Baptism - Padilla Family - By to Elder Ordoñez and hello to Elder Alvarado new comp

This week was also eventful.

Firstly, German. We only got to visit him one day this last week but he it going strong. We re-taught him the plan of salvation, and aq bit about the Book of Mormon. One of his internet-educated co workers decided to throw German the question ``Why did Joesph Smith have 47 women?`` I was like cmon now...we all know they were only 33 ;D  hahaha so yeah we explained things to him as simply as possible..and he has a testimony that is growing, and sunday he came to church, and i high fived my companion when German causually slipped a tithing envelop to the Bishop ;) #faith #trueconversion

Now to the Padilla Family. Tuesday we so to their house to hear the news about Martha`s work, her schedule. I am all certain that our prayers will be answered and such right. We start to teach and she tells that she is going to have to work every single day except tuesdays. and because it is the first week of work she cant change her day off for like 2 or 3 weeks. So we are llike whaaaat but we stayy calm. Then we felt that perhaps it wasnt a bad thing, and we taught about faith and the trial of our faith. Because her baptismal date was this saturday right..and without being able to attend church, she can't be baptized that day. 

So we teach and invite her to overcome the trial of her faith, we felt inspired to testify that God had put her in a situation where she had to find and make the choice to go to church..or to not go. And oh to our joy it was thursday in the next lesson when she shared that she sought support from a fellow co worker and changed her shift! I know it sounds easy or simple but let me tell you in almost 18 months in the mission i had not yet seen someone actually take the iniciative themselves like that to be able to live the Gospel priciples and participate in it`s ordinances. Friday we had a FHE night with the family and made pancakes(thanks family;)) and green bannanas(typical honduranian food) and we prepared them for saturday. 

Saturday Martha and Pedro were both baptized..and of the daughters, the two that weren't working attended the service! Rosi, the oldest, wants to do it too..and she came to the confirmation(church services) so this week we will work with her! 

The whole experience stregthened my own personal testimony that if we have faith and a desire that leads to action..there is no commandment that we cant live.

There was also another family of 3 and a young man who were baptized saturday..and sunday the talks started at like 10:45 hahaha because we were confirming 6 converts and it took, well, a while. The stake president said that if something like that happens again..it would be better to confirm them afterwards so i think it was probably a first!

That is practically all i have to write. Oh! There are transfers. Tuesday Elder Ordoñez is off to the other stake in Reynosa and i will be receivingElder Alverado! This elder..haha is probably the most fun in the mission i already know pretty well. I am looking forward to it!

Love to all thanks for every single prayer and thought!

Elder Smith

We started off Tuesday with the work to invite German to be baptized

Well apparently technology failed us last week and my letters didn't get through. That is too bad. I am sorry about it i hope no one thought that i was ignoring them :/

This week was truly grand. We started off Tuesday with the work to invite German to be baptized this past Saturday instead of the following. 

We talked about some things and then he accepted the invitation. Thursday was the interview and our district leader interviewed him and comes out and takes us to the corner and starts to ask us if we verified the commandments and scared us to death haha. 

Also, German was in on it, he comes out and tells us that he won't be able to be baptized right now, and I started to panic hahaha. Then they started to laugh and told us it was a joke. It was only funny after a couple of hours ha..ha..SO Saturday came and we had the baptism early before work..and right before we get into the water, one of his friends arrived which was great too. To summurize..it was an awesome experience.  I felt so privelidged to have been guided to him. He had been prepared and repenting before we even got there. He is 19, and is just a great guy..future missionary we are hoping ;D

Other family..The Padilla family. This family consists of mother, 3 daughters of 15, 19, and 21 years and the boyfriend of the mother. Martha, the mother, gave me an unforgettable memory Thursday.  When we asked how they felt about baptism, without even exhorting, she began to bear her testimony about how important she felt it was and that she wasn't going to neglect doing it. 

My, the spirit was strong. I told her that amongst the habitants of Reynosa, never had I seen such great faith. Pedro, the friend, is also great, goes to church and fulfills commitments. He likes to participate too. alot. The daughters are, well great too.  They listen and read and pray. But they work Sundays and older ones and younger one is so used to the catholic church she is going to take some more time to progress. But the adults have baptismal dates for this Saturday.

The other investigator that is coming to church is named Janet. She was interesting.  We had a Family Home Evening with a recent convert and she came at us with a bunch of questions. A bunch! But at the end she said..´´´well..i am going to go to your church then´´. Hopefully, she progresses fast, too!

Other story. The problems with the baptismal font didn't disappear for these baptisms that we had in the ward (there were more from the other elders) and the water pump wasn't working. So there we were with buckets filling the font frantically. 

We finally did it..but a hose we used, to fill it up faster, spewed leaves (who knows why) into the font.  So we went to the house for shorts, and I got the closest I can, as a missionary, to swimming hahaha. We used a white shirt as a net to filter the font it was quite ridiculous. Everything worked out in the end.

Aside from that, we worked a lot this week. It was exhausting, but every baptism we used to recharge and remotivate. I hit 17 months this week., thats a scary number eh? I love you all hope everyone is happy and healthy!

Elder Smith

No Update - Mission email server down... My dad very concerned about this!

No message received this week from Elder Smith

This week was excellent!

This week was excellent! We did a lot of work to try to get investigators to church for Sunday.  But at the end of Saturday night we didn't have much. The miracle came through Sunday when one of the brothers of an investigator randomly came to church and it looks like he is going to progress rapidly. 

Also, Alejandra, the daughter of Martha the sister that died suddenly of a heart attack, now has come for two straight Sundays to church.  And this week she brought a niece and a brother-in-law that both knew other youth in the ward, which was awesome. They said they enjoyed church and are going to come again which made me offer a sigh of relief. We had a good week.

Our leader, President Morales, said a lot of great lines this week. My favorites were that we shouldn't be waiting for a transfer if we don't get along with our companion, because in marraige we can't hope or wait for the transfer. Ha ha.

The other thing he said was that in every job he has had he has been paid (relatively well haha) for thinking well more than anything. Lots of other things we learned as well, but I share just those.

As for other news, we had transfers and new elders in the zone.  I am now one of 2 Americans in the zone, and alone in the ward. Well, one from Las Vegas arrived but his parents are mexican and he speaks the language, so I so don't count him :)

i need to budget my time better here on the computer, because I get to the end of my time too fast, and I haven't responded to everyone. So sorry. I will do better next week, I promise.

Elder Smith

We did an activity with the priests of the ward and a convert . . .

Well the last week of January went very well. The highlight was the weekend for sure. We did an activity with the priests of the ward and a convert, where we did divisions with all 6 missionaries in the ward. The original plan was to contact a lot, but various areas had people that were going to get baptized, so we were all over the place. We ended up having to join the zone's baptisms into one service because some one left the water

on in the women's bathroom all night and there was no water in our building. So we went to the other building and it all worked out. As a zone we had 6 excellent converts this week. 

The most eventfuyl part was that of Sister Martha. The mother-in-law of Perla who had 2 Sundays straight of going to church. She died of a heart attack suddenly this past Tuesday. We had a service for her and as missionaries that contacted her and invited her back to church we shared the plan of salvation with those at the service. It was a different experience. But the result that is beautiful is that her inactive and non-member family members are coming closer to God and the Church through this.

Love to all 

Elder Smith