Week 77

¡Hola buenos días! 

I just want to preface this email with an important announcement: never get the "Deluxe" car wash at a Holiday gas station... it doesn't dry the car after the wash...... what kind of car wash doesn't dry your car at the end!? We had to bolt home and dry it off with paper towels before the water spots set in.

So I had probably the most epic exchange this week with my hijo, Elder Smith. We forgot to set goals at the beginning, but during my personal study, I was reading in Ether 12 about faith and miracles, and the Spirit slapped me in the face and was like, "You gotta set some goals, man." We looked at our day, and concluded with the expectations to get 8 lessons and 5 new people. It would truly take a miracle to hit these goals.

  Most of the lessons that we had planned for at the beginning of the day had been cancelled, but that couldn't stop us. We talked.. with... EVERYONE! It really was a miracle that most people were super down to talk with us, and we had awesome encounters with some awesome people. By the end of the day, we did indeed hit our 8 lesson goal. Even better though was that for our very last lesson, we knocked the door, and we were let into a house full of 13-15 people in this one living room.... sooo I'm pretty sure we hit our goal of 5 new people ⭐⭐⭐

So we found this really cool guy named Ciro, and we have been trying so hard for the past 2 weeks to get in his home and teach him and his family. However, due to bad luck and bad planning, we have had to move this visit back 6362528 times. But this past Thursday, we had this visit set up. All was good to go. We knock his door. He let us in. It was all coming together. But not ten seconds after we sat down did we receive a call that we had a meeting with our Mission President and our Stake that we were uninformed about. We had to get up, say sorry, and walked out to book it to this meeting...... JUST to find out that it was a Stake President training meeting which we most definitely did not need to attend 😑🙃

But one of the coolest thing that I learned in my personal studies this week was that any miracle that has ever happened was the result of faith.

"And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son if God." (Ether 12:18)

If you would like to see more miracles in your lives, look first to see where you faith is at, and you will see wonders.

I love you all!

Elder Terry 

Fotos:

1-2) Elder Daniel and I

3) Found a sick hat on the street

4) Bowling squad

5-6) English class!

Week 76

Hola everyone!

So this week was super successful for us! Just a brief rundown: we have this goal as a mission to strive for 20 lessons every week. I had always achieved this goal up until I got into this area. Everything that's worked for me in the past just didn't click the same in this area. But this past week, we threw in all our chips into hitting this 20 lesson goal and also finding 15 new people to teach by the end of the transfer (5 per week).

And we hit both goals 🥳🥳!!! A skill that I had to develop in order to achieve this goal is to just talk with EVERYONE we see and teach them on the spot. Also, we found some really cool people that have been prepared for us to find them, and we did! One of them is Kenya, who doesn't belong to any particular religion, but is currently studying to find the truth. Another was Ciro, who is a super genuine dad and we set up something with him and his family.

So here in Utah, the driver's test is only offered in English (which is whack cause the Latino population makes up like 40% of the people and is growing on the daily), so there are a bunch of Latinos illegally driving without a driver's license. But this sprouted a really cool idea for an English class. We taught a driver's Ed course, and it was super fun! Although only 11 people came, they had a good time. We had good food and super fun activities, one of which was this mock driver's test, where they'd drive their "car" (their phone) on a road we drew on some poster paper.

Wish us more success! I love you all!

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) The English class turnout

2) The driving practice activity we had

3) For the past two p-days, we have been making our own ties as a district in preparation for Zone Conference. Here's  the behind the scenes.

4) And here's the final product! Together with our new Mission President and his wife, President Spencer.

5-6) 😍 Elder Daniel 😍 and I

7) Went out and got some yummy Peruvian food

8) So our Bishop has been telling us about this really good churro place, and this one night he decided to hook us up 

Video:

1) Me balancing a massive broom on my chin

Week 75

 Hey everyone!

So this past Saturday was a pretty awesome day! I got my first baptism!!!!... in my own area!!!!! We have been working with this less active family for the past two transfers, and we were able to help their daughter Kaely progress towards baptism! She has such a great love for Jesus and wants to be exactly like Him. Shouldn't we all? 

I have spent the majority of my mission planting seeds and seeing the fruits after I leave the area, so this was a pretty cool experience to actually plan a baptism and put the whole program together. I am so proud of Kaely and her decision.

In addition to Kaely's baptism, another one of our amigos, Alexia, who I had taught in my old area, Rancho Vista, got baptized the same day!! What's super cool is that my old companion, Elder Bowles, and I had found Alexia and her mom through the English Class initiative, which ultimately led to reactivating her mom and Alexia getting baptized!! And our roommates also had a baptism the same day as well!!! I played the piano at all 3 of the baptisms... and I think I'm gonna have to take a break from playing "Cuando me bautice" for a bit.

On a less awesome note, everyone else that we have been teaching have stopped progressing, so we really don't have anyone to teach anymore :(((( So we set some pretty epic area goals, and for these last three weeks of the transfer, we are going to absolutely push for finding as many people possible through English Classes, member referrals, and our own street contacting. Pray that we see miracles!

In my studies this week, I learned the importance of applying scriptures. Normally, when planning lessons, I have always thought of scriptures that support the principle that we are teaching, but I've found it more effective to think of scriptures that show how we can apply the principle. This is something that we naturally do when reading books or watching movies; we put ourselves in the shoes of a character to see how we would've reacted otherwise. And by doing so with the scriptures, the Spirit can really touch our hearts.

I love you all! Thanks for your prayers and support. And HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! 

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1) Kaely at her baptism!!

2-3) Alexia at her baptism!!

4) Elder Daniel and I

5-6) English classes

7) Elders being Elders

8) There's a saying that a baptismal form is the same worth as a soul. So we treat ours with care and make sure it's nice and safe

9) Me in a box at the food bank cause it lasted an hour and a half longer than usual and it was like 2748201°F