A Week of Travels - November 12, 2016

Hello Everyone! Well this week was our week of travels all throughout the mission with all of the Leadership Meetings and with the Training that we had to do. On Monday morning we headed out on a 10 hour bus ride to Huatulco to go do splits with them there and see how everything was going. It was a very humbling experience out there. It is still amazing to see how the branch is doing and to see that it has about 125 people going to church now. But while we were there we had about 10 lessons planned that day with a lot of investigators and less active members. I was with Elder Allman from Orem. And throughout the day each appointment fell through for us. It was a rough time walking up and down the hills just knocking on doors but then the Lord blessed us with so many people that were prepared to accept baptisms. We found 5 new people that day and each person accepted a date to be baptized. It was a great experience to see that the Lord prepares the way when we are willing to give our part. The rest of the week we were working in Salina Cruz with Elder Flores from Tamulipas and Elder Rivera from Monterrey. That was fun to see them just go out and love the people and serve them. The best part of the week though was when we got to go to the Leadership Meeting in Juchitan yesterday. President taught us the difference between administering and ministering. It was so uplifting as we slowly began to move the subject to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it applies to everyone including the missionaries here. We realized that we weren't putting a big enough focus on teaching everyone the process of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. And by everyone we specifically found out that it was the missionaries. It was a great experience to see how we can help the missionaries serving here understand how to apply this gospel in their lives to be able to receive the spirit in their work and be able to improve through all of that. Something that was mentioned in this meeting is that this gospel applies to every part of the gospel and every need that everyone has. If we have a problem with fear of the future, it is because we are not fully relying on the power of the Atonement that comes through repentance, if we are having problems in the family, it is because we are not excersizing our faith enough by reading the scriptures and praying as a family. Many times when we are searching for answers we go far and wide to the deepest doctrines of the church to be able to try to solve the problem when the solution is in the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, etc. The hard part about this week is that we have not been able to see any of our investigators. The only one that we saw was on Sunday when we got to stop by with Jose. He is still waiting for his papers to go through and it has been a huge trial of patience and faith. But he gave a strong testimony of why he wants to be baptized and the spirit moved us to promise him that it would be possible by the end of the year. He said that he has faith that it can happen. Madai was able to go to church this past week too. When we stopped by to make sure that she had commitments to do throughout the week we left her a chapter in the Book of Mormon. She asked us if there was more because she wanted to read more and we told her to read the ministry of Christ in the Americas. Her excitement for the gospel is contagious. We are hoping and praying that the Lord has put forth his ways so that we can complete with our purpose to declare and teach repentance and baptize converts. I am excited to be able to return to our area this week and see the miracles that the Lord has worked among his children there. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and it is the only way that leads us back to his repentance and the solution to all that there is in our lives.

Visiting Tom and Dominga in Juchitan. Tom is my first convert and he is preparing to enter the temple soon. He has found a lot of his family history to take to the temple to do. He is so converted to the gospel.