Week 90 & 91

Hellooooo!!!! How are you all doing?

These past two weeks have been super crazy!! To start off, Elder Stuflick and I broke the mission record for the most people on date at the same time, with 16 people on date for baptism!! This was especially a big achievement for us considering we didn't have anyone on date just a month ago. We originally had a good 8 people set to get baptized on October 30th, but with great miracles sometimes comes great disappointments, and we are now only expecting 3-4 baptisms on that day, since some people have dropped off or we've had to move their date back.

Something funny I noticed was that (being that it's cooling down here in Utah) I rotate through these 3 sweaters that I have, and every time I wore my maroon sweater, we always managed to put at least one person on date for baptism. I would wear it more often, but that would be abusing its power of course.

We also had transfers this past week and here's the rundown:

Things that didn't change:

- I am still here in El Camino (and most likely will be for the rest of my mission)

- I am still a Zone Leader 

- I am still in the same apartment with the same roommates

Things that did change:

- Mi amor, Elder Stuflick, got transferred to another area, and as such I got a new companion, ❤ Elder Barnes ❤ He is from Washington, is super smart, super funny, and I was actually his Zone Leader when he came into the mission just less than a year ago. He will probably be my last companion as well.

- Once again (to account for the billions of greenies that have come to our mission the past three transfers), our Zone got goofed up, and now our Zone covers from northern Taylorsville all the way to southern West Jordan. The mission also decided to name the zones after Book of Mormon characters, so we are now... the Amulek Zone 😎

So the original date that I was supposed to return home was January 11th. However, in order to begin school for the winter semester, I had my return date moved to December 17th!!! So I will be happy to see you all for Christmas this year! That means I will be finishing my mission halfway through the following transfer in less than just two months!!

Miracle:

We showed up to church, and one of the members in the ward decides to bring his friends from Guatemala that recently moved a week prior. Just a couple of days later, we were able to visit these friends, the Morales family, and after teaching the message of the Restoration, we felt inspired to ask them if they were willing to follow the example of Christ by being baptized. They initially said yes, but then showed a bit of doubt. We found out that they new basically nothing about baptism, so we showed them a cool little video about baptism, and they lit up! They then reaffirmed that they would gladly be baptized on November 13th. Since then, they have come to church every week, and have read the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon and have absolutely loved and understood all of it!!

God is too perfect.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-2) Elder Barnes y yo

3) Me and the boyz goin ice skating 

4-6) Elder Stuflick and some pretty sunsets

Week 88 & 89

Hey everyone!

I had one of the most spiritual weekends of my entire mission, with a Zone Council about teaching like the Savior, followed by a trip to the 💝 Jordan River Temple 💝, followed by 10 full hours of General Conference!!! I had prepared a bunch of personal questions and questions for the area, and you better believe that I got my answers! I owe much of the success that we've seen these past two weeks to the revelation and immediate application of the counsel we received and applied from our living prophet.

I had an exchange with Elder Young, who only speaks English, and he came into our Spanish area. It was fun! I taught him how to introduce himself and bear his testimony in Spanish, and it felt like having a greenie from scratch haha. We luckily had a bunch of lessons with Latinos that luckily spoke a bit of English, so he was able to still teach with power and authority.

So, it's been 20 months in the mission, and I might just now be figuring out how to do missionary work. In the past 2 weeks, we have put 11 people on date for baptism, 9 of which are on date for October 30th. We are going to do everything in our power to make sure these baptisms happen, so be tuned for some epic pictures of a crowd of people baptismal clothing in a couple of weeks ;) Here are some stories and miracles of these people that have been prepared by God to be baptized:

Miracle 1: The Chacin family

We were knocking doors. We met a kid and asked him to show us to his Spanish-speaking neighbors. He pointed us to a door, and thus we knocked it. No one answered, and as we were about to head to another area, this family that lived there had just arrived and invited us in. There, we met Amanda, Dialeidi, and Alexander Chacin. We got to know them, and found out that their older daughter, Amber, had gotten baptized about 4 months ago in West Jordan, and then they moved here and lost contact with the missionaries. The other 15 year old daughter, Amanda, had shared that the missionaries were teaching her as well, but at that time, she did not feel ready. However, she felt that now was her time to be baptized. Her parents agreed. They are now preparing to be baptized. They have since gone to church and are already building friendships with the members of the ward.

Miracle 2: Hilda

We were knocking doors. We met a woman named Vicky, who told us that her friend, Hilda, mentioned wanting to come back to church. We thus visited Hilda, a sweet old lady who has been having difficulties with her inactive husband. We found out that she had attended church in the past, but had never gotten baptized. We asked if this was a decision she wanted to make in her life, and excitedly said yes. She is now preparing to be baptized, and she is seeing the promised blessings of a stronger marriage as she is consistently reading the Book of Mormon and daily praying.

Miracle 3: Antonio

We had met Antonio a couple of weeks back, and have been visiting regularly to help him learn more about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, being that he is starting from scratch. He has attempted to read the Book of Mormon, but has struggled, being that he can't focus very well. We showed him the Gospel Library app, and he now enjoys listening to the Book of Mormon audio, and watching the Book of Mormon videos. In just 3 days, he listened from 1 Nephi 1 to 2 Nephi 4! We finally asked if he would want to be a part of Christ's church if it were on the Earth. He gladly affirmed. We asked if he was ready right now to get baptized, took a look down, pondered, and said yes. He is now preparing to get baptized.

Miracle 4: Diana Ortega

We had met Diana on an exchange as she was bringing groceries from her car to her apartment, and allowed us to help her out. We set up a future lesson, and found out that she knew basically nothing about religion. We had another lesson with a member couple present, and we were able to help her understand the importance of the Book of Mormon. One member shared an experience of receiving a vision after praying about the Book of Mormon, and at first Elder Stuflick and I were nervous that it would throw off Diana's expectations. However, Diana lit up, and started sharing that she's also had some dreams about celestial figures and wanted answers. She built a great friendship with our fellowshipping members, and she accepted a baptismal date as well!

God is too perfect.

Elder Terry

Fotos:

1-4) Temple trip ft. the Taylorsville Zone, the Bangerter District, our companionship and I

5) Us and the Luza family from Perú

6) Sweater weather

7-8) My beautiful companion, Elder Stuflick

9) Rain fly weather

10) We needed to go to a lesson, but an ambulance parked right behind us. We had to walk 🚶‍♂️

Video:

1) These pumpkins for some reason made us crack up