My First Latino Companion!

Well this week was a huge change for me!! I got a new companion and he doesn’t speak English... Yep you know he´s my first Latino!!! Haha His name is Elder Alvarez from Mexico. It was really hard the first couple of days because I was trying to get use to the language change. Now I have to speak Spanish every time I want to talk to my companion. The first 4 days I came home with THE biggest Spanish headaches. ha But now I am use to it and it is fun! I have got to say by just this first week with him my Spanish has jumped increasingly higher!! Now I am forced to talk to him in Spanish, which is great. I am very grateful for him because my Spanish gets better every day!! :) When I found out that I was getting a Latin I just thought great I’m probably going to die or kill myself.. but no this guy is probably my best friend in the mission! I freakin love him! He´s so funny, works hard, and likes to have fun which is always good! He will probably be my best Latino friend in the mission. I have heard of a lot of horrible stories from American missionaries having Latino companions and I could just see that happening to me but nope.. I can testify that God knows who the best person is to be your new companion even if it’s in marriage (Tracy & Tyler) or even if it’s in your mission. I worry about getting new companions every time because I hate changes but I know that God knows what is best for you. Now I love the Latino companions but I hope President doesn’t start getting me mixed up as a Latino ha but I know he doesn’t choose the companionships, its God. I am very grateful for revelations from God!!

This week wasn’t that great of a week because I was trying to get use to my companion and showing him the area. Last Saturday I didn’t tell you guys last week because I didn’t know, but Manuel already went to do baptisms for the dead which is crazy cool because we have been working with members to go do that. He wants to be the people doing the ordananzas and baptizing people.. ha that just puts a huge smile on my face because he is my convert and yesterday in church was fast Sunday and he came up to me with a fast offering slip and asked me if I could teach him how to do it. I can just see this man in a couple of years a bishop or something up there. He loves the church so much and church comes first for him. He started coming in mid-December and has not missed a Sunday since. Yesterday he blessed the Sacrament.. Just like the ward back at home when I was in Young Men’s we were low on priests it’s the same here but we lack everywhere in the priesthood.. ha but he wanted to do it and he can’t read very well but he got it his second time blessing it!!! It’s just so great to see how this Gospel is changing his life! He was working when we met him then he got laid off and he was in a depression mode for a while but never put his head down because God was with him. He prayed for work and the next couple of days two members came to him and told him that they wanted him to work for them driving there taxis. He had 1 taxi before but then got laid off then went down to nothing and now look at him with 2 cars working every day now! He knows it was all God that blessed him with his work. It is so great to see people like moving forward in their faith and watching the blessings come in there lives!!

I love the mission so much and I learn something new every day!! Thank you for everything you guys do. I love you very much and pray for all always!! Have a great rest of the week! Touch someone’s life this week, try to do something for someone and just watch the love jump through the roof! Bless someone’s life out there. I love you guys very much!!

Love,

Elder Medrano

Tiger in the Cage

Que bueno! Nothing has really happen here it’s been pretty boring. Other than my companion getting sick Wednesday night. So when we got home he went straight to bed.. He ended up coming down with a Fever. So we didn’t leave the next day (Thursday) because he didn’t look good at all. But we left the next night to go to work he was scared that if he would walk in the sun it would come back to haunt him or just make everything worse. But we got two cita's in!! YEAH ha it is always much more fun out on the streets proselyting than in the house!! I thought hey this is kind of nice to stay in the house then an hour went by.. I thought wow this sucks!! I wish I could put my companion in a stroller and push him around to all the cita's! Anyways we ended up leaving everyday for the rest of the week at like 5 pm because he says he is super tired and doesn’t have strength.. So he just slept most of the days. 

We did have a lesson with a girl named Vanessa and she is super cool!! But she keeps losing the folletos dique right after we leave she will lose them. I think her mom takes them and reads them.. We decided to give her one more chance to read the folleto and I almost charged her 25 pesos for the printing and delivery.. ha she is 18 and she is a Evangelico goes to church whenever they have church which is usually Monday, Tuesdays and Sundays. I feel like she has a lot of potential to be a member of the church. She has a lot of interest in our church. She has visited it before but she didn’t like it because she liked how her church does things. Which is when they pray they stand up and dance and scream. I don’t get it but that is easy to change here! One rule for the Evangelico church is that guys always need to wear slacks and girls need to wear skirts or dresses that go past their knees. So the last two times we have gone over to her house she has a dress on. So that tells us a little that she follows the rules. We asked her if she could come to church with us this Sunday. She said that she would have to ask her pastor if she can go to another church.. I dont know what that means but we didn’t see her yesterday so I am guessing that her pastor said no to her because he knows that when they go to our church they get converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ or to the Dominicans Mormonies... Dominicans don’t think we are Christians they think Mormon is a different religion.. ha kind of funny. 

We also watched The Restoration video with an investigator family. We have been teaching them for 3 months they have had all the lessons and they read in the Book of Mormon. But the husband likes to defend all Churches and thinks they all are true. He also thinks once Joseph Smith got the Priesthood he just started handing out the Priesthood of God. But once we watched this I think his mind changed because everyone wanted to kill Joseph Smith and not want his Priesthood and they eventually killed him. I think his mind changed we didn’t have time to really talk with them because it was 9:10 and we are suppose to be in the house at 9 so we left them thinking about it and we have another cita with them on Tuesday to answer all their questions. Because I know there are some! haha there are always questions..

Well that was kind of my week a little boring because I have been cooped up in the house!! I was like a Tiger in his cage ready to get out and attack people... ha but attack them with the word of God!! ha I hope all is going good and have a great week!!! 

Love

Elder Medrano

Buenas!

Hola!!

Well this week there were a lot of changes! One of the missionaries that live in our home finished up his two years and went home last Sunday.  We were put into a three some. We thought that we were going to stay like this for the rest of the transfer because there are only 2 weeks left before next transfers. But we got a call Thursday night at 10:45 it woke us up and it was the AP's calling for Elder Hope (my companion). They asked if we were in a three some he said yes, the AP said okay don’t worry because you are leaving your area and going to a new area. And to be ready all packed at 8:00 in the morning and we will pick you up. I thought for sure that he was going to start to cry because your first area in your mission is usually the hardest to leave.. ha but he didn’t cry luckily.. haha He didn’t have any time to say goodbye, and that sucks big time not being able to say goodbye to your investigators and members. After he left that just left just two of us in the area, Elder Wassum and myself.  Elder Wassum served in another area close to ours, now we have a HUGE area and a TON of investigators to teach.. ha 

 We had a baptism on Saturday which was really cool. I was the one that got to preform the baptism. I usually don’t like to because I try to push them to choose a member to baptize them because they will have a “relationship” with someone in the ward. But Manuel asked me to baptize him.  I always give them the choice to whom they want to be baptized by.. Anyways it was super cool and really spiritual!! I could feel the spirit really strong and he even started to cry which is really cool! Because then I knew that he could feel the spirit too..I’ll even admit I cried a little bit... ha He was super happy about being a member now!! He told me that he has been wanting to be member for awhile!  After he was baptized and while we were changing I told him, now that was the first goal. Then I asked him if he knew what the second goal was..... He said “no, what is the second goal?”.. I told him getting to the Temple that is the real goal.. We have taught him about the temple a little bit but not much. He asked me what do you do in the temple. I told him you make more covenants with God and have more responsibilities but with all this comes more blessings.. He said when can I go to the Temple I told him in 1 year you can go he said okay... We went by his place yesterday and we got talking about the Temple again and he told me “I have been thinking about what you said and I want to learn more about the Temple and I want to go there some day!!!” I just love this guy! ha I am so glad he is a member of the church and doing the best things for him! 

 Well I am doing great still trying to work hard! Next week I will tell you if I get a new companion or not but well see.. The AP's said we probably won’t get anyone new. So we’ll have to work this big area like a boss!! Everything is going great lots of work going on!!! Thank you for everything - and have a GREAT WEEK!!

Love,

Elder Medrano

The couple next to me there were the ones that gave us the reference to him. 

They are a super good family and love the missionaries! 

Manuel's little boy! I love him so much!

His name is Manuel De Jesus Grullon Almonte baptized on 15 of February. He is my favorite convert and will be for my whole mission I think.. But we will see

 because there is a lot of work left to do.. 

Surprise Baptism

This week was great! We are really having trouble finding time for our Investigators! We have way too many for the time we have so we have to take out the ones that aren’t doing so well and replace them with the other ones. We can’t go out in the morning to our area where we have all of our investigator because we have to walk 45 mins and to have 1 or 2 lessons then walk all the way back for lunch... So with all our good investigators and more we have from 2:00 pm to 9:00 to teach them 7 hours is not enough time to teach everyone that we want to teach.. Now if we had cars that would be easy because then we can go out in the morning.. Ha but we don’t have a car.

We have a lot of Investigators that can’t read and so we have to read with them. We have one in particular that really loves us and loves to hear from us. But it is just so hard because he can’t read on his own so we don’t know how he is going to progress being able not to read.. We love him so much and he’s a great guy. He understands everything that we read and talk about and goes to church. But the thing is we can’t give him a commitment like to read The Book of Mormon or the folleto because he can’t read. We just can’t figure out what to do with him. I think he can get baptized but it will be a long time.

We are having a surprise baptism with one of our investigators! We have been teaching him for only 4 weeks and in the 4 weeks he has changed into a real man!! His name is Manuel 42 years old somewhere around that age.. He has read all the folletos and we have taught him everything and more. He would answer all the questions in the back of the folletos and look up the scriptures that it gives in the Bible and in The Book of Mormon. Last week he's been out of work because he is a taxi driver and his car broke down. So he has been fixing it. So he has been making us come by everyday the past week and he would read the folletos in the morning and look up the questions and read in The Book of Mormon. His only thing that was wrong with him is the Word of Wisdom. He has been smoking since he has been 14 years old and he read the Word of Wisdom folleto last Tuesday and he told us that he hasn’t picked up a cigarette since he read this Folleto. We asked him why? He told us "The folleto is the word of God and folleto said not to so I stopped smoking. Because for me, God is everything and if he wants the best for me, I am going to do the best for him" We were like WOW!!! ha Last week he showed so much desire to get baptized so we can start making covenents with God. He has been coming to church from mid December and has not missed a Sunday since. He told us " Because God is everything and i am going to put him before everything." We had a baptismal date with him for the 22 of March but he told us its to far and wants to get baptized sooner! We thought and prayed about it and we think he is ready to take a big step in his life. He has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon he loves the church he is not afraid to tell people he is Mormon because he rides with the Book in between his front windshield and the dash board so everyone can see it. He has a wife that sits in the lessons but never really participates just usually listens. But he doesn’t want to force her to get baptized. He has been praying for her to come to his baptism to feel the spirit. Because he believes that by him getting baptized that she will be able to feel the spirit and want to get baptized later on!! I believe that too. Because it has happened to so many people. 

I love this Gospel! I love being a missionary and watching these people do the best things for them. I love watching them change into new people. And I love teaching them!! I couldn’t be happier then where I am at right now!! Thank you for all the Prayers!!! Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Medrano