Monday, January 13, 2014

Big Judds Mexico Style

"Indecision mars all success: there can be no good wind for the sailer who knows not to what ports he is bound" Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
First off Birthday Shout outs to my cousins Madison and Tabitha! I hope you had a fun celebration!
So this week has been very exciting. We found a "chosen soul" or a soul that has been prepared.  He found a Book of Mormon 10 years ago. He started reciting the story of Nephi and the brother of Jared to us. It was way cool. He has a testimony of the Book of Mormon so it should be easy to teach him. He came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. He even said that the Book of Mormon has helped him in his most dificult times in his life. Wow talk about Escogido. 
 
 
We also had a baptism this week. A little girl named H. She was super excited and has a lot of support from her friends. Her mom gives a little support but is an inactive member and doesn't want her daughter to follow her example, so she was a little hesitant on having her daughter baptized.

We told her that she (the mom) needs to be a good example for both her children and that the church is the perfect place to learn how to be a good example. It was hard for her because she is separated from her husband and is raising 2 kids on her own. I hope H. can be an example to her mother because sometimes I think her mother needs an example more than her daughter. 
Today we had a zone activity and later went out to eat. One Elder, the zone leader, Elder B, took on their challenge. He had to eat a 7 layer hamburger with bacon and cheese, all in 20 minutes or less.
If he did it, his meal would be free along with 3 other people. He was close but came up short. 
 
                                     Also they had a milkshake called the Big Bertha. 3 liters!!!
No i didn't order it only for me but to share with everyone. Oh how I miss milkshakes and quality Ice cream!!
I hope everyone has a great week and may the Lord bless you with success in all you do. Love you all.
 

 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Reyes Magos....the Celebration of the Wisemen

So this week was very wierd. It started tuesday when I ate so much food that I threw up. The Hermana Brought out this huge dessert and, well having the Freeman blood running through me, I couldn't not eat it. Needless to say I enjoyed it the first time but the second time I wasn't to thrilled.
This week we celebrated Reyes Magos. It's where we celebrate the arrival of the wise men when they visited Jesus.

 If you remember, we celebrated it with Jay and Linda a couple of years ago. It was when we had that pie and who ever found the almond was "the King" or the winner. Well here if you find the "muñeco" you lose. Muñeco is a small plastic doll. About the size of my pinky toe. Luckily I didn't find it this year so I didn't have to make 100 tomales. It was fun and we celebrated it with the ward. 



This week I also had a couple of cool experiences. I don't know if you remember but last week I told you about a blessing we gave. Well she died a week later and well, I felt very sad yes, but to be honest it was an opportunity to teach the plan of salvation.  I felt a little of how, I think it was Arron, felt when he saw the suffering of the laminates. He rejoiced because they were ready to hear the message he had to share. 
We have a couple investigators who are challenging. One only wants to be taught out of the Bible because he is a firm believer that NOTHING should be added to the Bible. But with my studying of this subject, I came to the knowledge that the word Bible actually means "collection of books" and not one book. Also many books were added or taken out of the Bible in the 300-600 AD. He also pretty much has the Bible memorized. My companion wanted to share a scripture and he asked for the reference and he told him and then he quoted it back to my companion. 
Our other investigator is one of those "I need a sign to believe" people. She won't commit to come to church unless she has a desire or wants to as it should be but she has a hard time believing in latter day prophets. She believes that the Bible is all we need and we don't need modern revelation. Really these two investigators are going to need the right kind of teaching combined with the confirmation of the Holy Ghost. We can do it. I´m hoping for a baptismal date soon. 
The new year brought new goals. We have an investigator who needs to quite drinking coffee so to help her with this goal I decided to quite drinking pop. It's going to be dificult because everyone buys pop for us to drink with our meals. So far I'm 100% on this goal and haven't drank pop all week. Speaking of Goals, I would like to remind everyone of their commitments and wish everyone the best of luck on completeing these goals. Love you all and hope you have a great week. 


Elder Dial
These guys just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year!


Saturday, January 4, 2014

Happy New Year 2014

First off, Happy 9th anniversary to Aubry and Jeff! Felicidades!!! Also Happy Birthday to Zach, Robert, and Channing!!
Ok it was great to skype with you all! Everyone looks great! Carson, I couldn't tell if it was the camera or not but i think it took off a couple pounds. So anyways, about my week. I had a couple of pretty cool experiences this past week. First off, my companion and I bought a cake and dinner to share with a recent convert who really doesn't have much. His house is about the size of my room and Whitney´s room combined. He is seperated from his wife and has 25 "kids". Really he only has 3 but he has 22 more or less, cats and dogs. These cats and dogs he calls his kids. So if that gives you any idea.  So that was really cool.
The other really cool experience we had happened while we were tracting. We tracted this house full of Catholics. Well they didn't really want anything from us, but their mom was very sick and they recognized us as representatives of Christ and asked us if we could give their mother a blessing. Their mom was about 85-95. It is amazing how people not of our faith recognize us as having the power of God and if anyone can do anything or help in anyway, we can. It was a very powerful experience.
We also took a little 11 year old boy with us one day. We pretty much babysat him which I wasn't to thrilled about because thats not our responsibility. When we left I fireman carried him pretty much to our appointment. It was about 5 PM. After we had to restrain him bby holding on to his wrists. After about 7, when we bought him some candy, we no longer had to hold his wrists but we held his hands instead. It wasn´t until about 8 when we finally had enough trust in him to let him "off leash". That day was a good day. He didn't really interfere with anything. While we were teaching he just sat there, so that was good. 
My plans for New Years are to work, work, and more work. We were invited to a members house (Hermana Lili) and celebrate with them but we still have to be in the house by 9, 9:30 at the latest. 
The week before we had our ward Christmas party. It wasn't as good as the ones I'm used to but it was pretty good. We missionaries sang so that was fun. The next day we had a Stake Christmas party. We had a Mexican Santa there to take pictures with and had games going and again all the missionaries sang. We sang Oh Holy Night. (See pictures in the previous post) Other than that the week has been pretty normal. We had a baptism set up for this past sunday but she, a 20 year old, couldn't get permission from her mother so it didn't happen. I hope all have a wonderfull new year and I hope one of your new goals for the year 2014 is to read the Book of Mormon. I finished it on thursday and I'm going to start D&C now. I hope to finish D&C by the end of February. I love the Book of Mormon! Every time I read it, my testimony grows. I also find new scriptures to highlight and to apply, no matter how many times I've read it before. Hope you all have a great week! Love you all and talk to you next week.


Elder Dial

Pictures are worth a thousand words

Christmas Parties
Gifts from Home
New Companion

Christmas Morning 2013

Back to work
Dec.26th
6 month burning of the tie

Studying is always better with a 2lb York Peppermint Patty

I lost a month somewhere.....MOM

(Sorry friends and family the month of December just got away from me. I will give you a quick update from  Dec. I was going to try and catch up but that is to big of a task. I will just highlight each weeks letter:)

 DEC. 2, 2013  
This past week has been pretty great. My companion are continuing to have a lot of success. We haven't, and won't have a baptism this transfer, but the next transfer, who ever is here will have 4 and hopefully more. We are really excited and a little sad, well I am. I'm sad that I'll probably be leaving but excited to have success in a new area. 
So this past Saturday, we went to help a member move some things out of her house. As we were standing outside her little tienda (store), a family walked up to me and wanted me to take a picture with there son, who was about 9 or 10 I think. They said that I, or "greengoes" in general, are famous here in Mexico. They were from another city in our area, so we have plans to go there this Wednesday. It will be difficult because they speak chinantecho. It is a different dialect of Spanish. They speak Spanish there also, but the majority of them speak this other dialect. I heard them speaking it while waiting outside the tienda and well, I just recently am able to understand about 90-95% of Spanish and about 75% on the speaking, and now I'm going to an area where even my companion wont understand.

DEC. 9,2013
I know you are all wondering the same thing. Yes I am being transfered after being here in Tres (3) Valles (Vallies) for 4.5 months. My new area is Buena Vista, Villarica. I'm going to the port! I'm excited and a little sad to be leaving my first area. My new companion is going to be Elder Ramos. I don't know him so I can't really tell you anything about him.
So I forgot to mention about a lesson we had in last weeks letter. Last week we were teaching a girl (13yrs) about the Gospel of Christ. We got to the part of repentance and the girl started crying. She has been weighed down with so much sin and grief that when we started talking abut the ability we have to be cleansed from our sins, she started crying. She gladly accepted a baptismal date. It was a very powerful lesson.
This past friday was the best friday I've had in a long time. We went to the Temple!!! Oh my!!! It was beautiful!!! The spirit was so strong and I have never felt more closer to home. I kept expecting to walk out and see Cole road and I84. I love the Temple so much! I wish we as missionaries could go more than once a year. I encourage you ll to attend the Temple as often as you can. Make it a goal to go once or twice a week. In a world that is so different and dangerous, we can not afford to live without the blessings of the Temple. I promise you, your lives will be filled with the love of Christ and the Lord will bless you abundantly. Go! Just do it!!

Do you believe in Miracles? I do!! If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he performed miracles in the past, why would he stop performing miracles? as it says in the scriptures, God would cease to be God if this happened. Well I testify to you this day that God is a God of miracles! We had a baptism!!! After 5 nd a half weeks of nothing we had a baptism! The rule is an investigator has to attend church 5 weeks before s/he can be baptised. Well we have 2 investigators with 4 weeks and next sunday would be there 5th. Well one of these investigators  progressed really rapidly and we asked the President for special permission and he granted our request.

DEC.16, 2013

My new area ia a lot smaller. We walk are entire area almost daily. The ward is a lot bigger, which i like. My Companion is super cool and we get a long great! The Zone is a lot bigger also! we have 3 or 4 districts in the zone and each district has 3 companionships or more. 
Thats about it. Love you and I'll write more next week.

DEC.23, 2013
FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!! Me encanta esta tiempo. Navidad es un día especial. Es cuando recordamos el nacimiento de nuestro Salvador, Jesucristo.  While i may not be home in Boise and while i may be dreaming of snow and colder weather, the spirit of Christmas can be felt all around the world. Have you noticed how everyone seems to be a little happier this time of year? Even with all the stress of gifts and everything else, people always seem to be happier. Why is that? Spending money on toys that will be played with once and then break or never be used again, how is that fun? While as the saying goes, "Its the thought that counts." lets go a little deeper. The scriptures say when we are serving others, we serve God.  Service can be found when giving a gift out of love and not because you "have to." May we remember to always give with a heart full of love. 
So my new companion is pretty awesome!! He is from Mexico and we get a long great. He is the second chld of 4 and the only male. He plas the drums and likes music just as much as i do. Our area is pretty small but there are a lot of members (60-75). Yes that is a lot here. It's still hot here! I wish we had some snow, but it is close enough to the sea that we get a nice north wind to keep us cool. Its a strong wind too! The member here are very "chido" (cool). I am once again playing th piano in sacrament meeting. I don't mind it but  would like time to practice so my companion and I decided that 2 times a week I could practice for 30-60 minutes. 
Again have a very Merry Christmas!! Love you all!