It's Not Beginning To Look Like Christmas (Week 48)

Food and Fun!

      This week some cool things happened. So first there is an awesome family here that takes care us of real well! Their daughter just got back from a mission and they said they didn’t have enough money for a Christmas tree this year, and they are super festive! So Monday night we went and bought them a tree and surprised them with it, it was super cool! I LOVE CHRISTMAS. Me and Elder Hernandez have progressed a lot together and are getting closer so that’s good. We found an amazing family who is really prepared. I hope they progress! The Dad says he wants to find God and he contacted other missionaries. When we were teaching them he also got chills so we explained it was the Holy Ghost and then invited him to be baptized. They accepted and the lesson was very powerful! I love being a missionary! Also changes are tomorrow, but we are staying the same here in Chilpa! I’ll have 6 months here and I am so excited!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      Man I love life. It is super hard but I am so grateful I understand why I am here. We are here to progress, to be tested, and to have joy! I like the scripture in 3 Nephi 12:48 a lot. It says “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect”. That is the goal, to become perfect. We will never reach perfection here on this earth, but we must try! We  must progress. It makes life fun! It makes life a challenge! But most of all it makes life worth it. I like to think about an ice sculpture. You start with a big ol block of ice. Its ugly. Then you start chipping away and making it pretty. We are like the ice and God is the sculptor. He gives us tests to break off chunks so one day we can be an amazing, perfect, ice sculpture! But its not easy. We always have to be reading the scriptures and finding things to get better at. We need to repent and grow. I really love this life and I love the Plan of Salvation and am so grateful to have this knowledge! I love you all so much, keep on pushing on!

Con Amor, Elder Herman

Sharing Christmas!

The Missionaries.

WHAT A WEEK! (Week 47)

Elder Wegner & Elder Herman

      Wow, another amazing week. I love the misión so much and now time is flying! I am already coming up on a year mark! But some highlights of this week. Tuesday we had a Christmas “devotional”. We played minute to win it and just had fun all day! Broke piñatas and Presidente ven le tus watch Elf! Then they gave us some awesome Christmas presents! I really love President he has made the misión a lot better! He has been really creative, and also yesterday we had a big Light The World activity with 5 zones of missionaries in one place contacting the world! We were in a central park and a whole stake of members were there. There was a choir and a ton of balloons with lights on them and the little Light the World cards, and people wrote messages to light someone's world! A ton of speakers and screens showing videos, it was unreal! I went in the middle of traffic just handing out Light The World calendars to all the cars that passed, haha, it was fun! President was even contacting everyone! Also Campestre, my first área, was there! SO I saw a ton of them and talked to them all, haha it was cool cause I could actually talk to them well! And my first convert, Laura Oyuki, was there staying strong! They are gonna get sealed soon so I hope I can go! It really was a special day! And also Ana Isabel got confirmed! It made me so happy to be able to see her confirmed a member of the true Church of Jesus Christ. And the primary program too, man how blessed am I! It made me cry but only a little! Cause there was a family of investigators there and the kids participated so it just made me real happy to see them already involved in the church! God is good!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      Well this week I have been reminded how blessed I truly am. Gratitude is something that always makes me happy. I have realized that I have been on the misión for a while now and just looking back and seeing all the opportunities the Lord has given me just makes me want to explode with joy and love!! I can’t express the happiness I have had and will have thanks to my misión! It truly is the best 2 years. J I love you all so much thanks for supporting me! Remember to be grateful and thank God for all he has given you! Que tengan una bonita semana.

Con Amor, Elder Herman

Merry Christmas from Elder Herman

Elder Hernandez & Elder Herman

I Love the Mission (Week 46)

      This truly was an amazing week! A ton of things have happened! First off Light The World started! So day one was “de gracias recibisteis, de gracias dareis” (freely you have received, freely give), so we went to these train tracks and gave a ton of clothes to these homeless people. It was super cool. Then Saturday was “tuve sed y me diste de beber” (I was thirsty and ye gave me drink), so we went to the train tracks again and gave everyone water bottles! It is really awesome being able to help others and participate in Light The World! The ward has also been awesome in supporting us and helping us! Then Sunday was the baptism of Ana Isabel, but she had to make it to church on time, so Elder Hernandez and I did splits with members to be able to go for her and other investigators. The family I went for wasn’t home so we got to the church and Elder Hernandez showed up and wasn’t with Ana Isabel! So we were all bummed cause she wouldn’t be able to be baptized. But then a member came running out and told us that she was already in the church! So that was a miracle! She came all by herself! Then after church we went out with some members and contacted everyone we saw. It was really awesome! But then the best part of all! The baptism of Ana Isabel! It was so special! The members here are awesome and there was a lot of people at her baptism and the spirit was so strong. She cried when she got baptized and you can just tell she felt the spirit! Then after we went and ate with them, haha, they had a mini party! But this week really was great it is good to see all the hard work and fasting pay off! God is good!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      Well in these times of Christmas I would like to talk about service! Remember to look at the calendar and watch the videos of “Light The World” so that everyday you can serve someone else and light the world! Preach my Gospel says “One of the greatest blessings of membership in the Church is the opportunity to serve. When we give loving service to others, we are serving God. When we are baptized we COVENANT to give such service.” I love the word covenant. In the church we make covenants with God. Or we make agreements with Him. We accept to live His commandments and He promises to bless us with happiness and eternal life. Mosiah 2:17 “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” Man I just love God so much and it makes me want to love everyone, so that I can serve Him more! God has given us all so much it is our duty to repay Him and be instruments in His hands to help other people, or His other children, and our brothers and sisters, to be happy! I love you all so much and I hope you all can light the world everyday this month!

Con Amor, Elder Herman  

Elder Wooten & Elder Herman

Ilumina tu Mundo (Light the World) (Week 45)

      Welp, a pretty crazy week here in Chilpa. First off, one of our investigators Belen, whose husband is a member, had a baptismal date for the 24 of December, cause that’s when their son completes 8, so they would get baptized together, said she wants to get baptized sooner! So she and her daughter might get baptized this week! And then we went with Ana Isabel and she said she wants to get baptized this Sunday! So we are seeing some miracles here. I am always reminded that this is the work of the Lord and he is always here helping us do his work. And fam Torres, who we found last week, all went to church this week and liked it a lot, so thats good. We are seeing a ton of progress here in Chilpita!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      This week I would like to talk about 1 Nephi 8, the visión of Lehi. So Lehi partook of the fruit of the tree of life and had great joy, and his family also, besides Laman and Lemuel. They were led to the tree by the iron rod. We always need to be focused so that we are following the iron rod, because many times in our life we will pass a mist of darkness and be tempted to fall away. 1 Nephi 8:23 “And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way that they wandered off and were lost.” Let’s not be like the people who got lost when trials and challenges happened. We need to be strong and endure to the end. Verse 24 “And it came to pass that I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree.” We need to always be clinging on to the iron rod so we can always be partaking of the fruit that is desirable above all other fruit and fills our soul with exceedingly great joy!  But also beware of the people in the great and spacious building who don’t want us to partake of this fruit. Who mock us and try to make us fall away from the iron rod. I can testify to all of you that life truly is happier holding on to the rod and following the straight and narrow path rather than doing the easy thing and falling away in the mist. I am so grateful for scripture passages like this that help us be guided and find strength. Always remember to do the simple things, read, pray, and go to church! If we do these 3 things constantly we will always follow the straight and narrow path and be able to partake of the fruit of joy and happiness! I love you all so much. I am so grateful to be serving the Lord! Les amo!

Con Amor, Elder Herman

Una Buena Semana Pues (Week 44)

Elder Herman is happy to be a representative of Jesus Christ!

      This week was really awesome we saw a couple miracles! We found an awesome family whose parents got baptized like 15 years ago, but moved and lost contact with the church. The Dad saw us in the street and started talking to us so we went to his house and he has 3 kids that aren’t baptized . But when we got there they all told us they wanted to be baptized. It’s a really cool family and I am really excited to help them enter the waters of baptism! Also this week someone in our apartment building died so everyone was sad. We are teaching one of our neighbors and he asked us if we could give a little message to them and some other people in the building. So we taught 3 of the 8 apartments, haha. We are going to make everyone Mormon! And 2 came to church! Man this week was really great, we also had Zone Conference and it was honestly the best one of my mission! Our mission is progressing a lot and I am excited to see where it goes!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      This week I read a talk about opening the heavens by Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi. It is a very good talk about how we can obtain power and answers from the Heavens. It says we all need a "sacred grove" so that we can get away from the world and ask for help from God. Just like Joseph Smith went to a grove in 1820 early in the morning to look for answers from God. We need to go to a place that is calm and quiet so we can be alone with Heavenly Father, so we can talk to Him and we can listen to the answers He gives back to us. Prayer is such an important tool that God has given us and we must take advantage of it. We must build our relationship with Him so He can give us strength and guidance here on our earthly journey to happiness. I love you all so much and hope that you can all find your "sacred grove" to talk to God in peace! Tengan una buena semana.

Con Amor, Elder Herman 

Good times, good friends!

Good food.  : )

Mission Fun

Hola (Week 43)

      Another good week in the books here in Mexico! Well, so this week was changes and they opened 2 areas in my District, so now there are a lot of missionaries that I get to talk to, its great! Wednesday we had our District meeting and the assistants came. It was good! This week we have had a lot of success finding people and found a couple of families. We found one family who I really think and hope that they will progress. Gerardo (dad) and his 2 sons Sergio and Mario. Gerardo said he is willing to do anything to help his kids. Mario is kinda lost in drugs but wants to change his life. They were really interested in the Book of Mormon so that’s a good sign! We haven’t had a baptism here in Chilpa so I have been wondering what I can do better or differently, I think this change we will have a couple! But if anyone has advice or some tips, throw them my way!

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

Showing off his new mask!

      This week I have been really focused on goals. Goals are SO important to set so that we can have a vision of where we want to be and what we want to achieve. We have to have a vision of where we want to go in this life or we will just go where life takes us, and who knows where that will be. In Preach My Gospel there’s a quote by Elder Ballard “I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in his life.” I, like Elder Ballard, am also very convinced that we must have goals so that we can push ourselves to achieve not only what we want, but also what the Lord wants. Elder Ballard also has an amazing talk on goals called “Return and Receive” I definitely recommend it! I invite all of you to look at your life and find what you want to achieve and who you want to become and set goals to help you on your way. We are only here on the earth for a little time, so we might as well make the most of it and get to work! I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Con Amor, Elder Herman

The District

Elder Hernandez and Elder Herman

Good Food!

Feliz Halloween (Week 42)

A little Halloween fun!

      What a week! Tuesday had intercambios with Mira Azul then got home for like 30 minutes and went to Ciudad Labor with Elder Wegner! It was super fun! And here in Mexico they do like the “trick or treating” November 1^st so it was super fun with Elder Wegner. Two white guys out on Halloween, haha. It was funny cause no one asked us for candy, and then some people gave us candy, and everyone came and asked for candy, haha. We were emptying our pockets. When the kids ask for candy they sing a song “Mi calavrita tiene hambre, hay un dulce por ahi?” Then yesterday had a cool experience. We were going to visit a future investigator and we went and found him outside on his porch smoking. He told us his sister had just died and he was sad so we were able to share with him the Plan of Salvation and also talk about the atonement. It was really awesome except for the fact that all the smoke from his cigarette went right in my face and I could barely breath, but it was so worth it. He said it comforted him and it was a really cool moment. To see that the Lord really does send us to people who 
                                                                                                 need to hear his message in the perfect time as well.

Spiritual Thought Of The Week

      Saturday me and my comp had a really cool experience. In the morning we studied about consecration in our thoughts and actions and the Holy Ghost and how important it is to follow all of his promptings. So we left the house and went knocking on doors. It was unreal. We knocked on like 6 doors and everyone accepted us! And we were able to teach 3 of them. It’s because we truly were focused and had the right intentions. It’s like hitting a baseball. If you take your eye off the ball (God) you will miss. But when we are focused on what is important we can find the sweet spot and hit the ball. It is so important that we are always focused on whats right in all our thoughts and actions. Preach My Gospel says “Your mind is like a stage in a theater; in the theater of your mind, however, only one actor can be on stage at a time. If the stage is left bare, thoughts of darkness and sin often enter the stage to tempt us. But these thoughts have no power if the stage of your mind is occupied by wholesome thoughts, such as a memorized hymn or verse of scripture that you can call up in a moment of temptation.” I really like this because it is so true! The more our mind is blank the more Satan will fight to enter, but we can get rid of temptation whenever with a scripture or hymn! I know these things are true and I know this is the work of the Lord. I am reminded of it everyday! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

               

Love, Elder Herman  

Elder Herman & Elder Wegner!