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

Le ponga mangas al chaleco

Hey y’all how you been?

I hope you all have had a fantastic week. I had an interesting experience the other day while Elder Barron and I were tracting. We had just pulled up to a neighborhood that we had some investigators in and we were planning on knocking on some doors to meet some new people; when all of a sudden out of the complex walks about twenty Jehovah's Witnesses who are flying through the neighborhood knocking on everyone’s doors and preaching their beliefs. It was pretty cool to see how they did it, but we were all like, "Dang it, now everyone is just going to think we are the JW coming around again." So we ran up the street and tried to knock on a door and the next thing we know we are experiencing a Moses parting the Red Sea moment, where all the JW come by us but don't even touch the house we are at, but go literally everywhere else. So yeah that was a fun time. After that we decided to come back way later since everyone didn't like us knocking on the doors right after the JW's

But this week has been a super awesome week. If you all remember our investigator Andy, who was a miracle find when both Elder Barron and my tires popped on our bikes, this will be exciting. We were teaching him and his family this week about the plan of salvation and how God has provided us a way to return to him, and overcome all of our challenges in life, and that through Christ we can all be forgiven and eventually live with God and our families for eternity. It was an awesome lesson and you could definitely see the spirit working on each of them. We then decided today was the day to commit them to baptism. So in my broken Spanish I invited each member of the family individually, and all 5 of them accepted! We haven’t set a date yet and there are a couple things we need to work through with them but it was so amazing to see that in a few short weeks that God had given these amazing people the desire to come closer to him and follow in the footsteps of the Savior by being baptized and following his commandments. It is one of the best things about the mission, I love seeing the progression of investigators! 

We also had another blessing this week with a part member family. We visit them from time to time to keep them strong in the church and to build a relationship with the father who is not LDS; but does believe in God but thinks that churches have such conflicting opinions that he can’t really discern the truth. His name is Derrick and his wife is named Nicole btw. So this week we were visiting with them and we decided to teach about the importance of prayer and how God really wants us to communicate with him since he is our literal Father in Heaven. So we start out by watching the Mormon message "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" which is a great video. And afterwards discussed it for a while, then without our prompting or even extending a commitment, Derrick told us that he hasn't prayed for a very long time and he knows he needs to change that, so he will do it now and he wants to do it too! It was the first time he has ever been willing to change so it was a HUGE blessing.

Quote of the week: "If we want to be growing we will have to be out of our comfort zone." It is a great quote that I’m applying every day now by going out of my way to talk to everyone I see and say more in lessons, especially if it is in Spanish. I know if we apply this idea and pray for guidance we will be able to grow and be shaped by God into true Disciples of Christ.

Love y’all, have an awesome week.

You know your hanging out with Hispanics in Nola for too long when you buy Canada Dry

Say hello to Arthur the Mexican skull

To be or not to be

He is hand painted

Made it through my first transfer!

Hey y’all,

I made it through my first transfer in the field and I just barely got the news that I am staying in Metairie for another transfer, which probably means for 2 more after this one too since you usually are in the same area for about 4 transfers unless craziness happens with new missionaries or other stuff. Oh, and happy Halloween, I hope you all had an awesome night of getting candy last night.

This last week has been pretty dang interesting since I had to give a talk in front of a Spanish congregation last Sunday. It was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever had to do, since I know that I wouldn't be able to talk super fast, or translate the conjugations for verbs very well either. I wrote the whole talk out in Spanish and had my comp proof read it, apparently my translation was pretty good, he only had to change a few things; so I then gave a read instead of a talk (sorry Dad) but it was definitely better than I could have done otherwise.

And then to make the beginning of the week even better we had a surprise MLC, which is when my comp has to go and get info from the mission president to teach the zone and I get to go on splits with another newbie, In fact I had to do splits with him twice this week. But it went a lot better than the first time and I was freaking out for no reason. Actually, we had a lot of success and it showed that we both have grown a lot with Spanish since the first time we went on splits 3ish weeks ago. He told me that my only problem is I try to talk to fast which screws up my head since my thoughts get in the way of my words, so now I’ve got something to work on.

This week has also taught me a lot of things about how there is a reason for everything, even for the hard things in life. I’ve mentioned my investigator Miguel before but I’ll give a quick overview of him again.  He is the 13 year-old kid who wants to be baptized but his dad is very against the church and is super controlling so he won’t let Miguel or his family do anything without his permission. But this week we had a lesson with this family, and the dad was offshore working again so he wasn't there. We talked about how struggles in life, even mistakes and the sometimes hard road through repentance, are there for a reason.  We showed them the refiners fire Mormon Message (it’s awesome so if you haven't seen it watch it) and it really touched them. I then testified that all the trials and problems they are experiencing now are hard but that if they ask God for help he will help them to overcome it; and they will be able to grow in ways that God needs them to so they can help share their light and experiences with others. I told them that God needs them on his side TODAY and that if they all will come to Him, follow His commandments, and pray often they will find success and increased happiness. I want to give this same challenge to all of you; if you are going through some struggles or you aren't being as conscious of God as you should be, pray to Him, repent if you have things you need His forgiveness for, and return to Him since he needs us all on his side so he can move his work forward and so you can find peace and happiness in this life and eternal life in His presence in the life to come. And then share your light with others.

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week and that you will feel Gods love for you every day.

love

Elder Porter

Me, Elder Strand, Elder Adriazola Mendoza

Miguel family at the Trunk or Treat

A member's melted barbie/skeleton  makeup job