Week 43 (Nopal)

Hey, this week was really good. The family of seven we have are really progressing. If they were married they would be getting baptized next week. The wife who before didn’t want anything to do with us said she actually liked church.

Although it visually pained her to say it.  She loves how we focus a lot on the youth of the church and how it can help her children. Then on Tuesday we brought a family of similar age to the house and it was so great. They got along so well even the kids were best friends after. The two families started making plans to go out together sometime to go to a park or to a pool and it was great.. until the next day. 

The member that we brought was just barely reactivated and Satan is working really because of him and because he’s helping a family of 7. So Wednesday night at 12 the police went to his house and took him away with a false accusation. I can’t say more because there are rules about how I can’t talk about the details but all I can say is that the family is in a pickle with this situation because of the situation in this country. But ni modo. 

The wife came to church all by herself this week which is really great and a huge miracle. We knew her husband, who motivates the whole family, was going to be going to the other side of the country to visit family and we thought she wasn’t going to want to come, so Saturday we brought a bunch of kids from the primary and the president of the primary and some young women to visit her and invite her to church, and it worked haha, she, solo, got 5 kids under the age of 11 ready to go to church when before she wasn’t even willing to listen to us . I can already picture them in their clothes for when they will get sealed.

Also remember how we got jumped in the cemetery 2 weeks ago, well last week we found the guy who jumped us knocking on doors, and we went in and shared a message with him haha and he was really cool. He’s a little bit slower and I think maybe he thought we didn’t recognize him, we were gonna keep teaching him, but yesterday the police we surrounding his house so, well see how that goes. Everything is going good though. Hopefully we get this family married. This week we have a multi mission with Elder Rasband too so that will be good.

 

Hope you guys have a good week.

Elder Blanchard

Week 42 (Nopal)

So this week was pretty good. First off remember when I told you about the people I was impressed to revisit and who went to church last week. Well this week he brought the family of 7 to the church 5 are of the age of baptism. This week he also went to the priesthood camp out as well. He is doing really well and he likes the church a lot. He gets along well with all the men in the ward and he asks us about baptism quite a bit. 

There’s only one problem.. and it’s the same problem as in the past. That’s right, the law of chastity. They need to get married first. And what a surprise, they wife is a bit hesitant to get married and wants to wait a little. So if you can pray to soften her heart that would be great. She is the crazy one who invited me and my old comp to church that one time.

But this week was great because we brought 6 investigators to church, the 5 of age of baptism from that family and another investigator who is the one of the "founders" of the church in this country. Which means about 45 years ago he and his brother assisted when the church started here, but they assisted for 5 years but never got baptized, and then the war started and after that they didn’t return. 

The one who came to church doesn’t want to get baptized, the other one is a little bit open to get baptized but wants to learn more and assist for a time before.

Also something funny that happened this week is we started visiting a family that got baptized a year ago but never went. Basically they only got baptized because the missionaries bought them stuff, and payed for the wedding and payed for moto taxis to bring them to church so they didn’t have to walk. Which is the reason they went inactive the week after their baptism, but that is another story. 

Well we were teaching them trying to help them come back to church but in this lesson we were teaching the wife, she is 67 years old and in the middle of the lesson she just randomly told us about a dream she had a couple years back. 

She said," I had a dream where I saw in the sky in the east something really beautiful, it was a white table with a white table cloth that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, there were on the table three flowers. Around the table were three people and  realized it was God the father, Jesus Christ and The Holy Ghost. Embroider in the table cloth were some words that said this, Come to me. I woke up and thought about the dream for a little bit, and I told my husband about it, and told him... Honey we need to buy this table"  And then she continued to tell us about over the years she has always thought about the dream and how she has always wanted to buy the table and have her husband make it for her. 

After the lesson we were dying of laughter and it just goes to show, that we can be so blinded when all we do is focus on the material things of the world.

Things are improving here hopefully us help the family get married. If they don’t get baptized with us though it will for sure be with other missionaries. I’m just grateful I wrote down the impression when I had it to go contact them. It goes to show that you can contact the same house a couple of times, but if you don’t contact it at the right time then that can change everything, Because I had contacted them two times  already and didn’t want to return because the wife was super into her old church. 

But when I got the impression and went again we found the husband, and now all seven of the family go to church. 

Always follow the impressions even if they are small, and write them down too so you don’t forget to follow them

Elder Blanchard

Week 41 (Nopal)

Mother's Day Week....no letter as we spoke on Skype.

Week 40 (Nopal)

Hey how’s it going?

This week was good. We received a really good reference and I think she will get baptized. Some guy brought his cousin to church and he was really cool. We had a lesson with him and he was really cool. He wants to get baptized, but since he is 14 and his family aren’t members he has to assist church 12 times. But that’s still cool. 

Um, we got a guy who told us who would go to church this coming week. We were starting the lesson with him and we asked him if we could start with a prayer, and he said " I better one of you guys say it so I can learn, cause this week I can’t go to church because I already have something I said I would do but I’ll come next week. 

Haha it was super funny but hopefully this guy progresses too. The work is still a bit slow but it will be improving these next couple weeks.

And also the really good news is it started to rain again, so winter has officially started. Now return home every day soaked even though we have umbrellas a ponchos haha. 

Also same story with the camera. I am going to see if someone can still recover the photos

Things are going good though.

Love and miss you guys. We will call on Sunday not sure what time. But my time is up so I will tell a member to talk to you on Facebook. 

Elder Blanchard

Week 39 (Nopal)

He guys I hope everything is going good. This is going to be a short email cause nothing much happened and I don’t have much time. Also I don’t have pictures because I am still trying to figure everything out. I can save them. Some member has a program. The only thing is it will take 12 hours. So for the moment I am looking to see if there is a cyber here that will do it for cheap. So for the moment I can’t take more pictures. 

Um we found a lot of new people who can progress. Right now the zone is still doing really bad. We only had 4 baptisms as a zone. last month we had 3. That’s not good. And we had changed today.

Basically no one in the zone had changes. Which I was kind of hoping for a new comp. Right now its super hard because the church is this country is really struggling. The members have become like the church in Alma chapter 4. So we are going to try to help the members repent because in this moment, for this ward, the used to have 150 plus is assistance and no only 90. 

All the recent converts are already inactive but one. The ward doesn’t visit them. Neither do they visit each other. And it is literally a stumbling block for the nonmembers. So many people we have met this week have talked about how they don’t want anything to do with our church because they know who the members are. It seems to be like this in most of the country.  It’s difficult to see, and is hard because the members play such a big role. So hopefully we can help them repent.

We do however have people that I feel like can progress. Hopefully things go good. Also we are planning to call on Sunday the 14th. Tell me a good time you want to talk so we can start planning things.

Also in other news. I had to go to Tacuba again. They had another person that I needed to interview for baptism. They had three this Friday. 3 of the 4 in the zone. So yeah.

I know it’s hard but it’s worth it. I am always grateful for the trials because I know that’s the way people grow. And the way we can reach perfection. It’s always so much easier to deal with hard things when you learn to thank god for the trials instead of asking why me. 

This last week someone told me that no one knows God or knows what he is like. I realized that that is completely false. In conference General Russel M. Nelson gave a challenge to study everything about Jesus in the topical guide. In doing this, I realized I know who he is. I have a relationship with me. I can tell you exactly what he is like. I know his characteristics. The father and the son are real. I could point them out to someone in a crowd of people. And in that moment it became a lot more real for me. Study the life of Jesus and learn about him. That’s how you will get to know him. 

I hope everything thing is going good at home.

Love Elder Blanchard