Some more pictures

3/25/2013

Hola todos. Otra vez, no hay tiempo. This week was rediculous. And i have no idea how to spell that.... but we did splits like 5 times this week, the zone did pretty well, pressure is building a lot with these transfers that are coming, i will probably stay in the mission chalco. We tought two awesome people this week, they came to church, and are really excited. and the mom really wants her son to listen. It was awesome. Love you all! Elder West

3/18//2013

Hola todos, esta semana fue lleno de esperanza, estrés, decepción, y otra vez esperanza. This week was crazy. First off, last week we had a sister in our zone with appendicitis, which was fun... her two comps had to sleep on benches in the hospital, and it wasn't exactly top quality... we ended up bringing them food because they hadn't eaten, and we brought them deserts and things. They definitely earned a lot of respect from me. Didn't complain once. The assistants came to our zone on tuesday to get the zone excited and to chastise a bit. We had a rough week. This week we had the baptism of Yazmin. She is the one that had the dream about the baptismal font and getting confirmed, which was awesome. ANd it was cold that day. Rainy and windy. The cool part was the volcanos have snow now... Snow in Mexico! just way higher up. So i went with Elder Whitehead on splits and we really were just lookiung for miracles. There was nothing in the zone and the assitants were already planching us a ton, and the only people with someone to baptize in the zone was my comp and I. I called a companionship in an area i had been in on splits a lot before they changed the district leader, and asked about a guy i knew. He's been going to church, and has a testimony, and obeys the commandments, so i asked them to baptize him this week. We now were up to two. Still bad enough the assistants would murder us. But i told a couple people not to baptize some people this week because they didn't think they were ready, and i failed two people in their interviews while i was with Elder Whitehead. We really are trying to keep only converted people the ones that get baptized. Which is why it was such a miracle when i went with Elder Whitehead. We ate with a family whose husband hadn't been baptized, and i decided i would invite him to be baptized. he obeys the commandments, goes to church, etc, so i said, "WE have your baptismal service prepared for today at 7pm (this was at 3pm) and I am here to do your interview." At first he said, I'm not ready, but after i told him about the interview questions he decided he was ready. He had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon too, so he just lacked the decision and desire to be baptized, but at the end of the interview he was really excited to be baptized, and three and a half hours later, he was baptized. His wife was so excited, she had been a member 3 years, and he had always just told the missionaries no, that he wasn't ready, etc. And he got confirmed this week and is apparently really excited. IT really was a complete miracle. The rest of the zone's baptisms fell, so we still felt like we were condemning ourselves a lot, we had 18 who could've been baptized. And only 3 weren't because of agency. THe rest were because of family health problems or deaths, and we are sure that isn't just because God doesn't want us to baptize. We started asking and found a lot of obedience problems, and are going to have to get better at that if we want to meet our goal of 20 this week, which would be beating the record. Elder Cook came to our mission on saturday!!! It was awesome. He answered very directly in his talk almost all of the questions i had brought. And apparently there are now 5 or 6 apostles assigning missionary calls now instead of 2. Go missionary work. And he talked about a lot of new people coming. Of putting the example, etc. Apostles talk with so much power, it was incredible. As he left, he "invoked" a lot of blessing on us, and it felt so strong. We left feeling like nothing could stop us. It was awesome. Apostles really are special witnesses of Christ. And he talked about when he recieved the call to be an apostle how he had just cried at first because he felt inadequate, but how he then realized his first responsibility was to testify of Christ,and he said, i knew i could do that. It was so powerful. Love you All. Elder West

3/11/2013

Hola todos. Well this week was awesome and really tough at the same time. The ward mission leader from my last ward works as a taxi driver here (a fairly decent job actually) and I ran in to him this week. he told me about all of my converts. They are doing awesome. Active, callings, plus some less active families we activated are really doing well. The family that hadn't gone in twelve years is now teaching gospel principles and in teh relief society, others are ward missionaries, etc. It made we way happy to here they are active and excited. That was definitely great. It was a bit tough because pressure is building a lot. President wants this mission to be ready for the new one, and that means more than double the output (double the missions...) It's tough when we still don't have more missionaries (actually less because of the annual december to april visa delay problems due to vacations in teh government every december and new laws this year). But the thing is, we really can do it. We have come so close to having the 15 baptisms a week that we need, but then we have two weeks where we collapse again, and this happened to be the first of two of those... But The good news is God has blessed my comp and I and i think we are going to be able to spare the zone with a couple of miracles. A lady contacted us, has a lot of problems, and wants to change. She actually asked us how long she had to wait to get baptized and how long to get confirmed. It was sweet. Also saw the baptismal font in a dream. So no complaints here. God loves us. Overall it has been a good week, lots of work, but I wouldn't have it any other way (John5:17) I hope that scripture is the same in english as it is in spanish. We also had an awesome zone activity today. We got subway (we found one!) and played kickball. Felt a bit like kindergarten again, but it was great. And it was finally something we found that the sisters could do too. Con amor, Elder West. 

March 4, 2013

Hola todos, ésta semana nos fue bien. We had a crazy week again. Meetings with President on wednesday and friday killed a lot of time, but we learned a lot. It is probable i will be in the Chalco mission, the new one and it is official july first. Though by may we will know where we will be.There are going to be a lot of changes in the mission, i am really excited. Not a ton of time because we have to get a calendar and a report ready, but this week rocked. Yesterday we had the baptism of Montse, Eric, and Itzel, which was sweet. THey are awesome people that we contacted two and a half weeks ago, a super inspired contact, it feels great when God tells you directly who to talk to. ANd the baptismal service was done by less actives and recent converts (talks, prayers, testimonies, etc.). It was one of the best we've had, and the ward was really excited. The work is going well here, and there is a lot to do. Love you all! Elder West