July 28, 2015

Hey Everyone!

Can you believe it?! July is ending isn't that crazy! Here comes August and I just have a great feeling this is going to be a month of miracles. But as you all know there were changes and these changes were pretty crazy for me. I am still in La Noria and President Markham informed me that I was going to train again... but my companion never went to the MTC. So I got paired up with someone that entered the mission field with me. His name is Elder Halverson and we have the exact same amount of time in the mission, he was on the airplane with me when I left and we will share being senior companions. But I am still district leader, the only difference is we share the cellphone every other day and at night I need to call the elders in the district.

It is fun being with a gringo and I have learned how bad my English is now, but don't worry I am working on it! We have also worked hard to clean the house and work well with our branch mission leader. We have seen a ton of progress and have 2 miracles for this Sunday! Juan Carlos and Oleida Gomez are going to be baptized. Oleida is the daughter of America that got baptized abut a week and a half ago and she made some pretty big changes to get to this point. Juan Carlos as well has made some huge decisions, the biggest is finding a place to stay the night other than with his family so that he can be baptized. His wife won't get married with him, and he wants more than anything to follow Christ so he we be sleeping in another house and night and be with his kids in the afternoon, until his wife makes the same decision to follow Christ and marry him and get baptized! There are miracles and the faith of this man is incredible! 

Yesterday we cleaned our house and sprayed some bug repellent that should keep away the scorpions and tarantulas, but as for the snakes... who knows what we will do! I hope you all have a great week and work hard to help this wonderful work go about! This truly is the time to harvest and see miracles. I love you all,

Elder Daybell 

July 21, 2015

Hey Everyone!

This week was a great week as we had a lot of great success as our last week together as companions. That's right there are changes and my companion is leaving this area and I will be receiving a new companion tomorrow! This will be my 4th change in this area and so I will end with almost 6 months in 1 area! And I love this area, I feel like it's my house now and the members are more like my family than just friends! But I am happy to stay here as we have a baptism the 2nd of August of a man that has been showing his faith in many ways. 

This man is Juan Carlos and he is a huge example of faith. He has felt the spirit and even fasted with us to help him with what he is going through. He has been with his girlfriend for 10 years and have had many problems. He loves the church and goes with his children to church without his wife because she doesn't want religion. He asked her this last week to marry him and she said no, even after  10 years of being with him, so he showed his faith and left her in order to progress in the church and be baptized! He is a great example to his kids and they are praying with him and reading scriptures at night. I can't say I have seen faith like that for a long time. I am so happy to be a part of this miracle and have my faith increase as I watch his example of faith. 

This past Sunday we also had the baptism of America and her daughter! America has been visiting missionaries for a year and finally made some decisions to be baptized this last Sunday! It was a wonderful day and a great way to end the change with my companion! 

Last Tuesday we found another critter in our house. A big, hairy legged Tarantula. I don't know what to think... Snakes, scorpions, tarantulas and sometimes we have to chase bats out of the house. 6 more weeks, I hope I can make it ;) 

Love you all,

Elder Daybell 

Baptism of America

Their friend they found. 

July 14, 2015

Hey Everyone,

   

This week was another week of working hard and seeing miracles! 

This week we had the baptism of Elisandro Yanes or Chando. I had the privilege of baptizing him and I will never forget when we were waiting for the bus to go back to La Noria he was talking to me and thanked me for being the one to baptize him. It was sweet and may seem cheesy, but it was some powerful words to me from the mouth of a 9 year old. 

We have another miracle waiting for us with a lady we challenged for this weekend who said she wanted to be baptized and finally things are looking up and she seems to be ready for this week. This is the last week of the change and I have a sad feeling that I will be leaving this area so I hope we can finish this week baptizing in an area that I have come to love. I have seen so many miracles here and this would be a huge miralce because she has been receiving the missionaries for 1 year now! Her name is America. 

We spent Pday as a district and took some pictures in our clothes from Guatemala and made T shirts with those pictures! It was a fun Pday and I love my district, we have been working super hard and we were happy to see that today in the Presidents letter to all the mission he mentioned our district for the effort we are putting forth to have a high percentage of the retention and baptize every week! 

Last night we had a crazy experience, for those who remember the scorpion that was in our house, one of his friends showed up last night. I was leaving a door in our house when I hear something fall. I looked to my side and there he was, a good sized snake that dropped right next to me. But we were able to kill it with just about no problems, it was just really tramatic because it tried to fight back, but no one got hurt... besides the snake. Mom... don't freak out, this is what makes memories :) 

I hope you all have a great week and know that I have a strong testimony that this is God's true church and that we can all see miracles in our lives, we just need to leave our comfort zone and do a little more, because we are more. I love you all

Love,

Elder Daybell

Baptism

His District

The snake he killed

Their T-shirts

July 7, 2015

Hey Everyone,

This week was absolutely crazy and wonderful! We had 2 baptisms and some other shocking miracles in this week that were amazing. One of the baptisms we had is the daughter (Joselyn) of a less active that we have helped to reactivate and it was a great event this past Sunday. On Friday we have planned a baptism for a young man named Amilcar who is a little nervous and shy. We went to visit him Friday morning before the baptism to be certain of everything ( He told us he was going to say yes or no that day and if yes we would have the baptism at 1) but he wasn't there. We spent a good hour looking for him and couldn't find him. We went and had lessons and ate lunch and then we had the feeeling to look for him again. We found him and talked about baptism and he was trying to change it for another day again for the 3rd time and so we asked why he didn't want to be baptized and he paused for a minute and said What if we go now? So in 5 minutes we got on a bus called the zone leaders they filled the font and had the interview and like that we had a miracle on Friday. So far my companion and I have seen that if we work hard to obey with exactness we will be able to baptize every week and see many miracles just as our mission president has promised. We have another baptism this Sunday of a boy from a family that is also returning to activity in the church and we have a positive investigator for the 19th as well. We have really seen the blessings of obeying with exactness. 

Also we have been working with an inactive man and his family that aren't members and he finally came to church this Sunday. He was a reference from a different branch because his records are not in the system here. He came and we have been visiting him and after 7 years of inactivity is making the big step, the name they gave us was Angel de Leon. He asked us a strange question before he left He said "The guy who gave you my reference, did he tell you my whole name?" We said Angel of course and then he showed us his I.D. His real first name is Abinadi from the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool to find that out but more importantly that he is progressing in this Gospel.

For Pday we went to Antigua and it was quite an adventure as always. We ate at pizza hut and had ice cream and that was the highlight of the trip for me, I have not eaten pizza in forever! It was a good trip and a good time to relax with my district! 

I love you all and hope you have a great week. Love,

Elder Daybell

Max with a Guatemalan girl in Traditional Guatemalan clothes 

Joselyn's baptism

Amilcar's Baptism

Elder Daybell and his companion being funny. 

Max and his district in Antigua. 

June 30, 2015

Hey Everyone! 

I hope you all have a great 4th of July! This last Sunday we baptized the nephew of a member in our branch! It was a great service and even more exciting because the grandmother and the mother of this little boy were able to attend and it has been great as little by little the Gospel is spreading in this family. I hope to be here for the baptisms of the rest of this family because I know the spirit is working on them! 

Here in La Noria we have been finding but we changed our ways and started looking for less active families and we have helped 2 less active families start coming to church again. And what helps is that they have been less active for a long time so they have children that passed 8 years old so we are visiting them so that their children can be taught in the gospel and be baptized in these next few weeks. What has helped us more than anything to help these families is to teach them and get them excited about going to the temple. If we help get their sights on the temple than we know that they are headed in a good direction. As a result of this we have a baptism this week of a 9 year old girl named Joselyn and in 2 weeks we have another of a boy named elisandro and both of these 2 are from families that are coming back to church. We are also working with another man who just found out there was a church nearby and he is going to attend this week with us and he has a son who is 9 years old and his wife is not a member. We hope to work with him and help his family become eternal someday! 

As well this week we have a baptism of a young man who is very timid but has a great love for people. So he is an investigator, but this Sunday... He brought an investigator to church! He is sharing the gospel and helping others but he is scared of baptism because he doesn't want to give a talk or say a prayer. So this Friday will be his baptism and he doesn't want any pictures and just the witnesses and us are going to be there. It's a little odd but it's his baptism and as long as he is entering into the straight and narrow path I don't think it really matters. He has expressed his desires to serve in the mission and I am so happy to say that I got to be a part of this young man's conversion. 

I know that there are miracles in each week and everyday. I love this area with all my heart and the people here are amazing. The branch went up to an attendance of 65 this week and I don't remember the last Sunday when I was sitting down in the sacrament meeting because there aren't enough chairs. But as long as God's children are in the church I don't mind standing. I hope you all have an amazing week and know that I know this church is true! 

Love,

Elder Daybell

Scorpion Found in Max's apartment 

We don't really know what's happening in this picture. But we love him anyways! 

Baptism :)