This week was a major step up though. What's funny too, is that the talk you shared with me mom, the one by president uchtdorf "on things that matter most", we just shared that with a less active 2 days ago and she loved it! I wonder if it was more for me than for her even. But yeah this week was way better. I just felt a little more confidence, a little more sense of "ok i know what i'm doing". Last week i felt like i had just been thrown to the wolves ha! But now everything is just a litle more comfortable. it's actually a blast to havae a district too. I love being a part of these other missionaries lives that are in my district that i just didn't have before. I like becoming a little part of their companionships and helping them in their struggles and motivating them and stuff. I think that is where i have felt i needed to change the most. Last week we had decent numbers to report to the zone leaders and so i was just like "man i can't do this yet without puertas!" but then the sisters in my district were having some problems and just focusing on what they needed made me realize you know what, i really can't afford to be down, discouraged, tardy, disobedient or anything! Not that i was being all those things before but, people look to our companionship just because of our position and it's just been cool this week to just change my mindset a little and have to step up. It was cool too beacuse every rfiday after district meetin we have a coordination meeting with all the district leaders and zone leaders and talk about missionaries who are struggling and goals and all sorts of stuff, i love it! But we talked about being dignified in our calling, not just as missioanries but as leaders. We see president macdonald come hang out with elders on p-day but for a short enough time where they can have fun, but still, he is not just another one of the guys. There is taht respect and even desire to be better when he is in the room. President shared this one quote that i like that says, "as a leader, you can't afford to hang around the water cooler" meaning those players or whatever taht take the few extra moments away from practice, from working, the ones that talk undignified, or bend the rules. We just need to have that presence that allows others to feel motivated even by our presence. It's been really cool this past week man it really has. I feel like our district is really getting along and are really picking it up too. I love the fire that all the greenies bring into it, (every companionship has a greenie in our district). People are just working and are not afraid to take leaps of faith and people are setting baptismal dates and everything it is soo great.
I want to tell you about this weekend though cause it was CRAZY!
First, we have been working with this one less active lady named millie. She is like the sweetest lady EVER. and i mean that as in she is so gentle and kind. She has a really strong testimony but has just had a horrific past that honestly scares her out of doing things. I promised i wouldn't tell anyone about it but she has just had the hardest youth, the hardest marriage, and even her kids are picking up bad habits from her ex husband. Her story is literally so sad, we are brought to tears in almost every lesson. She is so amazing though because amidst all these things, she just has the most amazing faith! she reads all the time and always says i know in the end it will be alright, and she has been putting up with all sorts of horrible things for years and years! She has noo self confidence though because of the way people have treated her and is very submissive. She just has a past that is surrounding her and she can't seem to get away from it. BUT this past week we shared a few different things from the scriptures and conference (uchtdorf's talk), and she has just been eating them up. They have been so applicable and she is just getting more and more strength! She even made it to church this weekend which was awesome. I will get to what happened sunday night in one second.
Friday, we had a few appointments in Independence. We had alejandro the recent convert guy come with us which was a huge help. So we go after district meeting, which was all about asking inspired questions and we even practiced for the people we were going to teach in indy. It helped so much! We had dinner with our first appointment at 4:30, and then taught a lesson after and they accepted BAPTISM! AHH man it was soo exciting! We have been working with them for a while now and thye just stopped progressing. They never read, never went to church, so we said fine, we are gonna commit them or just say hey we gotta visit people that are prepared and iwlling to take action. So in the lesson we did and they said yes for the 22nd!!! Ah man we were soo pumped! But the dinnner was superr hot yikes! Alejandro's nose even started bleeding hahaha! we felt aweful... After though, we had another appointment with roxanna the dominican! She fed us as well ughhh it was soo much food, shrimp and rice! soo yummy but way too much food. we were all jsut looking at each other laughing throughout dinner just becuase we didn't know how we were gonna finish but with lots of prayer, we made it! we felt bad though cause alejandro had to put up with it and he's not a missioanry. But we sat down with roxanna who always reads like 6 chapters every time ewr come which is awesome, but this time we were straight forward and said listen, heavenly father wants you to be happy, as soon as possible, and satan wants you to be miserable, for as long as possible. She is like yeah okay...and we said we know that being baptized will bring you a happiness that you have never felt before and that Heavenly Father himself wants you to take that step, and she agreed and so she accepted a baptismal date for the 22nd as welL! man it was such a miracle and i know the spirit was there, we applied what we had learned that day too at district meeting. It was such a great night and we just needed that after a long week.
Elder gomez is doing awesome as well. He is such a stud and super confident. He helps me stay in good spirits too, he just keeps me on the up and up. he teaches really well too, he has certain things to work on but ya know, he's a greenie. i just think of myself and then to elder gomez, he is such a stud and is already doing amazing things here.
Sunday was crazy too! Miguel and maria showed up at church which was sucha blessing. we were running around calling everyone the night before and the morning of too, so it was pretty nuts. We were soo glad they came because we've been teaching them a while and they never showed, so they finally took that scary step and made it! ahh what a relief. They even brought their daughter who we have onlly taught a little bit but is pretty interested. After church we taught a lesson with some new investigators that actually went really well and then taught an english family, but they aren't that interested so we will probably bench them. After dinner we were going to an appointment and i remembered we had to call millie, the lady from before. We gave her a call and she was like hey can you guys come over right now, some stuff is just going on. So we went over and she opened up even more about her past and how 2 of her 3 kids and her ex husband who are all living in another apartment are just wearing her down! She literally puts up with so much and she is just at breaking point. She just needed some major picking up and ahh there is more to it, that i jsut can't say sorry! she even gave me a little letter that she wrote and said, "here, this is why i am the way i am, i hate to put my burdens on others but i've been prompted to give it to you over the past few days and hope that it will help you as you help me". I got the letter and read it later at home and it was just insight on so much that has happened in her family as a girl, with her husband, and children. Why she has these self-esteem issues, why she has trust issues, why she has confidence issues, man it just broke my heart. I was touched though by how much she trusted us. By her willingness to open up which i know is soo hard for her. She has opened up so much and we are just tryingg so hard to help her.
At times it's hard though cause there is so much going on and it's like, where do we even start! so we have just been giving her hope and confidence and starting little by little to deal with her problems that she puts on herself. Anyway, we went last night and just it was crazy her situation and her ex husband is crazy and she is just freaked out. but things are going better today we visited her and it's just getting better. But last night, we go home at 9:30, sit down exhausted allr eady to plan and we get a call from jose ramirez who says "we need you to meet us at the hospital eddie is paralyzed!" WHAt?! we called zone leaders who gave us permission to go and we met there and found them all crying. all the kids were there and they were playing little games and having fun but crying at the same time, it was kind of bizarre. But finally alma comes out cause she was with eddie and sits down. I shook hr hand and she just started sobbing. It was pretty heavy. After a little while of waiting though eddie comes out in a wheel chair and he could move his head and his arms a little bit and oculd finally open his eyes, but he couldn't feel his face or anything else. They don't even know what happened. he laid down to go to bed and then started hyperventilating and couldn't move. So creepy. So they attributed it to muscle tension and hyperventilation.
We went in and visited him after they did some more testsand he was moving his arms more and got more feeling in his face and head. It wasn't like a permanent paralysis i guess, but he was slowly getting more feeling. It was just really odd but we went in and gave him a blessing and the spirit was soo poweful! wow, it was so thick you could just feel it so heavy as we were there giving eddie a blessing. It was such a powerful experience, and with that, we said our goodbyes and left. We got home at like 11:15 and thanked the zone leaders and went to bed. But man it was such a crazy day, a long day at that, but the whole drive home elder gomez and i were just like man, "there is nothing better than being a missinoary". it was seriously just the best night and knowing that we have developed this trust with all these people and we are able to help them in ways that no worldy or temporal thing could give console. it was just an amazing day. I love being a missionary!
my time is up thougu, i gotta run. I love you guys so much though and i have a little package for the boys coming soon. It will get there late for what it's for but that's alright, they are little keepsakes. I love you so much. I know the church is true, and what we are doing out here is truly our heavenly father's work. love you!
elder edwards
The face of an elder skyping with his family!
The faces of 2 elders getting ready to skype with their families!
La cara de un elder skying con su familia.
Travecito! And all of us on the screen!
Nice shirts...
Los elderes! Feliz Navidad!
Hey family, man this last week went so fast it just seems like a blur. It was soo awesome to hear from all you guys and get that big letter with all the missionary comics that everyone had written on. Man that just made my day to read those, you guys sound soo amazing. I can't believe all the work that everyone is doing and i totally forgot to say congrats to tyler for his violin playing! i just wrote him a little email but forgot to say something. Tyler man, you are a beast! I can't believe that you are tearin it up on the violin, although it doesn't surprise me, i can't believe how much you have learned and how good you have gotten. That really is an awesome thing to be first chair buddy. you're awesome. It was a blast watching the game too and i was thinking of you guys. bummer ending but still a blast to watch.
We have a big week coming up this week because we have an "invitation sunday" for the english ward. meaning that all the talks and classes are focused on the basics and fundamentals of the gospel. That way every one can understand what it is that we believe and others can come to church and just see what the services are like. I have found it hard to balance the english and spanish work. Cause we have lots of work to do in spanish and naturally that work is growing. The english work is kind of at a stand still and so i feel bad because i don't want to neglect that responsibility by not putting in the time to find and get people to teach but at the same time, i don't want to t in so much time tracting and stuff in english neighborhoods when we have spanish people to teach and find too. It's just a balance i'm trying to get the hang of still. This weekend thogh will be good, we are excited to see the turn out.
This week i got to do another baptismal interview! Our sisters are killing it in willamina haha! They are way tight too, i like being the district leader and getting to work with our missionaries. Our district is pretty tight too. We got some young guns, that bring the fire and then our veteran missioanries are pretty good too so they are teaching well and helping these younger ones find their turf. District meeting went well this week and i'm learning how to delegate!! hahah that's what i needed to learn this past week too. It takes the load off me to do that and actually benefits everyone. We divided up district meeting and had other missioanries teach whereas it is normally just the 2 district leaders. (we combine two districts for district meeting). I liked it when everybody gets a chance to teach. no one wants to just listen to us for 2 hours. It went really well thouh and i actually got a ton of revelation for investigators and people that need help. Our lesson was all about receiving revelation through the book of mormon. It was so cool for me, and also the stuff i got for our investigators. It just reminded me of really how important the book of mormon is, without it, we have nothing! It is such a powerful tool that for some reason, i think is still underused. We are working on it thouhg and just applying it to all of our teachings.
ya di se cuenta que nunca les escribo en espanol. pero si, estoy mejorando y cada dia, me siento mas comodo y tengo mas confianza en lo que estoy diciendo jaja. He encontrado que necesito hablar un poco mas despacio a fin de tener un mas tiempo de lo que voy a decir. Mi companero es increible y el me ayuda mucho. Gracias otra vez a ustedes por las cartas que me envian y todo el amor que tienen para mi y esta obra. Les quiero con todo que soy yo
So tuesday we dropped off Puertas at lunch time and said our goodbyes. It was weird and i was just kind of anxious to get my new comp. I was super nervous for it but at the same time very excited! i ewnt out with the other two spanish missionaries for a little bit and we just taught a few lessons. Then at 4:30 i had a "trainers training" meeting and when we were finished we just waited for our new greenies!!! Ahh man i literally was pacing back and forth just so anxious. I felt like dad a little bit when he is waiting to leave somewhere and doesn't want to be late. But finally the vans pull up and out jumps everyone. I see the only hispanic there and just say "MIJO, Elder GomEz!!!" It was weird seeing him and just looking at my future comp for however long we are together. I was way pumped though to finally get him and he was pumped just to have a companion again ha. 
It was just so crazy cause i had to plan a district meeting with another district for combined district meeting on friday, then i had to call in the agenda and get numbers from my missionaries, and just all this stuff that seemed so overwhelming last week! It was kind of fun but at the same time it was wearing me out. Every morning this past week i have been waking up with just a nasty stomach ache and i think it's just the stress and nerves of not wanting to do something wrong. It'll come though and alreadyi've made huge strides in time management! We try to finish planning even before we get home at night, just when we are in the car and stuff, and then when we get home, we review it and edit it. We haev been doing well though. For a while i was nervous just about planning our days without puertas. It made me realize the things that i was really dependent on him for and now it helps me see where i've grown too. It is soo funn to have the a district to "worry about". I just like being able to connect with different missionaries that i didn't really get the chance to before and on wednesday, i even got to do a baptismal interview! That was really fun. Another elder told me to just try saying a prayer after each baptismal question that i ask him and just ask heavenly Father if they're ready. I was kind of like, "yea right like i will really get an answer right there" but when i was doing the interview, after the small talk and get to know you stuff. After the FIRST question i quickly said a little prayer in my head and i literally felt my answer come to me, it was like little chills down my spine. And so i continue with the next question and do it again, and THE SAME thing happens. It was truly awesome. Something little but profound. it was just a huge testimony builder that Heavenly Father answers prayers.
District meeting on friday went well actually, there were things i know i could've changed but it was fun to teach with everyone. I just need to make it more fun to be honest. I think this time i was so worried about filling the time that i didn't think enough about how to make it more fun and get people more engaged. One of my weaknesses though is that i'm way too hard on myself and that's how it's been this past week. it's hard cause i'm putting this huge load on my back because i want to prove that it's not just puertas that helped us see so much success, that i had a part in it too. So I have just been kind of beating myself up a little bit for little things and Sunday too, Man i got so frustrated, All week we had been running around seeing our solid families and finding new ones, and we had some good prospects to come to church but not a single one showed up! Ohh man i was seriously soo frustrated. We literally have been so busy this past week we even worked through lunch one day withall the appointments we had. It feels cool to know that we really are just doing everything that we possibly can, but then sometimes i feel like we are running around like headless chickens and aren't focusing our efforts where they are needed most. I don't know, i was just bummed to not reap the benefits of our efforts, but they will come. I know that we have these little tests of faith and diligence and even obedience so maybe this is just one of those tests. This transfer is gonna be huge though. I know it will. We have some really cool families that i know have been prepared, taht i'm excited to work with. We are working hard and i feel like at the end of the day taht we have been doing everything in our power to help God's children in this area. I think i just need to be more creative and focus more on specific needs of these people. I'm glad they send us in two's though because elder gomez has been a huge help through all of this too. He seriously has been there to call me out when i get frustrated. He's like, "hey elder, if i can see your frustrated, then so can everyone else" and it just kicks me in the pants and i start smiling again ahah. He truly is amazing though. he knows why he's out here and just wants to help everyone. He is a really good teacher and wlil get even better too. He's got good ideas for trying new things and i dont know what else to say, i got lucky, my boy is SWEET! He's from Mexico City and lived in vera cruz for a while. Then they moved to provo 6 years ago (he knew Elder Puertas haha)! His parents are converts and that happened when he was like 6. But he is the youngest in his family with 2 older sisters. He didn't even go to college before either, he came straight out of high school. But here we are, loving being missionaries and enjoying all the good and the frustrating experiences. I know that i'm growing a lot too, it jsut takes some time for me to see it. I am trying to not be so hard on myself because i know that i'm wearing myself out ha.
I'm getting the hang of this though. Just balancing responsiblities. I feel close with my district though which i was worried about and we got 1 pair of sisters and one pair of elders. Everyone is training so we are young but still, we got some fire in our crew and everyone is pretty pumped to be working.
Anyways, i love you guys so much and it sounds like eveyrone is doing well. I'm sorry to hear that everyone is going back to school but now it's kind of likie the countdown for summer again :) I'm glad you guys had some cool experiences going to the temple too with everyone! and doing baptisms for the dead i bet that was soo awesome. I miss you guys a ton though and love you guys, i just pictured you all doing fireworks on new years eve hahah we still have the smell of used fireworks outside our apartment (although it wasn't us!!). I hope everything is going well with Jimmy and Katie's school search and daniel and emily's...future plans? HA anyways, i love you all and can't wait to hear from you guys soon! the church is true!
(recap of this past week so that everyboy knows what up. sorry you gotta here it again)
On christmas eve we went around and visited a bunch of families and recent converts. Oh but first, on thursday, I got a call from the mission president who tells me, that he wants me to TRAIN!!!! What the heckk, i'm getting a brand new missionary tomorrow! HAH and then he says, "while your at it, why don't you be the district leader too". Man my mind was just blown and i was freaking out ha! I'm was super excited but teribly nervous at the same time haha. My heart was just pounding when he told me but i'm feelnig so good about it now and just sooo excited to meet my new baby boy, his name is Elder Gomez! I can't wait to tell you all about him next week. And the whole district leader thing. I havent even had time to think or be nervous about that, my mind has just been on other things. But there are 6 missionaries total in my district including me and my companionship and 3 out of the 6 will be brand new missionaries. I'm excited to work and help these other missionaries although, i don't feel quite prepared to give them advice and stuff cause they are all older than me, (well other than the greenies). But it'll be awesome i know. I have some sisters in my district too and i just found out they are having a baptism this weekend so i get to go do a baptismal interview this wednesday woohoo!
So that was some crazy news on thursday and that just started the weekend. Christmas eve like i said was just a lot of visiting recent convert families and sharing little christmas messages with them. We saw the sandovals with alejandro and stacey and the ramirez family too. The ramirez are doing incredible, and i already told the family but i want to tell everyone else what happened. We were sitting aroudn their dinner table for our 3rd christmas dinner of the night UGHHH ( i felt so sick), and jose says he has to tell us something. I'm thinking ohh greatt now what happened. But he says first, lets bless the food. So he says the prayer over dinner and in his prayer he stops and pauses for a moment and then trying not to cry he says thank you heavenly father, for giving me the strength today, the strength i needed, and then said amen. We all look up and are like okay man, fill us in bro.
So he goes off and tells us, that all day he has been dying for a beer! Just making excuses to go out and do stuff so that he could conveniently stop by the liqour store. They went and rented a movie, groery and christmass shopping, and got a pizza, all at different times. He said he was driving by the liqour store and he seriously was about to turn in but he said it was like a little voice in his head that told him not to turn and then he said it was like somebody stepped on the gas because he just couldn't turn in. And then they went home for the last time and he didn't get a drink. He literally was crying as he told us this and it was just soooo powerful to hear his testimony and feel of his overcoming his trials with Heavenly Father's help. And then after he tells the story, his son goes, "that was the holy ghost dad". We all were just smiling and sooo stoked with everything that had happened! Man i can't tell you how much this family has changed, what a blessing it is that we have the atonement and can repent of things we have done wrong in the past. The guilt and sorrow can literally be washed away and we can be completely forgiven! This season really is a time of healing. And Jose and his son Heriberto, are getting ready to receive the priesthood this sunday :)
Christmas was amazing!!! AHhhh man i can't tell you how awesome it was to talk with you guys! I loved just having you all there i can't even put into words how amazing it was. It was fun just talking and joking aronud and laughing man, i miss you guys. It really did remind me of how important families are, i love you guys soo much. It was harder than i thoguht to hang up and just go about the day. We stayed at the members hosue for a while and played SKIP-BO which was way fun and had some food and just hung out while everyone skyped and talked with their fams. The morning was incredible. And then to make the day even better, we went and had a baptism for Stacey! Talk about sweet, she came and got all dressed in white and our recent convert from 2 weeks ago, alejandro (her brother), baptized her. It was so awesome to see his progression too, as he got down in the water with her and baptized her. It was a really special day, and the other 2 spanish missionaries had a baptism too for two little boys, one a convert, and one is just turning 8. It was a really awesome service.
