Mexico Week 49: Happy New Year

Hey there everyone!

Well I hope that you all had a great Happy New Year!! We are officially in the last year of the world, 2012!!! Hahahaha just kidding. If it's true that means I only have 1 month after the mission to be home and get married so that I can go to the Celestial Kingdom hahahahaha. Well I want to send a shout out to Bishop Turner and his family for the sweet package that they sent me for Christmas. Also to Grandma and Sister McAurthur for sending me money. I used that money to buy myself a jacket because it's so darn cold here!! I love you all!!

Well life has been going a bit hard here in Loma Florida. It's not easy being District Leader, especially of one of the biggest Districts in the Mission. It's also been tough with my companion. He is a little different but I love him for who he is. He loves video games so he talks about that all day hahaha, which just drives me up the wall! He also speaks English so he is really really prideful. He doesn't like to work at all but he thinks he is better than me hahaha. It's not been fun not having success these past two weeks...it's actually not so fun. It's really hard but I will be getting stuff done this week so I hope that we will be having alot of success this week.

This past week we didn't do much but the plan that I have here is to visit and reactivate a ton of less active members. I feel like we will be able to have success with that and find some Baptisms. Yesterday only 16 members showed up to Church hahaha and there are almost 300 in the ward so we have plenty of work to do!! We just have to start it up! There is no testimony here so the plan that I have is to teach the BoM to everyone so that they understand who they are and why they got Baptized in the first place. If they have a strong testimony of that book...they won't fall. It's not easy to fall with that book in our lives. In my district meeting I talked about the Book of Mormon and how we must use it in our Mission. Something that I learned is that we have to pray and ask the Lord how we must use it in our Mission. Cool huh!!

Well things are going good and I pray that they get better. I hope things are great at home!! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!!

Love,
Elder Brady Lester

Mexico Week 27: Learning to Improve Teaching and Becoming a Disciple of Christ

Hi there!!

Well it's August!!! I will be hitting 9 months in the Mission this month...on the 17th hahaha. Time is just flying by! Thank you for all your letters and support :) I love you all! Things sound like they are going good back at home with all you guys :)

This past week was a good week :) I learned alot. I have been really studying and practicing the lessons that we teach to improve my teaching skills. I have come up with some examples to help the people understand better the Doctrine. I have two examples for Baptism. The first is simple. In John 3:5 it says basically that no one can enter into heaven without being Baptized. Well the example is a door and Baptism is the key to open this door to heaven. The thing is there are many keys because there are many ways to be Baptized now days so there is only one right key. So you need the right authority and proper Baptism to obtain this key. My other example I use more because it's better. Well we all sin, and sin is like mud on our hands. To clean this mud off we need two things to do it because we can't hug God with dirty hands. First we need soap, which is repentance and then water, which is Baptism. I have alot of other examples for other teachings but I really like using them hahaha. The people understand better.

I have also learned alot about becoming a true follower of Christ. There are two things that help us become more like Him. The first is love. We must love others and show it like Christ did. Service is the best way. Christ always served. Before He died, He cleaned the Apostles feet. We must serve people to show our love for them not just say "I love you." Love is a gift from God though and only with His help can we obatin it. We must follow the counsel of Mormon in Moroni 7:48 then. This is the only way we can come to truly love someone. The next thing that helps us is keeping our Covenants. We must keep all of our Convenants and study about the real importance of them. The Sacrament is the most important Ordinance that we do today as members of the church. We sometimes do realize how important it really is. If we understand, study, and achieve these two things we will become true Disciples of Christ. 

This past Wednesday I got to teach in our district meeting and I taught about the highest law that Christ taught. That law is found in 3 Nephi 27:27. I talked about the Christlike attributes and how those are the things that we must always study and live to really live and keep this higher law that Christ taught to His Apostles in the Americas. I would like to challenge all of you to study these attributes in Chapter 6 of PMG and make the goals and plans to live them.

 Well we did not have much success with investigators this past week. Hermana Sandra is an investigator who wants to get Baptized but she wants to wait just a bit more until she makes this decision. We are trying to figure out what we can do to help her. Her husband wants to get Baptized too but he wants to wait awhile because he is not ready, which is true haha. We watched the movie "The Moutain of the Lord" with them and they got really excited and want to be Sealed in the Temple, but still want to wait a bit until they get Baptized. If Hermana Sandra does not accept a date this week though we are going to drop her which is sad. I really love her, she is great! The other night she made me a traditional american breakfast with two sunny side up eggs, bacon, toast with jam, and orange juice. Hahaha it was really good and I was so happy. It's funny because everyone here thinks that's all we eat for breakfast! Lol, oh and her husband taught me a "mexican fry sauce." It's mayonaise and salsa chipotle mixed together. It is so good! You guys need to look to that salsa and make that :) You will all love it.

So my comp and I did something funny the other night. We were listening to a Spanish song that he has on his ipod called "Mientes" by Camila (you should all look it up its really good) and we took the tune and change the words as if we were teaching a lesson to investigators. It was hilarious hahaha! We didn't go to sleep until 12 that night so the next day I was so tired, but it was finally fun to laugh and relax with my comp for once. We also played UNO that night and made sandwhiches :)

Well it has not rained much lately which is sad, but the weather is still great :) I have not tried any new foods but something you guys can try that they do here is the people eat their pizza with hot sauce, which is now my new favorite, or ketchup! Its actually really good! You will have to try it some time. I really hope you all come down to get me when I finish so you can see how Mexico is and try the food :) Oh its sooooooo gooooooooooooooood!!!!! :)  I love the tacos :)

Well I gotta go! I love you all and can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love,

Elder Brady Lester

PS: I played the Bishop the other day in chess and lost, so I lost a tie :( But he did give me a cool one for trying to win hahaha. He is really good!