Feliz Dia De Accion De Gracias

Hey everyone

Wow, we are already Past thanksgiving! Man things are going to fast out here. I hope y’all had fantastic Thanksgiving meals and all are sufficiently fattened for the next couple months of winter... well winter in Utah but it will just stay fall here ‘til next summer.

This week has been very different from the others I’ve had because of one thing. 99% of our investigators went out of town for a week and a half, so all we have been doing is tracting and meeting new people. We have gone tracting before, but this was a whole new level of tracting. But since it is almost Christmas time, it was good and I am now very good at saying, " Hola, como esta? Somos misioneros de la iglasia de los santos de los ultimos dias. Estamos en este area a compartir un mensaje acerca de Jesucristo y que el ha hecho para nosotros....etc." So yay for Spanish!

But this week really has been great, we got to meet tons of new people and had a great Thursday gaining 15 pounds of turkey. One of the highlights of the week though was when we taught our investigator, Angel, who is a Garifuna and a super awesome guy. We started teaching him about Christ and how he helped others and we showed him the new #lighttheworld video (super good I recommend it). And as usual with him, once we ask him what he thought he goes into a super long rant about 1st what he liked, and then a whole lot of things that he believes are off about the world and some Christian teachings. He eventually talked about the teaching about babies needing to be baptized, and if they don't get it they can’t make it to heaven. At this point we told him about how they don't need it, and how children are innocent and gave him Moroni 8 to read. It was super awesome because I could see his interest peak and the light of desire come in to him. I really think it was the turning point from having gospel discussions to having him realize we have something unique that can help him in his life and bring him closer to God.

Quote of the week that made feel a little awkward but don't worry it came from a 60-year old lady:

"Hey thanks for helping me guys, you know I was in love with a Mormon missionary once.... but I didn't wait for him to come home.”

I love you all and hope that you have a great Christmas season.

Thanksgiving dinner with Nicole and the Laplace Elders

Well I don't know what to title this, so this is it

Hey everyone,

Man that is a bad sign if I can’t come up with an email title already, well I guess I’ll have to work on that. But anyways this week was pretty awesome with lots of blessings and some interesting experiences too.

One interesting experience was when we went tracting last Thursday and we ran in to a Muslim man who invited us in and asked to hear our message.  So we go into the restoration and it seems be going well and when we finished with the 1st vision we paused and he was like, "Are y’all done? I have a few questions for you." So we said that he could of course ask his questions which we assumed were about the lesson... and thus began a 2 hours talk about how Christianity is wrong and Islam is correct. It was an interesting conversation and it taught me a lot about the Muslim religion.

And one of the super awesome blessings this week actually is a repercussion from another blessing about 3 weeks ago. Elder Barron and I had a goal one day to talk to everyone we ran into and hope that there was a reason they were in our path. So we bike over to a good area with lots of people and as we are biking we pass a man fixing a car in the street, and because of our goal we pulled over and started talking to him. He was super nice and right when he saw us we was all like, " Oh Los Mormones." Come to find out he was from Honduras and knew missionaries. So we waited while he finished putting his battery back in the car and all then some other Garifuna people came out because it was their car being fixed. Once the first guy was done he said bye and jumped in his truck and left before we could do anything, so that was sad but then the other Garifuna guy asked us to come teach him about God. We went and talked to him, and just to let you know he looked scary, he was buff with dreadlocks and is covered in tattoos. But anyways we talked for a while and set another time to meet, but it fell through. But then the other day we gave him a call and he immediately was like I need y’all to teach me and bring me a bible cuz I need to change my life. And so we went and talked to him yesterday and he is already on a path towards the gospel. He has stopped drinking, messing around, and partying and wants to be a better man for his kids. He almost cried when we gave him the Bible and Book of Mormon and I am so excited to teach him more and see how he progresses. It just goes to show that you shouldn't judge someone by how they look because everyone is a child of God and anyone can be prepared to receive guidance towards Him.

Quotes of the week,

dialogue that sometimes happens after eating a big spicy meal of Hispanic food

Me: Yo necesito conquistar el baño

Elder Barron: algunos vezes el bano me conquistó

I love you all and hope life is treating you well and Happy Thanksgiving

Banana Tree Flower

Too lazy to go get my slippers in the other room

An investigator with banana trees gave us some

Necesito Mis Nalgas a trajabar mis naglas apagado (Elder Mendoza)

Hey everyone,

How has your week been? Here down south it has been warm as usual with just a touch of crazy... because of the elections. People down here are going crazy at the fact that Trump won because a lot of them supported Hillary. But I bet that is how it is everywhere in the USA right now. And I apologize to all Spanish speakers if the title of this email is not translated correctly. Wasn't sure how to translate it from English to Spanish.

But anyways this week (apart from elections) was pretty great. We had lots of lessons with lots of people and we even had an investigator shout us down to see when we were coming back to their house to visit. It was pretty awesome. We had a super awesome lesson with a less active family last Tuesday too! They are the H family and they have 4 kids the oldest of which is 18, and they hadn't been sealed in the temple yet since the dad is less active. So we went over to their house on Tuesday for a FHE, we were in charge of the lesson of course so we chose to talk about eternal families. We had each of them tell us what their favorite memory was and most of them were something the family had done together. So we talked about how everyone can have experiences as a family like these fore eternity in a perfect, perfectly happy family. then Sister Henriquez (who is active in the church) ask us what happens when her daughters get married and get sealed to their families, she asked if they would still be an eternal family since they have their own families now. we told her yes and that her grandkids, great-grandkids, and great great grandkids would all be sealed to her in the eternities. She started crying at this thought and was completely overwhelmed. The spirit was super strong so Elder Barron and I both testified about eternal families and the joy it brings to know our families can be together forever, and now the whole family is deciding on a date to be sealed and the father says he will do anything to be sealed to his kids and wife. It was super awesome!

I love this gospel and being on a mission reminds me every day how much of a blessing it is. I don't know any other church that says families will be eternal and so I feel very blessed to be part the true church of Christ that gives us this reassurance and the necessary ordinances for this eternal blessing.

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

Elder Stucki being Elder Stucki

Meal at Manuel's house

Elder Nichols (He is from Davis High y'all)

Elder Barron spotted the small mammal

The whole dinner party