Zarahemla Week 17

Elder Durgante has been DYING in the cold! 

Hola de Montréal! He estado trabajando en mi espanol durante gran parte de los ultimos dias, porque los trasferencias son el proximo miercoles y me temo que quizas no voy a estar aqui nada mas. Pero tengo fe que sirviré en una otra area en espanol mas tarde en mi mission! Ojala que yo pueda!

Anyway, this week has really been awesome! We've been very busy which is always a great thing. We saw tons of miracles finding this week, which was super cool. Here is what we've been up to the past week.

Banh Mi Sandwiches - our new favorites

Last P day, we weren't able to do much since we had to do emails an hour and a half away from our house (all the libraries were still closed for New Year’s). But we had the opportunity to shovel some snow of a member, and he gave us these super good Vietnamese sandwiches called Banh Mi. They were SUPER good, and only $4! We ended up getting it again later—they were amazing!

Wednesday was spent mainly passing by some of the former investigators that we found in our records the past couple of days, and we've been seeing tons of progress from that already. We passed by three former investigators, and two of them were there, and said they would love to see from missionaries again! We passed off a couple of them to other companionships, as we have been finding a lot recently. It's been so amazing! We also were able to eat at Hermana Gregoria's house again, who makes amazing Peruvian food. When we got there thoug,h her son had not yet come back from work, so she invited some random Dominican man to eat with us so that we could go in the apartment. It was so funny! Had papas con huancaina from her again, which was so good! Two weeks in a row!

Thursday was awesome! We were pretty busy and got a lot done. We left basically right away to go to a hospital an hour and a half away to give a blessing to a Hermana in our ward. It was a special experience; it's always so amazing to be there for someone who needs help, and be able to brighten up their day. It really is super humbling. After that we went to district meeting, which was great as usual. Then we went La Banquise (we weren't going to eat dinner so we decided to eat something very filling) for my second time, but this time I did NOT get a large order of poutine. It was still extremely filling though! We then went and passed by a few formers and got a decent amount of contacts. We passed by one former, who wasn't home, but we felt that we should knock on the door right next to his. Turned out it was a young Mexican family, who eventually invited us in! We shared a great lesson with them, and they were super interested and wanted us to come back! It was really a miracle. Then we ran to Nicole, who we were fairly late for because of the unexpected lesson. We taught her about Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening), and she is now going to take the initiative to do it every week with her family! She is going to be such a help in working with her parents.

Friday was a VERY cold day. Since we were busy on Thursday, we decided to do our weekly planning on Friday, which was lucky since it was so cold outside. But we still left later in the afternoon, and were able to pass by a couple other formers. We had a bible bashing session with one of them, but luckily Elder Durgante actually knows a lot about the Bible, so we held our own! We then went to Francisco's for a lesson, and he had a friend over that we were able to teach as well. It went really well, and now his friend is a new investigator as well! That night after the lesson was incredibly windy and cold; about -38 C (with wind). We walked around and passed by a few other investigators, which was interesting with the cold. But it was fun!

Saturday was difficult. We had a lot of appointments set up, but sadly most of them fell through. We went to visit a new investigator, but he wasn't home. Then we went to visit Victor, who was too busy to see us at that time. Tried to go by Mauricio, but he was too busy to see us as well. Then went to a family that we had an appointment with, but they weren't home either. Sometimes we just have those days, but it's important to keep trying and know that you are doing your best! We were able to have a lesson with Jesus and Yeni, which went really well. After visiting with them, we passed by a former nearby who wasn't home. So, we did the same thing, and knocked nearby to see if they knew her. We found a family from Guatemala, and they agreed to see us again too! They also told us a few apartment buildings that are ALL Hispanic, which is basically gold for us. We're definitely going to be passing by soon.

Sunday was good, and fairly busy. They were going to change the time of church to be an hour earlier, which would have been awful since it's about an hour away from us, but luckily they didn't! We had a great time at church, and were able to coordinate a lot with our members. This next week might be my last in Zarahemla, so we tried to get a couple more dinners arranged before I leave! We then went home and ate, and went with a member to visit Hermano Mendoza in the hospital again. This time we gave him the sacrament, which he was so thankful for. A lot of times people take the sacrament for granted, but it is such an amazing blessing. I have been able to see how much it means to someone who hasn't been able to come to church for a while. We should always remember what it means, and how wonderful of a blessing it is. We then went and started an exchange with the other Elders.

Nicole gave us slippers as a late Christmas present
(it's an inside joke and hard to explain) 

Monday was fairly busy, as we were out basically all-day long. I was on exchange with Elder Drysdale, which was fairly fun. We tried to pass by a few formers again in the morning, and ended up shoveling a lot random people's snow who needed help. It wasn't very cold, but it had snowed all the night before, and all day, so there was a good couple of fresh inches of snow on top of the other stuff we had already gotten. TONS of people were having trouble getting out of parking spots, so we helped a lot with that too. We got really dirty! We were also able to have an awesome lesson with Mauricio; we could totally tell he could feel the spirit. We really want to help him, but he is very poor and works so much that it's hard to get him to come to church or see us frequently. He's really awesome though, and still calls us his Hijitos. We were also able to see Eddy, who is still doing great, but we're really trying to work with him to help him commit to baptism. He thinks he doesn't know enough, but he's basically already a member. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out what he needs to progress.

Anyway, it's really been such an amazing week. As I said before, we get transfer calls next Saturday, and I don't think I will be staying here in Zarahemla. I really hope that (and probably will) be able to serve again in Spanish, because I absolutely love these people. It's been so amazing to get to know all of them and work with them! Whatever happens though, I know it will be for the best. My French is not very good right now, so it will be a great opportunity to work on that as well. I'm definitely going to make this next week count, though!

Love you all so much, and I hope you're doing well! Have an amazing week!

Elder James

Zarahemla Week 16

Exchanges with Elder Torres

¡Feliz año nuevo! Bonne année! Happy New Year!

It has been super cold, but pretty good week this week! With wind chill, it's hit -40 degrees (C and F) two times this week. It's BITTER! With it being the holiday season, it has been difficult to see a lot of people, but we still were able to be effective.

Piri Piri

Last Tuesday, we went out with a member (from another ward) to Piri Piri. It's a great Portuguese chicken place, and I was really excited to go hoping it was going to be similar to Nando's Peri Peri, my favorite restaurant back at home, but sadly it was pretty different. It was super cool to go through!

Not as good as Nando's, but still awesome!

Wednesday was fairly normal. We went to district meeting which was great, and were able to get a few things done at the mission office. Then we spent most of the day passing by referrals and potentials, but didn't have any luck. We were able to pass by Mauricio again which was awesome, we haven't seen him in long time.

On Thursday, we spent a LONG time getting organized. During a good chunk of weekly planning, we went through a stack of about 200 former investigator records, and organized all of them. We were able to separate them into people that we might be able to start teaching again, and we got a few solid potentials from that. Then, we went to meet with the other Elders to start an exchange. Elder Torres came with me to my area. He's a really great guy, and a super awesome missionary.

Friday was a fairly busy day; we got a lot done. We woke up and were able to do some studies, but had to leave early to meet with Francisco. He was, as usual, super funny and crazy, and we went over the baptismal interview questions with him. He's struggling a bit with baptism, but he really does want to get baptized. He has a few issues we need to solve before he can get to that point. Then we went to Hermana Escobedo, who lives SUPER far away. It took about an hour and a half on foot and bus. She fed us lunch, and it was SO good as always, so super worth it. She's Peruvian, and she fed us some classic Peruvian dishes which were awesome. I've eaten at a couple of Peruvian people's houses, and they always have potatoes with some cool creamy sauce called Papa a la Huancaína that is super good. We eat it every time we go to a Peruvian's house. Then after her, we visited with Hermano Sanchez. We were able to solve some of the problems he has with the church, and hopefully he will want to come back to church soon. He's still really cool though, and really loves visiting with us. Then we went to visit Eddy, but sadly, as we walked up to his door, he called and said that something came up at work and couldn't make it. Then we went back to the apartment, got Elder Torres' stuff, and met back up with the Elders. It was an awesome exchange!

Saturday was really good, and we were able to find a couple of solid investigators which is always awesome. We met with a referral from the Zone leaders I used to live with, and he was pretty interested! He was an avid reader of the Bible, and tried to Bible bash a little bit, but luckily Elder Durgante actually knows a LOT about the Bible so we were able to dodge his attacks a little bit. He was willing to find out more about the gospel though, and give us a chance! Pretty cool guy! We then went down to the metro, and we found a young guy from Venezuala (I think), and we were able to teach him a little bit about the Restoration right there in the metro stop! It was awesome, and he was pretty nice. We then went down to go to the baptism of Ivan, an investigator of some of the sisters in our district. It was really cool, and President even came! It was really special—he's a crazy solid guy.

Sunday was good, although it was hard to do a lot being New Year's Eve. Church was only an hour long, but Jesus (not Jesus the Christ but our investigator—haha) was able to come to church! Yeni couldn't come sadly, but he totally surprised us! Eddy also came, which was nice, since he hadn't come for the past two weeks (which was stressing us out a little bit). We were so happy he was able to come this time. Then after church, we went with two members to visit Hermano Mendoza. He doesn't get many visitors still; hopefully we can work with the ward to get more members to visit him. After that, we went to visit Rafael, the recent convert who we're trying to get to the temple. They ended up feeding us, which was awesome. After that we had the brilliant idea to go contacting on the metro, assuming (and assuming correctly) they everyone would be out, and it was PACKED with TONS of weird people. It was really funny, but we weren't able to find anyone, sadly.

Monday was fairly chill. We spent another decent chunk of time going through the former investigator records, and then spent the rest of the day passing by some of them. One of them wants to start having lessons again, which is great. We spent the entire night walking around visiting these old investigators, and it was SO cold! I thought my toes were about to fall off! But it wasn't really that bad, we were just outside for too long. It's been fun trying to get creative with our time so that we're not outside for too long, but sometimes it's just unavoidable! It's been fine though—we have coats!

All in all, it was a pretty good week, we were able to do a lot of finding and some much-needed organizing. Today I just realized is my 5-month mark on the mission! It's crazy how fast it's already going by, and it's starting to stress me out a bit! The mission is so amazing. I've grown a ton, and have loved being able to focus 100% of my time on serving others. It's such a nice break from the rest of the stresses of the world!

I love you all so much! I hope you have a wonderful new year!

Elder James

Zarahemla Week 15

There are icicles everywhere!

Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! It's been such a special time in the mission, and I know I'll never forget it!

Last P day, after emails, we went to get Elder Durgante a haircut from a member and visited Place Des Arts, a really cool underground shopping mall that was close by. We had a dinner appointment that fell through, so we decided to go to Schwartz, a Hebrew deli that was really good. Not too expensive either, which was great! We then went to Nicole's house with Elder Drysdale and Elder Torres to do her baptismal interview. It went really well, and she was completely ready! She's really amazing.

Schwartz's Smoked Meat Sandwich

On Wednesday, we were SUPER busy. We thought district meeting was on Thursday, but found out it was Wednesday. We scheduled a few appointments in the morning, so it got a bit complicated. But everything worked out! We passed by a potential that seemed interested; we only were there for a little bit but he seems cool! We then went by Francisco and had a decent lesson with him, and invited him to come to Nicole's baptism. We then went down to district meeting which was fun. The zone leaders and sister training leaders were there and gave a pretty good training. Then we visited Hermano Sanchez, the less active that we hadn't been able to see for a long time. He was doing well! We then were supposed to have an appointment with Jesus and Yeni, but they fell through, so we decided to do knocking on some social housing complexes nearby (hoping there would be Hispanic immigrants there). It was FREEZING cold, and super windy, but it was interesting. We were able to talk to a few French speakers, but couldn't find any Spanish speakers. It was nice though!

We had to take a "shortcut" through a park to get to Hermano Medoza...
Didn't realize how much snow there actually was!

Thursday was pretty good, even though we didn't get a ton done. Had all our studies, which we hadn't been able to do in a while. We went to the mission office to get a bunch of things ready for the baptism; got programs done and everything. Then we left and went to give a blessing to a member who lives way far away. It was a great experience, he really needed it.  We then went to Mauricio, and had a full lesson with him, which sadly hasn't happened in a while. He's been super busy with working on things for Christmas, so it's been hard to see him. Then we went to Javier and Christine to have a little Christmas lesson with them. We passed Christine to one of the sister teams in our ward, but they wanted us to teach Javier as a less active. We read Luke 2 with them, and were able to help them focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

Elder Durante, Me, Elder Colunga, Nicole
Nicole's family: Stepfather, Mother, Grandmother & Brother

Friday was mainly focused on making sure everything was ready for the baptism on Saturday. We passed by a referral, but he didn't have time to see us until after the holidays are over. Went to Rafael, the recent converts house, and talked about the temple. We're trying to get him a temple recommend and get him to come to the temple, and he's doing well! Went to the mission office again to do a few things we couldn't finish on Thursday, and got everything set for Saturday. We then went all the way up to Nicole, and got her ready for the baptism and told her what to expect and everything. She was super excited!

Saturday was awesome. The baptism was great! Elder Durgante and I went early with Hermano Farfan, our ward mission leader, to get everything set up and fill the baptismal font. Elder Colunga showed up shortly after to help us a bit and to get ready. Then Nicole came, so we took some pictures, waited for some more members to show up, then we started. It was an amazing meeting! Nicole was super happy, and she was literally glowing. Such a great day! After the service, we had a little party and ate a lot of food that the members brought. It was so much fun! She had such an amazing time. After cleaning everything up and leaving, we headed to Jesus and Yeni. Had a great lesson with them, it was great to see them after not being able to teach them in a while. It was an amazing day!

Our terrible cookies

Christmas Eve was awesome! Elder Durgante had the idea last week to make cookies for all of our investigators, so we woke up and made about 150 cookies! They were obviously not very good considering a couple of 19 year olds made them, but they worked out well! I guess it's the thought that counts! We wrapped them all up, and put pictures of Christ with notes on the back for each of them. Then we went to church, which was wonderful. It was Nicole's confirmation, so now she's officially a member of the church! We're so proud of her. After church we went back home, figured out who we were going to see that day, and left. We were able to deliver cookies to Javier and Christine, the Varaona family, and Fransisco. Then we had a DA to go to for the Noche Buena (which is the biggest deal apparently for a Hispanic Christmas) at the Escobar family's house. It was so awesome, there was tons of amazing food. We visited a bit with them, and shared Luke 2. It was my first Hispanic Christmas eve, and it was really cool!

My Vineyard Vines Christmas Pajamas (that match my brothers)!

Christmas was so amazing. We spent some time opening packages and getting ready, and then left almost right away to be able to visit everyone. We stopped by Jesus and Yeni, Eddy, and Hermano Sanchez. We visited with Hermano Sanchez for a while, since he had really no one to celebrate Christmas with. It was felt good to make his holiday special! Then we went to the Lemus family's house to skype our families. It was so great to see their faces and hear their voices! Definitely a great Christmas present for me, I couldn't have imagined anything more that I would have wanted. Then the Lemus family fed us classic Salvadorian turkey sandwiches that were SUPER good. They had a ton of missionaries over for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They are such an amazing family, and they sacrifice so much for us. It was awesome! Then we went to visit Hermano Mendoza, who had been alone in a new hospital for Christmas. Despite being in such a difficult situation, he has the best of mood! It was great to see him and brighten up his Christmas, and it was such a humbling experience. We then went a super long way to finally stop by Nicole and her family to give them some cookies as well. They were really grateful! It was such an amazing Christmas, definitely one I will remember forever.

Nathan's Christmas present to me--he knows me too well! 

Again, Merry Christmas! I hope we can all remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. Trust me, I love getting presents like everyone else, but it's so important that we remember the best gift of all, Jesus Christ. I know that He is our Savior, and that through Him we can live with our families forever. That definitely tops any other present I have of could ever receive! I love you all so much, and I hope you had an amazing Christmas season!

Elder James

I climbed a huge mountain of snow!

Elder Durante didn't even try.

Empty metro trains on Christmas Night