Pictures: October 26, 2013

"Around Veracruz in 4 days"

Hola familia!

I have sooooo much to tell you guys, seeing as I didnt really say much last week! So put your seatbelts on, this is gonna be a wild ride! 

So the zone conferences went really really well last week! We traveled all over the state to go see all of the missionaries. All of the zone conferences we did with at least two zones present, we passed videos of the baptismal pictures, the new missionaries, and then videos and pictures of the missionaries who go home soon. It was neat to be able to share our testimonies four times, but I was happy because I didn´t at all feel like it was time to go home yet, which makes me know that I still have a lot of work to do this last transfer. It was a neat experience travelling all over with President Treviño. How I have grown to love him in these past couple of months. We had a lot of conversations with hijm that taught me alot and helped my testimony to be strengthened even more. We had the chance to stay in a couple of hotels in the week...that was really really weird as a missionary, haha but we really enjoyed the experience, "around veracruz in 4 days" haha. 

I talked about how to obtain and follow the spirit in each of the conferences. I did an activity where I asked someone to build a tower out of plastic cups while the rest of us read a couple of scriptures, each cup represented something that we did to be obdedient or diligent in order to obtain the spirit, and on some of the cups I wrote some mission rules. Once the Elder finished the tower, I asked them how it was to build it, and they always said that It was hard and that it took alot of work and diligence. Then I took just one cup out from the bottom of the tower and it all fell over. I explained that if we decide to be lazy or decide to not obey just one little rule, we lose the spirit and we have to work 3 times as hard to earn it again. It turned out pretty good, I recieved a lot of good inspiration and direction from the spirit to be able to put the message together. I hope that the missionaries learned something from the spirit that can help them. The messages of president and Elder Egbert were soooo good and I´m grateful to have had the chance to participate in the conference with them.

So the Lord blessed us abundantely this week with some amazing invetigators. We only worked in the area one day last week so we were grateful for the blessings and the guidance that we recieved to be lead to thos who are seeking the gospel. Irene is going to be baptized on sunday after stake conference. She has been progressing so well in this last month and everything was going perfectly. But we hit a road block this week because her husband Bernardo has had a couple of challenges, so we had to postpone his baptism date for a couple of weeks. Irene is 100 ready and prepared to take this step, but she got a little sad about her husband and started thinking that it wasnt the right time and that she needed to wait to join the church so that she could get baptized the same day as her husband. But we knew that she was going to be able to help him 100 times more by being baptized because she would have the holy ghost and she would have a stronger testimony of the church. As Lehi partook of the fruit of the tree of life and afterwards shared it with her family, we felt strongly impressed to help her be baptized this sunday. The lord knows she is ready and wants her to take the step. So we fasted and prayed and had an amazing lesson with her and she made the decision to join the church this sunday! Im so excited for her and it was a miracle how the spirit touched her heart. Pray for her please that she can be strong and have the faith to follow through with her decision. 

Well, its oficial! I´m returing to the Tuxtlas to be a zone leader!! I can´t even describe how excited I am!! Its going to be a great transfer and I´m really excited for the change. The zone isn´t that big so it will be a fun differance to be able to work closer with a small group of missionaries!

I was close to tears as I read dad´s experience that he had while he was in New York. Thanks dad for sharing me all of that, I´m so glad that Heavenly Father is watching out for you and that he answers our prayers in every moment. My testimony was sure strenghened after hearing that!

We played tennis in the morning today and we are going to carve pumpkins right now with everyone in the offices! Its been an excellent week and I cant wait to tell you guys how next week is in the tuxlas!! I love you all so much!

Mucho amor, 

Elder Eastmond 

Great conference

Hola Familia!

We just got done watching the first two sessions of general conference. We watched the conference in English in the offices, all of our investigators are planning on coming to the conference tomorrow, pray for them so they can make it, please.  I really really enjoyed the talks, they answered alot of questions that I had written down before the conference. It´s so neat how the Lord can speak to us through his servants.There were a couple of good messages about the importance of always reading the scriptures. During these two years I have really seen the importance of the scriptures in my life and in the life of the members, converts, and investigators. Its so neat how the simple act of studying the scriptures can bring us such joy and protection in our lives. What a blessing it is to have a living prophet and apostles to help and guide us.   

Thanks for sending the letter from Pete and JoElla! I loved that. Tell them that the Tuxtlas wont be a stake until like January or February, but they meet all of the requirements now, they are just waiting to see that they can maintain their full tithe payers, church attendance, etc. Also tell them that there is a chance that I can end my mission there!! President already told me that I am going to be a zone leader my last change and one of the zone leaders in the Tuxtlas is going to be finishing his mission this change, so I´m going to beg President to send me to the Tuxtlas my last change, it would be so cool!

So yesterday we had a crazy wedding experience! We have an investigator named Lady and we have been getting all of her papers together so her and her boyfriend can get married. So we got all of the documents together and went to this little town called Jamapa that´s like an hour away from Veracruz. They have a place there were you  can get married for a lot cheaper and faster than the one here in Veracruz, so we made an appointment on Friday morning. Well we were trying to find a ride to Jamapa like all week because it was going to be a little complicated in a bus, so on thursday we finally found an hermana who was willing to take the family to Jamapa. But turns out that thursday night at like 10:00 at night she calls us and told us that she had gotten a flat tire and wasn´t going to be able to take us. So we started thinking about all our options and decided we should call President Treviño. The only problem is that he was going to have to drop a missionary who was going home off at the air-port at like 10:30, and the appointment for the wedding was at 11:00. But we called anyways and he said that he would love to help us, we just decided to send the family to the offices at like 9:30, they all went with president to the airport and then he booked it over to Jamapa. We had to go earlier to drop off all of the paper work so we were very grateful for his help. I love President and his family so much. They do so much for the missionaries and hardly ever have time to relax or take a break. The wedding turned out really good and we are planning on having the baptism in between sessions tommorrow, should be good.

I felt really weird sending all of the classes I want to take to dad...I get soooo nervous thinking about school and everything. I feel like I don´t remember anything from high school (except for spanish :P haha) but I´m excited at the same time to go to BYU. Thats been a dream of mine since I was little. (Is it true that BYU lost to Utah??? Thats what I heard over here)  

Dad, you will have to send me a ton of pictures of you in New York! That sounds like so much fun. Be safe and have a great time over there!

The family of 5 didn´t make it to church last week, we were disappointed. They sent us a text the last minute and said that they were going to go visit some family members. So we visited them and had a really good lesson, really spiritual, and we talked about the conference and how they were going to be able to receive lots of answers to their prayers in the conference. We committed them to go and they seemed really excited so we will do everything we can so they can attend. 

Well, my times up, but I love you all so much! Thanks for being the best family in the whole world! 

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond