Dear family,I can´t thank you enough for writing me. It is so exhilarating to hear all of the updates, especially about Texas walking and Celeste´s baby boy! Congratulations!I´ve learned this week that planning makes a HUGE difference. When you set goals, you set yourself up for success, and are able to accomplish and learn much more. Specific planning. On Wednesday last week we taught TRC, which is where teachers, other missionaries, or hopefully volunteers from the community, whether non-members, less active, or members come to help us practice teaching the gospel. So yeah, we heard we´re giving this lesson to these people with like 5 minutes to prepare, so we just prayed. We ended up teaching other missionaries, which can also be difficult because they usually already have what you have to offer them. I´m grateful to one of my teachers, Hermano Villanueva, for teaching us that every person has needs, no matter whether they are a member or not. It ended up being one of the best teaching experiences with the spirit. They taught us first and I felt the spirit help with the exact concern I needed help with for that day. When we taught them, the questions we asked were inspired and they also felt a strong spirit confirm the purpose of their missions. I learned that in order to know what the Lord needs me to study, I need to strive for His spirit. I can know when I´m being effective when I can feel his spirit in each part of my day, each lesson. I´ve also learned that whichever lesson we teach has the ability to specifically help that person. For example, we were teaching Carlos about the Plan of Salvation. I made a list of each of his concerns, and then a list of how each concern could be specifically resolved with the plan of salvation. When you know your lesson can actually help someone, it becomes more powerful and I think that helps invite the spirit.Random thoughts: we have a good time sitting by the Latinas at meal time. They are only here for 12 days but once you establish a relationship by conversation, they are so awesome and sweet! It is such good practice for our Spanish to listen to native speakers. We got to Celebrate Mexican Independence Day! Wow! I´m so lucky to be here during the 14-16 of September. On Saturday night the Benmerito school´s alumni danced and sang for us! It was true Mexican culture with fantastic music and dresses and different dancing than I´ve ever seen before. Spanish messes up the grammar in your brain, sorry. For reasons I still can´t figure out, our district sat next to the spirited Mexicans during these festivals, who were SO CRAZY! Every opportunity they had they chanted patriotic songs or ¨Me-xi-co!¨ It was great. We all sang the Mexican national anthem. On Sunday we got to stay up late and watch the Grito on national television. The president waved the Mexican flag and shouted (grito) set patriotic sayings to which we all answered, ¨VIVE!¨ Then came the fireworks, and more fireworks, and more, all night long. :) You get really used to noise here.Another spiritual lesson this week is about being cast out. Adam and Eve had to be cast out in order to progress. We also must be cast out in order to learn. I was cast out of home, I will be cast out of the MTC, out of my areas. But it is so worth it. I think of the fruit I was producing at home, and to me and the Lord, the value of the fruit I´m producing now has much greater value. John 14:2. We also must be purged. Decrease the distractions in life, and the fruit that remains will be larger and sweeter.I have the funnest time with my companion. She is just like me, except quieter. It is weird, we get along so well. We still have a blast playing soccer together, especially in the rain. On our way back to the casa there were great big puddles everywhere in which she proceeded to jump in all of them to get me wet. So I dumped my water bottle on her. :) So even if we aren´t related, we like practically are. We short-sheeted the other two hermana´s beds in our room for fun. :) I think the anticipation was the best part, but neither Hermana Petramalo or Hermana Nail got trapped. It was just funny hearing them talk about how nice it was that the Mexican workers made their beds for them, when I really knew what was up.So we get to go to the temple every other week in Spanish! I´m so grateful for temple workers! I´m also grateful I got to go so many times in English before leaving. I can tell I´m making a lot of progress with Spanish because I actually followed everything the whole time this time.Jared: There are 800 missionaries here, about 200 of which are sisters. I have 11 in my district, with 4 of them being hermanas. So happy for Molly and Tex. Thanks for helping my Spanish, and I also love singing here. Thanks for advice on studying.Katie: So happy to hear about your kids! Gage crawling! How was Alexa´s birthday. I celebrated it here in Mexico. Missionaries need to be friendlier . They emphasize here how ward members and missionaries have to work together. Good goal to be friendly with them.Sharli: I need to hear from you!!Mom: thanks for scriptures. There are at least 2 that have been key points and have helped investigators. Awesome testimony learned from reunion. Cool to see blessing of righteous living. No ensigns. Buesnos suete on the band!Kyle: I will do my best to help investigators see future blessings. :) Moto.Love,Momore coming
Dad: When you talk about calling and blessing all the singles ward I´m reminded of the time I tried to memorize everyone´s names in the yearbook. Although I didn´t reach my goal, each person was absolutely worth the effort. Once I got to say Hi to someone whose name I learned, we had a special connection. You are making a bigger difference to people than you may realize. Being able to call someone by name gives them a brief, but real feeling like you care about them. Jesus blesses one by one too. Keep up the good work! Don´t ever give up on trying to build relationships with these yound single adults. They really do look up to your example.Most of the people in one of those photos is our district at the Mexican Fiesta.Love, Mo
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