Zarahemla Week 23

Making pizza with our investigator Maria

Another great week in Zarahemla, and we're doing amazing, especially since the weather has started to warm up!

Last P-day we had planned to pass by a couple people during the night, but then Hermano Farfan (our ward mission leader) called and asked if we were going to come to eat dinner. Apparently, they had planned to feed us, but no one told us! Luckily, we weren't too far, so we were able to go over at the last minute. They are from Venezuela, so they cooked us some traditional food that was really good. I love getting surprise dinners!

Wednesday was pretty chill, as we didn't have many things planned. Were able to eat lunch with Derlyn and Delmis, who are from Honduras and were baptized about a year ago. They are super kind, and the food was great as expected. Then we went to the area near the Jean Talon metro station, where there are TONS of Latinos. Did some street contacting and knocking around there for a couple of hours, and then stopped by an investigator named Maria who owns a pizza place in that area. We were going to teach her and another potential investigator at her shop, but he didn't show up. But it was still good, because she let us make our own pizza! It was super fun! Went to pass by a couple of other people after that, and ran into a Haitian guy who invited us it to teach a lesson. It was super weird, as always, to teach in French, but it went really well and he was super excited to learn more! It's so cool to see little miracles like that all the time.

Elder Landetta slipped, and thus owes me a donut (a rule in the mission)

Thursday was really busy, which of course is always good! We had district meeting in the morning, which was great, then left right away to visit Hermano Sanchez. He opened up and shared a few struggles he has had in his life, and it was very humbling. It's been such a cool experience having people trust you so much in the mission; it’s really an amazing experience to have people open up to you like that. After him, we stopped by a local public library to do some studies since we didn't have time to go home. We then headed over to the familia Cosme for dinner. When we showed up, they had told us that they had invited two non-member friends who they wanted us to meet. It was really awesome for them to invite them, but we were stressed about what to teach! It all worked out though, and now they are new investigators! Members are so important in helping missionaries with sharing the gospel; small acts like inviting your friends to a dinner with the missionaries can really help open them up to hearing the gospel! It was so awesome! After the familia Cosme, we headed over to the brother of Hermano Mendoza (the one we always visit in the hospital) who is also a member but has been less active for a while. We ate some classic food from Venezuela with him, and were able to share a little message. It was really awesome!

Friday was pretty chill; we were able to do weekly planning which took up a large portion of the day. But we were able to get in contact with an old investigator that I haven't seen in a long time and teach them which was great, and also found a couple of new people to teach. We also have been passing by this one house where less active members live for the past few weeks now, and we decided to pass by that night for the last time. This time though, they opened the door, and invited us in! We were able to teach a little thought, and they were so thankful that we were thinking about them! It was such a miracle, since they said that usually they are never home on Friday nights, but something had fallen through so the whole family was home. It was so cool! Especially since we said that it would be the last time trying to get in contact with them! They should be coming back—It looks like they just needed a little push!

Saturday was also pretty busy, even though a lot of our appointments fell through. We just kept getting other things to do and it all worked out perfectly! We left pretty early to visit Guillermo again. We had a great lesson with him talking about a few of the commandments, and he is so committed to be baptized! He will be baptized soon, and I hope I'll be able to see it! He's such a cool guy! Later on in the day, we were able to have a lesson with Jesus, which was great since he has been so busy these past couple of weeks. We were able to talk with him about a lot of things that he had doubts of. He has been coming to church almost every week, and has been progressing fairly fast now. It's so great to see him changing! His wife, Yeni, has lost interest in learning more for the time being, but she is still super awesome and nice to us. They invited us to eat with them after the lesson, and we had a couple appointments fall through, so we did. It was super good! They made something called pastelitos, which were SO good. They're actually pretty simple, kind of similar to an empenada, but fried. They were SOO good. We then had a little meeting with the other missionaries in the ward and our ward mission leader, and talked about ways the members can help in the work. It was an awesome day!

Sunday was also very busy. We weren't able to go home basically all day long! We went to church, and I had an amazing time. I've been trying so hard just to let go of my stress and enjoy the meetings, and it really has improved my expériences. After church we taught Guillermo again, trying to help him get prepared with baptism. He should be ready within the next couple of weeks! We then left with a different Guillermo, a member who returned from his mission a couple of months ago to visit Hermano Mendoza in the Hospital and give him the Sacrament. It was awesome, and Guillermo loved feeling like a missionary again. We then passed by Eddy, who is doing awesome. He finally is reading (listening) to the Book of Mormon! I don't know why we didn't tell him you could do that earlier! I hope this is a breakthrough with him! We then went home and ate some food that members had given us at church. It was a really great Sunday!

Monday was not as busy; we didn't have much planned. It was fairly warm outside (relatively), so we went to the Jean Talon metro area to do some street contacting. We got a lot of potential investigators! It really is like South America over there (besides the cold)! Passed by a few former investigators, had a baptismal interview with one of the Sister teams' investigators, and got a few contacts. It was a pretty chill day!

This next week will probably be my last week in Zarahemla! I know I said that at the end of last transfer and was wrong, and although I hope I'm wrong again, I know I'll be excited for the next transfer nonetheless! I will find out next Saturday!

Hope you are all doing well, I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Zarahemla Week 22

Family,

This week was pretty cool! We were able to see lots of miracles, despite a lot of our plans falling through. It was still an amazing week though!

Last Wednesday we had our interviews with President Phillips. It was such a special experience, as always; he's an amazing person and is super Spirit driven. After interviews, we started exchanges, and Elder Clark went with me. He's a really cool guy! He's from California and is really nice. We went and were able to pass by Mauricio, which we hadn't been able to do in a long time. He has to work so much, so it's super hard to see us sometimes. He's slowly but surely progressing though! After that we went to the Lemus family (who were the ones that hosted us for calling on Christmas). We ate classic Salvadorian Tostadas which were AMAZING. They are such an amazing family. Then we went to visit Alex and Neli again, and had a great lesson with them.

Thursday was pretty chill. We had district meeting, ended our exchanges, and did weekly planning. We were able to visit with Edward again, who we weren't able to see last week due to some illness in his family, but they're doing great now. We taught him with Hermano Farfan, who is also from Venezuela, and is our ward mission leader. He's a really helpful member!

On Friday we had another exchange, this time with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Turcott to his area, which is in French. It was super weird to teach in French! I've been able to have little lessons here and there, but since I don't focus on French speakers, I haven't had much extensive experience. It was very fun though! One of the guys we taught was actually fluent in Spanish as well, so I just taught with him in Spanish, and Elder Turcott did parts in French. It was super weird! We taught this Young Haitian family as well which was interesting, there I had to use my French a bit more. We also brought a Haitian member with us, so she could speak Créole with them and connect with them a bit more. It was very interesting! Later that night, we went to the chapel to start setting up some mutual activities that we were in charge of. It was so fun! We answered lots of questions that the youth had about missionary work, then we had an activity for them where they raced to get ready like a missionary in the morning. They had to get out of bed, do 15 push-ups, eat cereal without their hands and without milk (because missionaries are too lazy to wash spoons and too cheap to buy milk haha), get dressed in a shirt and tie or a skirt, and memorize a scripture and recite it perfectly. Then we taped the companionships' hands together so they were always in "sight and sound," then they went to knock some doors in the building and teach some other members of the ward. It was so fun, and the youth loved it! It was an amazing opportunity to get them thinking about missionary work!

Saturday was pretty chill, we didn't have many appointments, so we spent the bulk of the day passing by potential investigators. It was very productive though! We saw a really cool miracle that day though. We were walking down the street heading to a potential when we felt like we should go into this apartment building to our left. So we walked in, and felt like going to the top floor. The first door we knocked was a Haitian guy, so we asked in French if he knew of any Spanish speakers in the building. He then spoke to us in Spanish, and invited us in. We taught him a full 30 minute lesson, and it was amazing! He really loved it and was super interested! It was such a crazy miracle to see how the Spirit can guide you to find those who are ready to listen. Because he's Haitian though, we gave him over to the French missionaries so he can understand better. It was SO cool though! After a time of contacting potentials and doing some knocking, we headed to Hermana Gregoria's house to pick up some food. We went home, ate, then went to Nicole's house. Her brother and step dad weren't home, so we had to teach her outside in the cold, which was funny. We're getting her ready to go to the temple, and she's very excited!

Sunday was fairly busy. We went to Nicole's house to pick her up and take her to church using the busses, then had ward council. Our meetings were great, and our investigators had such great experiences. We set up an account for Nicole to start doing genealogy work, and she's excited to get going. After the meetings we taught Guillermo in the church. It went really well, and he's close to getting baptized! He's ready, he just needs to be taught a bit more! We then went and ate at the Amador family's house, and they made some classic Dominican food called Sancocho. It was SUPER good! Then we went and taught Eddy after passing by a few people. We told him that you can listen to the Book of Mormon on the app, and he freaked out! He HATES reading apparently, but now that he can listen to it he told us that he will be able to read a ton more now! It was such an awesome breakthrough with him!

Monday was pretty decent, and very busy. We woke up early and left to go visit Guillermo. He finally secured a job, which is awesome, but now it's going to be really hard to see him. We're going to wake up and visit him early in the morning so we can teach him. He's so solid! We then went to do a baptismal interview with one of the other team's investigators, which was super awesome. After that we went to a mental hospital to give a blessing to one of the Sisters' investigators. It was a very interesting experience, and very humbling. Then we were able to go visit a family in our ward who's 18-year-old son has cancer. He couldn't come to church last Sunday due to his health, so we wanted to pass by to see how he was doing. Luckily, he was doing a lot better. He's such an amazing example to me. Despite the knowledge that he is going to pass within the next couple of years, he has the most positive attitude you can imagine. He's always cracking jokes, is always having fun the best he can, and absolutely loves the gospel. With him and people like him, I've been able to see how much of an impact the knowledge of the gospel has in someone's life. Despite some of the hardest challenges you can imagine, when one can lean on Christ and His gospel, they can still live life to the fullest. After visiting him, we got to go back home to do some studies, then went to the familia Vinces for dinner. They are Honduran, so they made us some classic Honduran Baleadas. They were so good!

I'm doing amazing and having so much fun, as always, in the field. I love all of you so much, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder James

Zarahemla Week 21

Our District

Family,

He cumplido seis meses en el campo misional. Siento que acabo de llegar aqui! He aprendido muchisimas cosas en estos meses pasados, y estoy muy agradecido por todo lo que he visto. Estoy tan emocionado por los proximos dieciocho meses en este lugar asombroso! This week was super great! We were able to do a ton of cool things, and we saw lots of miracles as always! Anyway, here's what we've been up to in Zarahemla this past week.

Last P-day, after emails, we went to meet Guillermo at a metro station to go to the Biodôme together. When we got there (a little bit late), he wasn't there yet. We would have called him, but of course our phone had to break the day before and we still hadn't gotten a replacement yet. We waited for about 30 minutes, then left. Went to the mission office to get the phone and noticed that Guillermo had left a message. Turned out he got there an hour and a half late and was confused why we weren't there haha! It was such a funny message, he called me "Hermano James Bond" (as he always does) like a million times. It's so funny, and it's been taking time to get used to, but most Latinos have absolutely NO sense of time. They're just so chill all of the time! Which of course is a good thing at time, but not so much when you have other things to do! We had time since we had planned to go to the Biodôme but didn't, so we decided to go to La Banquise again for poutine. Really good as always! After we finished all of our chores for the day, we went to two appointments, that both fell through. We then felt like we should pass by this guy named Alder (not Elder lol) whose address we had received a few days back. We passed by, he was home, and we taught an awesome lesson! The spirit was super strong. He was such a cool guy!

Poutine at La Banquise with Elder Landetta

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference, which was awesome as always. They talked a lot about keeping the Sabbath day holy, and all the many blessings that come from doing so. Being in the mission field, I truly have been able to see how doing more meaningful things on the Sabbath can really bless your life. At times it seems like just another rule to keep, but it's really such a major blessing to take one day out of the week to have a rest from the world! I encourage everyone to find a few ways you can make your Sabbath more meaningful. I will promise that as you do, you will be blessed more than you can imagine! Later that night, after Zone conference, we had the opportunity to eat at Eddy's house (one of our investigators whose wife is a member). They fed us some classic Honduran food which was so awesome. They're such a great little family.

Thursday wasn't busy at all, but we did get some good stuff done. We had district meeting in the morning, where we were able to discuss a lot about the things we had learned in zone conference and how to apply them. We set some goals as a district, and recommitted ourselves to old goals. We then went home, and were able to do our weekly planning. After that, we left for some appointments, and had a little miracle! We were going to pass by a former investigator, but for some reason, we weren't thinking and passed our stop on the bus. We got off at the next stop, and walked backwards. On the way, we ran into the former that we were going to pass by! It was so crazy—if we had not passed the stop, we would have gone to his house and he wouldn't have been there. It was a cool little miracle!

Death-Star hard boiled egg

Friday was my 6-month mark. Super crazy! I have some pictures of me burning a tie (little mission tradition apparently), but I'll have to send them next week. We spent a good part of the day contacting, and passed by some old formers who were pretty solid. We passed by one lady named Iris, who was apparently super golden, but sadly she wasn't there. Went to Hermano Sanchez and visited him a little bit, were able to settle some concerns he had about the church. We all have questions sometimes, and sometimes these questions or doubts about the church or the gospel can affect what we have come to believe. However, the solutions to these problems are out there, we just have to look! And sometimes they are difficult to find, but it's important that we always "Doubt [our] doubts before [we] doubt [our] faith!" (Elder Holland) Later on that night, we had another little miracle similar to the one the night before. As we were waiting for a bus, we saw a Hispanic lady and we, of course, talked with her. Turned out, it was Iris who we tried to pass by earlier in the day! It was such a cool miracle again!

Saturday was going to be really busy, but sadly a lot of our appointments fell through. However, we were able to pass by a lot of people, and we found a lot of new investigators as well. We had an appointment with Alder again, who we met last Tuesday, but apparently, he moved to Mexico! It was sad, but Elder Landetta and I laughed about it a little bit. That's the second person who just randomly decided to go to back to their home country! They probably just got fed up with the cold, and if that's the case, I don't blame them!

Sunday was awesome. I've been having troubles with feeling stressed during church meetings. I worry so much about our investigators not coming or, if they did come, their experience at church. However, this Sunday, I made an effort to just enjoy the meetings. When I did, I was truly able to learn from the talks and classes, feel the spirit, and just enjoy a rest from the stresses of the week. It goes back to what we discussed in Zone conference—Sunday really is such an amazing blessing to forget about all the stresses that we have on a day to day basis! It was very refreshing. After church we were able to pass by Hermano Mendoza again, which was an awesome experience as always. Una Hermana in the ward gave us some food to eat when we got home, so we went home and had some dinner which was amazing. We then went and passed by a less active family who Elder Landetta remembers teaching. We passed by and had a little visit with them, and they were so awesome. They still have very strong testimonies of the gospel, they just needed, as many do, an extra push (usually social) to go to church. It's important to notice when a fellow member might be in need of that push, and when we recognize it, be the push that they need!

Monday was fairly chill (as in not busy but also very cold). We spent a good three hours solid outside knocking doors looking for Hispanics. It was another little miracle though, when we were getting super cold after about two hours, I said to Elder Landetta something like, "I want someone to let us in; not so we can share our message, but so that we can be warm for only a few seconds!" The next door we knocked, the guy just let us in saying "just come, in it's too cold to talk to you by the door." It was super funny. Later that night we had dinner with Hermana Guerra from Chile, who is an absolute salvaje. She's super funny, and also cooks amazingly. It was so nice.

It's been an awesome week as you can see. I'm loving my time here, and I'm loving working with Elder Landetta. He's going home very soon, but that hasn't affected him at all! He's teaching me so much, and I'm so happy for everything I've learned and continue to learn. I love you all so much, I hope you have an amazing week!

Elder James