Hurricane time

 

Oaxaca rain!

Zone

District with APs

Helping with some dog grooming

Saludos a todos

I hope everyone had a great week!  

So right now hurricane Agatha is heading straight for the coast of Oaxaca right now so I hope all my friends in coast are all right 

But one plus is that here in the city it has been cloudy and has rained a little bit so it hasn't been as hot so that's awesome!

Yesterday in our stake there was a devotional for people youth that can go on a mission soon and they invited all the missionaries in the Zone to sing and it was a very special experience!  I saw a family I taught more than a year ago in my training!  They got baptized shortly after I left the area and I watched their baptism over Zoom Zoom now they want to go on a mission   it was such a tender mercy to be able to see them!

A scripture I absolutely love is Ether 12:27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

I absolutely love this scripture, in this world there are many things that will make us feel like we fall short and sometimes we do.  But we have the promise of our Savior that if we come unto him and repent and be humble he will help us be better!  And our weakness will be our strengths!  What a blessing that is!

If you haven't listened to Presidente Nelson's devotional from last week, do so!  I know he is a prophet of the Lord!  Something he said that I love is "I plead with you to take charge of your testimony. Work for it. Own it. Care for it. Nurture it so that it will grow. Feed it truth. Don’t pollute it with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women and then wonder why your testimony is waning."

I absolutely love that!  We must take care of our testimony!  I invite you to nurture your testimony and to feed it truth and not pollute it.

I love this gospel and I know it is the gospel of Jesus Christ!

I want to learn Mixteco

Zone

District

 Mixteco is a indigenous language that they speak here in some place because in Oaxaca they talk a ton of different dialects in the mountains and stuff.  Some people we ate teaching speak Spanish and Mixteco and they had me say a few words and they said my accent and pronunciation were perfect because apparently English and a bunch of indigenous languages here in Oaxaca have a lot of similar sounds so that's pretty cool.  Also it was also kinda nice to hear my accent was perfect for once HAHAH

Something interesting I have seen that here in this area Dogs like me a lot more.  Like we will just be in a lesson and their dog will just walk up and put his head on my knee it's pretty cute not gonna lie.  But I still have trust issues with dogs thanks to past experiences aka Güero.  

This week was great!  I have been trying to trust in the Lord more with everything I do as a missionary.  I know that he knows us and loves us.  Something sad we see a lot is that people will know that there church is true but they don't want to leave their old traditions.  It can be sad to see people you love not embrace completely the gospel of Jesus Christ because of their incorrect traditions.  The more I thought about it the more I realized we are all like that in some ways.  I've been trying to improve my study of the Bible and it's interesting to me that in the footnote when it talked about repentance it says that the original Greek word is a change of heart or mind.  

I think all of us have things where we can be a little stubborn and it is hard to change our hearts and minds.  But I know that if we put in the effort to truly have a lasting change of heart we will be truly blessed.  We also don't have to do this change of heart alone either.  Through the grace and atonement of Jesus Christ he will truly help us change and be better.  How amazing is that?  So I would like to invite you if there is anything that is stopping you from enjoying all of the blessings the gospel of Jesus Christ brings, repent, or in other words change so that that you can be closer to our friend and Savior Jesus Christ who loves you so incredibly much!

Love Yall!

Esperanza

 

Hola!  I hope everyone had a great week!  This week was very special!

So to start off I love my new area but it has definitely been the hardest area to find people in.  This area is a lot smaller so most people here have talked to missionaries before so we get rejected a lot more often.  After someone rejected us I had a book of Mormon in my hand and I randomly opened it to Alma 17.  Here it is talking about the sons of Mosiah and when they left on their missions to the Lamanites and it says.:

"Now these are the circumstances which attended them in their journeyings, for they had many afflictions; they did suffer much, both in body and in mind, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue, and also much labor in the spirit. And it came to pass that they journeyed many days in the wilderness, and they fasted much and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them, and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible, their brethren, the Lamanites, to the knowledge of the truth, to the knowledge of the baseness of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct.

   10 And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted."

I loved those verses!  When I read that last verse it felt like it was talking to me and I was comforted!  Also right after that we visited another lady and she couldn't talk to us right then because she was busy organizing her store so we offered to help her.  She was super grateful because she was stressing out about finishing everything.  It was a pretty cool experience because it reminded me with the story of Ammon and when we offer to serve people we can show our love for others!  I did not however chop off any arms nor was I offered a wife like Ammon however 

If you don't know the story of Ammon go read it in the book of Mormom!

This week I did my first baptismal interview.  At first I was pretty nervous but when I interviewed him we became good buddies and he invited me to his baptism!  So now whenever I see him at church we talk a lot!  Baptism is truly such a blessing for everyone!  Almost everyone I hear share how they feel after their baptism they always say they feel so light and clean!  

I love Jesus Christ and his Doctrine so much!

La Joya 💎

 

Hey Yall!  Hope everyone had a great week!  

This week was great!  I got to my new area and the ward is called La Joya and I love it!  It's in the same zone I was in during my training so it's been fun to see old places and familiar faces!

We had a baptism this week so that was awesome!  The ward here is awesome and they help us out a lot with missionary work.  

I have noticed something interesting in this area I have been getting a lot more of random attention.  I think it is partly because a Facebook post kinda went vital of an American missionary so now when they see me they always just stare at me hahahaha  we were eating lunch and some ladies in the kitchen would laugh and whisper to each other whenever I looked over.  It also might be because I bought some new blue light glasses and I've gotten lots of compliments with them

Yesterday in church they told us 15 minutes before hand that we were going to give talks of 10-15 minutes so we were scrambling to get that ready.  When I spoke worse Spanish I felt bad for my comps that I would speak less time so then they would need to talk more.  So this time I was determined not to do that so I was talking for more time and they ended cutting me off  I only talked for like 11 minutes but people from the stake presidency showed up and wanted to talk.  I have never been cut off for speaking too much in a talk especially in Spanish 

I think it is so special how much Our Savior and our Heavenly Father truly love us.  Their work and their glory is that we can return with them.  They want for us so bad that we can have the same happiness that they have.  They have prepared the way and it is our responsibility to find the path and stay on it.  They will always help us along the way as well!  How special is that?  I love them!💎💎💎💎

Do you like (non-alcoholic) Piña Coladas?

 

Hauling everything he owns to the bus station

Saying goodbye

Hola y'all!!  I hope everyone is doing well and I have to write this email in record speed because I'm waiting for a bus because I'm getting transferred!  And the bus is running on Mexican time so it could get here in a minute or in 3 hours so we will see hahaha 

This week was great!  We had 8 of our friends come to church and that was so special!  I love the people here in Pochutla and I hope I see them again!  

This week a sister in the ward taught us how to make piña coladas and THEY ARE SO DANG GOOD!  So I'm kinda hyped about that and I hope they have the stuff to make them in my next area.  (Side note:These piña coladas are non alcoholic)

This next transfer I'm going to be a district leader so I'm excited for that!  It will definitely be a new and fun experience that will help me grow!

Have I ever mentioned how cool it us how much God loves us?  His work and his glory is that we can be like him and return with him!  I love him!  

My bus just got here!  Got to goooo