Starting To Adjust To Missionary Life!

I can't believe I've been gone for almost 8 weeks. Time is just flying by. Days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days, literally. I love the mission more than anything. I can't think of anything that I'd rather be doing in my life right now. I'M LIVING THE DREAM.

 

 

On Wednesday evening, I was saying my personal prayers before bed when our bunk bed started shaking. I jumped up and looked around, I was very confused. My comp was in the other room. At first I assumed that he had slammed a door on accident but nope, my bed just randomly shook. Trying not to be creeped out and just forget about it, I continued my prayer. A minute later, the bunk bed started shaking again but this time it was way more intense. I ran out of the room to find EVERYTHING shaking. The ground below my feet was moving. It was an EARTHQUAKE!! My first one! It was so much fun. I also tried cow tongue this week, it was very interesting.

 

 

So this week has been quite miraculous. We had 5 investigators come to church yesterday!! It was so great to see them all. The Lord is so much in store for the.

 

 

So there's Mayra and Gus. They are a couple in their early 20's but aren't married yet. Mayra is baptized but Gus isn't, yet. We've been teaching him and we invited him to get baptized, he said yes!!! But there is so much to do. They either have to get married or he has to move out. He also has a court date coming up and we don't know why either so if it's a serious thing, he's going to have to wait a while. But The Lord will provide.

 

 

We have Roy and Nico. Roy is a recent convert and is waiting to receive the priesthood, his son Nico is 10 and we just committed him to baptism also!! I love them so much, they're having us over for dinner tonight.

 

 

Florentino is a recent convert also, he has a 12 year old son named Bryan. We're best buds. He's the funniest kid. He always makes fun of my Spanish. So we taught Florentino about the priesthood, and he wants to have it!! It was such a great lesson. He'll be getting the aaronic priesthood on Sunday. 

 

 

Another one is Leo. He's been taught all the discussions and was ready for baptism, then all of a sudden he dropped off the earth! He stopped coming from church and he never returned our phone calls. But he came to church yesterday!! So we'll meet with him this week and get him ready for baptism again. 

 

 

We have a few others that are progressing quite well, I just don't have enough time to type them all out sorry!! Our big focus this week is to rescue and re-activate. We have about 42 people that are less active. That's more than half of our members that are actually coming regularly. So we're going to visit them all and get them back. 

 

 

Yesterday was a miracle. We were at church just getting out of the first hour when our phone started going crazy. We received about 3 texts from an unknown number saying "Hi Elders i am Javiar. I just moved to Hollister and am looking for your church. I know the Mormon Book and I believe in John Smith. I really need you guys right now I am depressed" (he had really bad broken up English) he was quite relieved when we answered by saying "Hablamos espanol" which means we speak Spanish. So we left church in a flash and went to find him. He told us how happy he was to find us and how much happiness the church and the Book of Mormon has brought him. He is a recovering alcoholic and doesn't have much family left. Apparently he had met some missionaries down in Santa Cruz, when he told them that he was moving to Hollister, the Santa Cruz elders gave him our number. It was perfect. He told us that he wants to meet every day and learn all about our church, he wants to know everything. He already wants to get baptized. I love him so much!! There's so much I want to tell him but I don't know how to say it in Spanish yet haha it's frustrating sometimes. But The Lord will provide. I'm so excited for him. 

So that's the wrap up for this week. This coming week will be even better. We have so much to do, and I'm so excited for all of it. I need to work harder and harder every day. There is never a time when I'm not depending on my Lord and Savior. Without Him or the Holy Ghost by my side every step of the way, I simply cannot do this work. It would be impossible. But we have to remember to do our part. Work your hardest and continuously study up the words of life and ponder on the scriptures. Meditate in your minds the words about eternal life and how beautiful this gospel is. Do this, then go forward with faith. Faith and action work together. You can't have one without the other. I think to myself every day how privileged I am to be here at this time. I love it so much. I never want to leave.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving for this week!! I hope everyone can think of many things that they are grateful for. If you can't think of anything, the fault lies within yourself. 

I love and miss you all.

 

 

Elder Felt

 

 

Sorry about all the sky pics, I just love God's creations a whole lot.