Monday, October 14, 2013 - Fall is coming!

Hola Mi Familia! The weather has been really nice! It actually gets really quite cool in the morning and it isn´t as hot in the day. The nights and mornings are a perfect low 80s and the day is normally a fantastic low to mid 90s. You must understand that the high for us is like up to 115-120 F so this is feeling great! I really like the topic of your talk mom! I really LOVED that talk when Pres. Monson gave it! I have actually used that concept in my teaching often of ¨Seeing people how not as they are but as they could become¨. It has really helped me have more love towards my investigators and gives me the desire to help them progress. This week, wasn´t as eventful as we maybe would have liked. It consisted of a lot of walking around and knocking on doors of houses where people weren´t home. We are in major need for work. We are beginning to contact more people on the street which is kind of helping a little bit, but not too much. I completed 20 months this week! I´m not getting trunky, just marveling at the time! I cannot believe it one bit. I remember seeing older friends in the mission and thinking ¨Wow! They have 20 months! That is so crazy! They are almost gone!¨ But now it is happening to me! I can´t believe that there are only 4 months to go! I am excited for the time I have left, but begin to feel sentimental for the end is near. I am going to make the most out of these remaining 4 months that I have! This week we had a pretty interesting rejection. We were looking for an inactive sister and we found her, but she didn´t seem like she was any interested in returning to church. Her attitude made it seem like she got offended. We wanted to get in and share a message with her, but she kept telling us how she had her Book of Mormon for whenever she felt like studying and she knew were the church is for whenever she felt like going, but she said she doubted she would ever feel like going. It is sad to see cases like this. People don´t realized the importance of going to church in their lives and how it is not sufficient to only have the scriptures or have the means to study. We have to be actively living and attending church to keep us rejuvenated and to keep us on our feet. This week we had a Multi-Zone Conference. It was our zone and the Guaymas zone. It was actually a really nice conference! They fed us a little breakfast of ham sandwiches and then we began. My comp and I sang a special musical number of the Children´s Primary Song ¨Beautiful Savior¨. It turned out nice and we got a few complements. I always like how Sister Hernandez after almost every special number we do for meetings for conferences always comes up to us and thanks us for inviting the spirit into the meeting. That is what I love most about singing and music, being able to share my testimony and spirit through song! Music is one of the most amazing ways to feel the spirit. The conference was on how to recognize and teach with the spirit. We participated once again. One of the assistants had asked us to give a few minutes training on how we can recognize and follow spiritual promptings during the lessons. It went well and I could feel the spirit guiding us in our teaching. It was really a great conference and I learned a lot! I always love having conferences and meetings! I´m obsessed with meetings! We were able to put our skills that we learned and taught in the conference to the test. We have been teaching a less active member and have been trying to help him get his life in order and return to church. Saturday night we had a really nice lesson with him and we talked about the importance of keeping the commandments. I could feel the spirit guiding us in that lesson and it was really neat. As for our other investigators, although they are few, we haven´t been able to have steady visits with them. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not. I really hope that they can progress and get to church because we need some work here. Looking back at my agenda for this week I found a few quotes that I wrote down that I would like to share. The first doesn´t really have any meaning, but it sounded cool and got my imagination going! The person said ¨Every head is a world!¨Isn´t that interesting and kind of fun to think of. We all have our own worlds! This next one has a little bit more meaning and is kind of thoughtful. We were visiting a member of our ward who is blind and he lives alone. He was telling us of his struggles of being blind, but it is amazing how he always has a positive and good attitude about things. He hasn´t been a member for too much time and says that he has loved being in the church but the transition and experience of being a new convert has not been an easy one. Well when he was talking to us he told us something that I really liked. He said, ¨We must be patient, grateful, and courteous¨. His quote got me thinking. What if all of us were more like that. What if we all were more patient, grateful, and courteous? Can you imagine what a world would be like if we were all better at those 3 things. Change starts with us though. If we can be better and better at our flaws day by day, making little changes each day and just doing better than we did the day before, what a fantastic change we could make--not only in our lives, but in the lives of others! I invite you all to accompany me on my journey of change; of trying to be more patient, grateful, and courteous each and every day. Well, I hope my email wasn´t too short this week. I couldn´t think too much on the events of the week. I hope you all enjoy your week and live life to the fullest. Life is short so enjoy it and make the most out of it. I love and miss you all tons! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner