Well another week in the mission has come and gone!
Ugh Ashley is already in drivers training?? Tell her no matter how good she gets I don't know if I will let her be driving me around haha. How did she do in the pickup? Better than McKenzie did? ;)
Oh that sounds so good what you ate! I seriously don't know how I am going to be able to transfer back to what we ate back there. The food down here is so good! I never thought I could live pretty much eating only tacos every day but now that is about all I ever want! Cilantro goes with just about everything too so I'll be needing a lot of that!
That is too bad about the deaths in the ward. That is always hard for both the families and the ward family as a whole. One thing that I will always remember from last conference though is how one of the apostles, I believe it was either Elder Bednar or Nelson, explained how death is one of the greatest blessings that our Heavenly Father gives to us. He allows us to come to earth to learn and to grow and then he provides a way we may leave this world of hardships to one day return to his presence. Once we truly gain a testimony of the plan of salvation we will never fear death because we already know what will happen after and all the great opportunities that will come of it.
I will work on making a video for you this week. Tell the world a little bit about good old Guadalajara, Mexico. Oh and tell mom that I did receive the package from her. I got it right after we emailed last week actually.
Well I will be getting changes this next week. My area actually went from being a closed area to the area of the zone leaders. Elder Kennedy is being promoted to zone leader for his last two changes here in the mission field. I was talking to Elder Peña though and he was telling me President was really impressed with what we were able to do with the area of Libertad in the last two months. He told me it was always an area that missionaries found very challenging. Now it is an area with many investigators and is baptizing also. It made me really realize that if we are willing to ask for the help of the Lord and not listen to what the world tells us we can make anything in this world happen. It all starts with our faith.
Hmmmm....any good stories from this week?
I got to work with an Elder from Yucatan for a bit. He was about 6'6" which was pretty crazy! He was a really great missionary and just didn't fear anything. He would just go out and talk to every person he would see and was just a really fun guy with them. It really showed me how fun missionary work can be. You just have to go out without fear and just love the people.
I had a cool experience last night actually. We were out with Elder Kennedy and another Elder named Elder Pathakis. He is from Sandy, Utah also. He and Elder Kennedy actually went to the same high school but didn't know each other. Shows you how big those high schools down there are actually.
But back to the story... We were walking, not sure what to do the last 20 minutes before we had to be home. I started thinking well we might as well just go back and get home only like 10 minutes early. Then I thought of a story I read on LDS.org when I was back in the MTC of a missionary whose companion suggested they go home just about a half hour early one night because no one wanted to listen to them and they had no success that day. Then the missionary said no, just one more door. There they found a family who listened to them and was later baptized. I thought then, no we need to do the same and contact. So we started contacting and I did just like the Elder from Yucatan did and talked to everyone I saw around me. Just before we got home we talked to one more guy who was walking down the street. He actually wound up telling us he had just had a fight with his family and was going out to buy a beer when we started talking to him. We were able to start sharing the gospel and how it blesses families and actually got an appointment with him. It really showed me the blessing of following the Spirit and "continually treasuring up the words of life" that the Spirit can bring back to our remembrance these things we have learned. I am not sure what will come of that man but I know I did my part to help him come unto Christ.
Other than that not too many crazy things happened. I had my first zone conference. It was like 5 hours long and really good. They announced that missionary work will be changing by using Mormon.org a lot more. Starting in August we will get on computers a couple times a week to do missionary work through that site of the church. I am not exactly sure how it all works but it will be cool to see!
We also had stake conference yesterday. As missionaries we sang the ''EFY medley'' but in Spanish! It was really good actually! Then about a half hour before the end of the conference Elder Kennedy came and grabbed me and told me I was going to be part of the ''Special Musical Number''. I was like...ummmm... I really don't sing! They were all like oh well let's go! So with about 15 minutes to practice I got to sing in the special musical number. About 7 of us sang ''Joseph Smith's First Prayer.'' It must have been pretty good too cuz some people started to cry! Guess I had more talent than I thought ;) hahaha.
I also got a letter from Elder Wasden today. He asked for advice for the MTC but I know I wouldn't be able to get a letter to him before he leaves the MTC. So have his parents just tell him this: FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS! There is always something to get better at, be it methods to teach, the language, anything! I am still learning tons everyday so tell him to use his time wisely there cuz it is short!!
Well that's about it from me! Love ya all! Keep being safe and working hard!
Elder O'Brien :)
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