Yielding Their Hearts...

Hello Hello! This week has been crazy awesome!!! We’ve been staying super busy and boy its been hotter than hot this week. its been like mid 90’s but with the humidity it feels like 105. Its pretty rough haha.

To start off the week we got to hear from Elder Allioud in person with the whole mission in one chapel! It was awesome!! He has also given a talk in General Conference which you should all go listen to it’s awesome! I also got to hear from him 3 times this week. Once over zoom, once at zone conference, and once at stake conference (Once in spanish, twice in english)! He is hilarious! Full of a lot of jokes and has much wisdom! My favorite part about hearing from him was at zone conference with the whole mission.  The spirit was so strong and I got to see all my friends! We also sang the efy medley and man it had me in tears(I’m a cry baby hahah)… but it’s ok because I saw Pres and Elder Allioud crying as well. After the conference they said that they agreed “there isn’t a finer group of young men and women in the world then the Texas Houston East Mission.” The spirit was so strong this week I absolutely have loved every second of it and won’t ever forget this experience! In that session he said “Turn your doubts into questions and wait in faith.” And I mean that’s pretty simple but I loved it!  It reminded me of what Elder Uchtdorf once said “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”. Then at stake conference he said “we need to learn the language of the Gospel, it’s not english, it’s not spanish, it’s the Holy Ghost.”  I definitely need to be better listening to the Spirit.  I was reading in Helaman this week and I loved this verse that says “Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.” Recently I have been trying to do what that last part says about yielding my heart to God. Giving God my all.  And I’ve just realized that’s all he asks for! crazy huh? He asks for our best, and to strive to become more like the Savior! I can testify that trials are hard! But I love my trials, because I get to look back at them and say wow I really did learn something super important from that or somehow I can see God’s hand in it all.  So I want to invite you all to yield your hearts to God, give him everything you’ve got! I promise you will feel closer to your Heavenly Father more than ever before! 

This week has been kinda slow with the finding and teaching but we’ve been doing our best.  Darwin had his baptismal interview but had to cancel it because he was in the hospital but he is doing good now and will have the interview later this week so please pray for him and that the interview will go good!  We haven’t had any contact with the Martinez family they’ve been super busy but hopefully we can get a lesson set up.  We had a super cool little miracle happen this week!! We were driving around and saw a Goat tied up in someone’s yard and I was like yo we should take a pic with that Goat and then kinda didn’t do anything about it and kept driving then one of the elders was like go back let’s do it! So I turned around and we went back and asked the Person if we could take a picture with their goat and they said sure! Then we got out of the car and went over and started talking to them, and they didn’t speak hardly any english. They spoke spanish! We got talking for a while and set up a time to stop by and share a message tomorrow! Just by asking to take a pic with a goat! #goated. That’s about how my week was! We played soccer and boy with the heat I’ve never sweated that much in my entire life hahaha. But just gotta love texas!

Love you all hope you had a great week! As always shoot me an email I’d love to hear from you guys!

With Swiftness...

Hello everyone! As always I hope your week was great! Time is just flying by! This week was a lot of fun and again it rained like everyday this week! #hurricaneseason

To start off the week we have been meeting with Darwin still and he’s so willing to change and give up some things to change his life.  The first thing he asked us when we got to his apartment was basically how he can strengthen his faith. So we based our lesson off of that! We showed him the great adventure video ( which is awesome!) and read some scriptures with him. It was an awesome lesson, the spirit was very strong and he’s still progressing like crazy! The Martinez family have been super busy this week so hopefully we can get in this upcoming week and talk with them again! Since we are allowed to street contact now we have been taking those opportunities like crazy. We saw a couple sitting outside so we decided to pull over and go talk to them.  It turns out they were Jehovah's witnesses and kinda tried bashing us so… we decided to bash them… jkjk we tried explaining what we believe in a very nice way but it was kind of difficult but it was a good lesson for us not bashing. They are preachers too but told us we can come back anytime! We will see what happens.

This week was pretty sweet! We got to go play soccer and some people showed up and we just had a fun little pick up game.  We dedicated an apartment which was pretty cool! Then yesterday the hermanas got a flat tire at a gas station. So they called us and I can now say that knowing how to change a tire is very important because I was the only one who knew hahaha. So I can thank my old man papa russ and my gramps for teaching me that! Then we had a singing practice right after and after that we went out to the car and the tire we just changed had ANOTHER nail in it! hahhah it was pretty funny. 

Recently I’ve been really looking for opportunities to serve others! Let me tell you it's hard! No one wants my help I guess… We would be walking down the street and there would be this old couple outside trimming their bushes and they would just look at us and tell us to leave… Many experiences like that this week but it’s whatever I’ll just keep trying! I was recently reading in Alma 17 and I love this verse when Ammon is protecting the sheep from the lamanites.  “And it came to pass that they went in search of the flocks, and they did follow Ammon, and they rushed forth with much swiftness and did head the flocks of the king, and did gather them together again to the place of water.” I love this because I think of us as Ammon and the sheep herders.  The lamanites represent satan and his followers coming to scatter the sheep and  we are the ones gathering the lost sheep. I loved the part that said “and they rushed forth with much swiftness” and I think that’s very important!  They listened to ammon and did it with "swiftness". For me this scripture helped me a lot this week and reminded me to always try my best and to listen and act on the promptings of the holy ghost, and strive to always do things to be in tune with the spirit!

Love you all have a great week!

Our Destination...

Hello Everyone and good morning to all!! Hope everyone had a great week and enjoyed your memorial day! I cannot believe it's already June!!! This week was a lot of fun! We got a lot done and had some fun while doing it! 

To start off we have been teaching some awesome people who are progressing a lot rn! To start off we taught the restoration to the martinez family and it was awesome! The spirit was so strong and definitely touched their hearts. They were all emotional at the end and it was awesome to see the spirit touch their hearts! Keep them in your prayers that they can keep progressing and accept our message!! We have been meeting with Darwin these last two weeks quite frequently and things are looking awesome! He has a lot of doubts and says things he needs to change in his life. We decided to bring Vidal to our next lesson! This is a recent convert who is like 25 who is an absolute legend!! He shared his experiences about some of the struggles he’s had and it helped Darwin SO much. We then extended a baptismal date for the 26th! It was definitely a blessing having him there. Then sunday he came to church and literally the talk couldn’t have been more perfect. The guy talked about him wanting to serve a mission and the struggle the decision was but talked about the blessings going and how the spirit was telling him that he needed to go but he still didn’t want to. Which was exactly how Darwin felt and we think gave him the extra confirmation that this is what he needs in his life!

Miracle for the week! Last night we went to knock some door in a trailer park and there was a guy sitting on the porch. We went up to him got to know him and shared a little message with him. He said he didn’t have a bible or anything with him because he lives in mexico so we gave him a new testament and then set up a time to stop by and then left to go knock a different door. We drove past him like 10-15 minutes later to him reading from it! It was awesome and hopefully we can keep meeting with him!

I was recently reading a talk that said "by choosing our path, we choose our destination" and I absolutely love that! Its simple but powerful. I'm SO grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission. I know that by serving a mission it will help me get to where I want to be. I truly have never been more happy in my life than I am rn. Its been hard but I've learned so much. I know the Lord is in the little details of our lives and we can return to live with him through the plan he has provided for us! Love you all, shoot me an email I'd love to hear from you guys!