Monday, February 4, 2013 -

Hola Mi Familia! Week one day of this short only 5 week change! Just 4 to go! So this week is the big day!!! On Friday I will complete 1 YEAR in the mission! WAHOOO!!!! It has gone by WAY fast! But you know what? I currently will be home in 1 day less than a year! Yup that is right, I will be coming home just a week shy of 2 years. Since this transfer is 5 week instead of six to match up with the MTC schedule to get a ton of missionaries, everyone currently in the mission will be going home 1 week earlier than scheduled. That is just okay too! But I was actually scheduled to arrive home on Mom's birthday next year! Haha! What a birthday present that would have been. Oh well, I will already be there to celebrate then! So crazy....ONE YEAR!!!!! It is crazy to think that David only has 6 months left...I'm sure his family is happy about that! My inbox was filled with news of mission calls! This is absolutely fantastic! My friend Casey just got her call to Minnesota, Kyle Bradley to Ghana, Jeanette to Peru, others have put in their calls and should be getting letters this week! That is so fantastic! The work of the Lord is really progressing! Another big news for Mexico! In Mexico City there is a church owned private high school call Benemerito. It is basically BYU in high school form. They have religion classes, prayers before every class, live in apartments, have devotionals, etc. It is really awesome and is a high school! Well, apparently after about almost 50 years, the church has decided to close the school and make it into an MTC! This will be the 2nd largest MTC in the world, second to Provo. Apparently they will have about 1,000 missionaries entering every month. There was a satellite conference for alumnus with Elder Holland and Elder Nelson who were at the school and made the announcement. A bunch of people who went to this school have been quite upset, including my comp. I can imagine their pain. I would DIE if they closed my BYU. But this is just another sign that the work of the Lord really is moving forward and there is more of a need for a bigger MTC in Mexico than for a high school. This week has been alright. It seemed like so many appointments that we put fell through this week and many times we were left not knowing what to do with our time. Even back up plans fell through. It really sucks when this happens. It is so much better when you have something to do every hour of the day. But we were able to put a few baptismal dates with people and find a few new investigators. There is a lady that has just moved here from Obregon and she is so impressed with the change that she has seen in the little girl’s mom, that she wants to listen to us. We taught her one lesson and she accepted a baptism date, along with her 9 year son. We had 3 investigators in church yesterday which was a miracle! This 8 AM time really hurts us! No one wants to go to church that early, but thankfully these investigators did! They are priceless for doing that. The other date that we have put is another lady. She came to church which made us really happy. The thing is, we just need to work on her husband. We also received a reference from in-actives that these two twin brothers who are apostolic wanted to know more about our church. So we found them and set up an appointment for yesterday. We went and began talking with them and they were really knowledgeable in the bible and have a lot of faith in Christ and God is really strong in their church, but we actually had a really great discussion. We discussed our similarities and taught them the Restoration. They didn't accept the Joseph Smith story, but we read them a scripture from the Book Of Mormon and they really liked it. So now our plan of action is to get them to read the Book Of Mormon, and if they do that and pray to know if it is true then we could have other investigators that could really progress and be really strong converts. This lesson was really good. Although they might had done more talking than us, we definitely could feel the spirit in the lesson and it was so much better than talk to Jehovah's Witnesses-no contention and the doctrine is actually quite the same! One last experience that I just have to share! We got out late of our weekly District leader meeting with the zone leaders and we were waiting for buses, but nothing was coming. My comp said that he thought they stopped at 9PM and that we would have to stay with the Zone leaders till the morning. Well, I said a pray in my mind that we would have the means to get home quick and safe, whether a cheap taxi would pass by or the right bus. Well, after a few minutes, a taxi passed by and I was going to signal it, but down the road I saw a few buses, so decided to wait to see. Well, thankfully one of those buses was the one we need. We got home and there weren't a lot of people on so we didn't make too many stops and were able to make a normally 45 minute bus ride into 15-20 minutes. This was really a small blessing and tender mercy from the Lord! God ALWAYS hears and answers prayers! Well, that is about all for this week. Hope I haven't left anything out. Hope you all are well and that you have a super duper week! HAPPY ONE YEAR TO ME!!!! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder (one day less than a year) Joyner!