Words From Elder St. John - Birthday Edition

SO yesterday was my birthday and I'm now 20 years old, and as they say in my country "ya estoy rufles" so I'm old now. And i feel soo.. normal... guess that I'm still the same.  I was actually pretty disappointed when I didn't wake up with a beard and a deeper voice... so I guess I'm not very good at aging (I forgot how to spell that sorry).  But I guess that's okay so that you can all recognize me when I get home.. 

This week was a good one. I got to eat cake yesterday, and I got to speak in church also so that was fun too. And I also got transfers for my birthday, so after some of my best months here in Casas Grandes I will be moving to the big city of Ciudad Juarez in my new ward Haciendas.  I will be District Leader, and my companion is Elder Evans who I don't know but I have heard that he will be fun. So I am very excited, but it is sad, for this may be the last day I'm in Casas Grandes, a small town that I have learned to love. Well out of the 20 months of my mission I have served in Casas Grandes for 15 months.. So you could say that it's been good. I will miss very much all the great people that I've met, and I will miss smelling like dust all the time. But as all good things do, my time here had to come to an end, and the big city is calling me.

But if you want to know how my week was this week you can read my letter from last week, because I feel like I say the same things every weekk... We contacted, we taught and we had fun. But we did have a cool experience when we visited one of our investigators and she had told us that she was fasting that day. It really impressed me to see that she was truly acting with faith to recieve an answer. I hope that the next missionaries that come to Libertad will find out what happens to her so that I will know, but it was still a good story. 

Well I think that's all for today.  I hope you all have a great week.  Thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday! Have a good day!

Love,

Elder St John

Not Abandoned in Cases Grandes

SO this week our beloved President Derbez came to visit us here in Casas Grandes. It was great.  He told us all we are doing wrong, and he also told us how to fix it. So things will be better. We had interviews as well, those also went well. It was a good time. 

Also this week we kept on working with all the future missionaries. And that also went super well. The young men showed us some less actives' houses and some old investigators. It  went really well, and one of them will get his mission call this week! But this week was a pretty good and average week, nothing tooo exciting to tell.. But I will talk to you next week! 

Love my fans. 

Love,

Elder St John

I Went to Juarez -- And Survived!

So we went to Juarez this week and the trip went flawlessly. We got there safely and we went to the meeting which was very good. The president called the entire mission to repentance witch was fun.. But the meeting was basically about how we need to keep better track of all the numbers of the zone and how we need to help the zone get more lessons, new investigators and baptisms.  So it should be pretty fun in the zone meeting today. 

But this week other than go to Juarez, I also was able to take an entire inactive family of 5 to church last week which was very cool, and we also kept on contacting and contacting and stuff like that. But the week was very enjoyable.

It is starting to heat up over here, we got up to 90 degrees on Saturday, and that's very cool in comparison to what it usually is in summer of about 105-110 daily. But the work moves forward. 

Elder Camacho and I get along really well with the ward we are in right now, so it makes it fun to go to church and see all the friends we have made.  This week we have some lessons planned with some young men from the ward. I like doing visits with the young men, becasue its fun to prepare them for when they become missionaries. And I also think about Hayden for when is one as well.. 

Well I'm sorry for the short letter.  I hope you all enjoyed it. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder St John

General Conference

This was a very good week and the best part is that we got to watch General Conference! 

This week we worked hard as ever and we found some more cool people to teach! This week we started working with the young men from our ward and it worked super well! The youth in our ward are really cool, and we  will continue working with them.  There are about 3 people in our ward filling out their mission papers and it makes me think about how Hayden is doing the same thing. It makes me so proud of him and excited to think about him as a missionary. 

But umm. We just had a normal week, we didn't have any too cool experiences. But if we did I would tell you about them. We did put a baptismal date with an investigator which was pretty cool.  We just decided to knock on a door and we found a family of four. The mother is the only one who seems interested in the Church, but she likes it a lot. She went to Conference on Sunday and her baptismal date is the 23 of April. We are hoping she makes it.  I think she will. 

But that's about all for the week. I love you all and hope the best for you all this week!

Love,

Elder St John

Semana Santa

So this week was a little interesting. Because it's Easter, and here they don't just celebrate on Sunday, but the whole week. And they don't celebrate by remembering Jesus. They celebrate by drinking alcohol. So... we basically didn't have very much work this week. Most people were gone on vacations, or drunk... so we worked with what we had.

Knocking door by door is always fun, because you never know who will answer. But yesterday we knocked a door and a man answered and let us in.  He had tatoos and looked pretty buff, but he wasn't scary. We talked to him, and his wife came in the room also (at first I thought it was his sister, but after further investigation I found out they were married).  But we got to know the both of them and we showed them the video of #aleluya and they loved it.  The wife also told us that she and always wanted to be a Mormon. So we told here we could help her and we will be visiting them tomorrow! I'm excited.

Also last week we were walking down the street and a man stopped us and told us he wanted us to baptize his children, so we started teaching them and they seem like a cool family, but we wil see how things go further along the road. 

Also on Saturday we had a baptism, because a member lost his membership account and it's like he was never baptized.  So we did the favor of baptizing him under the direction of President. It was a good experience. It all worked out well. 

I hope you all are as excited for Conference as I am. It should be a good one! Plz watch it and take notes.  I learned that that helps me a ton. But enjoy the week, and enjoy the snow (cuz i heard it snowed over there).  That's all for this week! No pictures because I don't take very many, but I'll try harder for next week! Luv you all.

Love,

Elder St John

Week One in Liberated

So this was our first week in our new ward, and it went pretty well! We started off basically by contacting everyone that we could and that went pretty well. We put a TON of appointments for the weekend and a few for this week also, we got changed so that we could be in the area in the zone with the most baptisms, and this area has a lot of work. 

But while contacting we visited an investigator that the Elders before had contacted. The investigator wasn't there but her daughter, Marisol,  was and we started to contact her. We eventually showed her the video of the Easter initiative (watch it if you haven't) and she really liked it. We then invited her to church, gave her a pamphlet and left to go contact some more. And the coolest part is that she went to church!! It was good to get to a new ward and bring an investigator to church, and the funny part was that she was one of the few people that we knew while sitting in sacrament meeting. But she enjoyed church and we are excited to see her progress.

Contacting is one of my favorite things right now, because all we basically do is make friends. We learned that the best way to contact is first make a friend so that they open up to you, and once they open up and tell us their problems, we show them how the restored gospel can bless their lives. It's really, really fun. 

I really, really like my new ward, and I hope I finish my mission here because it's such an amazing ward! The area is really cool as well. But I hope you all had a good week! Happy Easter! That's next Sunday right?? l hope so. I love you all and.. yeah... bye.

Love,

Elder St John

Liberty

So this week was very good. The zone meeting on Monday went well, and on Tuesday we had a normal day of contacting and working hard. 

Wendesday Ivonne and her 2 kids got interviewed for their baptisms! And on Thursday we went to Ascención, a small town like an hour and 15 min. away from Casas Grandes by bus, to interview someone for their baptism. We stayed there the night and had a good time with the two Elders over there. And on Friday we got back to Alamedas! 

Spencer, Ivonne and children, Elder Camacho

Ivonne and her children

Saturday was a very good day because Ivonne and her 3 kids were baptized!! It was a great expeirence I got to baptize Ivonne, and my companion baptized her 2 kids. And on Sunday I confirmed Juan Pablo, her son. It was a very cool expierience because I have never given anyone the gift of the Holy Ghost! I was very happy to see this family progress and enter the baptismal waters.  

 Saturday we also had a meeting with the President here in Casas, and he talked to us about the new Easter initiative called #Aleluya. After that he took us home but on the way wanted to buy us tacos but we were fasting... :( so no tacos.. 

That's about it for the week.  Yesterday night we got the transfers for the zone and Elder Camacho and I are going to go to a different ward called Libertad.  It's still part of the stake and it's actually the area right next to ours... But its okay, because I'm excited to go over there! It will probalby be my last area! So i will have to make good friends with the members so they all give me dinners before I leave.

But now I'm done. I hope you all had a good week!

Love YOU. 

Love,

Elder St John