Hello Family,
Anyway, this past week has been an amazing week because Luis is the man. He is super cool and I love to go over and teach him just because we are super tight and we get along really well. It is amazing how much he loves every little aspect about the gospel. For example, we were heading over to a member's house for dinner last week and he called to ask who the three nephites were, if we were them, or if it is actually real. He thought it was so cooled that they were still on the earth and he was really excited. On Saturday morning at about 11:00 AM he finished the Book of Mormon and at 2:00 PM he was baptized. It was the coolest day. I had previously bought a triple combination and an extra LDS bible and we wrote our testimonies in them and gave them to him on the day of his baptism and he was super excited.
So anyway, Luis' baptism was one of the most amazing baptisms that I have ever seen. There were more people than I have ever seen at a baptism. The room was overflowing and we had to have the doors open. Luis said that he would not choose between he should perform the baptism because he felt bad and I know that Elder Esplin really wanted to do it and so I told him to do it since he doesn't have very good spanish and I would perform the confirmation in church. It worked out very well and I actually ended up perform the baptism for one of the sisters investigators named Josue Garza at the same service. The spirit was very strong in the service and in the dressing room Luis was in tears and was very thankful. They both shared their testimonies after. It was very touching and Luis knows without doubt that this gospel is true.
One of the coolest things about it is that Luis' mom came and we had taught her the first lesson the day before so she came looking for an answer to know if the gospel was true. She is very smart and intellectual but a little lacking in faith however I know that she will get her answer soon. We all feel it. Now she says that she has seen miracles in Luis' life and he has changed a ton, and she likes the church and believes it is good for him but she doesn't know it for herself. However, she is reading the Book of Mormon, one chapter per day, and I know that she will get the answer that it is true. Luis is already planning on doing her baptism and we have a tentative baptismal date for her, provided that she gets the answer, scheduled for the 7th of August. Her and I are very close because Luis mostly speaks English and so does Elder Esplin but she and I always speak in spanish and we always are talking together. I love her to death and I am so looking forward to the day in the future that she gets baptized. I hope it is soon because Luis will be leaving on a mission in one year but if not now I know at least during that time God will do some kind of miracle so that she accepts the gospel.
Guess what, Luis wants to come out as a missionary with us now but he doesn't have a car or a bike. Well anyway, he found a kids bike with training wheels way back in his garage and he is going to take them off and ride it with us to our appointments. He is a really small skinny kid so it might work out but it will still look a little ridiculous.
Oh they are doing a whole lot of worldwide missionary work changes. They are going to be changing the MTC cirriculum and with that they are changing a whole lot of policies. Tracy, it is not just you that will be having zone conferences only once every two transfers, it is worldwide and same with the new teaching programs.
I love my mission. It is fun and good. I testify that that is true.
Meanwhile, Luis is going crazy with the missionary zeal. He is sharing the gospel with everyone and we have two lessons today that he set up for his friends. He talks to everyone on the street and everybody he knows about the gospel. I think that he is beating us at our own game but that is alright, anything to get the gospel out. He is finding so much joy in spreading the gospel. He called us up on the phone last night and left a message that was him screaming "Call me back,Call me back,Call me back,Call me back,Call me back,Call me back,Call me back, hey this Luis!" We called him thinking that maybe his mom had died or something. Nope, he was just excited to tell us about all the people with which he was sharing the gospel. He was saying, " the people don't get it, they are all good with Christ and all, but they don't realize that they don't have the full truth!" Needless to say, Amazing! He received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday and he is super excited. Their is another sister in the ward name Amelia Contreras that we baptized at the beginning of this last transfer, She is in her fifties and she has a very strong testimony and is always sharing the gospel too. Her testimony at the day of her baptism is one of the things that helped Luis convert. She loves just Christ but struggles to understand the doctrines of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. She is Luis' hero and so he decided that he is going to go over to her house everyday to study the Book of Mormon with her and to help her continue reading and understanding. He said "I will teach her the Book of Mormon, and she can teach me how to be a good person!" He cannot wait to home teach, he says that it will be his opportunity to be a missionary specifically assigned to certain families and he said that he can't wait. He is incredible. One year and he will be able to serve his own mission. Every time I am at his house I leave praying constantly in my mind thanking God for this tender mercy to have found Luis. He was so prepared. I know that he will be a leader in God's Kingdom and I am just so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to be a part of his conversion. This experience alone has made my mission. It has changed my life dramatically. Luis and I will be friends eternally and I know that he will be the means of bringing thousands of souls unto Jesus Christ. I know also that in time his whole family will convert. They will follow his example and find the truth. Just this sunday his step brother came to church for the first time and his mom came for the second time.
Oh yeah, and other news... At Luis' house yesterday we had sopa de mariscos, seafood soup. Mom will be so proud of me, I ate it all and I even liked it relatively well. My least favorite foods, soup and seafood. In it contained full shrimp, the kind where you have to rip of the heads and pull out the tails, crab, various other unidentifieable fish, and octopus. Octopus was actually really good except the outer skin. That stuff is like pure fat. Please be proud.
Our district is on fire. We are having baptisms every single week and we have at least one scheduled every week for the next 4. We have so many good potentials. I have never seen anything like this. Maybe it is to make up for the dryspell we had in baytown. Whatever it is, I feel like we are seeing miracles daily and I have so much desire to work. I love the gospel. I would do anything to find another person like Luis, or even better, a whole family. I know that we are finding more and God is granting us so much success and it is not because of our own merits. You can't merit success, God only gives success. That is something that I have learned because I worked very hard with Elder Jex but we did not have baptisms. They come as a gift from God. I am so thankful to him right now.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
New companion, Elder Esplin
Hey,
I think you all asked me how I am doing with Elder Esplin? We are doing pretty good. I got upset with him last week because he manipulated me into buying him a bike lock and a bike pump because he said we would have to have it for the area and also because he wouldn't share a drop of his food with me, or laundry soap or anything like that. It's not that I like to be a mooch or anything but when we do transfers here, we have to leave all our food and stuff behind so it is kind of expensive to transfer because you have to re buy a lot of things. Normally it is not a problem though because everbody helps each other out and if somebody needs something, we share and also usually we buy food together. Elder Esplin would not even share laundry soap, milk, bread, cheese or the basics with me. Because of that I had to spend way extra and I used all of my 130 bucks in the past two weeks so now I have no money for the next few weeks. No worries I will just keep draining my home bank account I guess. Yeah, it made me furious one day when I saw him sneakily snacking on my food. I about put a footprint on his face but now I decided that I am just going to start sharing with him like crazy until he realizes how stupid it is to be a selfish bumsniffer.
Its this whole thing about being companions that have never had a friend in their life. Elder Daniele and Esplin both had never hung out with anyone outside of their family in their life and it makes it so a person does not know how to deal with people in social situations. They need to have better filtering on missionaries that put in their papers. If you didn't hang out at all before and are socially struggling they should require that you go to a social skills class. That's what they need to be teaching in mission prep.
No, i need to stop complaining. Elder Esplin is a wonderful guy. He knows every fact a man would never want to know about star wars and computer games. He also loves the gospel and is amazing at spanish for only having two transfers in the mission.
But anyway, ignore the rest, I am really loving it here in Sterling Green, besides the fact that we live in a smokestack and heaven forbid we teach the word of wisdom with the scent of Marlboros flowing from our clothes. We have an amazing investigator named Amelia Contreras that is going to get baptized this week. She is 55 or so years old and is from Honduras. She is almost deaf and was born that way so we have to yell to teach her. She loves the gospel and is so excited to get baptized but she had a very bad incident at church yesterday. She was in relief society and first of all they announced her baptism and so everybody was looking at her and congratulating her and then the teacher started making some jokes (totally unrelated to her) before they started the lesson. Because she couldn't hear well and that had all been staring at her, Ameila thought they had been making fun of her because of her hearing and she begin to cry. We were in priesthood and so we knew nothing about it until the Relief Society president came and talked to us. We waited for her outside the bishops office as he tried to comfort her and she had a major emotional breakdown. She said all of her life since she was a little girl, people have made fun of her for being basically deaf and she had finally found a place where she felt accepted and loved and then she had been under the impression that she was even being rejected there in church and she was devastated. We thought she mind not go through with her baptism. The Bishop, and the Relief Society Presidency all took their turns trying to helping her understnad that they loved her and nobody would ever make fun of her but she was so upset she wouldn't be comforted. After, an hour of talking she finally understood and felt better and I think it will actually be a good thing for her because it got her to know the sisters in the ward and it got them to feel close. After that Amelia said that she was good and we proceeded to have her baptismal interview and now she is ready to go. This week we will just keep bringing over members and this saturday she will be baptized.
Yesterday evening we had a super miracle. We were about to return to our apartment for dinner but we felt we needed to accomplish more before we went back, so we went to this other street to contact people. The first person we found was this 17 year old kid named Luis Chavez that was throwing rocks at his friends window trying to see if he was home. We talked to him and he said he didn't know if he believed in Jesus Christ and he was really confused about religion. We asked him to come sit down with us and we would share him the message right then. He said sure why not. So we walked to a nearby park and sat down. We started teaching him the Restoration and as we talked he would not make eye contact and was very deep in thought, and then every so often he would ask a deep question. We focused on the atonement and the importance of Jesus Christ and the lesson kind of mixed into a Plan of Salvation. At one point we were talking about agency and he said, " ok I am thankful for all you do but you are not really helping me at all and I have heard enough and I understand that you guys believe all this stuff but I don't because I don't feel it like you do. So thank you for your time. I have my agency too and I would like to leave." He stood up to leave and I said," Wait, I know that you have your agency and we would never want to take that away from you we only invite. You haven't heard the most important part of our message yet. Will you give us ten more minutes?"
He said ok and then we shared the story of Joseph Smith and everything changed. He changed his entire attitude and by the end of the lesson we got a baptismal date set with him and he was super excited to read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it is true. He offered the final prayer and asked humbly for God to tell him if the stuff we were saying was true. That was one of this first times he had prayed in his life. Then he siad "Look I don't believe in coincedence. I will see you all tomorrow."
Anyway, he is a super miracle. Now we just have to pray that he stays on it. I believe he will. Pray for Him. I gotta go y'all but I love you. This Church is so true and our God is a god of miracles.
Love,
Elder Bednar
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use
I think you all asked me how I am doing with Elder Esplin? We are doing pretty good. I got upset with him last week because he manipulated me into buying him a bike lock and a bike pump because he said we would have to have it for the area and also because he wouldn't share a drop of his food with me, or laundry soap or anything like that. It's not that I like to be a mooch or anything but when we do transfers here, we have to leave all our food and stuff behind so it is kind of expensive to transfer because you have to re buy a lot of things. Normally it is not a problem though because everbody helps each other out and if somebody needs something, we share and also usually we buy food together. Elder Esplin would not even share laundry soap, milk, bread, cheese or the basics with me. Because of that I had to spend way extra and I used all of my 130 bucks in the past two weeks so now I have no money for the next few weeks. No worries I will just keep draining my home bank account I guess. Yeah, it made me furious one day when I saw him sneakily snacking on my food. I about put a footprint on his face but now I decided that I am just going to start sharing with him like crazy until he realizes how stupid it is to be a selfish bumsniffer.
Its this whole thing about being companions that have never had a friend in their life. Elder Daniele and Esplin both had never hung out with anyone outside of their family in their life and it makes it so a person does not know how to deal with people in social situations. They need to have better filtering on missionaries that put in their papers. If you didn't hang out at all before and are socially struggling they should require that you go to a social skills class. That's what they need to be teaching in mission prep.
No, i need to stop complaining. Elder Esplin is a wonderful guy. He knows every fact a man would never want to know about star wars and computer games. He also loves the gospel and is amazing at spanish for only having two transfers in the mission.
But anyway, ignore the rest, I am really loving it here in Sterling Green, besides the fact that we live in a smokestack and heaven forbid we teach the word of wisdom with the scent of Marlboros flowing from our clothes. We have an amazing investigator named Amelia Contreras that is going to get baptized this week. She is 55 or so years old and is from Honduras. She is almost deaf and was born that way so we have to yell to teach her. She loves the gospel and is so excited to get baptized but she had a very bad incident at church yesterday. She was in relief society and first of all they announced her baptism and so everybody was looking at her and congratulating her and then the teacher started making some jokes (totally unrelated to her) before they started the lesson. Because she couldn't hear well and that had all been staring at her, Ameila thought they had been making fun of her because of her hearing and she begin to cry. We were in priesthood and so we knew nothing about it until the Relief Society president came and talked to us. We waited for her outside the bishops office as he tried to comfort her and she had a major emotional breakdown. She said all of her life since she was a little girl, people have made fun of her for being basically deaf and she had finally found a place where she felt accepted and loved and then she had been under the impression that she was even being rejected there in church and she was devastated. We thought she mind not go through with her baptism. The Bishop, and the Relief Society Presidency all took their turns trying to helping her understnad that they loved her and nobody would ever make fun of her but she was so upset she wouldn't be comforted. After, an hour of talking she finally understood and felt better and I think it will actually be a good thing for her because it got her to know the sisters in the ward and it got them to feel close. After that Amelia said that she was good and we proceeded to have her baptismal interview and now she is ready to go. This week we will just keep bringing over members and this saturday she will be baptized.
Yesterday evening we had a super miracle. We were about to return to our apartment for dinner but we felt we needed to accomplish more before we went back, so we went to this other street to contact people. The first person we found was this 17 year old kid named Luis Chavez that was throwing rocks at his friends window trying to see if he was home. We talked to him and he said he didn't know if he believed in Jesus Christ and he was really confused about religion. We asked him to come sit down with us and we would share him the message right then. He said sure why not. So we walked to a nearby park and sat down. We started teaching him the Restoration and as we talked he would not make eye contact and was very deep in thought, and then every so often he would ask a deep question. We focused on the atonement and the importance of Jesus Christ and the lesson kind of mixed into a Plan of Salvation. At one point we were talking about agency and he said, " ok I am thankful for all you do but you are not really helping me at all and I have heard enough and I understand that you guys believe all this stuff but I don't because I don't feel it like you do. So thank you for your time. I have my agency too and I would like to leave." He stood up to leave and I said," Wait, I know that you have your agency and we would never want to take that away from you we only invite. You haven't heard the most important part of our message yet. Will you give us ten more minutes?"
He said ok and then we shared the story of Joseph Smith and everything changed. He changed his entire attitude and by the end of the lesson we got a baptismal date set with him and he was super excited to read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it is true. He offered the final prayer and asked humbly for God to tell him if the stuff we were saying was true. That was one of this first times he had prayed in his life. Then he siad "Look I don't believe in coincedence. I will see you all tomorrow."
Anyway, he is a super miracle. Now we just have to pray that he stays on it. I believe he will. Pray for Him. I gotta go y'all but I love you. This Church is so true and our God is a god of miracles.
Love,
Elder Bednar
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Lamentations of Texas
Hey Family,
Wow, I am almost at 9 months which I can’t believe! That is a very long time. (In fact, for those of you that don’t know that is the amount of time that it takes, from the moment of conception until birth, to form a baby.) That is a really long time. All my friends could have children now and I wouldn’t even know because I don’t really hear from them so who knows what is going on in their lives.
But anyway, with this 9 months thing, for the most part I think it is going too fast, however the last few days I kind of wished I was camping the mountains of Utah, blasting music from the Mars Volta, and wasting my life away in that wonderfully mind-numbing virtual reality of Command and Conquer. My fingers have been itching to play those songs I have all forgotten on guitar and I have felt pangs of longing to spend a relaxing day on the beautiful, soft, sandy, beaches of the Great Salt Lake, with its crystal clear water and shiny black brine shrimp… I wrote an addition to the book of lamentations the other day:
Oh Texas,
You have wrecked us,
You bring us no joy.
With your prophesied summer,
It’s rather a bummer,
To know that the temperature is rising.
Your women are fat,
And often Mexican,
But there is nothing wrong with that,
Even though there is no problem with the hispanicity,
There is still a problem with the fat,
Oh Texas, woe, woe be unto you,
Repent or be damned,
Are the words that I say that I know are true.
You always make me feel sweaty,
And one time, the English Elders covered my room with confetti,
And it always stinks in Pasadena
Rotting garbage
Decapitated possums with maggots.
Oh Texas, my love
Give me your Mexicans,
And I will baptize them unto repentance.
Well family, I know that the rhyme scheme is a little avant-garde. You might not be accustomed to such art but as you begin to study art as I have, and llegar a ser a connoisseur, you will understand the beauty and truth of my artistry.
We do have a twelve year kid named Anthony that is very excited about the gospel. He is living in the home of a semi-active member. His mom and family are not members but I think his example will bring them into the church. He is reading the Book of Mormon everyday and he understands it very well. Better than most the adults we teach. He has a baptismal date for the 15th of May and he is very excited for it and also he is very excited to be a part of the scouting program. I hope he goes through with it all and then he can be a missionary in 7 years.
I gotta go fam. I love you all. I love this mission. The past couple days have been hard but it is good. Pray for me because I need it a lot.
Love,
Bernsides
Wow, I am almost at 9 months which I can’t believe! That is a very long time. (In fact, for those of you that don’t know that is the amount of time that it takes, from the moment of conception until birth, to form a baby.) That is a really long time. All my friends could have children now and I wouldn’t even know because I don’t really hear from them so who knows what is going on in their lives.
But anyway, with this 9 months thing, for the most part I think it is going too fast, however the last few days I kind of wished I was camping the mountains of Utah, blasting music from the Mars Volta, and wasting my life away in that wonderfully mind-numbing virtual reality of Command and Conquer. My fingers have been itching to play those songs I have all forgotten on guitar and I have felt pangs of longing to spend a relaxing day on the beautiful, soft, sandy, beaches of the Great Salt Lake, with its crystal clear water and shiny black brine shrimp… I wrote an addition to the book of lamentations the other day:
Oh Texas,
You have wrecked us,
You bring us no joy.
With your prophesied summer,
It’s rather a bummer,
To know that the temperature is rising.
Your women are fat,
And often Mexican,
But there is nothing wrong with that,
Even though there is no problem with the hispanicity,
There is still a problem with the fat,
Oh Texas, woe, woe be unto you,
Repent or be damned,
Are the words that I say that I know are true.
You always make me feel sweaty,
And one time, the English Elders covered my room with confetti,
And it always stinks in Pasadena
Rotting garbage
Decapitated possums with maggots.
Oh Texas, my love
Give me your Mexicans,
And I will baptize them unto repentance.
Well family, I know that the rhyme scheme is a little avant-garde. You might not be accustomed to such art but as you begin to study art as I have, and llegar a ser a connoisseur, you will understand the beauty and truth of my artistry.
We do have a twelve year kid named Anthony that is very excited about the gospel. He is living in the home of a semi-active member. His mom and family are not members but I think his example will bring them into the church. He is reading the Book of Mormon everyday and he understands it very well. Better than most the adults we teach. He has a baptismal date for the 15th of May and he is very excited for it and also he is very excited to be a part of the scouting program. I hope he goes through with it all and then he can be a missionary in 7 years.
I gotta go fam. I love you all. I love this mission. The past couple days have been hard but it is good. Pray for me because I need it a lot.
Love,
Bernsides
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Investigators at conference got bored and left
Buenos Dias,
I am so glad that Tracy will be having a baptism this week. I think she forgot to send me the email that said she was transferred to this new area and that she had someone to baptize because I had never heard of this Sister Spencer person. Tracy keep up the good work. I am so proud of you for being such a hard worker. It is so nuts that soon you will be at the halfway mark on your mission. These missions really fly by.
Man, conference was amazing. My favorite session was by far the first session especially the talks by Boyd K. Packer and Cheryl C. Lant. They really laid it down. We need to be working so much harder as families and members of the true church of Jesus Christ because it is getting so wicked in this world. I usually didn't like the talks the women gave at conference but that second talk of the session was amazing. Women need to stop trying to be like the wicked woman on TV, we need to turn of the TVs get rid off the DVDs and anything that supports them, and need to live up to our responsibilities as witnesses of the truth. I loved how they talked about the woman's primary role of being a nurturer and everything in society says otherwise but that is the responsibility. It made me change me realize that I need to really look carefully and find the right person to be my eternal companion after the mission. I am really grateful for the excellent mother that I have who is a strong woman and the epitome of the type of woman we need in the world today.
We had lots of investigators show up to conference but they all left after like an hour. I guess they got bored and it was really tragic to me that people in this world are so unaccustomed to learning pure spiritual truth and council that they reject it and label it as boring. They want a pastor that fills the room with his loud speaking and charisma and leads them slowly down to hell.
So this week we had about 10 or more investigators drop out of nowhere. We had an amazingly spiritual lesson with the family of Margarita Pena who we have been teaching for two months and the spirit was super strong. Her husband, who had never participated much, said the first prayer in his married life ( 25 years or so) and Margarita was so excited and they committed to read and pray together to know if it was true right after we left. This was last friday. They came to conference on Sunday. On Monday we were supposed to teach them and they called us ten minutes before and told us to save the trouble, they were not going to change religion. They still let us come over and we tried everything they just don't really care anymore. The sad thing is that it is a family of five and they have even told me that they all think the Book of Mormon is true and they have felt the spirit but they have always been catholic and "it has never treated them badly." Of course it doesn't, they don't have to live any commandments and they get an artificial sensation of the spirit as they worship their idols, their santos, y la virgen maria. Man, the catholic church is so freakin' corrupt... sorry I won't go on a Catholic Church rant right now but I would like to.
Yeah, we have basically been doing a lot of tracting. However we have one investigator that will for sure be baptized. His name is sergio and he is the 17 year old son of Nacho and Chayo that we baptized in January. He came up from Monterrey Mexico for spring break and he never even believed in a God before but we had some really spiritual lessons with him and he has begun to pray for the first time in his life and He now knows that the church is true. The only thing is, he has to return to school in Mexico on Saturday but he wanted to be baptized here so his parents can see it. However, he doesn't want to do it this week because as of right now he has only even believed in a God for 4 days and he wants to wait maybe a week. He says that he for sure will go to the church in Monterrey and he is reading the Book of Mormon a lot. He is way awesome and I think that he will prepare to serve a mission in two years.
Anyway, things are going good. Love ya all. The church is true and I love the gospel.
Love,
Elder Bernard
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
I am so glad that Tracy will be having a baptism this week. I think she forgot to send me the email that said she was transferred to this new area and that she had someone to baptize because I had never heard of this Sister Spencer person. Tracy keep up the good work. I am so proud of you for being such a hard worker. It is so nuts that soon you will be at the halfway mark on your mission. These missions really fly by.
Man, conference was amazing. My favorite session was by far the first session especially the talks by Boyd K. Packer and Cheryl C. Lant. They really laid it down. We need to be working so much harder as families and members of the true church of Jesus Christ because it is getting so wicked in this world. I usually didn't like the talks the women gave at conference but that second talk of the session was amazing. Women need to stop trying to be like the wicked woman on TV, we need to turn of the TVs get rid off the DVDs and anything that supports them, and need to live up to our responsibilities as witnesses of the truth. I loved how they talked about the woman's primary role of being a nurturer and everything in society says otherwise but that is the responsibility. It made me change me realize that I need to really look carefully and find the right person to be my eternal companion after the mission. I am really grateful for the excellent mother that I have who is a strong woman and the epitome of the type of woman we need in the world today.
We had lots of investigators show up to conference but they all left after like an hour. I guess they got bored and it was really tragic to me that people in this world are so unaccustomed to learning pure spiritual truth and council that they reject it and label it as boring. They want a pastor that fills the room with his loud speaking and charisma and leads them slowly down to hell.
So this week we had about 10 or more investigators drop out of nowhere. We had an amazingly spiritual lesson with the family of Margarita Pena who we have been teaching for two months and the spirit was super strong. Her husband, who had never participated much, said the first prayer in his married life ( 25 years or so) and Margarita was so excited and they committed to read and pray together to know if it was true right after we left. This was last friday. They came to conference on Sunday. On Monday we were supposed to teach them and they called us ten minutes before and told us to save the trouble, they were not going to change religion. They still let us come over and we tried everything they just don't really care anymore. The sad thing is that it is a family of five and they have even told me that they all think the Book of Mormon is true and they have felt the spirit but they have always been catholic and "it has never treated them badly." Of course it doesn't, they don't have to live any commandments and they get an artificial sensation of the spirit as they worship their idols, their santos, y la virgen maria. Man, the catholic church is so freakin' corrupt... sorry I won't go on a Catholic Church rant right now but I would like to.
Yeah, we have basically been doing a lot of tracting. However we have one investigator that will for sure be baptized. His name is sergio and he is the 17 year old son of Nacho and Chayo that we baptized in January. He came up from Monterrey Mexico for spring break and he never even believed in a God before but we had some really spiritual lessons with him and he has begun to pray for the first time in his life and He now knows that the church is true. The only thing is, he has to return to school in Mexico on Saturday but he wanted to be baptized here so his parents can see it. However, he doesn't want to do it this week because as of right now he has only even believed in a God for 4 days and he wants to wait maybe a week. He says that he for sure will go to the church in Monterrey and he is reading the Book of Mormon a lot. He is way awesome and I think that he will prepare to serve a mission in two years.
Anyway, things are going good. Love ya all. The church is true and I love the gospel.
Love,
Elder Bernard
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
mar 31
Hey Fam,
We have been doing something called the "week of sacrifice," I think I mentioned it in my last email but I don't remember. Anyway, we are studying the last week of the savior's life everyday and we are sacrificing by doing at least five hours of straight up tracting a day, having a zone fast everyday, and we are sacrificing almost all of P-day today so that we can prove to the Lord our love to him and so that we can find the people that God has prepared. I think it is also because the past two months we have not met our mission baptizing goal and it is critical that we meet it in order to double our baptisms this year. I know that for this week of sacrifice, the Lord will reward us heavily and we will have people to baptize.
In our finding so far, we find one person, Carlos Dehoyo, a puertariqueño, that is an amazing investigator. We feel really good about him. He had amazing questions and I think that he has totally been prepared by the Lord but we have only taught him once.
We had to drop other investigators that were not progressing. One of my favorites was Evelyn and I will send you a picture of her and her son and I so that you know who she is. We have taught her for quite a while and she finally came to church but she told us that she felt uncomfortable and wants to stick with the catholic church. She would never keep commitments and would not read the Book of Mormon so there is nothing else we could do for her. I think that she will join the church in the future but she just needs time.
We have four investigators, Oscar and Consuelo, Olivia, and Francisca, that all want to be baptized but they all live in government single mother housing and if they get married they will lose the housing. It is all corrupt over there and there is way more men than woman even but as long as they aren't on the legal paper work it goes unnoticed but if they get married they will lose their free housing. For that reason it is hard to get them married and baptized. Pray that God will help us come up with a solution to this situation because if we can work something out then they can all get married and baptized this month.
We also have another family, the Peña family, that we are working with and I think they will all get baptized but it is really hard to get a date set with them. We have been beating around the bush and we need to cut right to it. We will try to get baptismal dates with them this week.
So pretty much everything is good here. Don't have much more to say. I love you guys. Pray that we will find people to teach and baptize.
Tengo un testimonio fuerte que la iglesia ha sido restaurada otra vez al mundo y nosotros somos tan fortunados que la tenemos. Yo se que Jesucristo nos dirige in esta obra que el nos esta guiando para encontrar sus ovejas aqui en Baytown. Me encanta esta oportunidad de ser misionero y realmente es lo mejor dos años que hay.
Love y'all,
Elder Bernard
We have been doing something called the "week of sacrifice," I think I mentioned it in my last email but I don't remember. Anyway, we are studying the last week of the savior's life everyday and we are sacrificing by doing at least five hours of straight up tracting a day, having a zone fast everyday, and we are sacrificing almost all of P-day today so that we can prove to the Lord our love to him and so that we can find the people that God has prepared. I think it is also because the past two months we have not met our mission baptizing goal and it is critical that we meet it in order to double our baptisms this year. I know that for this week of sacrifice, the Lord will reward us heavily and we will have people to baptize.
In our finding so far, we find one person, Carlos Dehoyo, a puertariqueño, that is an amazing investigator. We feel really good about him. He had amazing questions and I think that he has totally been prepared by the Lord but we have only taught him once.
We had to drop other investigators that were not progressing. One of my favorites was Evelyn and I will send you a picture of her and her son and I so that you know who she is. We have taught her for quite a while and she finally came to church but she told us that she felt uncomfortable and wants to stick with the catholic church. She would never keep commitments and would not read the Book of Mormon so there is nothing else we could do for her. I think that she will join the church in the future but she just needs time.
We have four investigators, Oscar and Consuelo, Olivia, and Francisca, that all want to be baptized but they all live in government single mother housing and if they get married they will lose the housing. It is all corrupt over there and there is way more men than woman even but as long as they aren't on the legal paper work it goes unnoticed but if they get married they will lose their free housing. For that reason it is hard to get them married and baptized. Pray that God will help us come up with a solution to this situation because if we can work something out then they can all get married and baptized this month.
We also have another family, the Peña family, that we are working with and I think they will all get baptized but it is really hard to get a date set with them. We have been beating around the bush and we need to cut right to it. We will try to get baptismal dates with them this week.
So pretty much everything is good here. Don't have much more to say. I love you guys. Pray that we will find people to teach and baptize.
Tengo un testimonio fuerte que la iglesia ha sido restaurada otra vez al mundo y nosotros somos tan fortunados que la tenemos. Yo se que Jesucristo nos dirige in esta obra que el nos esta guiando para encontrar sus ovejas aqui en Baytown. Me encanta esta oportunidad de ser misionero y realmente es lo mejor dos años que hay.
Love y'all,
Elder Bernard
Thursday, March 11, 2010
I love my mission
Buenos Dias Familia,
¿Comó les va? Ha sido tanto tiempo. Demasiado. Hey everybody I love you so much.
My mission is going amazing! I love it out here now. I am so glad I made the necessary changes so that I can serve my mission with full purpose of heart now. I love my mission. I have learned so many things.
Ok, so I had my first baptism and confirmation that I performed on this past Saturday and Sunday. Iris asked me to do both and I was very excited to do it. Also Luzmaria Roxanna Ceja Torres was baptized the same day also, in otherwords, Roxy. It was so cool to have these two baptisms and I felt the spirit super strong and I was excited to be a part of it. They both bore their testimonies at the baptism, after the service and it was excellent. I am kind of worried about Iris. I hope she stays on track. I will continue to work with her.
Also, Elder Daniele returned to Argentina and I now am in a trio with the English missionaries here. They believe in having companionship unity time, birthday parties, member dinners and barbecues. I am glad that they are having so much fun. In the mean time, I go out with members everyday and keep up with my area. I am teaching almost entirely in Spanish now and since Elder Daniel left I know have to do everything in Spanish. The cool thing is, I listened to his correct Spanish for a long time but never had the opportunity to speak it. Now I do and I can speak. I don’t know how. Last week when he was here I still couldn’t say anything but I would have to say that my Spanish has grown more in the past three days than in any other time of my mission. I am now obsessed with Mexico and anything Hispanic. I love Spanish. I feel like I finally can connect to my investigators in Spanish and before I was always the silent missionary.
I loved Elder Daniele so much. I miss him. However, I am so glad that I have these two weeks to prove myself. I feel like God is giving me a challenge to see if I am going to be a slacker missionary when no one is pushing me to work or if I will do it myself. I am responding to the challenge. My goal was to get a baptismal date every single day of this week. I have received three so far. Today I will try again. There is a 9 year old girl named Mireley and I think I can get a baptismal date with her. Today is p-day but I don’t even want P-day anymore. I want to work all day. I am trying to get it set up so that I can go out with a member and I don’t want have to waste my time jugando con misioneros locos que deberían estar en un la escuela secondaria.
So we have a baptismal date for Nacho Hernandez and also his wife, Melissa, for the 13th of March. Also, Consuelo is set to be baptized this day. I know that they will be ready although Nacho Hernandez and Melissa need to get married first and she doesn’t want to. She wants to get baptized though, and with this desire we will be able to move forward and get her married. I have faith that they will make their baptismal dates. I pray that the husband of Consuelo, will come back from Mexico soon enough that he can get baptized also but who knows.
All I want to say is that this has been the best week of my mission. I spend all my days with Hispanic members helping me teach and I love them. I have so many people to teach and baptize. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to teach her and especially to have my own area where I decide how things are done. Now I am working harder than I have ever worked.
I am obsessed with my mission! I never want to go home. Now it is not a bipolar up and down thing so much as it was before. Ever since I gave up all the things that reminded me of my old a few weeks ago, I have begun to create a new identity as a servant of the Lord. I know that this gospel is true and it changes lives because I can feel the change that it is bringing to pass in my life. Also, I see the changes that happen in others lives. I feel like my testimony is burning inside of me. I know that Jesus Christ is my savior and I want everyone to have that testimony.
I love you guys
Elder Bernard
¿Comó les va? Ha sido tanto tiempo. Demasiado. Hey everybody I love you so much.
My mission is going amazing! I love it out here now. I am so glad I made the necessary changes so that I can serve my mission with full purpose of heart now. I love my mission. I have learned so many things.
Ok, so I had my first baptism and confirmation that I performed on this past Saturday and Sunday. Iris asked me to do both and I was very excited to do it. Also Luzmaria Roxanna Ceja Torres was baptized the same day also, in otherwords, Roxy. It was so cool to have these two baptisms and I felt the spirit super strong and I was excited to be a part of it. They both bore their testimonies at the baptism, after the service and it was excellent. I am kind of worried about Iris. I hope she stays on track. I will continue to work with her.
Also, Elder Daniele returned to Argentina and I now am in a trio with the English missionaries here. They believe in having companionship unity time, birthday parties, member dinners and barbecues. I am glad that they are having so much fun. In the mean time, I go out with members everyday and keep up with my area. I am teaching almost entirely in Spanish now and since Elder Daniel left I know have to do everything in Spanish. The cool thing is, I listened to his correct Spanish for a long time but never had the opportunity to speak it. Now I do and I can speak. I don’t know how. Last week when he was here I still couldn’t say anything but I would have to say that my Spanish has grown more in the past three days than in any other time of my mission. I am now obsessed with Mexico and anything Hispanic. I love Spanish. I feel like I finally can connect to my investigators in Spanish and before I was always the silent missionary.
I loved Elder Daniele so much. I miss him. However, I am so glad that I have these two weeks to prove myself. I feel like God is giving me a challenge to see if I am going to be a slacker missionary when no one is pushing me to work or if I will do it myself. I am responding to the challenge. My goal was to get a baptismal date every single day of this week. I have received three so far. Today I will try again. There is a 9 year old girl named Mireley and I think I can get a baptismal date with her. Today is p-day but I don’t even want P-day anymore. I want to work all day. I am trying to get it set up so that I can go out with a member and I don’t want have to waste my time jugando con misioneros locos que deberían estar en un la escuela secondaria.
So we have a baptismal date for Nacho Hernandez and also his wife, Melissa, for the 13th of March. Also, Consuelo is set to be baptized this day. I know that they will be ready although Nacho Hernandez and Melissa need to get married first and she doesn’t want to. She wants to get baptized though, and with this desire we will be able to move forward and get her married. I have faith that they will make their baptismal dates. I pray that the husband of Consuelo, will come back from Mexico soon enough that he can get baptized also but who knows.
All I want to say is that this has been the best week of my mission. I spend all my days with Hispanic members helping me teach and I love them. I have so many people to teach and baptize. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to teach her and especially to have my own area where I decide how things are done. Now I am working harder than I have ever worked.
I am obsessed with my mission! I never want to go home. Now it is not a bipolar up and down thing so much as it was before. Ever since I gave up all the things that reminded me of my old a few weeks ago, I have begun to create a new identity as a servant of the Lord. I know that this gospel is true and it changes lives because I can feel the change that it is bringing to pass in my life. Also, I see the changes that happen in others lives. I feel like my testimony is burning inside of me. I know that Jesus Christ is my savior and I want everyone to have that testimony.
I love you guys
Elder Bernard
Monday, March 1, 2010
2 baptisms coming up and I'm loving my mission
Guess what everybody??!!!
We are having two baptisms this Saturday. We have been working with Roxy and Iris and they are both going to be baptized at five this Saturday. I am so excited.
Roxy is so prepared and she loves the gospel. It is weird because she was like a total party girl and now she gave up drinking, coffee, and she committed to live the Law of Chastity. I am so glad that she has progressed so much. She came to church last week and she loved it. Her three year old girl was crying because she didn't want to go home and she loved her classes so much. Roxy also came to a Noche de Hogar and it was really fun.
Iris also came to church for the first time this week and she loved it and the people just loved her. You have to know Iris. She is the funniest, most energetic, black lady and she just brings a smile everywhere she goes. I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to work with her. Her son Xavier, who is 8, also loved. He said "Man, church was so cool." We have not taught him much because Iris is already a handful but we will focus on him soon and then he should be able to get baptized in a few weeks.
We had a lesson with Iris on Monday that was amazing. Normally she is very difficult to teach because she always acts like a child and goofs around and jokes. This time she broke down and really shared everything with us. She knows the Book of Mormon is true and that this is God’s church. She knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She understands the Restoration. She knows all this but her family does not like the Mormon Church and she says that her mom is very Baptist and she knows that her family will reject her if she joins the church. We shared some scriptures and lots of testimony and the spirit was strong. She was almost in tears but she didn’t feel like she had the strength to follow God at this time. She didn’t want to sacrifice her family. I shared the story of Christian Johnson who left Denmark and his family (at least I hope it was him. At this point in the lesson I was really wishing that I had all the details about him because I kind of had to just guess on the details.) I told her of how glad I am that my ancestors had the strength to give up everything so that I could have the truth now. Even though I probably told his story a little bit wrong the spirit was really strong. Elder Daniele also told a similar story about how his father was rejected from his family when he joined the church but now within fifteen years their hearts softened and many of them joined the church. We promised Iris that she has the strength to do it. She didn’t seem convinced.
The next day we shared with her the story of Jonah and the whale and how we can’t really run from God’s will and she told us that she was willing to be baptized and rely on God to help her family. We were not sure if she would rather do it this week or next week and we gave her the option of putting of her baptism but she wanted to do it this week and so we are excited to have her baptized this Saturday. It truly was a miracle what happened here because on Monday she was not willing to be baptized at all the next day she didn’t even want to put it back a week. I know that God is performing miracles in my mission.
We have a lot of other people that are also right close to being baptized. I will give you the update on them next week but it is crazy to see how many miracles are happening every day.
I had the opportunity to see some of the people I knew from Pasadena at the Noche de Hogar on Monday and also after zone conference last week. I saw my favorite family, the Salazar-Jimenez family, and all their kids. They are the family that I kept sending you pictures of in Pasadena. They told me that the divorce is almost done so that they can get married and Jose Salazar will be able to get baptized. They are so cool and when I saw them all the kids ran up to me and told me they loved me and I that they missed me so bad and I was almost crying because it felt so good. It was so cool because when I was in Pasadena, I loved them so much but I couldn’t speak to them because my Spanish was so bad but now when I see them I can talk. They told me about Elder Trappett, he finished his mission and is working at Subway in Idaho. He told them that I was his favorite companion and I loved being his companion so much also.
Also, I saw Santo Lerdo, who was the coolest member ever and I totally loved talking to him. He said he prayed for me a ton to learn Spanish and he said “I guess it worked.” I also, saw other members and one person we taught named Yoni Castro asked me to baptize him in the future. Seeing all those members at the Noche de Hogar was like how I imagine heaven. We get to see all the people we love and we will be so exceedingly happy to see each other and know that we are still firm in the faith. I have never been so happy in my life as this night at the Noche de Hogar and also at the zone conference when I got to see some of my favorite members. The relationships I have developed are the best. I love my mission.
I have become very passionate about my mission now that I am not distracted by my past life. My mission is shaping my identity. The Lord will shape me into the person I need to be. I love my mission!!! I know that what I am a part of is changing lives and I know that the savior loves his children and wants them back. How grateful I am to be a part of it.
I love you all
Elder Bernard
We are having two baptisms this Saturday. We have been working with Roxy and Iris and they are both going to be baptized at five this Saturday. I am so excited.
Roxy is so prepared and she loves the gospel. It is weird because she was like a total party girl and now she gave up drinking, coffee, and she committed to live the Law of Chastity. I am so glad that she has progressed so much. She came to church last week and she loved it. Her three year old girl was crying because she didn't want to go home and she loved her classes so much. Roxy also came to a Noche de Hogar and it was really fun.
Iris also came to church for the first time this week and she loved it and the people just loved her. You have to know Iris. She is the funniest, most energetic, black lady and she just brings a smile everywhere she goes. I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to work with her. Her son Xavier, who is 8, also loved. He said "Man, church was so cool." We have not taught him much because Iris is already a handful but we will focus on him soon and then he should be able to get baptized in a few weeks.
We had a lesson with Iris on Monday that was amazing. Normally she is very difficult to teach because she always acts like a child and goofs around and jokes. This time she broke down and really shared everything with us. She knows the Book of Mormon is true and that this is God’s church. She knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She understands the Restoration. She knows all this but her family does not like the Mormon Church and she says that her mom is very Baptist and she knows that her family will reject her if she joins the church. We shared some scriptures and lots of testimony and the spirit was strong. She was almost in tears but she didn’t feel like she had the strength to follow God at this time. She didn’t want to sacrifice her family. I shared the story of Christian Johnson who left Denmark and his family (at least I hope it was him. At this point in the lesson I was really wishing that I had all the details about him because I kind of had to just guess on the details.) I told her of how glad I am that my ancestors had the strength to give up everything so that I could have the truth now. Even though I probably told his story a little bit wrong the spirit was really strong. Elder Daniele also told a similar story about how his father was rejected from his family when he joined the church but now within fifteen years their hearts softened and many of them joined the church. We promised Iris that she has the strength to do it. She didn’t seem convinced.
The next day we shared with her the story of Jonah and the whale and how we can’t really run from God’s will and she told us that she was willing to be baptized and rely on God to help her family. We were not sure if she would rather do it this week or next week and we gave her the option of putting of her baptism but she wanted to do it this week and so we are excited to have her baptized this Saturday. It truly was a miracle what happened here because on Monday she was not willing to be baptized at all the next day she didn’t even want to put it back a week. I know that God is performing miracles in my mission.
We have a lot of other people that are also right close to being baptized. I will give you the update on them next week but it is crazy to see how many miracles are happening every day.
I had the opportunity to see some of the people I knew from Pasadena at the Noche de Hogar on Monday and also after zone conference last week. I saw my favorite family, the Salazar-Jimenez family, and all their kids. They are the family that I kept sending you pictures of in Pasadena. They told me that the divorce is almost done so that they can get married and Jose Salazar will be able to get baptized. They are so cool and when I saw them all the kids ran up to me and told me they loved me and I that they missed me so bad and I was almost crying because it felt so good. It was so cool because when I was in Pasadena, I loved them so much but I couldn’t speak to them because my Spanish was so bad but now when I see them I can talk. They told me about Elder Trappett, he finished his mission and is working at Subway in Idaho. He told them that I was his favorite companion and I loved being his companion so much also.
Also, I saw Santo Lerdo, who was the coolest member ever and I totally loved talking to him. He said he prayed for me a ton to learn Spanish and he said “I guess it worked.” I also, saw other members and one person we taught named Yoni Castro asked me to baptize him in the future. Seeing all those members at the Noche de Hogar was like how I imagine heaven. We get to see all the people we love and we will be so exceedingly happy to see each other and know that we are still firm in the faith. I have never been so happy in my life as this night at the Noche de Hogar and also at the zone conference when I got to see some of my favorite members. The relationships I have developed are the best. I love my mission.
I have become very passionate about my mission now that I am not distracted by my past life. My mission is shaping my identity. The Lord will shape me into the person I need to be. I love my mission!!! I know that what I am a part of is changing lives and I know that the savior loves his children and wants them back. How grateful I am to be a part of it.
I love you all
Elder Bernard
Monday, February 1, 2010
News from Baytown
Hello,
My address in Baytown is:
619 Rollingbrook #2005
Baytown, TX 77521
Okay so for this week I again really don’t have anything spectacular to say. We teach over thirty lessons a week which is even more then I taught with Elder Trappett but they are mostly less active or recent convert lessons and active member lessons. We don’t have any investigators that are really progressing very much. I don’t think it is their fault I think it is our fault but we have to change our focus to investigators rather than if we want progressing investigators. I have already explained this situation a lot so I don’t know that I am going to go into it anymore.
We are still working with Iris however we have not been able to teach her much lately. She didn’t come to church and we have not taught her since then. We taught a crazy old drunk black lady the other day and that was really wild. She got up and left in the middle of the lesson because she thought we were arguing with her but we were actually agreeing with her. I couldn’t understand what she was saying half of the time and so Elder Daniel could understand even less. However, she was with another white lady Charlie, and she wants us to come back and teach her and she seems like she might be a good investigator.
Nacho and Chayo left to Mexico and we did not get to say goodbye because they didn’t have a cell phone and we stopped by like three times but they were not home. The other recent convert that was baptized the week before I got here is named Neyba and she is going back to Mexico in the next week or two. It seems like everybody is going back.
The member family that was really poor and had their water shut off a week ago or two ago somehow ended up getting a car. We have no idea how but we are very excited and he said that because God blessed him with a car he will help us with visits as much as possible. I think that is cool that he got a car because now he can go to interviews and get a better job.
I am sorry I have nothing to tell you. Nothing exciting has been happening. Elder Trappett goes home in a week but I don’t think I will even get to say goodbye and I am super depressed about that. I loved him to death and I am not excited for him to leave.
Elder Daniele and I have become good friends but we still see everything different. My attitude for now is to never have contention and to make the best of it. I think I will do things way different when it is my area because I want to have people to baptize but that will come soon enough.
I still struggle with Spanish. I feel like I am really stupid and other missionaries can get it down but for some reason I don’t. I don’t know why it is so difficult for me. I hope that I figure it out and can do it well. I am tired of not being able to express myself and of seeming like the timid missionary. It is interesting because my personality is so much different when I am speaking Spanish than in English. Oh well, I am working on it.
I know that God loves me. Even though I am not having ample amounts of success I know that I am where I need to be. I no longer am missing home or allowing distractions to get in the way. I know that there are people here that God has prepared for me to teach and I am excited to teach them the gospel. I know that the gospel is the only way to be happy and I am striving to share it with everyone.
I love you all,
Que les vaya bien,
Elder Bernard
My address in Baytown is:
619 Rollingbrook #2005
Baytown, TX 77521
Okay so for this week I again really don’t have anything spectacular to say. We teach over thirty lessons a week which is even more then I taught with Elder Trappett but they are mostly less active or recent convert lessons and active member lessons. We don’t have any investigators that are really progressing very much. I don’t think it is their fault I think it is our fault but we have to change our focus to investigators rather than if we want progressing investigators. I have already explained this situation a lot so I don’t know that I am going to go into it anymore.
We are still working with Iris however we have not been able to teach her much lately. She didn’t come to church and we have not taught her since then. We taught a crazy old drunk black lady the other day and that was really wild. She got up and left in the middle of the lesson because she thought we were arguing with her but we were actually agreeing with her. I couldn’t understand what she was saying half of the time and so Elder Daniel could understand even less. However, she was with another white lady Charlie, and she wants us to come back and teach her and she seems like she might be a good investigator.
Nacho and Chayo left to Mexico and we did not get to say goodbye because they didn’t have a cell phone and we stopped by like three times but they were not home. The other recent convert that was baptized the week before I got here is named Neyba and she is going back to Mexico in the next week or two. It seems like everybody is going back.
The member family that was really poor and had their water shut off a week ago or two ago somehow ended up getting a car. We have no idea how but we are very excited and he said that because God blessed him with a car he will help us with visits as much as possible. I think that is cool that he got a car because now he can go to interviews and get a better job.
I am sorry I have nothing to tell you. Nothing exciting has been happening. Elder Trappett goes home in a week but I don’t think I will even get to say goodbye and I am super depressed about that. I loved him to death and I am not excited for him to leave.
Elder Daniele and I have become good friends but we still see everything different. My attitude for now is to never have contention and to make the best of it. I think I will do things way different when it is my area because I want to have people to baptize but that will come soon enough.
I still struggle with Spanish. I feel like I am really stupid and other missionaries can get it down but for some reason I don’t. I don’t know why it is so difficult for me. I hope that I figure it out and can do it well. I am tired of not being able to express myself and of seeming like the timid missionary. It is interesting because my personality is so much different when I am speaking Spanish than in English. Oh well, I am working on it.
I know that God loves me. Even though I am not having ample amounts of success I know that I am where I need to be. I no longer am missing home or allowing distractions to get in the way. I know that there are people here that God has prepared for me to teach and I am excited to teach them the gospel. I know that the gospel is the only way to be happy and I am striving to share it with everyone.
I love you all,
Que les vaya bien,
Elder Bernard
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Adjusting to Baytown and an Argentine companion
Hello everyone,
I loved ready all your emails. Thank you for your prayers and this week has been much better. It has been a miracle because through prayer, my relationship with Elder Daniele has totally changed. We have become good friends now and we get along pretty well. We had a really good weekly planning session where we talked everything all out and since then it has been alot better. We started contacting again which I feel is really important even though most the people we contact are english speakers and then we just usually turn them over.
We had a baptism this past week of a couple named Nacho and Chayo. They were found by Elder Trappett over six months ago when he was in Baytown and he came up for the baptism so that was cool. I am kind of worried about them because we got president moldenhauer, the bishop, and another mission presidency counselor President Pomeroy, to give permission and to do interviews with them so they could be baptized even though they are not married and are kind of still living together. They understand the law of chastity very well and so they agreed to have no problems and he sleeps outside in his van with a bunch of blankets but they still live in the same place and there is no way that we can be sure that they are really keeping the law of chastity. We just keep checking everyday. The reason why permitted them to be baptized is because they both have to go to mexico to complete their divorces before they can be married but Nacho also has some dangerous business to take care of in Mexico and he is afraid he might not come back alive and so he wanted to be baptize first. His son was kidnapped by some corrupt cops in Mexico awhile back. He payed the ransom but he now wants to go back and put the cops who did it in Jail. Supposedly he has support of the army and he will go to court but they government is corrupt and he is afraid that they might kill him if he makes his accusation. For this reason, he was able to get permission to be baptized. I felt really uneasy on the day of his baptism and I hope everything is all good and he keeps the commandments. They will be in different places in Mexico so they won't have any temptation during this time but I am worried about after. I hope we made the right choice.
We had another investigator, Juan Andrade, attend the baptism. He says that he wants to be baptized and we have a date for him on the 23rd. He also told me that he wants me to do the baptism which would be awesome because our investigators always like my companions more than me because it is hard for me to joke around with them since I don't know the language. I hope that Juan makes it and I think he will but he didn't come to church last week and that was a huge dissappointment. However he is calling us everynight and reporting on what he has read in the scriptures and he is already to 1 Nephi 16 in about one week. I have lots of hope for him.
I have to go. Love y'all lots.
Elder Bernard
I loved ready all your emails. Thank you for your prayers and this week has been much better. It has been a miracle because through prayer, my relationship with Elder Daniele has totally changed. We have become good friends now and we get along pretty well. We had a really good weekly planning session where we talked everything all out and since then it has been alot better. We started contacting again which I feel is really important even though most the people we contact are english speakers and then we just usually turn them over.
We had a baptism this past week of a couple named Nacho and Chayo. They were found by Elder Trappett over six months ago when he was in Baytown and he came up for the baptism so that was cool. I am kind of worried about them because we got president moldenhauer, the bishop, and another mission presidency counselor President Pomeroy, to give permission and to do interviews with them so they could be baptized even though they are not married and are kind of still living together. They understand the law of chastity very well and so they agreed to have no problems and he sleeps outside in his van with a bunch of blankets but they still live in the same place and there is no way that we can be sure that they are really keeping the law of chastity. We just keep checking everyday. The reason why permitted them to be baptized is because they both have to go to mexico to complete their divorces before they can be married but Nacho also has some dangerous business to take care of in Mexico and he is afraid he might not come back alive and so he wanted to be baptize first. His son was kidnapped by some corrupt cops in Mexico awhile back. He payed the ransom but he now wants to go back and put the cops who did it in Jail. Supposedly he has support of the army and he will go to court but they government is corrupt and he is afraid that they might kill him if he makes his accusation. For this reason, he was able to get permission to be baptized. I felt really uneasy on the day of his baptism and I hope everything is all good and he keeps the commandments. They will be in different places in Mexico so they won't have any temptation during this time but I am worried about after. I hope we made the right choice.
We had another investigator, Juan Andrade, attend the baptism. He says that he wants to be baptized and we have a date for him on the 23rd. He also told me that he wants me to do the baptism which would be awesome because our investigators always like my companions more than me because it is hard for me to joke around with them since I don't know the language. I hope that Juan makes it and I think he will but he didn't come to church last week and that was a huge dissappointment. However he is calling us everynight and reporting on what he has read in the scriptures and he is already to 1 Nephi 16 in about one week. I have lots of hope for him.
I have to go. Love y'all lots.
Elder Bernard
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
