Week 47 - Is it Work if you Love it?

Hey all!!

This was a great week! The time is going by too fast!! We are already in the last week of the transfer, and Elder Wright is probably getting sent to another area in this coming week, so by next Monday I will probably have a new companion here in San Jose! But who knows?! 

I had a super awesome birthday! It was super cool. My package literally arrived just on time. After writing y´all last week, we headed to our District (Missionary) meeting, and I saw no one in the church, and it was a little suspicious, so I started setting up the chairs and stuff, and all of a sudden I was being controlled and having a tie wrapped around my face so I couldn’t see!! They bought me a cake, and there was my package, and all! It was so great. They are good missionaries and friends. I loved the package, especially the pictures and Bailynn´s finger paintings, haha! 

It was pretty much a four day birthday, cause of Sunday, this day, Tuesday the members gave me an awesome dinner, another cake, and Wednesday I got another cake! haha. They are great. I feel super blessed for them thinking of me. 

This week we have had to sadly do some dropping of some people we have been teaching, and we have started to look for some new people that are excited and interested to learn more of Christ´s gospel. We had some super cool miracles!! Elder Wright was looking in the missionary records one morning, and he decided we were going to look for a person named Jan. We got there, and she opened the door, allowed us in, and as we were talking she told us, ´´I have something to tell you guys. My second oldest daughter has been a little rebellious recently, and so last night I prayed to God, asking Him for guidance in what to do...it´s amazing how fast God answers our prayers!´´ It was so cool! It amazing how God can work through us to bring His children back to Him. 

We also had some super cool lessons with a recent convert named Yess., who came to do visits with us! It was so awesome because she really helped the people we taught, and she also felt relief and a stronger testimony for going with us! It is so great how being in God´s service makes us always feel better. That is why I am in God´s work! It´s a happy work, and the best one. 

-- 

Elder Daines

"Missionary Cruelty?"

"Payback?"

"Elder Dens"

"Stylish new fan!"

"Timer went off too soon!"

"La Cruz"

Week 46 - Great People in the World

Hey everyone!!

This week was super awesome! And its been a super birthday, thanks to everyone that sent me emails! This email is going to be a little short cause I was so busy trying to reply to all the ones I got hahaha. Today we played soccer in the morning and we dominated! It was great, a lot of fun. On Sunday the Guti. family had us over for a birthday dinner. They made us hamburgers, fries and ice cream. That was pretty cool. They worked hard for that. 

We had some super cool experiences this week. I am just going to talk about a couple of them. Remember Jes.? The investigator of the Hermanas? Well he visited with us last week to a less active young man named Al., and this week Al. came to church! It was super awesome. Jesus is powerful. And now Al. wants to go to the Youth Conference they are going to have next week! 

Also, we went to visit Fa. on Saturday, the guy that just got baptized a couple weeks ago, and we were planning on visiting some of his friends. He talked to them during the week, but they all either said no or they weren’t going to be home. (Everyone goes to the beach on Saturday haha). So we taught him super quick and were going to head to another part of our area on the bus, and he said, “If you want to, I’ll come with you!” And I was just like...wow. This person is amazing. He is so great. We visited a couple new investigators we have, Pau. and Yac., and they are super great. They are both so interested in learning more and are excited to come to church this week! 

I had some pretty cool experiences this week of seeing how much God knows us, loves us, and hears our prayers. I love that so much. It is so great to have a loving Heavenly Father who hears us, no matter what time of day (or night!). 

Another cool thing: we were heading out from our house to come write on our emails, and the bus passed right as we walked out the door. I knew it went down a couple blocks, then started to make its way again, and so I told Elder Wright, “we’re gonna chase it down.” And he said, “you think so?” And I said “oh yeah.” So we took off running. It was so awesome, cause as I was running, I could see the bus making its way down the hill a flew blocks south, and I was right on pace with it, and we caught it right as it turned towards us again. It was super awesome to see I still have a little bit in me haha. Speaking of that, I know it is super delayed, but I just heard from dad today! I want to send a huge shoutout to everyone that made it to nationals and regionals from BYU Track and Field. I love you all!! Huge shoutout to Shaq, Rory, and also JARED WARD! You are my hero, I love you so much man! I will be cheering for you like crazy from here in Mexico!!

Elder Daines

"I broke my umbrella doing this..."

"Deceiving rain clouds."

"Biggest MANGO ever!"

"Burgers and Ice Cream Birthday Dinner! 

"Best soccer club in Mexico!"

Week 45 - Plant Seeds & Watch Them Grow

Hey guys!

Scripture of the Week: Joshua 1:9 -- "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be   thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

It has been a super busy and great as normal! The time is flying by and it is starting to make me uncomfortable realizing that. 

We started the week out great celebrating America Day, playing some soccer, and finished the day eating some carne asada tacos. Happy birthday America, I hope you enjoyed it. We were walking towards the grocery store, and I saw an American flag, and I had to buy it. It is now proudly hanging as part of our bedroom window curtain haha. 

On Thursday we had an awesome Noche de Hogar with the Cas. and Ad.´s family. Elder Wright and I decided that Ad.´s family really needed to gain a stronger testimony on the Restoration, so we decided to watch the Restoration video, which talks about how the true gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth after not being present for so much time. It talks about how Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet to restore these truths, and all of the hardships and trials he went through. It was a great testimony builder for them, and for me, gaining a reassurance of the truthfulness of the Gospel. The early members of the Church suffered way too many things for it to not be true. Ad., Ar., and Yos. left with a stronger testimony of Joseph Smith. It was so cool to see how into it they were! They could really feel the Spirit of the message. I am so grateful to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ in these days! It brings be such comfort to have the protection and safety from temptation and difficulty as I follow the teachings of Christ! It amazes me to see how different the world is from the Church, it is so much better to be in the Church! 

Other updates: Fa. is preparing to receive the Aaronic Priesthood, and he is super excited to keep learning and progressing in his knowledge of the gospel. Jesús, the investigator of the Sister missionaries, is doing super awesome! He is anxiously awaiting his 18th birthday so he can choose for himself to be baptized, he came with us again this week to visit people and encourage them to learn more about the Gospel! It is awesome to see how great his faith is, he isn’t even a member of the Church yet, but he is so excited to work in the service of God; he is an incredible example to me of true conversion! 

I have learned a great lesson this week. We are sadly beginning to have to drop a coupe of investigators that are not progressing at we had initially hoped. I was kind of disappointed at first, cause I was really hoping I would be able to see them all get baptized, but we have come to realize that some are just not quite ready yet. Elder Wright and I talked about that, and we realized that it is necessarily our purpose to baptize everyone! Obviously that is the goal, haha, and it would be awesome, but we have to realize that sometimes people just aren’t ready yet. Our purpose is to ´invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored Gospel´. If someone isn’t ready yet, that is okay! We did our part by inviting and helping. Now we just have to find other people, invite and help them, and if they get baptized, awesome! If they don’t get baptized, awesome too! We helped them increase their faith in Christ, and maybe someday, because of something we said or did, they will accept the Gospel! We are planting seeds. 

Have an awesome week, all! I love this gospel, love being in God´s service, love life. 

-- 

Elder Daines

"AMERICA!!"

"Realest honey out there."

"Rocking the pregnant belly!"

"Met some Daynes! (distant relatives??)"

Week 44 - President Gabaldon!

Hey All! Happy Independence Day! AMERICA!

This week was super great. Super busy and kind of sad with President and Hermana Velez continuing on in their journey, but we got to meet President and Hermana Gabaldon! It is super weird, they are way different, super young! They have four kids that are living with them, one is only two years old! But they are super awesome and hilarious. It's sad having to say goodbye to President and Hermana Velez but I know that our new president will be just as good. 

We had a pretty busy week. We were with Fa. every day last week, getting him ready for baptism! Fa. is so great. He had lots of unexpected struggles and challenges during this week, which were clearly signs that he was being tempted to not get baptized, but on Saturday night after getting back from La Paz, we had a great baptismal service for him. I am super excited for him, he is so determined and excited to keep learning more in the Church. I know he will be an awesome leader. 

I honestly cant really remember right now everything we did this week haha, but I had a strengthened testimony this week that God knows us individually and His ways are super mysterious, unexpected, and confusing sometimes, but always better than ours. God knows the people He has prepared to receive this Gospel, its just my job to be the instrument in His hands to find those people! 

President Gabaldón focused a lot in the Junta we had with him about the importance of remembering how capable we are of deciding our happiness. We decide how happy we are going to be. We decide to become better (or worse). We are completely responsible for our salvation, no one else can win us our salvation. But we must rely on the grace of God to be able to purify us and strengthen us so we can be worthy to be in His presence after this life. I know that God has miracles waiting to happen here. We just need a little bit more faith and we will be able to see even more miracles. We are too blessed as children of God sometimes, but it is pretty awesome haha. 

-- 

Elder Daines

President Gabaldon and his family! (The new mission President)

"Fa.'s baptism!"