March 31, 2014

FAMILIA! 

Wow! We had another great, but a really difficult week.

Well remember that girl Diana we were working with? Well she got baptized! But it was a last minute thing, we put it all together the night before and it was really stressful. The whole week she was having struggles with her mom who kept saying ‘no’ and did not want to talk to us, and her dad had left one night and had not come back for three days. She was really stressed and thought it would be better not to go through with her baptism. So we went to her house and I asked her the baptism questions and she answered perfect to every single one. Then we read the last paragraph of the introduction to the Book of Mormon and she was so pumped. Then I told her that she could pray and ask for the heart of her mom to be changed and for her dad to come back and that if she did it with faith, that everything would happen like she asked. In her prayer she said "Thank you Heavenly Father that you have restored your gospel through your prophet Joseph Smith, and Thank you for the missionaries who are teaching me and for your scriptures. Then she asked for help with her mom and her dad. Well this all happened on Thursday and then Friday she came to an activity and she told us that her dad had gotten back that very night after having been gone for days without contact, and that her mom changed her heart. We were awe shocked and amazed at the miracles that our Heavenly Father does to help us see his will. Needless to say, she was baptized Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. She has an amazing and powerful testimony and such faith when she prays.

Well other than that, we have been working a ton with the brother and cousin of Aranza, our last baptism. They are two kids of about 14 or 15 years and they are great kids. We are trying to help them and their mom, Patricia, realizes how important and how helpful the gospel of Christ is and why baptism is important, but it has been a little hard. So I would love it if you could keep them in your prayers this week. They have a baptism date for the last week of the transfer the 13th of April (my comps bday). So we are hoping to have a good ending to the transfer and our companionship, with at least two more baptisms, but we will have to patiently work hard and see.

Well now for something amazing. Last night my companion had a nightmare. Now my comp is 21, a big Mexican from ciudad Juarez (the city of Juarez) right on the border with all the drug dealers, but he is one of the biggest scaredy cats in the night. He has nightmares and he will get up and turn on the light in the bathroom so there is light in the bedroom. It bugs me a little, but I know it helps him, but last night he had a NIGHTMARE! He woke up, turned on the bathroom light, but that did not get his fear to go away, so he turned on the bedroom light but that didn’t get the fear to go away or  wake me up, but eventually I woke up at about two in the morning and said "what happened"?  He told me he had a nightmare and that he was still scared, so I went back to bed; well I tried at least, but two minutes later I got up thinking about all the times that mom and dad woke up for me, so I talked to him ( but definitely did not let him get into my bed- like mom and dad let me- just saying) and after he told me what happened I realized that this was an attack from Satan and that it had been a lot more than just a nightmare. So I got up and got dressed and gave him a blessing. When I was giving him a blessing, I remembered a part from Moses and Genesis when God says that “Satan will have power to bruise our heel but we will have power to crush his head”, so I told him that in his blessing and I thought about it a ton. Satan already lost but he will do anything, and I mean anything, to make us lose but we have more power than he does. We will always have more power than he does, if we do what is right, if we are with good friends, if we go to church, if we read our scriptures, if we are worthy of the covenants we made with God we will always have more power.

Well Thanks to the priesthood power my comp was able to have peace in his heart and mind and the fear left him, but with the light still on of course, and within three minutes he was snoring and I was stuck wide a wake in my bed, but oh well.

Well, love you all. Have a great week and I will keep you all in my prayers.

Elder Monsivais

March 24, 2014

Hey family,

Well I don't have a lot of time to write.

We kind of got into a situation, but nothing bad, I will just have to write you later and I will send pictures next week.

Not a whole lot happened this week. We went and talked to the family of Aranza (the girl they recently baptized). We were sitting there talking and then the mom, who is an inactive member turned to her son who is not baptized and said, I am going to miss you when you go on the mission. Me and my comp just looked and each other and shrugged our shoulders. Haha. So I am hoping that we will be able to help this family become a full member family.

Then we went to the sport activity this last Wednesday that the ward had because we are teaching some teenage kids. One of the members’ son, who was going to play pro soccer, had just gotten back from a trip to Puebla and told us that he went to some try outs for their soccer team, and that he had made it in but he had told them that he was going on the mission and would not be able to play for them. We both were shocked. What an opportunity, but also what a vision he has to realize how much more important the mission is and how much more it will help him.

We are hoping to baptize a girl named Diana this week. She is 18 and has really grown an amazing testimony, so if you could please keep her in your prayers so that she can follow through with her fecha(date), it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Well my companion is a little upset, haha, and watching me write; so I will have to finish this next week.

Love you all and have a great week.

Elder Monsivais

March 17, 2014

Familia, (POR FIN (Finally))

Well, it finally happened, we got our first baptism here in Xalapa Mexico, in the ward ofMacuiltépetl. It took a long time and we are excited because it was a 12 year old girl whose family is part member and inactive.  Her mom is not a member and a brother is not a member, so we are going to continue to work with them to get them baptized. We were so excited! She is an amazing girl and progressed really fast but what was even more amazing is that her mom let her be baptized, that was our biggest fear.  We fasted and prayed before we went to go and ask her for the final permission and I don’t know how we got her to say yes, but she finally said yes, and Aranza was so excited. Her baptism was amazing too. There were a lot of people there to support her. This ward is truly amazing, even though it is really small, and there are not a lot of members. The chapel was filled with people to support Aranza with her baptism.

My baptism from Sunday. 3-16-2014 Aranza-12 years old

Well we are feeling a lot better now has missionaries, because yes we did baptize but also, because we had a district class this last week and we practiced contacting and me and my comp were really worried ‘cause we have contacted a lot of people and I mean a lot, but we have never really had a lot of success, but as we started talking about ways we could contact better and when we practiced, we realized that we have been contacting to the best of our abilities and in a good way as well. I mean sure we can always do better. We can always show more love or listen to the spirit more, but we also have to remember that it is up to the people that we contact to accept our message. We cannot force them to accept our message, we can only do the best we can and leave it in their hands.

We have not found a whole lot of new people this week, but we are going to work really hard with the few that we have and try and talk more to their families.  We are excited. There are a lot of things that we have to do and there is a lot that we have to do better.

We had interviews with President this week and they were interesting because, well mine lasted a whole of two minutes I understand that he is busy and that we have over two hundred missionaries but I did not feel very edified through the whole process, but I am grateful for the things that he has taught me. I know that his direction comes through inspiration and revelacion for the mission.  He is a great guy, just a very busy guy.

I have almost finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It is really hard to read sometimes and I don’t understand everything but I am really amazed by how much my Spanish has improved and how much more I have learned by r

eading slower and in Spanish.  I love every single one of those prophets and their examples. I wish I had read more before my mission when I had time because now, well, I don’t have all the time I would like to have to read and really study the scriptures, but it is a blessing and I do understand more when I read and study for my investigators.

Well other than that, nothing really exciting has happened this week, but it has been amazing how fast the time flies in the mission. I now have 7 months and working towards 8 and it feels like two or three months have gone by. I guess that just means I’ve got to get to work.

Well, love you all and hope you have a great week. 

Elder Monsivais

One bottle of head and shoulders last 7 and a half months this is a mission supply of head and shoulders for me  

March 10, 2014

Hey Familia,

Well this week has been a pretty good one. We are getting pretty excited with some of our investigators who have told us, quite a few times, that they want to get baptized; but we are a little worried that Satan is going to work some evil but we pray for the best.

Please ignore my hairy legs but this is my new set of slippers made out of bull skin that cost less than 10 dollars. I finally found me some slippers! Oh, they also come with a traveling case. 

The first thing that happened this week: we went to go teach a cousin of a member. but it has been a very interesting situation. The first missionaries who went to teach this cousin, well the hermana said that they taught really bad and they didn’t teach together; and that they were in their own world while the other was talking and that they were not even paying attention.  I was a little awe struck by this and felt a little weird about going to teach the cousin. We got there and we started to teach and it was one of the most amazing things ever. She told us about her experience with the Book of Mormon and prayer. She told us that she wants to be baptized and that she wants her husband to be part of the religion as well and she wants her children to learn more about this. So we are hoping to be able to baptize the whole family in this transfer but we are going to have to wait and see. But this story is a testimony to me, of the importance of study with your companion and of really teaching with love and not teaching just to teach. I am pretty stoked to be able to teach her, she has got a really strong testimony.

Then Diana is another one of our investigators. She was a little ‘iffy’ about the baptism this last week, but then this week we went to a conference in the stake center and they talked about virtue and baptism. She felt the spirit and she started to cry. She turned to the sister in the ward and said she wanted to be baptized. We were so stoked. At first we thought she had different motives, but now we are so excited that she is starting to gain a testimony.

The New Zone

Then there is Aranza. She is amazing. She has come to the church for two weeks, but she has   also come to every activity- the ones on Monday, some on Friday, and the youth activities on Saturday. She has been reading her Book of Mormon and she wanted to be baptized the first week we found her. There is a problem. Her mom is not sure if she wants to let her be baptized. Her mom told us the first day that she would let her be baptized, but now we are not sure. We are going to go this week to see what is up and to fill out the papers, but we are not sure how it is going to go.  So if you could keep in your prayers, Aranza and her mom Patricia,  that would be greatly appreciated.

Well those are the people that have shown a lot of progress this week and we are real excited that they are starting to see the light of the gospel. I hope that we can help them take the first step in having an eternal family.

This week me and my companion started over again, the missionary hand book and read the part on language. We are now trying to stop saying words such as freak, fetch, no manchie quati bato and other phrases like that.  Well, we have a bad word jar in our house, and every time we say one of these words it is one peso (in the jar).  Well the first day he had to put in 17 pesos, and I had to put in 10. At the end of the transfer, we are going to buy food or something with it. We are pretty stoked.

I have not yet had my pizza party but I will hopefully have it this next week. We are saving it until we baptize someone, so I am hoping this week.

A new elder that got here the same time as me from the Dominican Republic - Elder Garcia. He is pretty awesome. Peter and Sister Jeffery, I am wearing a cardigan! Every time I wear it, all I can hear is: I am wearing a cardigan, I am wearing a cardigan. Haha, new girl. 

Well I think that is about it, but I just wanted to let you all know that I appreciate the help that you have given me and the examples that you have been in my life.

I love you all and I pray for you.

Oh and a special shout out to Lucy Monsivais and congrats Michael and Erin.

Elder Monsivais

March 3, 2014

Hey family,

Wow! it is really late- got to get going.... but I will write a little anyway.

This week has been absolutely crazy, We had almost no success. The whole week everything seemed to fall through. I was tired and just felt like I was wasting my time. We walked around, knocked a bunch of doors and got rejected quite a few times.

One day I just knelt down and prayed. I prayed for what seemed forever and we continued to work. Wow, from about Wednesday and on, everything thing seemed to change. We found two or more people to teach everyday. We found families, we made baptismal dates. We even had some of our investigators in church this Sunday, tell us and other members, that they want to be baptized.

This week has been amazing and we have started to have so much success! The Lord truly does bless us after the trial of our faith or the transfer of our faith.

We are working right now with a member whose name is Joel. I will get pictures for you this week, but he is amazing. He has such a strong testimony and his family doesn't want to hear it. His family has continually rejected the church no matter what we do, so we stopped working with him. Then one day we got to the church and Joel was there, with another man, we thought it was a member; turns out it was his nephew Carlos and he is now going to be baptized the 23rd. Then the next day he asked if we could go visit his brother, so we told him sure. Well, we are working with them to put a date for the 30th to be baptized. It is amazing how much Joel wants to work and how much the gospel has changed his life. I will have to write a whole other email just about him.

Then we found, well our neighbor came up to us and asked if she can learn more about the church and she will probably be baptized the 23rd or 30th as well.

Well the point of all this is that the Lord challenges us, but in the end will always help us fulfill our purpose if we continue to work and do as he asks.

Also, I was reading the other day in Alma in Spanish and I just finished Alma, but something that caught my attention was when Moroni wrote a letter to the governor Pahoran and how Pahoran answered because, well Moroni didn't write very nice words, he wrote what he felt was right and just, but did not understand the whole situation. But Pahoran, how he responds, really got to me and made me think about the way I respond to people when they are angry and when they don't understand. Then I thought about how I respond to trials and what I learn from them. Well, my new goal for this week is to respond more like Pahoran did, humbly, and trying to learn from what the Lord or other people are telling me.

This week, Sunday was the best day out of all of them. I watched as Victor, a youth in our ward walked into sacrament and sat down with his dad the smile and the spirit that he brought and the change in ones' character that has truly repented, reminds me of the spirit that Ammon and his brothers and Alma had as well.

Well sorry this letter is all over the place, but congrats Mia on your baptism and Samuel on winning cupcake wars even though I have not seen any pictures of either of these events, that's ok .

Love you all have a great week. I pray for everyone of you.

Elder Monsivais