come to church and we have 9 people that want to be baptized. We have been finding new people left and right and this sunday there was a baby blessing so a lot of new people came and told us that they felt the spirit so strongly. We have some appointments with members and some of a new investigators, which are family of the father who gave the blessing, want to have a dinner with us and hear the the lessons! These new people look so promising! I can´t wait to see their progress. There is a 26 year old single mom that has been to church a couple of times a couple of years ago but the missionaries never passed by their house. We gained confidence with the member and now we have a dinner with them and her this friday! She said she felt something special at church and almost cried.

We are working our hearts out here and on top of that we have to direct the zone. We have been traveling a lot but Heavenly Father has been helping us with everything. I´m thankful for the true church and the blessings of our Heavenly Father.

This week we will be traveling even more around the zone to do some workshops and we will be back in our area working on Friday afternoon! I´m stressed that we don´t have time to visit out investigators but everything will work out!.

Thanks about it for the week. I´m ready to take a nap today. i´m dead tired and hungry haha. Thanks for the package it was great and the people will love the gifts!

Love you guys so much,
bret

01 February 2012

Hey Family!

Well it´s already Febrero and this will be my last full month in the mision! Everything is going fine here in Francisco Alvarez. We have a meeting today in Ramos Mejia so hopefully I´ll be able to recieve the mail and packages that are there. Well we have finished a trasnfer and the zone did really well. This week the zone finished first place in the mision and we were the top baptizing zone in the mision this month. President is really happy with our work but there is always room to improve. We are excited for the next month ahead. It turns out that Elder San Martin and I will be finishing this last tranfer together. He will be killing me here in Francisco Alvarez. It´s crazy to be a ¨Pastor¨ its accomplishing but sad at the same time. I don´t want the time to end.

This week worked really hard and we are seeing the constant flow of investigators in the church and baptism dates. We finally have found the rythm and process to have at least 5 people in church and 5 people with baptism dates and finding new people at the same time. For the month of febrero we will be planning on at least one baptism every week with a possibility of 10 baptisms this month. We will be working hard to make sure everything works out! This sunday we went to look for two families and they both came to church with us! We passed by at 8:30 and clapped the first door. The mom was all ready to go and then we ran to the corner and went with a family of 5 to church! It was awesome! Then we had to run for the bus before it was too late. We arrived to church with a bunch of people and the day went really well. Hard work brings results.

Flia Merlo, Milagros and Jesus are all doing super well. We have been passing by there house often and teaching them and really trying to help them learn the basics and get into the rythm of everything. They are all reading a lot and have been coming to church every sunday by themselves. It´s amazing to come to church and see them there all ready in the classes and learning a ful! Yesterday we passed by the church to see if there were any investigators at Mutual. Ends up there were so we played futbol with the kids. It was fun and hah when we were playing 25 ( A game here with futbol) I made the final goal and droped to my knees like all futballers do and Jesus and Milagros came running and like tackled me! It was so funny. I love them so much.

23 January 2012

It´s starting to hit me how fast the time passes by in the mission. At the end of the week I´ll only have 6 more weeks left here as a missionary so I´m really sad. Besides that we are still working hard that ever and I´m loving my mission. This weekend we were able to have 5 baptisms!! It really was a blessing to see them enter into the waters of baptism. The day didn´t start off that well because we both woke up really sick from heat sickness. It was a blazing 43º (104º) on Friday and we got to the apartment dead tired drank a lot of water then went to bed. We woke up really sick and without any energy but we still had to get everything ready for the baptism and work work work! We had to travel to another area to look for some baptism clothes then we came back to fill up the font and clean up the capilla. We do so much here! It would be nice to have some help :P I´m always grateful for the strong functioning church back home hah.

So with everything ready Juan Carlos, Milagros, Claudia, Jesus and Celete all arrived for the baptism but guess what.. the members weren´t there yet or anything so it was a tad akward.. Finally the Branch President arrive with his family of 8 and another family arrived so the capilla was fuller.. haha. These two families take up half of the attendance at church. Everything ended up well. The baptisms were done perectly and smoothly without any interferance and you could feel the spirit so strong. It was so special for me to baptize milagros because she is so special for me. Seing her enter into the baptism font with her face of being nervious but also looking up at me confidently hit me so strong. She really is going to be such a strong member of the church and I love her dearly. It reminded me of baptizing McKenna. Days that you will never forget. At the end of the baptism Jesus and Milagros gave us notes and Milagros told me ¨ Te quiero mucho y gracias por ser mi amigo favorito¨

On sunday 4 of the 5 were confirmed with only Celeste being confirmed later on the next sunday to come. The family went to the zoo lol.

So this was a great week with so much hard work put into the missionary work and were able to see the blessings of our heavenly father. I´m so grateful for my mission. It is so special for me and sacred. All I can say is that every young man needs to go on a mission.

Thanks for the letter and your love. I hope the package arrives soon and I can´t believe I´ll be home so soon!

Bret

17 January 2012

Hey I´m emailing today!

Sorry this week has been so busy and we didn´t have anytime yesterday to email because we had meetings and didn´t get back to the area until late at night and on top of that the internet cafes were closed because internet service was out.

Just a little about this week! The Flia Merlo is all set for their baptisms and the other two people that are going to be baptized. As we got to church on sunday after looking for a bunch of people without success we arrived to find out that 7 people had already arrived! Flia Merlo, Celeste, Juan Carlos and other unsuspected people! It was a blessing to know that these people came to church by themselves. Sunday we complete with 100% of the goals we set and the expectiva as a mision. I´m really tired.. more than ever but we are working hard and the work is paying off. We can´t fail because we have to set the example but I love pushing myself not because I want to get better but I love these people so much. I know through the revelation of our President we can know the ways the the Lord wants us to work and we will have success if we follow the ways, be obedient and be diligent. I have gained a big testimony on working hard and being a líder.

I love you guys so much and hopefuly I will have more time to talk next monday :)

09 January 2012

Just letting you guys know that it is soo hot today and humid. Just walking outside is like an oven with humidity. Just constant sweating.. I love it haha. Besides that the week has been really productive and we are seeing many miracles this week in the area. At the start of the week we had to go on divisions with some Elders in our area. They are the farthest area in our zone so it is about a 1 and a half hour train ride to get to their area. It is really beatiful out there and a lot of rich people are there so you can expect how it is. I had to do an interview for a baptism candidate and everything worked out and she was baptized this weekend! We have been traveling and working super hard and I can feel it. I was super tired this morning and I am ready for a good nap today when we get home with the ventilador on full blast.

Right now we have a great pool of investigators. We had 6 people come to church this week. I am really excited for the progress that we are having with the investigators. One of our investigators has had a problem smoking for 25 years but apprently he does not have the craving anymore and its due to the gospel in his life. He is excited to be baptized and will be a strong lider in the future. Flia Merlo had family come over until 4 in the morning but The mom and Milagros came to church anyways after a good morning call at 9 oclock haha. She said she woke up at 8:30 but was contemplating on not going to church but when she came to church she said thanks for calling and that god wants her to be here. Milagros is just the cutest girl ever! We are like best friends and I cannot wait to see this family baptized. We have another family that is going to get married soon but the mom has to get surgery this week so they are just waiting for that to work out but we gave her a blessing and she feels really protected right now. Just so many great people and they are all progressing! It pays off when you work really hard because satan is working his hardest too. I just care for these people so much! You wake up thinking about them, during the day you think about them and at night you think about them. I cannot believe I have 2 months left.. Time flys and I have to finish off strong.

We found a dog this week that doesnt have the top of his nose lol. I am getting super dark here. People cross me as Latin. So when I get home I will be black lol.

Love you guys,
Bret