Thursday, March 19, 2015

6 months!!!!

Wow! 6 months down, can you all believe it??? I for sure can’t!!

So this week flew by! Wow I don’t even know what we did on what day or anything but I will try! So Monday we taught the niece of the bishop Carina and her husband Felipe and they are really nice, but they aren't married and have trouble going to church, so that’s going to be the hard thing with them!

Tuesday nothing really spectacular happened except that we are starting to really get the trust of the bishop and the other ward leaders because we went to his house that night and we taught him a lesson and he gave us like a big long list of people he wants us to visit so we are doing all we can to go and visit those people for him!

Wednesday I am not going to lie, I got a little upset in a lesson, I really hope it was the spirit, but I kind of scolded Irma Garcia...She was talking about all the blessings that they’ve had in their house because of Alicia’s baptism so I just like came out and was like you do know that she can bring blessings in for you, but she will never be able to replace your own saving ordinances and she just got really quiet but I hope she got the point! But on the high note, they got a pet hedgehog so that was fun to play with!!

Thursday I got to see a really cool side of my comp, he was made to talk with inactive members of the church, we went to this house and he was just like hey how are you doing and he invited himself in and stuff but then he was super friendly so they didn't get mad haha I could never be that assertive but it worked with these two women named Elouisa and Alejandra and we just taught about eternal families and they want them so they said they would come to church! So

Friday we did service for the first time for the hermana Guadalupe, and I guess it worked because she came to church too! She is an investigator who has been for like forever because she never goes to church, but she came! But she fed us tacos after and they were really sketchy like we were pulling out bones and stuff from them...so that afternoon I got really sick and we had to be in the house for the afternoon! But when we went back out because I didn’t feel awful anymore we had the random impression to go to the Relief Society President’s house and teach her about Christ and she said she had been praying for angels and that she couldn’t believed that we had just showed up, so that was a really cool experience!
 
Saturday we had a really cool experience where we were walking to the GasparLinos when a car randomly pulled up beside us and there was a woman crying and just said that she needed to talk about God, so we went to her house and we taught her, and besides the fact that she doesn't believe in religion just God, it was really good. Her name is Georgina, but she thinks she is going to get an answer to her prayer, so that is awesome, because that means that she will come to know it’s all true! Then in the afternoon, we did divisions for the first time, and I went with Daniel Chavez who is a returned missionary from the ward, and he is awesome, super funny!!! We taught a bunch of really awesome lessons and then we went to a noche misional in the night and it was super spiritual about the Book of Mormon!!

Yesterday was pretty awesome as well! We randomly decided to visit a house of a member last night where I had never been and we found out that living in their same complex were about 25 inactive members, so we got to know a ton of people and we gave out 4 different blessings in the space of an hour! Wow it was great! Well I hope you all are doing great, and just remember for every email so far, there will only be 3 more!! haha!

Elder Stout






Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Cambios!!!

Hola!!!

Well we had the cambios and my new comp is Elder Alvarado from Guatemala City! He has 9 months in the mission but I got assigned to be the senior comp which has been a huge change, but it is pretty cool!!!

So Monday was our last day together for Elder Hansen and me, and just like the 4 days before it, we spend it in the house! But we went to his dr appointment in the nighttime and it is right next to that really fancy mall, and since it was p day we got to go to DQ!!!!!!! It was so good because ice cream does not exist down here, so it was the first ice cream I have had in like 4 months!!

Tuesday was really hard to say goodbye to him but Elder Alvarado is awesome, the only way I can think to describe him is that he reminds me a ton of Ian Kahng haha so that is just kind of how he is! It is really different but we are getting along super well and I am learning a ton from him!

Wednesday I found out that my weakness is my comps strength-contacting! We contacted a ton of people the whole time that we were walking in the street! We set up a bunch of appointments with those people too! Wow!! So cool!! Also, I had this cool idea of setting a daily goal every day for our companionship so I have been doing that and we have been seeing a ton of success because of that!!

Thursday we saw our work pay off in a different way! Every single one of the appointments we put through contacting fell through but the Lord blessed us because every member we taught that day brought a friend and we had 7 new investigators! Wow! It was so cool!!! The family Martinez Salazar are relatives of Alquicira and have a lot of things going on in their lives that we can help with! The other family is super super nice! They are friends of Alicia, but they are super strong in their church, but super interested by Jose Smith so we will see how that goes!!

Friday, we had an appointment with an hermana that is teaching us how to make pastor meat!!! Yum!!!!!!! So I will be able to make it for yall when I get home!! In the night time we had a lesson that was pretty rough it was with an investigator and a menos activo family. The thing is that this investigator isn’t going to church because the family isn't so we kind of called them to repentance!

Saturday we had a super awesome lesson that just clicked with Marcelina! She is finally progressing again, and Elder Alvarado and I just taught really awesome together and followed the spirit muchisimo!!! It was so cool!! Hope all is well with you! Paz Fuera del DF

Elder Stout







Saturday, March 7, 2015

Transfers!!!!

Hey everyone!

So I will officially be spending my fourth cambio in San Pedro Martir!! Elder Hansen is leaving tomorrow for another area, but I am staying, wow I didn't expect that at all!!! So this week was really boring because of the surgery that Elder Hansen had on his toe, but I will try to pick out the highlights.

Monday we were in the house sick all night so we didn't do anything haha.

Tuesday well we started off by going to the doctor for the checkup and actually we thought we were going to have the surgery but it was just a checkup which is annoying because the hospital is an hour away from our house! And lucky for us right as we got home they called us and told us that we had to come back because Elder Hansen had more forms to sign, so that wasted pretty much our entire day. Ummm Tuesday night, so I am just going to say that we ended up spending the night at the house of the San Pedro 2 elder’s house and that I can’t say anything more but that I am completely fine, and it just had something to do with the government!

Wednesday I got really worried in our lesson with Alicia because we just didn't have the spirit and she was supposed to have her baptism this week and we just left and were like, have we prepared her? We were just super worried.

But then Thursday we had a super awesome lesson with her, and we just felt the spirit so strong, and we walked out and just knew that she was ready and it was so cool!!! So Friday was the day they scheduled for the surgery and we started off by getting a call from President saying Elder Hansen pack your bags, Elder Stout pack for 3 days, after the surgery you are coming to stay at my house and then Elder Stout you are going back to San Pedro in cambios on Tuesday and Hansen you will be going to your new area. So we started to flip because we never thought that, we always thought I would be going, but it was kind of cool to find out our cambios a few days earlier!

So the President and his Wife came to all of Elder Hansen’s surgery and it was like 3 hours long!! They pulled out two huge pieces of nail that had been ingrown and it was so gross!! Haha not gonna lie, but after hearing the advice from the dr Presidente told us that we could actually just rest in our house, so that was awesome that we could just come hang and spend our last couple days together!

So Saturday was the baptism and sadly Elder Hansen couldn't go so we did inter cambios, but for the pics I wore his name tag so it was like he was there!!:) It was such a cool service! I got to do the ordinance, and I had to do it twice, because apparently she has a second last name that she never told me about! But I know it worked the second time because she was crying the second she got out of the water! In her testimony she talked about how she had dreamed about her baptism and how this was the exact same feeling that she never wanted to let go. She also said that in the dream she didn't know who it was who baptized her but that when it happened she knew it was me, so that was really cool to here! She is so awesome, and wants to serve a mission!!

Then yesterday we couldn't go to church so the Zone Leaders brought us the sacrament which was a huge blessing and we just spent all day watching the Doctrine and Covenants videos and reading haha kinda boring! I am really going to miss him though!!

Hope y'all had a good week!!

Elder Stout