Apr.4, 2016

Oh my goodness this week really was a packed one!!! We had lots and lots of meetings. It kinda made the work slow, but we are looking forward to next week getting back into the groove of everything!! 

Monday was a normal P-day, I wasn't feeling very well during our pday activity but I had fun watching our zone and the IF zone play kickball and talk smack (missionary style). That night we were helping our Zone Leaders set up for Zone Conference (usually in the past they have split the mission in half and President meets with both groups and its this huge spiritual pow wow and it is amaaazing). This time he decided he was going to Zone Conference with the individual zones, so we were setting up for ours in one of the Stake Centers in IF. We got a call from a sick Sister part way through though and so we had to meet up with them and take them to urgent care. It kinda ended up taking up the rest of our night, but our sister got some meds and it was all good!! 

Tuesday was our Conference and Sister Brown and I were only sweating everything out of us because we had to do a practice (role play) on the Restoration with President and Sister Hancock. We sit down for the practice President Hancock blurts out, 

 "Just go ahead and Baptize my wife!!! I am a member and I dont go to church anymore but I am tired of my mom nagging me to get my wife Baptized!!!! So just dont worry about me!!!!!!!! Just Baptize my wife!!!!!!!!!"...... -_- ..

You can imagine how the role play went hahahah! It was funny and hard and funny and HARD!!! But at the end President was praising us for keeping everything together hahah. That night we saw David and we had a nice relieving lesson with him. It is always nice to be able to go see the Castros :) We also had our english class and we had another suuuper great turn out! We are thinking that we may just switch to Tuesdays and Thursdays cuzzz no one comes on Sat. 

David!!

Wednesday morning we got a call from another set of our sisters because they were going to be ET'd!! Woo! Soo we headed out to see them and help them pack and get the Sister to where she needed to be. It was a little bit of a crazy unexpected morning, but all went well and it was for the better and both sisters are doing great now! The rest of the day went really well and we were able to visit quite a few people! We had a good lesson with Lupe Chavez (she has a lot of extended family who are members but she is not). She shut me down when I offered her a book of mormon buuuuut we feel like she has a lot of potential. She was super open with us about all the concerns she has with the Bible and scriptures and how harsh she thinks they make God seem. We had a really good lesson with us and she invited us back next week!! We got to have a lesson with Martha as well :) She is an angel. We taught tithing and fasting as well as service and started putting some of her program together! She is going to have her cousin baptize her!!!!! Ahhh!!! Its going to be such an awesome service. We alsooo saw the Mendoza family. They have been less active for a bout a year and a half (baptized two years ago). They have been really stand off-ish buuut they let us in!! We had a super good time getting to know them and then we shared the Easter video with them and -MIRACLE- Bro Mendoza bore the most amaaazing testimony about Christ. A-MA-ZING. We think they may have been offended or something and so we plan to do some more undercover/behind the scenes work on them! 

Thursday was our glorious weekly planning day!! We were able to pick the day up with a visit to Hermana Padillas house to read 1 Nephi: 2 with her and theeennn we had an awesome stake relief society devotional just for the branch and theennn we had our Castros. :) They are doing good buut they haven't been to church the last 3 Sundays!!! One of them they were in Vegas.. but the other two we don't know :( We had a really good lesson with all of them there though and Brother Castro was testifying of temples and eternal families.  Send some prayers their way!! 

Friday was MLC!!! We had it down in Pocatello so we left at 7 in the morning annnnd when all was said and done, we got back at 4:45.. wooo.. it was a loong day!!! MLC was sooo good though. Best one I have been to. President Hancock just wants to help us so so much. He is amazing. In honor of April fools, there were a couple pranks. 4 Elders showed up with Christmas ties and glasses with no lenses and theeeennn one of them put a whoopee cushion on Presidents seat before he sat down for lunch!!!!! (he got permission from Sister Hancock though)  This was the best part- after Presidents look of shock he goes, "Oh! Excuse me!!......Well.. I feel much better now!". Hahah he is the best!!! 

That night we helped our ward mission leader pack up his trailer with all sorts of crazy stuff from his garage. It was a loooong process but it was fun. He is moving :( So we will be getting someone else her are pretty sad about it.

Branch Mission Pres...

Saturday!!! CONFERENCE!!!!!!! YESSSSS!!!!! (Sue's voice from SNLsurprise party video). Conference was sooohooooowah good!!! We have to watch it at a Stake Center as missionaries buuut it was so much fun.. There were 4 other sets of Elders and a set of sisters-it  was one big coloring candy eating fest. :) That night we had a lesson with Martha to teach the rest of lesson 5.  Best part of the night, Sister Meza says, "Despues de la ultima leccion Martha me pregunto sobre la ley de diezmo y si ella necesita pagar despues de su bautismo. Y le dijo si, y es un acto de fe, pero que piensa usted? Puede hacerlo? Y ella me dijo, pues si! Porque yo queiro ir al templo y recibir mis vestidos!".... "After the last lesson Martha asked me about Tithing and if she will have to pay it after her Baptism. I told her yes and that it was an act of faith and I asked her if she thought she could do it and she told me, well yes! Because I want to go to the temple and eventually get endowed!".............. Yeah.. Herms B and I were speechless!!!!! It was amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously have no idea why we have been so blessed to be able to teach her. She is incredible!!! We met that night after with our ZLs and the STLs to go over zone training for next friday too! 

Sunday was another round of tons of learning during Conference!!! It is crazy how much was perfectly in line with our MLC. It reemphasized so many of the points that we talked about and expanded on them, from kicking off the heavy things of the world (or mission), really finding out and gaining a relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, understanding how the Holy Ghost plays a role as our guide in this life, and really learning how to retain a remission of our sins.

 I think Elder Bednar did a fantastic job of pin pointing this point and explaining how Baptism, the Holy Ghost and the Sacrament are all involved in true forgiveness of our sins. One thing that he said really hit me hard. "The act of partaking of the Sacrament itself does not make us clean". Its not something I didn't know and its not something I was blown away by, but it was a simple comment that opened my eyes to the routine each Sunday that so many of us overlook. We may be silent, we may be inviting the Spirit into our hearts as the Sacrament prayer is being read, we may even be thinking about Christ's body that was repeatedly spit upon, beat, whipped, bruised and torn. We may be imagining the drops of blood falling from each and every poor as Christ suffered for each and every single pain and sorrow that human kind will ever have to endure. But, are we really and truly going there with Him? Are we walking next to His side? Are we going to the garden with Him and our own sins and pains that we need to get rid of? To not only stop, but to change and exchange for things that will help us come closer to Him and our Father in Heaven. If we don't go to the garden with Him, simply stopping our actions and taking that piece of bread and that cup of water is not enough. We have to feel a little bit of that pain and guilt too. 

Any ways that was our week!!!!! I hope all is well back home!! I love and miss you all!!!! Hugs and kisses!