1/27/14

A picture is worth a thousand words?

We'll have to wait until next week to hear about this baptism, I guess. I'm guessing it's Esmerelda and Jesus. I received this picture, twice, two hours apart, but no letter today. I'll have to be satisfied with the fact that it looks like he's happy, healthy and having success. And it's an actual picture -I can barely remember the last time he sent one. :)

1/20/14

Neither Andrés or Alejandra got baptized last week. We´re going to see if they will this Saturday. But on Wednesday we have 1 or possibly 2 baptisms. One of a girl named Esmeralda and her cousin Jesus. They´re super excited and I think they will go through with it. We are also teaching Jesus´s mom and she is getting baptized on the 31 and possibly the mom’s cousin also. We´re working super hard and I think we´re going to see a bunch of success! The area is awesome and the ward is supportive.

My companion goes home in 2 weeks but he´s still working super hard! He´s taught me so much. I have never had a companion that really knew what he was doing like he does. So it’s fun to be able to learn from him!

This week we met a lady named Paulina. She was in the house of Eunice but she looked like she didn’t want ANYTHING and left the house like 2 minutes after we got there. 2 days later on Friday night we were walking in the street and a car stopped and a lady jumped out and started talking to us. And it was her. We started talking and she asked if we wanted to eat breakfast in her house the next day. Of course we said yes. We told her we would stop by at 10. When we got to her house the next day she was all ready and super excited. So we taught her. She has lost 2 babies. One in birth and one was still born. She had a lot of questions but it was a cool lesson. After she was going to Eunice’s which is who we had planned for 11. So she gave us a ride and we had another cool lesson with her and Eunice and they both accepted to come to a baptism that the assistants had in the afternoon. They Loved the baptism and Paulina accepted to come to church, which she also loved. We havent had any opportunity to put a baptismal date with here but we think she might get baptized with Eunice. It was super cool because Eunice was too scared to go to church alone, but Paulina is one of the people that really doesn’t get nervous about anything. So she went and picked Eunice up and took her to church. It was awesome because now they have the support of the ward and a friend that’s in the same place they are.

Love you guys! Have a good week!

Elder Lund

1/13/14

Mexico is awesome. Its starting to get hot again. It was like 90 something degrees this week and it feels amazing. I'm starting to hate the "Cold". Its not the funnest to get out of the shower and not be able to dry yourself off because once you dry the water off you’re drenched in sweat but its better than being freezing! haha. 

We could potentially have 2 baptisms this week, and I have faith that we will have them so we will have 2 baptisms this week. One of Andrés. He was super excited to get baptized but never could because of his parents, but they finally going to let him but he stopped reading and praying at some point during the 5 months that his parents wouldn’t let him get baptized and he started to get the Idea that if you’re just a good person you´ll go to the celestial kingdom and it doesn’t matter the religion. So we explained a little about how that’s a huge trick that the devil pulls to trick the people so they fell short of living with God again. But we told him not to just trust us and to ask God. So we´re going to his house to see his answer which will be a yes and he will be able to get baptized on Saturday along with another lady, who is going to have to find a way to get her husband to let her do it. But I feel like she has the faith so I think we should have 2 this week.

Yesterday my compa and I had a cool experience. On Saturday in the night we ended our planning sesh and I was praying to close it and  was saying the names of the people we wanted to see in church on Sunday and my mind went blank for a second and then  kept saying other names. After the prayer my companion asked me who Juan Carlos was, and I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me I had said his name, I assume when my mind went blank. Then he remembered an old investigator , that I had never met or really ever heard about, that never could go to church because he works in the mine and he always leaves at like 1 but since it was stake conference it started at 10 so he would be able to go. So we called his member friend to invite him and he came.

On Saturday in the morning we went with an investigator named Eunice, we knocked on her door and she sent us a text that said she couldn’t attend us because she was sick but that we could come back later. So we went with another investigator named Yanaqui, we hadn’t had a lesson with her in like 3 weeks because she went to Guadalajara. But we had an AWESOME lesson with her and after like 30 minutes told us she had to go to an appointment at the hospital with her daughter. So we ended the lesson and went back with Eunice and she was ready. If we had been able to teach Eunice at 10 we would have gone to Yanaquis house at 11 and she wouldn’t have been there and we couldn’t have helped her with all her doubts and she wouldn’t have come to church.

Love you guys so much!

Elder Lund

1/6/14

This week was pretty good. I got super sick for a couple days with a super super high fever but I’m doing alright now! We worked super hard this week but didn’t have a ton of success. One of our investigators Andrès who was super excited to get baptized for the last 4 months but his parents wouldn’t let him finally got permission. But when he got permission he randomly got super unexcited and now says he doesn’t know if the church is true. So we got some work to do with him! We have a bunch of people and I think they have almost all gotten back from vacations so I think we`ll be able to find some more success this week!

People in America have no idea how to party compared to the Mexicans. They all go outside and shoot crazy fireworks that are basically bombs, shoot machine guns and pistols in the air and the next day when we we’re working there were people that hadn’t slept and were still drunk and partying and dancing until like 4 in the afternoon! People here go hard! 

I always knew that Josè Lemus would get baptized. He always had that feeling that he wanted something more. O and I don’t know why but this week I had a feeling that you guys need to baptize our neighbors.  Invite them to a steak barbecue or something and invite the missionaries. That would be a missionary’s dream family home evening because that family would be super awesome!

Love you guys!

Elder Lund

12/30/13

Buenas tardes! this week was super good. Nobody was home so we had to search for new people, and we found them. It was awesome. We had 7 investigators in the church and we’re going to baptize one or maybe 2 this week. We’re super excited about that! This week 196 people went to church. That’s crazy for a ward down here. Castillo was a huge ward and 120 went and in Angostura only 30. So here is literally paradise for missionaries! We have some 20 or 30 investigators progressing which is like 10 more than I’ve ever had before. So we have a lot of faith that they will get baptized. We have a lot of work to do which is also something I’ve never had on my mission. I’ve never had more than like 3 planned lessons in a week  but now we have like 5 every day.

To be honest this ward has so much money they hardly give us tortillas. Right as I told you I hadn’t had a day in 10 months without a tortilla I now get almost none. The food just doesn’t fill you up with out tortillas bien calientitas. 

The missionaries in our zone are awesome. We got blessed with the best zone in the mission. Right now things are looking pretty good.

Love you guys!

Elder Lund

12/24/13

No email this week, just a great Skype conversation on Christmas Eve.  He looks and sounds very happy and healthy.

12/16/13

I got transferred to an area called Bella Vista. Its the richest part of Obregon and its the most baptizing area in the mission because the ward works so hard. I also got put as zone leader and my companion, Elder Larson, is in his last transfer and is working super super hard. Our house is gigantic too. Its 2 floors and we live there with the assistants. It’s for real the nicest place ever.

Last night I went with everybody and said goodbye to them all which was pretty hard. The bishop’s daughters made me a cake for my birthday because I’m not going to be there on the 27th and another family also made me a cake. We went with the family Pelaez, and the hermano gave me a bible that his dad gave him when he was a kid and he took with him everywhere always. They are battling with money like crazy and they felt bad that they couldn’t buy me a big expensive gift so they only gave me the little bible. But that was honestly the coolest gift I could have ever gotten. Then after we went with an hermana that was less active but has started going to church, but her son has been super rebellious lately but when we started talking to him he started to clean up and now says he wants to go on a mission. She almost started crying when she told me how much we had helped her son. Then after her son gave us a ride to the house of other missionaries and gave me an ice cream to say thanks for everything. That was super cool to hear all that because there were a bunch of days that I felt like we weren’t having anything of success but I realized that if we’re working hard God doesn’t let our efforts go to waste.

Love Elder Lund

O I forgot to tell you! I was walking with my companion and a priest from the ward and we randomly decided to change the road we were walking on. And right like 30 seconds after we changed roads we heard somebody shoot a gun and a bunch of people screaming. Right where we were at somebody killed somebody, and if we would have been there watching he probably would have killed us too. Thats awesome huh!