References and Strong Spiritual Lessons

Hola! 

Well this week was AMAZING!!! We had a lot of good spiritual lessons with our investigators! I wish I could tell you guys how much the spirit has been in my life this week. I don’t know how or why! But to be honest I really do think it’s because I am following the rules the best I can! I can testify that when you are obedient with the rules the spirit is with you so much more!! I know last week I was complaining about my companion how he follows the rules so much but I love him for that because I have felt the spirit so much more and our lessons when we are obedient to the rules are so much better and much more powerful with the spirit! 

We had interviews this week with President Rodriguez and it was way cool! I really am excited for the new mission president to come in but I am really sad that Rodriguez is leaving because he is the sweetest and nicest guy ever!! He is like a huge teddy bear!! Haha that’s the best way I could put it but I am really sad he is leaving because he has really whipped this mission back into shape! We found out who our new president will be and his name is President Nuckos. He is from California and he’s super excited to serve and come down here. He knows Spanish already because he served in Spain and he also knows French because he lived in France I believe for 3 years. His wife does not know Spanish yet but being in a Spanish speaking mission she will learn fast! ha 

Well our stake is doing these activities every Saturday for references so all the missionaries that are in Los Alcorrizos meets at the chapel of that ward that we are doing it that week and members meet to and they bring references to the church and each member takes a pair of missionaries and go out and contact those references and then we invite them to church the next day... we have been doing this activity for 3 weeks in a row every Saturday teaching the gospel for the missionaries in that ward and they get all the new investigators.. but it is cool to see a new area and talk to new people. This coming Saturday is our branches (we don’t have a ward yet) turn to bring the references in.. soo  I guess we will see how that goes this Saturday. Yesterday we had a devotional about how to have a good reference and we didn’t think anyone was going to show up but everyone from our branch showed up and it was great and they all learned how to have a good ref. haha well we hope they learned! 

Yesterday after we had the devotional we taught an investigator that lives next to the church. We just dropped a little boche about not reading the folletos that we give her and her mom.. but she said she would read before we come back so I guess we will see how that goes this friday. Then we went to this old guys house that we have been teaching for awhile but we haven’t taught him for a while so we went over there to set a next lesson for when we can come by and teach him.. Well the wife invited us in and she said that he went to go get something but he is coming back right now.. so we said okay we will just wait for a little bit.. I wasn’t planning on teaching but I asked her about her family and she said they were all dead and lived with God right now. So I got this impression that I should share with her the gospel and start a lesson so then the husband arrived and he sat down and I didn’t want to do a lesson but then we got on to the topic of why there are so many churches on the earth right now. She has a hard catholic background and she knew the bible really well. So after we kind of got talking about why there are so many churches I had a huge spiritual impression that I should start a lesson and then talk about why there are so many churches. So I stopped the whole conversation and we started with a prayer. Then we continued with our conversation and it turned out to be a huge spiritual experience for me and the spirit was with us so strong!! My companion and I explained why there are so many churches in the world then we gave her the restoration folleto and told her to read it and she said she would because she loves to read!! haha I really hope she reads and we can catch her again to teach her because I think that she could be a really good member of the church of Jesus Christ!!

Well that’s what kind of happened this week! J Thank you for the prayers and everything you all do for me!! 

Love,

Elder Medrano

New Area

Hola!

Well here I am..  I landed in Los Alcarrizos in Pedro Brand!! I like it a lot but I did not like the change that I had... because I really liked my old area, my companion and the other set of missionaries that I lived with. But now I am in a house with all Americans. My new companion is Elder Hope.. he is pretty cool he walks really fast like I mean really fast.  I don’t really like to walk fast so sometimes he leaves me behind because I like to walk at a good pace not 100 mph... ha But I guess that I am starting to get use to it and starting to keep up with him. Because our area is 45 mins away from the house and in the sun I’m tired when we get there, I’ll need to try and slow him down.. ha My house gets a little awkward at times because I like to make some jokes and  joke around to add some humor.  I made a joke that was pretty funny (I thought) but nobody laughed or even smiled. So either the joke was really dumb or these people are just way to serious and don’t like to have some fun... haha but they are starting to warm up to my sense of humor. I guess we will see how the next week goes.. I suggested that we should run across the roofs one night and see how far we can go just on roofs and they all looked at me like I was an idiot and said is that illegal? I said well I guess it might be but if people can walk down the streets shooting their guns and not get into trouble I don’t think jumping on the roofs to see how far we can go is any worse than that.. ha But I guess that was a no from them and didn’t sound very fun to them.. ha The house that I live in is a lot bigger than the one in Manoguyabo.. but it doesn’t have 24 hour light and water.. I take that back it does have 24 hour water but it trickles out of the shower.  Here the lights are on a schedule when we get power right now it comes on from 11 pm through 8 am and then it comes back during lunch time from 1 pm through 6 pm. I don’t know what the other schedule it but will find out as I think the schedule changes next week.   My new area is “campoish” but still in the city we are on the out skirts of the city.. but considered in the “campo”.. ha 

I met a lot of great families that our in our branch. There is one that is so cool la familia Cross and they are like the parents for the missionaries and love to take care of them. I don’t know if it’s because they wanted it to happen to their girls when they go on missions. Two of their girls are leaving on missions in the beginning of February.. which is way cool!! I really want to grow close to that family because they feed us whenever we go over there, but most of allI want to help their other kids go on missions. I also met a family that is as great as the Cross family, La familia Martinez, the dad loves to go out with the missionaries he bears his testimony every time which is more like a talk... ha it’s like a 15 minute testimony. We aren’t going to stop him because he must feel the spirit strongly.. ha he gives us a ride back to our house at night which is super nice because by the time we get to his house we are like 55 mins away from our house.

The church is a little building on the second floor, it is not a ward yet it’s still a branch because there are not enough families and members yet to make a ward but there are a lot of primary kids!! haha thats forsure. We have a lot of investigators and families that show up to church and are really close to baptism but they need to get married first.. the biggest problem in this country the marriage!!! ha but we are working through that and getting close with a couple of investigators!

I’m on a strict schedule with the computer because the other missionaries need their time.  I love everyone and miss you all.  Talk next week. 

Love,

Elder Medrano

New Years

¡Hola! 

 I am a little late e-mailing because as a zone we went down to what is called a “play down here” (baseball field). We played baseball as a zone and it was so much fun to get back on the dirt!! I really do miss playing when I am standing on the baseball field but then right when I step off I am just fine it’s so weird that it works like that... I definitely wish that I could be playing high school, I know they are practicing this time of year and hitting in the cages!! I sure wish I could play again... I have been really thinking about what I want to do in college and in my life lately.  I don’t know why I have forgotten about home and now just going with the flow of the mission. It has crossed my mind of coming back down here and train with the Dominicans and working hard and going to College here. I have lived down here for two years already with out any electronics I think I can do it for a little bit longer with electronics to talk to home 24/7. I think it would be a lot of fun coming down here to train for baseball because we always see them running or working out we never see them in the streets I swear they live in the Play or in the GYM working out. But that is a year and half away so we will see where my thoughts are after that.

The New Year’s dinner was alright... We had our Bishops wife bring us dinner.. haha The pie my companion made was really good it was an oreo pie with chocolate pudding in the center of it.. It was a good taste from America!! Ohhh and the neighbors loved our dinner we made for them!! They were really surprised that we could cook so dang good!! haha they called us Dominicanos haha yep I guess I am Dominican now but speak gringo Spanish.. ha We cooked rice with coconut chicken, pasta salad, and natural juice balls of Yuka. But it was pretty good!! I will cook it when I get home, but after a couple of months that is.. ha 

Our investigators are doing well. We haven’t seen our really good investigators for a while because they are in the campo visiting their family. But they are all coming back this week so it will be good to get in touch with them again and she how they are doing and how much of the gospel that have kept with them while they have been away.. 

We have been working really hard to find new investigators that we can start teaching and we have found some really good prospects! We have one area that we are waiting to contact that we believe is going to be the Mormon Bomb!!! We really think that this street has a lot of potential to be baptized but we are waiting until the Holidays are over so we can get back to normal and everyone is at home and at work again! Today is the last Holiday Dia de los Reyes so everyone will be out partying because it is the last holiday until April really. After today we think it will start to pick back up with our investigators and finding new people. We are really excited for the Mormon Bomb street that we have been waiting for at least two weeks to contact. We contacted the first couple of houses on the street, but of course they all said that they were busy because it’s the holidays, but they said to come back. We told them that we would pass by again after the holidays are over.. We really are excited about that area.. 

We finally got one of our inactive members back to church. We have been working hard to get her to come back to church and she finally did yesterday and she is way chill! She left the church because she read some things on the internet about the church and she had some problems with some of the girls in the ward. But she came back and she looked really happy!! We were trying to get her to go bear her testimony but she wouldn’t do it. But she is so nice and seems like she loves to be back we have another cita with her tomorrow so we will see how she felt being back. Keep your fingers crossed and Pray hard!! 

That’s all that has happened this past week. Nothing to exciting just been working like a missionary of course! :) Oh and yesterday while we were fasting we were fasting from English too... ha yeah what an experience. It was pretty quiet between my companion and I.. ha but it was fun. Thank everyone for the love and support!! 

Love,

Elder Medrano

The dinner that we cooked for our neighbors and now they call us Dominicanos! 

The signs of walking way too much..

This is my companion swinging the bat at the field today

The picture with the Hermana is my mom in the mission because when you get come into the mission field you get a dad which is your trainer and then your mom is the oldest missionary girl in your zone that your born into... ha so she is called my "mom".