5-27-13

last week i left you all off with another cliff hanger so im going to jump right into finishing the story. so anyways about 2 weeks ago we were walking down the street and this guy walks past us and says hey are you guys the mormon missionaries? and we of course said yes and he then begins to explain to us about how he used to go to church with his aunt in zamora and how he just barely moved here to morelia and that his aunt told him that one of the first things he needed to do was find the lds church or the lds missionaries to direct him to where the nearest church was. and so we were just totally blown away because its not every day that you meet someone like that haha but anyways so we talk to him for a little and end up putting an appointment to visit him in his house one day. 

me and hno. juan with the love note he gave me haha

after having met him we were just super pumped because were suffering a bit of an investigator drought right now and he seemed to be super rad and so we felt as though he was a direct answer to our prayers. anyways so we go back a few days later and we teach him the message of the restoration and he accepted everything like he already knew that the church was true haha and then the absolute best part was when at the end of the lesson when we invited him to get baptized he just kind of chuckled and said yes, but it was more of like a "duh of course i want to get baptized why are you asking me this" type of chuckle and to be honest it was a way cool experience. weve been teaching him since then and hes turned out to be way rad. 

of course he has his imperfections as we all do but the best part about him is his enthuasiasm and determination to do things right. everytime we teach him and ask him how hes going with his prayers and reading and how hes feeling about his baptism, he always tells us about how he already knows that the church is true and that he needs to get baptized. he says that he doesnt need to search anymore for the truth because hes already found it. he truly has turned out to be exactly what we were praying for. 

american appreciation luncheon with the hna claudia

its been hard here in the area lately because in apatzingan the mission work was just blowing through the roof and we were always baptizing and finding new people to teach daily and in general it was just flowing super nicely in apatzingan, and well here in morelia there have been less baptisms in a year and a half than in 3 months in apatzingan haha and so you could say its a definate change of pace. 

but were working hard day by day and slowly but surely were picking things up. we still only have about 5 investigators in total but the good thing is that the 5 that we have are progressing well. its a good thing i learned so much patience and diligence in apatzingan because its definitely going to come into use here. when i first showed up we went about 4 months without anything of success and then out of the nothing we started to see our prayers be answered. the Lord works in his own time and ive learned to just trust in him and always do my part and leave his part to him haha. 

american appreciation luncheon with the hna claudia

its quite a valuable lesson that i was able to learn here in the mission and im sure itll be something very helpful for the rest of my life. other than that though weve just been chugging along. weve been sick the past couple of days with the fever and diarreah so that kind of sucked but were pretty much over it now. this hermana just gave us some super gross tea but it worked super good haha. its called retama and im definitely going to have to introduce it to you all when i get home. 

also bought some new shoes today...elder perez has been telling me for a few days now that im not in little pueblitos anymore where i need tractor tread shoes and that im now in a city so i need to tighten up my image haha so i went out and bought some new kicks today. ill be modeling them in the upcoming weekly photoshoots and when i get home haha. tomorrow im going to be completing 17 months in the mission and it absolutely blows my mind how quickly the time is flying. before i know it its going to be december and time to ship back. yikes! 

the feast we had for dads bday...hope it was a good one dad! (elder perez, elder morales, elder payne, me)

gotta live it up while i can and cherish every moment. things are going great though and i hope all is well also on the home front. its been raining a bunch here but hopefully you guys are able to enjoy some nice beautiful sunny weather haha well take care everyone an have a great week! i love you all and eat some tacos for me tomorrow!

with much love from mexico,

  Elder Maccarthy