Monday, October 15, 2012 - "Oh How Praying Rests The Weary...Did You Think To Pray?"

Hola Mi Familia! Another week gone by and like all first weeks of transfers it seemed to go by forever! Although it wasn't transfers this week, just the fact of having a new comp made it go by quite slowly! Well, this week was just full of teaching the area and getting accustomed to one another. Elder Cruz is a pretty cool guy I guess. He is a work out fanatic though! Every spare moment he has he lifting his weights and doing his exercises. At first he wanted to get up at 5:30AM to go running and then when he realized how many hills and mountains Nacozari has, he decided that he gets enough cardio workout from climbing all day! Haha! I think I like having someone that has the same time in the mission as me. Like you said, dad, we are equals and so it is nice, and plus we both want to work and be obedient and so this should work out really well! This week was kind of a trial not having a whole ton of people to visit and not having a lot of people in our teaching pool and so we have been trying to come up with ways to find more people. The people we DO have seem to be progressing really well! Raul who I have talked about before accepted another baptismal date for the 21st of this month, but just yesterday he messed that goal up by not coming to church. We even stopped by for him and he said he was going to get in the shower and come, but never showed up. It was sad especially because we had such a fantastic and spiritual fast and testimony meeting. He seems to be so excited about changing his life around and getting baptized, but we just need him to understand the importance of church. We had a really "suave" lesson with him this week on the Word Of Wisdom. He is one who usually goes out drinking every weekend and likes a little beer here and there. We taught him about protecting our bodies and how our bodies are temples and all that good stuff and he understood really well and agreed to live the Word Of Wisdom. Now, let's just hope he stays strong and doesn't relapse...at least relapse too much, once may be expected. So that is what is up with him right now. He is living proof of someone I heard in this last conference. It may have been Pres. Monson, or someone else, but they said "Men CAN Change". It is so true and with the help of the Gospel and the Atonement, anything is possible! With good ole Hector and his family, they are progressing quite nicely! I don't remember what I have told you all about him, so a quick recap. He is a nephew of one of the Sister in the branch. He is 14 and has had problems with drugs and so his parents went to Hermana Maru in the DIF and said they wanted help. The Hermana put him in this program with the church where the family has to go to church every week and he has to go to seminary and we as missionaries are teaching the family the lessons. Well, we hear from the President's wife, who teaches seminary, that he is very participative and loves to give the prayers and loves seminary! I can tell this when we go to visit them. She also said that he is the first one there every morning. When we visit them, he tells us he is doing homework, but not for school, for church, for seminary. He is always excited to tell us what he is learning. I love seeing this enthusiasm he has for the Gospel. I have such a strong testimony of the Seminary Program and believe it is something inspired that really helps the youth! I know it helped me a ton! So we have been teaching them and they all want to get baptized so we will hopefully invite them soon. It would be Hector, his younger sister, and their cousin. The mom is getting more and more receptive and I believe she will get baptized too, but maybe later on. I don't remember if I mentioned that I had been looking for converts of Justin that he sent me to look for and I couldn't find them. Well, I went in search again and happen to find the Grandmother of one of these converts of Justin who is also a member, but is less active because she can't walk very well. I think she was happy that we found her. She was telling us how the members used to come and visit them, but it had been a while since them had come. We went by and picked up more of her grandkids that live with her that had been baptized and we took them to church with us yesterday. Unfortunately I didn't meet the convert of Justin because he is always working or going to school, but maybe one of these days... I had a really nice spiritual experience on Saturday that I want to share. It has to do with the power of prayer and the Holy Ghost. Saturday we had a conflict in our plans. We were invited to the birthday party of a less active and had planned to go. However, it was in the afternoon around 6PMish. We had forgotten it was fast Sunday this week and so when we were putting plans in for Saturday we realized this and Elder Cruz didn't want to go because of the fast and I felt we needed to go, but just not eat to keep this relationship we had with this less active. We didn't know what to do, so Elder Cruz said we needed to kneel down and ask the Lord. We both kneeled and I said the prayer asking for guidance on what we should do since we really wanted to fast. As I began telling Heavenly Father that we wanted to fast and that we didn't know what we should do, I IMMEDIATELY had a feeling of peace and joy and love come over me like I had never felt before in a prayer. I knew that is was Heavenly Father, and he was answering our prayer by way of the Spirit. There is a scripture in the bible that says that the fruits of the spirit are peace, love, and joy, etc., or something like that and that is definitely what I felt! Although this was just a little experience it greatly strengthened my testimony of prayer and that Heavenly Father hears and every single one of our prayers whether they be little things. Going along with prayer, this week I did something I had never done before. One night when I knelt down for my nightly prayers I said a prayer full of gratitude. It was sort of hard at first because we are so used to asking for things when praying. But when I was done just giving a prayer full of thanks, it felt so good and was so refreshing! The mission has really made me more grateful and made me notice the little things in life. Try it-a prayer of pure thanks! It will change your life! Well, I think that's about it for this week. Here's to another...(and it sounds like this will be quite the week for you all...good luck!)! I hope you all are well! Love and Miss you tons and let me know the results of this next weekend! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner!