NEW MOTTO: "JUST ROLL WITH IT!" PLUS, VALENTINA GETS BAPTIZED

November 29, 2017

Dear Family,

It was a pretty good week! 

I guess I forgot to mention that Valentina, the 9-year-old daughter of Alejandro and Maria Paz, was getting baptized. Elder Leles and I reactivated the family and then we left and the next Elders taught Valentina. It was cool, though. I gave the message on the Holy Ghost and it was awesome to see them again. It's kinda funny because Capitan Avalos (the ward I was in) borders my current ward (Nocedal) which borders my last ward (Lo Blanco). It's been a good gig staying in this stake so long! 

This week we had Thanksgiving and every district got an apple pie on Thursday! Except MY district, so I called them up and asked what the deal was?! It turned out, they just missed us, so we got hooked up and we got some ice cream, too and it was lit! ​

I had some left over candles from my B-day so I used them to spell "Eat Pie". 

Things in the area have been good. We've been finding new people and Marjorie had her baptismal interview and passed with flying colors! She's been spiritually ready for a while now, but just had some little doubts here and there. She'll be getting baptized this Sunday after the meetings! 

It's been a bit tough recently because my house is composed of 4 missionaries and I'm the only who's disciplined enough to follow the missionary schedule well, or even do simple things like clean the dishes right now. The ZLs and Assistants are aware of that now and have told me I just need to admonish them. Imma just start reading Alma 5 out loud or something, but things gotta change, partially because President told me I'll be training this next transfer 

So, I want the house culture to be a lot better before then.

There's not too much else to talk about. My comp's losing his mind about finishing his mission in 3 weeks. I recently had interviews with President and his advice was "just roll with it." So we'll see where things go! 

It's been a good week, though. Have a good one everyone!

-Elder Sierra

Elder Leles and me at Valentina's baptism.

CHALLENGES AND DELAYS BUT THE WORK'S MOVING FORWARD

November 22, 2017

Dear Family,

This week in Nocedal showed a few more challenges that I'll be facing during this transfer. I mentioned last week that we have a Haitian woman and her daughter who are fantastic. (They really are!) The problem is that we coordinated about 5 appointments with the member they live with to teach them but every single one fell through... *SIGH* They even went to church last week. That's 6 times IN A ROW!  And Brenda was going to be baptized on the 25th (the date the previous Elders had set) however, after our first visit we found out she still smokes socially. *DOH*

Josefa, the little 10 year-old girl that we're teaching, had her second lesson on Monday. She's on fire too! She understood the Plan of Salvation REALLY well and after the lesson, they invited us for "once" and when her baby cousin was misbehaving she was like, "Nah, it's all good; she doesn't know right from wrong!" My comp and I about cried!

We also have our investigator with a baptismal date for the 3rd of December! Marjorie! We were able to find her finally and talk to her. She's been receiving the missionaries since May and has read through ALMA in the Book of Mormon! She has a firm testimony about it but has had some doubts in terms of baptism. In our first lesson with her we just ended up talking lots about baptism and she was like, "Yeah, I'll get baptized" and we were like... "Is the 2nd cool?" and she said yes. We then had an FHE because she thought the idea was super interesting. We got a guy and a girl that are also 20ish to come with us to have an FHE with her and it was awesome! We saw the video "the Mediator" and when we read Alma 34:15-16 she said "I think I'm the most sure I've been about baptism!" YAS!!! 

We'll be seeing her tomorrow and I'M PUMPED.

Apart from that, the ward's been good, however, they did throw us under the bus our very first Sunday! The ward secretary told us right as the meeting was starting that we had talks...

Luckily, I had pre-prepared talk; I just didn't have the notes with me. It went pretty well and it was a good first impression! 

It was a good week and hopefully we'll keep gettin' things rolling!

-Elder Sierra