March 22, 2106

Well this has been another awesome week. 

All went well with the wedding plans of Maria Alejandra and her husband Carlos. It was the fastest wedding I have ever attended. The lawyer was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes. But it was also good because we were able to teach a lesson to Carlos and other family members of Maria Alejandra. Her and Rebeca are the only members of the church in their families, everyone else in their families attends another church. She is going to be a light to her family. I got to baptize her on Sunday and she was super nervous. It almost made me nervous with how nervous she was but all went well. 

Right now we are praying and working super hard to complete our goal. We have 5 weeks out of 6 baptizing together as a companionship. We have several possibilities and are just working our hardest. Many of these people already have testimonies the only thing is we have to help them get the courage to take that step of faith into the baptismal font. Or as we call it in this mission closing the deal. 

This week is known as the Holy week here, where everyone gets together to remember the death of Christ, but really it is something we should do at least 1 time a week with the Sacrament. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I think this week is Easter Sunday, I have no idea really. I hope you enjoy it all though! Love you, 

Elder Daybell

Fotos 

1. Maria Alejandra's wedding

2. Baptism! 

3. Temple with Elder Salcedo! My buddy from La Noria District!! 

March 14, 2016

Hey Everyone, 

I'm writing today because tomorrow we are going to the temple for our zone Pday. It should be a good experience. This will be the 3rd time I've gone to the temple in the field! And possibly the last depending on where I go in this next change the 29th. 

Elder Gallacher and I have been working hard toward a specific goal that we set 2 weeks ago. We put the goal to baptize every week in this change and so far we have 4 weeks straight of baptisms and we also have the goal of baptizing a total of 10 people in this 6 week change. Right now we have 4 weeks of baptisms and only have 2 weeks left in the change and have 6 baptisms as of right now in our area.  We have the people in order to complete this goal we just need to keep our eye on the goal and do everything to complete it. 

This week we had a huge miracle. There has been this girl who has attended church with us several times in these last few months. Her boyfriend is a member of the ward and she gets along really well with the family. But she is the hardest person in the world for the missionaries to find. For this week we weren't sure if we were going to complete our goal of baptizing because we didn't have anyone. WE had prayed, fasted and even made a commitment with God to contact more people so that we could find those we needed in order to complete the goal. Then at night I had the feeling as we were walking by the house to see if she was there, she is almost never home at night. Then we went and she happened to be there. We talked with her and started the lesson, the spirit came as she told us that she had read and prayed and knew she needed to be baptized, but she didn't feel ready. In 10 minutes we had her set for baptism on Sunday and ready for the interview on Saturday. It was pretty awesome how much the spirit has helped us to complete his goal in order to help these people as well. 

I hope you all have a great week. Here is a picture from the baptism, the mom has on clothes that are pretty common to the Guatemalans from the mountains or the natives, it is super colorful and there are several members here in Prados that wear dresses like that. Love you all, 

Elder Daybell

March 8, 2016

Well this week was awesome, I feel like every week turns out to be super cool in the mission. There are always enjoyable experiences and yet there are hard ones as well. But in the end it all turns out to benefit our spiritual progress and it turns into a great blessing. 

This week we had a baptism! She is the sister of a less active woman that is being reactivated. The Girl who got baptized is Meckrin Cano. She is tall for her age and we surprised everyone when we told them that she was part of the primary and not the young womens. It was pretty funny to watch them as they had the baptism planned for the young women to be there and they scrambled to get the primary. But it all worked out and it was a wonderful baptism. Their family is super excited to be going back to church again. 

As for some miracles in this week, Hermana Rebekah, probably one of my favorite people here, she sends us a bible scripture everyday to get us pumped to do the work, is now inviting her family to listen to us. We went to talk to one of her nieces here and Rebeca's niece awent to church with her this week. We also found a girl and her father when I was in divisions with Elder Salcedo (who was in my district in La Noria) Who in the first visit was asking us about what she needed to do to serve a mission and help people like we did. So in the second visit we took a returned sister missionary and well she got super excited and it is looking like in the near future we will have many positive new additions to the ward here in Prados. We are also working with 2 families that we have found, one that I found with Elder Larsen and then they were never home but my companion Elder Gallacher ran into them again. So to me that is a sign that they are prepared and we need to teach them. 

This was a great week and just as I have said it almost througout my mission this next one will be as well. I hope you all have a great week! Love you, 

Elder Daybell

Fotos 

Baptism of Meckrin and Margarita

March 1, 2106

Wow it is March already, maybe I comment every new month that the last one went by so fast but it seriously does go by insanely fast! 

This week we had 3 baptisms, Margarita Morales, Geovani Salazar and Carlos Cano all got baptized in this week. I don't have a picture of the baptism of Margarita but I had the privelege of baptizing her and it was an awesome day. after 3 months of working with her we finally got her to the point of baptism. She was just a name we found in our Area Book and felt that we should go visit her along with a few others and the Lord had prepared her to where she was ready to accept and be baptized. 

Geovani Salazar was a man who was kicked out by his wife and sent to live with his Grandma because of some addictions and other problems that they were having. He made some huge changes in his life and was ready for baptism this week! And did it which was the most important. And then right after the Bishop took him aside and interviewed him to receive the priesthood and next week he will be confirmed and ordained as a priest. What a change in this man's life. 

As for Carlos he was a kid who was ready for a long time, but his mom finally gave permission and he was baptized. His Aunt attended the baptism as well and she wanted to be baptized as well. She has gone 2 Sundays with Carlos and his mom and she loves the church. Carlos's example helped her come to the true gospel as well. 

One of the best parts about Sunday for me was the fact that Yesenia, one of the ladies I baptized her gave a talk in church about Faith. We helped her just a tiny bit during the week, but her bravery was one of a kind when she with only 3 almost 4 months of being a member got up and bore her testimony on faith in front of 350 members. That was certainly a testimony strengthener for me. All in all it was a good week and I can't wait for this one, there should be just as many miracles! Have a great week! Love you all, 

Elder Daybell

February 23, 2016

Well February is about over, this is all so crazy. We had an awesome week here in Prados. We had a miracle baptism with a kid that I had been working with his family since the time that I got here. His mom had wanted nothing to do with the church for the longest time, even though she was an inactive member. So we finally got to talk to her, she gave us the chance and in 15 minutes she was super excited to go to church and begin again. It was awesome how the spirit worked on her and changed her heart. She was then ready to let her kid be baptized and even go to church and begin again. We even got the whole family there it was awesome!! The kid who got baptized is named Fernando and his mom Yeni Ferres. His aunt and his uncle also went to church, the aunt had gone but this is the 1st time in 3 years that the uncle went, he spent much of his life in the states and speaks perfect english well he has better english than spanish as he says. 

We also had 10 investigators attending church and they are all super positive, maybe I've talked about them in past emails but this week we have 3 baptisms planned for Margarita Morales, Tito Galindo and Yeovani Salazar. We also have 2 other people that could be baptized we just need to go and seal the deal! We have seen a ton of progress in this ward and my favorite part of this work is seeing people change their lives. Yesterday we had a lesson with our convert Santiago that Elder Larsen and I baptized and I asked him if he wants to serve a mission and he said yes because he wants to help people the same way that we had helped him. This is what I love about the missionary work, it shouldn't just finish at baptism but extend on to keep blessing others. 

This week is going to be awesome, there is so much more I would love to say because I love all the people here and we are working with so many and seeing so many people's lives change that there is no time to tell you them all, but just know all is well and we will continue working hard in this part of the Lord's vineyard! Love, 

Elder Daybell