A Month in Mexico

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having fantastic weeks! If not, I'll continue to pray for you all.

Anyways, so on Tuesday we visited an investigator, Antonia. She's progressing. We finished the Restoration pamphlet by talking about the Book of Mormon. We asked if she's prayed about our message and she said that she has, and that she "felt the presence of another being, really warm and peaceful" when she prayed.

Wednesday, we worked in the Lord's vineyard.

Thursday, I went to the mission offices to go to the Mexican Immigration offices. They took my fingerprints, I signed some papers and yeah that was it. I should be getting my Mexican green card in 2-3 weeks. Later, we visited with a less-active member. She went to Church for 4 weeks straight and in order for reactivation, the requirement is 5 weeks. But then she got a job that required her to start this past Sunday so she didn't go to Church (nooooooooo :(  ) We visited her, we sang "How Great Thou Art" with her, and then I shared my favorite scripture, Alma 26:12. That night, we had our weekly ward mission meeting. The second Sunday of every month is Missionary Sunday, so Sacrament is all about missionary work. But during this ward mission meeting, our ward mission leader asked if anybody wanted to give a talk in Sacrament yesterday. I don't know why, but my arm just went up. I didn't even know it went up haha. After that, we visited Antonia again to give her a BoM. We challenged her with baptism for 12/26/15, and she accepted!

Friday, I was feeling sick. I was feeling grumpy that morning but then we ordered some pizza for lunch and then I felt better. We watched "The Testaments" in Spanish and the video means more to me now because with Christ's visit to the ancient inhabitants of the Americas, here I am, serving as a missionary to the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. I also learned that we need to be ready for the Second Coming because no one knows when Christ will return except Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. So prepare yourselves! Also on Friday, we visited two more investigators, Eva and Oscar. We reviewed the Restoration pamphlet with them, and then we challenged baptism without a date. They accepted! Then, we had a lesson with the Fam. Guerrero Gaxiola. We need prayers for this family. The father of the family isn't fond of the Church (or the missionaries), and their family was disintegrating this past week. We weren't able to see this family for a week and we wanted to quickly check up on them before anything bad happened. The father walks into our lesson in the garage, grabs a chair, and joins our lesson. We were teaching "The Family: A Proclamation To The World" because we're in the family-strengthening business, not the family-destroying business. This was a miracle, because never has he sat in on a lesson with missionaries. He was asking us sincere questions about the Church and families.

Saturday, the sister missionaries in our ward called us for a blessing of health for one of them. So my companion and I went, and then one of the sister missionaries, the one that isn't sick, asked me if I thought she needed a blessing. I said yes, that it couldn't hurt. The story is that they've been in the hospital for the past two weeks for a illness called "dengue" or thats' how I think it's spelled and I don't know the translation for it. They've haven't been able to work and so they've been really down. One hermana got a blessing of health, and the other hermana asked me if I could give her a blessing of comfort. Immediately after these two blessings, we received a phone call from two other sister missionaries in our zone. They asked if we could be able to dedicate a house and bless a baby in this really rich community. It's in our area, but we're not able to enter without an invitation from someone in the inside and we can't proselyte. So we went, my companion dedicated the house, and then I blessed the baby. From these experiences, I learned for myself that again, we need to be spiritually ready and prepared for anything because we will be required to use our priesthood power to help others. Then we had a FHE with an investigator family, the Fam. Lopez Madrid. We brought a box of Betty Crocker brownie mix, and we made some brownies and talked about the "A Proclamation to the World" again.

Sunday! We picked up some investigators, an 88yr old lady who was baptized about 8 months ago, the sister missionaries, and some of their investigators. We rode in the back of a member's pick up truck all the way to Church. At Church, I gave my talk on charity and love. It was about 12 min long. Several people afterwards came up to me and said "Your Spanish is really good!" A member of the Bishopric pulled me aside and said, "That was the gift of tongues! I've never heard a missionary with only a month in Mexico speak better than you! You have the gift of tongues!" So I was happy with myself and thankful that people were able to understand what I was saying.

So yeah, that's about it for this week. Here's a spiritual thought:

Alma 7:11-13. This scripture is about Christ's atoning sacrifice. His sacrifice was out of love and charity. We need to constantly remember His sacrifice for us DAILY. When we do that, we'll more fully appreciate the gospel in our lives. We have the privilege of having the restored Gospel and we need to take advantage of it to have peace in our life and we need to share our message with those around us.

Talk to you all next week!

Elder Finkner