A Wonderful Valentines Day and a Spiritual Week

Dear Family and Friends,  I hope that you had such a wonderful week and that you learned and grew more than anything else. Progress on earth is Gods purpose  for giving us hardships and trials, and if we don't progress we will never become like him. Before I forget  I want all of you to know and I want my parents to know I love them and Happy Anniversary on the 23rd! With 32 years of marriage unless I counted wrong? It's a lot!  I am so grateful for both of you! Without you I wouldn't be here and with you I can do anything! Week February 13th - 19th 2017 Monday: Well today was a wonderful day! So today we had a Zone Activity planned and literally no one from the other district showed up, so our Spanish District had a party! I was able to practice my cello and play with Sofia Ayala and Hna. Clark as they both played the piano and sang, Savior Redeemer of My Soul, but in Spanish! It was super pretty, and we are ready for our performancenext Sunday! Next Sunday for me is going to be a crazy day! From meetings, rushing to perform and then also speaking! So today as we spent time as a district we went out to the field behind the church and played ultimate frisbee and soccer, and it was so much fun! Everyone participated and it was fun to have Hna. Farnes back! Her and Hna. Hall are just full of jokes and are super funny and the other Hnas are just as funny! It was a very enjoyable time after which we had dinner with Hna. Dominguez! The dinner was amazing and she made something Chinease because she told us we had probably gotten tired of Beans and Rice! So as we got going for the evening we only had time to go and teach AG Ybarra, and it was a wonderful lesson. He was saying he had been reading the Book Of Mormon and looking for scriptures that would make him think about his life. As we were talking we read Alma 34:30-34 with him and it really made him think about his life and what he wanted and how if Jesus came tomorrow he wouldn't be prepared! It made him nervous and anxious to get married and start living life better! It was a good lesson and we hope that him and his wife can have a better communication! Tuesday: A day of Service and Love! Happy Valentines Day! Today I have been thinking a lot about my studies and how I study, and I realized that I have a long ways to go as I study. I tried to study and follow Chapter 2 of Preach My Gospel, but I am not the best at it yet! I will be learning for a few months on this one! So today we had the opportunity to go with the other Elders and give service in a food pantry, and as we were serving there, I had the chance to meet a lady named Barbara! Immediately I thought of my grandma! As we began conversing, I realized that she was open to talk and she told me that she was born and raised in Fort Worth/Hurst area and that she had lost her husband to cancer in 2008. You could tell it was a touchy subject for her and still she had to comfort. The part that I regret was that I didn't share anything to help her understand that her husband is okay. I didn't have he chance too! But I did ask her about her belief in Christ and she told me that she would have been lost without him! I wish I would have followed he prompting that I received to just tell her what I believe! If there is one thing I have learned in my time as a missionary, it is that you have to follow your promptings to show faith and trust in your Heavenly Father, and that is when the miracles happen! As we finished the service there I was ready to get out and teach and we were able to go and see Isaac Sanchez and his wife Anna. Sadly Isaac is still waiting for clearance from his insurance to be able to have surgery. This has been roughly 6 months of intense pain without a job or ability to sit normal or lay normal. He has to and has been sitting cross legged for these past few months. He is frustrated and it was nice to be able to go and visit about the lesson on Gordon B. Hinkley and the importance of always being happy and having optimism! He is a happy guy, Isaac! So then we went and I was able to practice English with a lady named Elendeivy, while Elder Graham taught her son math. I came to realize that I have a love of not just teaching, but helping others learn English. I loved every moment of helping her and left super happy! I would love to teach English just as a service when I get home!  Wednesday: Exchange day! So today was a fun time for us to first attend our District Meeting, after the which we had an exchange with Elder Paxton and Brady! So this morning we had a wonderful time at our district meeting where we focused on the needs of our investigators, and we even found out that there are two investigators with dates that would like to move their dates up to the 25th of February instead of waiting for March! That was exciting news, because our goal is 7 and we only have 2 so far. Then we talked about how we are doing on our personal and companionship studies and we had Elder a Lakey train us on how to better our studies! As I was sitting there I was amazed by the simple and amazing spiritual impressions I received that I knew I needed to work on specific things and how I could better my studies. I was so happy to hear that by having a study journal I would be able to be better at remembering what I studied. So I know that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass! It was also funny to see that Hna. Farnes, who started her mission in Denton with me, and to whom I had to teach how to lead music, now leads music really well. Not because of how I taught her, but because of lots of missionary experience! Haha but she was smiling at me like I should have been impressed with her abilities! It was funny! So today I was blessed with the opportunity to go and be with Elder Brady in the Park Glen 1st/2nd Ward! We were on bike for the day and we had wonderful lessons with one family who are members, named the Streets family, and then another man named Jimmy! A man I have taught before! They were both outstanding lessons, but what I learned from my time with Elder Brady and everything was how much studying I need to keep doing to become a better and more well rounded teacher! Also when I arrived home that night I was more than ready to pass out from a long day of biking! It felt so stress relieving! Thursday: We were able to exchange back this morning and have a wonderful visit about things we learned, and I am so grateful for this opportunity I have had to be in this position of learning! I am so far from understanding the Gospel or even how to be a missionary, but I know that God helps me as I try and as I take the step of faith first on my own! So today we had a really busy day planned and for me it was so nice to be back in my area! I just love it so darn much! I really never want to leave it! So today we had alright weekly planning, where I just feel like we are not planning correctly like it is explained in Preach My Gospel. However, I can't seem to figure it out, so we just keep doing what we have always done! So today we had a really good lesson with a less active man and his mom from Peru, and they gave us small gifts from Peru and we taught them about Prayer. They struggle to pray correctly and as we taught they loved it. And as we ended the lesson the Hno. still struggled to pray correctly, but it was tons better! We then went and had a good service with Randall and Elendeivy, a family we tutor for Math and English, and next week we plan on bringing up the Gospel with them! Then to our surprise we went over and Pablo Martinez was there and was ready to learn. We had a good lesson, but somehow we are still not getting the full truth of why he doesn't want to get baptized. He just needs to spill it out so we can help him! However, we had a great lesson and I am so grateful for the relationship we have with them! True relationships and love don't come through playing games or joking with one another, but by having Spiritual Experiences with one another! Friday: Holy smokes today was a Spiritual Day for Me! I feel just like The King Lamoni, who fell on the ground exhausted as he had learned and felt the spirit! Today we were pleased and so grateful for the chance to have both Brother Gonzalez from the Missionary Department, along with Brother Glazier from the  MTC in Provo, come to our mission to train us on how to better our teaching, conviction and planning! It was something I have never experienced before and I received answers to so many questions that I had! We started at 9 am and were trained and trained until 4 pm on just the Doctrine of Christ more clearly along with training on how to be sincere and teach with conviction and then we ended by role paying how to give out a Book of Mormon open. As we finished and had lunch we then went in and learned the ways to plan correctly, and I pray I can get planning correctly so that we have success in the mission and I can take this principle on into my life!! It was a day I never want to forget. As we got done and had a little bit of time, we received a message that an hermana would like a blessing in the Hospital, so we went right away! As we arrived we walked into the room and I recognized a man standing outside that I didn't approach until I got out after the blessing with Hno. Oliva. As we got out the man approached us and said, "hi elders, I'm a member in the River Trails  ward and my wife is here with dizziness and they can figure out what is happening with her. I have the faith that the doctors can help her and figure out her situation, but she isn't a member and has agreed to having a blessing." I was surprised by her faith and the fact that God placed us in his path. It was amazing because it was literally the room right next to our members. So we gave her a blessing and as we finished she thanked us and the husband was so much more calm and ready for the experience that laid ahead! So as we finished there completely exhausted from the spiritual experiences, we went and had dinner with the Hna. Moreno! She is a single mother with 3 boys all over the age of 17 and they all still live at home in a super small apartment. The boys usually don't listen to our message, but after such a day like we had, we tried to involve them in our lesson and it went really good! All three of the boys are struggling and so we were able to get them excited to come back to church! It was wonderful! Then we had a really good lesson with the family of Hna. Ortega! It went really well and Emma, one of the ones that came, has been reading the Book of Mormon and as we talked with her, she said that she has heard and learned more with us in one lesson that all combined throughout her life and she wants to know if these things are true! And same with Laura! She is okay with baptism and we are going to try and set a date next time! As we were wrapping it up, Hna. Ortega husband came out, who studies anti Mormon and he was trying to twist our words and thoughts, but every time he asked us a question we answered boldly and simply and he would say, "well I can't say anything against that..... that is what is taught in the Bible..." It was a good way to help him see we are not bad, and that we believe in the Bible! To end the night we had another good lesson with Victor and Jackie and Victor finally got the okay for his Patriarcal blessing and to start working towards the temple with his wife! It is going to be so amazing!! And next week we are going to teach his mom, who is finally interested in our message! Saturday: Wow, Saturday already! It is a crazy thought to think that it is here so fast! And the rest of the weekend is going to be super crazy! So today we had the blessing of meeting early with the STLs Hna. Farnes and Hall to talk about the trainings we had and how we should apply them to our zone and about how long the trainings would take. As we got done there we went straight into a correlation with Mario where I was so happy to just see everyone so happy and laughing. Missionary work really is a fun thing if you make it that! And as we finished there, we went and practiced the song we are going to perform tomorrow, and it made me nervous but excited for how amazing the day is going to be! I would say the feeling I had today was a feeling of overwhelming thoughts as I tried to figure out how to find more people to teach that were interested. As we went we had no time to find and our referrals are not the best kind of referrals! Especially because English elders can't speak Spanish, so they never know what the person says. However, we had a great lesson with Rey Castillo, who is doing really good still and is super ready and excited for being able to go to church tomorrow! He has been waiting for his schedule to allow him and he can tomorrow! He really wants to pass the sacrament and also get his temple recommend so we are going to try and help him with that! I really am grateful I had he opportunity to get to know Rey! The rest of the evening we had the blessing of having a ward party where We met and found out that members are working with their friends more than I actually thought! There were a lot of non members who loved the dancing and music and just the time to be together with others! It was a hard time for me, because I love to couples dance and they had the really good music on for it! But it was good to see the couples in the ward going at it! Also I had a kind of creepy and funny experience happen to me when I was leaving. An older non member lady that an Hna. Invited, walked up to me and got really close to my face and began telling me she feels I will marry her granddaughter who is skinny, beautiful and is a Jehovah Witness. She kept telling me more about her and that she needed a good friend to go and dance with her and everything, and I was just embarrassed about it all. Then my companion didn't hear any of that and gave the lady our number and asked for hers and said we would call and set up an appoint,net and as we walked out I told him what happened and he jut laughed and messed with me the rest of the night! However, all in all it was a great night! And our main man, Hno. Schmidt DJed the music and it was amazing! Sunday: I don't know if I can say I have been this tired since the time I got out and started my mission! Today has been such a wearing day! So today we were blessed as it was the sabbath day! So for me personally there was a lot of things to prepare for and be ready for, and I was feeling pretty nervous and stressed to make sure everything was taken care of correctly. So we had a meeting that started at 12 in another church building, but has our sacrament meeting at 1, so we had to practice our song before had to be prepared, and the we had the sacrament earlier in a different ward where we then left and traveled to our SMC with the Stake Presidency and it was so good! As we finished there we traveled back fast to be able to be in our ward before the sacrament was over, because I was playing the cello and talking! So we did make it I enough time and the song went super well! It was super fun to play with Sofia Ayala and Hna. Clark! Then I gave a simple but powerful talk on the blessings of missionary work! I am grateful for my parents and the chance I had to talk about them in my talk! They are everything to me! So sadly we didn't have a huge turn out of investigators, but we had one here and that was good! And then for the evening we had really planned well to contact a lot of investigators or referrals and God placed us in the right places at the exact moment! We were able to contact and have 4 out of our 5 new investigators for the week! And as we met them and shared a message with them, they all seem open to another visit! The blessing was that when we started the day we only had 1 new investigator for he whole week, but God truly places the right people in our path and we just went crazy knocking doors talking to people! Today I am grateful for Elder Graham. In the past we have had our hard simple moments, but he is such an awesome missionary and helps me so much! I never want to leave this ward or area!