Week 25 - Delano

This week was pretty cool. I'll start with my investigators here. One is named Mario Tinajero, and he is a gambler. This week he spent the whole time in the casino, and he now has only 2 dollars left in the bank. We also have an investigator who is really loving the Gospel. We had 5 people at church this week, more than I've ever had.

My companion, Elder Canul is awesome. His first language was Mayan (he is from Peto, Yucatan, Mexico), and then he learned Spanish in School, and then he came up here and is learning English.

We are also teaching an awesome group of siblings who are liking what we teach. They are 10, 11, and 15. The 15 year old has a child, and we went to relief society, and I don't know if she liked it. Pray for her.

We were going to an investigator this week who did not answer, so we decided to knock around for a bit. The first door we knocked on was a part member family! It was really cool. A 17 year old girl answered, and we passed over the plan of salvacion. She loved it and wants to share it with her friends.

We also have an investigator whose mom died just 2 weeks ago. We taught the Plan of Salvacion and he loved it.

Elder West, my comp from the MTC is in our district, and he's serving in McFarland. We go there every Thursday because a member owns a pizza parlor. It is super cool.

The Lord has provided miracles. I love you all, and I promise that the Lord is with us. Please pray for us, and for our investigators. Thank you all.

Week 24 - East Lancaster

 

This was an awesome week. We do keep our apartment tidy, and at district meetings we go over our goals, have edumacation, and have practice lessons with investigators we have. We see president every transfer, and zone conference, and interview. Maybe once a month. In our apartment we have some ghetto neighbors who have a lot of weekend parties and smoke weed every night. We drive a chevy cruze.

It sounds like everything at home is going awesome!

We have an investigator who was going to come to church, but has a sick two year old. Mario, one of our investigators, is doing fantastic! We taught tithing, and he was like "well, I'm already paying tithing." He is awesome. He also was not drinking coffee or tea before we found him. We have some awesome investigators, and some shaky ones.

Also, I am getting transferred this week. I am going to Delano, and my companion will be a hispanic who is learning English here.  He's been out about a year. It's pretty exciting. I am excited to see what will happen. I will still be in a Spanish speaking area and a Spanish missionary though.

By the way, the wierdest food I have eaten is menudo (cow tongue).

I love you guys, and thank you for everything you guys do for me. I can feel your prayers. I have learned a lot about trust in the Lord, and I am applying it more and more. It was a pretty great transfer overall.

Week 23 - East Lancaster

 

This week was pretty good! It's been raining all week. It is getting warmer now, but it switches from hot to cold. When we transfer, I do take the sheets and blankets. The companionship is doing pretty awesome. We are learning to have unity in lessons, and we are good friends! My companion has been out for 14 months, and he's been a convert from the time he was 18. We have district meetings every Friday morning. Something happy that happened this week is that we were going to a less active at night and Elder Chavez said "Let's go to the Gonzalez family. We went by and their brother in law who is not a member was there. We were able to have the first lesson with him and he said he believed it was all true. Something sad is that America slept through her alarms on Sunday and didn't make it to church, and told us she wanted to go to her family's church. We'll work with her and her family. My favorite Spanish phrase is "De lo hecho, pecho". It literally means "Chest out to what's been done" or No use crying over spilled milk. On P-days we usually have nerf wars. Nerf is big in this mission. We have an indian reservation museum in our area that is cool. We haven't been, but we're planning on going at the end of the month. We use a member's laundromat.

   This week during transfers, we played Munchins at night (Elder Madore has it)! I won the second round, but lost the first. On my mission, I have give 13-14 blessings, and about half of them in Español! In 5 months 14 blessings. Also, sacrament meeting here is awesome! They didn't have anyone to play the piano, so they had an iphone play and it was so bad but funny. Sacrament meeting always starts at least 10 minutes late, and when we sing, no one can sing at all. It's super funny. There's always someone completely off and out of place. It's tons of fun. 

   The Lord has been in my hands this week. He has been there guiding me and showing me what needs to be done. He has been opening my mind and understanding more and more, because I really need it! I love it, but patience is required.

Week 22 - East Lancaster

 

Hey everyone. This week has been really good. On Monday we had an FHE with the Gonzalez family, and Jon, their non-member brother, came too. We're trying to contact him. It was a lot of fun. They are a super sweet family. On Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Powell, and we had a lot of plans go throught, but the Lord blessed us to find effective things and people to find. On Wednesday we went by Jossylin and shared a scripture. We left, and she was kind of sad that we were leaving.  On Thursday we went to a less active named Hermano Vazquez and he has a lot of pain all of the time. It's been like that for the past three years. He wears longsleeves and pants and a cap and thick socks. Also, Fun random event from that day is the following: We were going up to this house to knock to see if anyone was interested, and there was a gate all around it. Elder Chavez took out a pen and started tapping the gate to see if any dogs were there, and none came, so we opened the gate and started heading to the door. Elder Chavez said "there might be a dog here." I was thinking, "There is no dog here. I'm not worried." In that moment, without a bark or any noise, this large dog started rounding the corner of the side of the house at us. Elder Chavez fled and closed the gate behind him! I turned and faced the dog and knelt down with my arms open, and he just fell into my arms like a sweet puppy! It was awesome:) On Friday we taught Mario the Plan of Salvation, and we are worried that he's so old he probably won't get a lot of what we say. We take things slow with him. He gave me an awesome Key chain from Argentina, though! We went to Marcos Pacheco on Saturday and it went well. We haven't been able to contact him since before I arrived, and I think it was good. Yesterday we went by Maria Enela, an investigator with tons of problems in her life. We're planning on teaching her for FHE today. It'll go well, I hope. That was my week, but first, I want to bear my testimony of the Truth and the Light that is in this Work. It is there, and it reaches into the hearts of everyone, and it is all whether they are ready or not. If they're not ready, that's okay, they might be some day. If they are, change will pour out in their lives and bring life and hope and success. I testify that Christ brings change, and He illuminates the new life to make it clean. 

Week 21 - East Lancaster

 

Hello, everyone. This past week was pretty awesome. On Monday we had a Family Home Evening with the Gonzalez family. They are an awesome family! We had a lot of fun there, and the next day we talked to Eric, an investigator who said he didn't get the same feeling from the book of Mormon as he did from the bible, We talked to him about the sower of seed, and how the Lord didn't want to make a big blast that this was true because it would be like casting the seed at the rocks, where people get excited to receive the word, but it can't take root on the rock. The Lord was waiting for fertile ground to do it and carefully put in those roots. He loved that analogy, and he decided to read. On Wednesday we gave a blessing to a less active woman named America, and that is the 9th blessing I've given on my mission, and it was pretty cool. On Wednesday we also got a referral from the English elders of an amazing family who feel like we are an answer to their prayers. We came to them, and they were on their way to the hospital because their daughter had pneumonia. They looked at us and said, "We have 5 minutes"! O Friday we talked to this kid named Angel who didn't want to get baptized at 8. He cried because he was scared. We didn't get throught to him, but then the Branch President talked to him and got through. On Saturday we had to plan for the week, because it was New Years Eve and we couldn't go out. On Sunday we had lunch at branch president's. It was really good. The work is going well, but I can feel it dying a little, so we're trying to keep it going. Also, I gave my tenth blessing last night to a really less active we found smoking in his yard. He has cancer, and we were able to find him. It was really cool. For breakfast, I have a pear and chocolate milk and honey bunches of oats, and for lunch I have nutella and bread. Dinner always depends, but we almost always have dinners with members. We had a chilean dinner one night, and the family was so much fun. We had a sort of spaghetti with hispanic things in it. It was super good. My week was blessed, because often this week, we would have plan a and b, and they'd usually fall through. But, the Lord always had a pretty good plan c. It was a good week overall. I love you guys, and thanks for all the support. 

​Also, I was reading 3 Nephi today, and I read 3 Nephi 17:20 when Jesus says "My joy is full." I read that and I started wondering how I can make the Savior's joy full on the mission and in daily life. I'm going to apply that and study it.

--

Elder Daniel Jacob Sant

"Go and Do"

 Joshua trees.

 I'll verify the truth of this statement.

 I drew this picture of Jeaux and the Savior.