Mexico Week 31: Finally...a Great Working Companion!

Hey Arizona and family!!

Well first I gotta say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Kolby!! I can't believe you are turning 13 tomorrow!! And you are going to be 14 when I get back and in High School!! I hope you have a great bday!! Kids thank you for your letters! I really enjoyed them. I really miss you all and always pray that you are all right. I hope that the Lord is blessing each of you. Just to answer your questions....I did try new food yesterday...rabbit hahaha and it was delicious!! It tastes like chicken and appartenly it's healthier...but don't tell Daisy or Honey that lol ;)

Well I don't have much time to write today because we have alot of work, but things are rolling in my area!! Hna Sandra was not able to be Baptized last week because she is not married and lives with her "husband." That's a big problem here with the people and they need to be married or separated to be Baptized. We actually have some investigators who want to get Baptized but married no...who knows why. But the good news is that she wants to and her husband too!!! So they need to get some papers ready and I think in the next week we will marry them and then Baptize Hna Sandra finally!! After 3 long months with her!! This week we are also looking to have 3 Baptisms!! The two little boys from Hna Alejandra and a sweet sister, Hna Coni who just loves listening to us and always feeds us when we go teach her hahaha! She really felt the Spirit at Church yesterday and is really excited to be Baptized. She really wants to help her family out too so we will see if when can start teaching them. Also yesterday a brother in the ward was telling me that some 8 year old girl from the ward is going to have her Baptism and Saturday and all that jazz, and I was thinking that it was just another "please come elders to support my child" thing which we always do hahaha, but later he told me that the dad of this girl is not a member so her mom wants me to Baptize her hahaha!! How cool is that! God really gave me a blessing there :)

Things are going great with my comp. I feel really pressured because I have a ton of responsibility, but I know that through prayer the Lord is helping me out. But really I have not felt so tired and stressed in my life before. It's really hard being a trainer. He is so great though! He loves to teach, contact, and just talk to the people. He has such a love for the people here and his Spirit is amazing. I really feel that we are going to have success here. He hates studying hahaha and practicing teaching, but he his trying hard to get to love it haha. By the way Mom, he doesn't know President Jones. He did go to the MTC in Mexico...all Missionaries do but he only went 3 weeks because he doesn't have to learn another language. That reminds me...do you have Mark Scanlans email address? Anyways he is great and I am really excited to be with him! We have 2 changes together for sure since I am his dad hahaha.

Well I gotta go now! I love being here. The weather has been great. It rained all last week and it's raining right now. Hahaha we got soaked walking to an appointment the other night but the sister cried because she thought we were so amazing walking in the pouring rain without jackets just to visit and share a message with her and her husband hahaha. But things are great!! I love and miss you all!!

Love,
Elder Brady Lester

Mexico Week 30: A Joke and a Trainer/Senior Companion!

Hey there everyone!!

Well I have a lot to tell you all from the past week but I am going to start with some news that came from our district leader this past district meeting on Wednesday. So we had our normal district meeting but after he had an anouncement for us from the First Presidency. China just opened up!! It opened and all new Missionaries and future Missionaries are being called to go there! So for us the the First Presidency has given us the invitation to extend our Missions. We have four choices...go home after 2 years, extend 6 months, extend 1 year, or extend 2 years. Well we had to give our decisiones that same day. I was overwhelmed and really wanted some time to think and pray. I had the chance to do that and the Spirit just came over me that I should serve longer. Well I decided to serve two years more mom and dad which would make me have 4 years in the Mission. Well this ended up just being a joke from our district leader to get us to understand the importance of our calling, but I want to let you guys know...I have my answer hahaha and if I have the oportunity to extend my Mission...I will be staying for as long as the Lord will let me. But we will just see here in a year :)

Well now I will get on with the other stuff. I had transfers today!!! I am with an Elder from Sonora.  Elder Escamilla is my companion and he seems just great :) The news is that today is his first day in the Mission, so I got the calling last night to be a Trainer in the Mission hahaha! I am a dad!! This morning I had to go to the Mission offices and be trained with other Elders who were going to be trainers too. It was a 5 hour training!! I learned alot, but the cool thing was that when I first saw the new missionaries I looked at him and just new that he was going to be my companion. It was cool :)  It has been a good 2 hours with him so far. He really seems excited about the work and just obedient. He is going to whip me into shape I think hahaha!! I am only here to help him out because he his prepared!! It's going to be a great 2 changes with him :) I just know that we will have success!!

Well this past week Elder Rojas did not want to go work again so pretty much we had divisions all week with Elder Lamb and Elder Riggin. I went with Lamb one day and Riggin two days. Elder Riggin and I on Friday had a great day and lived some great experiences. The first one was when we taught Hna Sandra. It had been about 2 weeks since the last time we taught her so we passed by her house and she let us in. We started talking about the Book of Mormon and she said that she had not been reading it so I taught the importance of reading and how the BOM teaches us what to do. Well after Elder Riggin taught about Baptism and how that is what the book teaches us. After, I invited her to be Baptized on the 27th of August and after 3 months of denying a date she finally accepted it!! It was great but when she accpeted I really was filled with the Spirit and it told me to tell her that she would find a job and that one day she will she her husband and son sealed to her in the Temple. It was a cool experience!

The other one was with Hna Alejandra and her two sons. She has two cute little boys who are not Baptized and that want to get Baptized. Hna Alejandra wants that too. The thing is, she is inactive and doesn't want to come back to Church because she has a sickness and can't be in a building with alot of people. Well Elder Riggin and I were teaching about the importance of coming to Church and having Faith. It was going really well but she didn't accept to come to Church with us this past week. Well her 9 year old son started to pray quietly during the lesson, so after a while I asked him if he had anything to say, and he told his mom that he prayed that everytime that she touched the BOM she would feel better and be healed. It was so sweet and she started to cry. Well she didn't touch the book so Elder Riggin told her to touch it and when she did the Spirit was so strong and she even said that she felt better. She accepted to come to church. It was a great experience!! What killed it though is that she didn't come on Sunday!! So tomorrow we are going to figure out what happened.

That was it for the week. We did have a zone conference Thursday with Elder de Hoyos from the 70 but he told us that we can't tell anyone, including our families, what happened during that conference. Lets just say that angeles litterally came down and ministered to us. It was a great experience and I am glad that I was there to live it.

I miss and love you all!! I got my Birthday package this week and thank you so much!! My favorite thing is the T-shirt and the pillow case :) Well until next week!!

Love,
Elder Brady Lester