Conversion

What an AMAZING week. What i love about my week is that there always such spiritual experiences and always something ridiculous or weird that happens as you can already tell from the countless letters that i have written all of you over the past 22 months about my mission.

First I want to start off with that Sister Nadia was finally baptized!!!!! That was one of the best moments of my whole mission. Seeing Elder Arias baptize her, someone that we have been teaching and see grow closer and closer to Christ has been amazing. She is so much happier now and i think one of my favorite parts was being able to give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Honestly that is one of my favorite things to be able to do as a Melchizedek Priesthood holder. Being able to be guided in what to say and what to bless her with was such a spiritual experience. The spirit was so strong the whole baptism. The other people there also shared great experiences of their conversion and it was amazing. It is amazing how coming unto Christ can completely change who you are, another great thing is that we can experience this change over and over again. It does take constant thought for the little things like scripture study and praying and applying the teachings that God gives us. Through those little things though we will experience a mighty change and feel the love God overwhelm, its not as big as an event as baptism but we will feel the same great change in us and newness of life.

Annie finally went to church this week as well with her kids! We have been working with Annie for so long trying to get her to church since the beginning of these six weeks and she finally went to church on our sixth sunday. Last monday because i felt prompted to read the Book of Mormon with her is what we ended teaching and we had such an amazing lesson with them. We read from 3 Nephi 11 which talks about Christ coming to the Earth in the Americas and we talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and my favorite part of was hearing Elder Arias testify about Christ. Testifying about Christ is also one of my favorite things here in the mission, nothing brings in the spirit like a testimony.

Another great experience was with Kian, Kian is someone we are teaching who has been a little bit off track. ever since we have been teaching him he has been reading the scriptures and going to church and last sunday gave him a baptismal date and we are really excited for them. We are excited to see how much more he will change. Before he will never talk to us but now he opens up to us and shares more to us about how he feels.

I am so grateful for the wonderful experience that i have been able to have to see so many different conversions this week. It's amazing how the conversion process is the same but everyone goes through different experiences. I love the mission and i love every moment of this mission and i love my Savior and Heavenly Father and i love you all!

Elder Wright

Sister Nadia's Baptism!!!

Such an Amazing Baptism!

Salve and her daughter Cathleen

Elder Arias baptized the sisters person being taught

this is San Jose Heights...it's not all jungle here hahaha

some missionaries in the zone

Elder Arias and I at Eco Park

the Zone!

My awesome district

Broken Bathroom Door

So...yeah our bathroom door is broken. We had problems with our bathroom door and just yesterday was probably the last. We were all getting ready for church and just about to leave because we were running out of time. Elder Herrick's first thought of course was that he needed to punch the door to get out hahahaha. Elder Andrade (his companion) when he heard that worked on the door and tried to get it unlocked so that we did not have to break the door. It went on for ten minutes until Elder Herrick said alright thats it im punching out if this does not work in 60 seconds. The countdown started, poor Elder Andrade started to freak out and try to work on that door but time ran out and next thing Elder Herrick was pounding on the door, good thing was that the door was not solid wood and it didnt hurt him too bad but he broke a hole and then he realized that him punching through the door literally did nothing! XD we were absolutely dead!!! He was still stuck and then because we were needing to get to church, Elder Andrade kicked the door down hahaha. Then we made it to church. After he really realized that he didnt need to kick the door and we had a good laugh about it

We have been really working with Annie and her family to get to church but it has been such a struggle. We thought they were going to really come yesterday but i guess something came up again. That's always a sad feeling but there is still hope! We are planning on going to them again today. Hopefully things will get better. Last week we got the chance to teach her in the midst of appointments cancelled. Usually when things like this happen we don't always continue to teach the same people but for i just really feel like we need to keep teaching her. Elder Arias taught an amazing lesson the other day at their house about the scripture Helaman 5:12 i really just sat back and watched how in the little tagalog he has how he beautifully taught with the spirit and used the members in the lesson to help Annie realize how creating a strong foundation on Christ can help her. I was so proud of him because not many new missionaries, ESPECIALLY learning a new language can do that. That's my trainee. Elder Arias and i are like bestfriends, we think so much alike the other day we had so many appointments and other stuff we had to do so we both concluded that waking up earlier and starting our day earlier would be the best option. He's so diligent i love it. 

In our lessons we always try to keep it serious so that we can have the spirit with us and we really try to find out what their concerns are. We also really like to get to know our investigators and build a good relationship with them as much as we can so they trust us. I really love teaching people. One funny thing that happened is we were teaching this less active family, the Martin family. That family was really nice, they had the most amazing mango graham ice candy. I wish i could describe its like an otter pop but its creamy chilled ice cream and its only like 5 pesos. yum. We got in their house and started getting to know them and this one i let Elder Arias take to give him a chance to lead but the best part was is that i didnt have to tell him to teach, he just did. Great leader. They went on and talked about the different problems and concerns they have about the members and about being a new member which i admit its not easy. we listened and really tried not to be judgmental and i remember Elder Arias asked her question after empathizing with her and then he asked her" but sister in your opinion, is the church true?" That question literally took her back she leaned back and was just like that is a good question. she basically said that she does believe but she still kept complaining and then i empathized with her about how she feels about leaders and how she doesnt get visited and she made many other complaints but she talked about the church and how she loves the missionaries and they are the backbone of the church and elder arias told her that everyone is all of the members together are needed and thats when divine revelation came to me and i remembered a Michael Jackson song. I told her what Elder said was true and explained what he said a little more and then i told her do you know Michael Jackson and they said yes and then because she has all of these problems with the church which no one is perfect we admit but the church is true and we all need to be a part of perfecting the saints. So i told her after that there is this song where he sings, "If you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make the change." After i repeated and relating to her and then said "If you want to make the [church] a better place take a look at yourself and make the change." The Spirit was strong and then after that we talked about how the reason we go to church is to partake of the sacrament because no matter how much we pray or read if we arent baptized by proper authority, priesthood authority, and continue to take the sacrament worthily it's not enough. It was powerful, the daughter ended up going to church and we were really happy to see that. it was awesome!

Definitely a really good week and i was really happy to see Elder Arias grow. I am so grateful to have him as a companion and to be able to train before i leave. I love this work and i love the people I serve, especially Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (Mosiah 2:17)

I love you all!

Elder Wright

our roomates

missionaries

Elder Arias and i

i was so tired that day hahaha

Nadia, brother custodio and elder burgess

Band-Aid

One of the best things about this transfer is that we have done so much work with the members in our ward, usually i have done a lot of work by myself or with a few specific members but this time i decided to try things different and really be acquainted with all of the members. It made it really easy to do that because we were open area-ed here--meaning that we did not know the area so we had to figure out of things through experience. So we have visited a lot of members and we have built a great relationship with the members really quickly. it has been awesome!

we have been working with the Abad family who is a family that we have been teaching that is less active and has family members who are not yet members. They area so nice and it had been a long time since missionaries had visited them, which is crazy because Celeste, the 18 year old, has been in need of a visit. We taught them about the gospel and didnt necessarily focus on teaching the doctrine but on testifying and telling them of the blessing that they will receive through the gospel and if they will go to church. This sunday they went to church and you could tell that she felt so loved it was incredible and we are excited that they enjoyed it because the hardest part is going to church for the first time after a while in reactivation of a member and the members embraced them and i have faith she will keep going. ITS SO IMPORTANT that we show love to every single member so they all feel welcome at church! We never know who is in need of our love.

I am loving being a District Leader because now i am in charge of running councils instead of workshops. We have had the most juicy synergy filled discussions! it has been great. The Spirit has been so strong as we go in there and talk about different things that we need to do in our work to gain success. It is always hard to know what the district needs but the Spirit guides me in knowing what they need and what to ask when i follow up with them.

We are working with this other family the Alvar family and they were so close to coming to church this last week. On tuesday we worked with three young adults and went around to appointments and having them helped a lot. When we taught the Alvar family, we get in there and they had not done any of our assignments and at the point we were a little disappointed and didnt know what we should do so we started to share the Restoration with them. She mentioned something about church so we started talking about church and we could tell that kshe was not intersted but after when we had the young adults testify of going to church and how it blesses the family they committed to go but something happened this last sunday. Hopefully next sunday.

Nadia is still progressing, she is so excited to get baptized. Really there is no problems! We got to teach her the other day and she is ready for May 25!

This week our fellowshipper was not able to go to church which was really sad because she was supposed to bring a lot of people to church but she got sick and felt bad because she wanted to go to church but we visited her and said a prayer kneeling down, praying that her and her friends will be able to go to church next week it was really great experience! 

 

I love my companion he is so funny and english is not his first language. A funny experience with my chilean companion was i asked him yesterday if he knows who the Foo Fi

ghters are and he said that he does not know and then i said they are a band and after i said that he went straight up stairs and came down two minutes later and said you mean like this and had in his hand two BAND-aids. We both started dying laughing and he later realized that i was talking about bands as in music bands.

We visited Annie and their family and had a really good lesson about the Spirit and coming to know answers because they are really interested in the message and what we are teaching but they dont know exactly if they are true and they do not understand yet. We shared scriptures from the Book of Mormon and talked about answers to prayers and how they come. The spirit was really strong and Elder Arias shared a great experience about when he prayed for comfort before his mission. I love my companion. They are so close to coming to know the truth. 

I just love this work so much and everything about it. All of the experiences are great i know that this week is going to be a great one! i hope you have an even greater week! I love you all!

Elder Wright

macopa

Annie and her fam

nadia and her daughter

You always wear church clothes?!

Another great week! I am sorry i need to think of a better way to start my letters...next week na lang.

As missionaries we are always wearing white shirts, ties and slacks. On monday we went and visited some members that had some really cute kids and one of the kids kept asking us about what we as missionaries wear when we sleep. and we told him that we wear normal clothes and he liked that but then he started asking his dad. "dad, what do the missionaries wear when they are inside, inside clothes, like me?" and he said "no they wear church clothes." Well he was not satisfied because when he is inside he wears inside clothes, when he is leaving the house he wears his clothes for when he leaves the house and he only wears his church clothing when he goes to church. He finally he had to accept that as missionaries its normal that we always wear church clothes. 

On tuesday we got to teach Nadia who is a new investigator that went to church and is GOLDEN she is looking for change in her life and is wanting to come unto Christ. We actually didnt find her but she went to church with her member friend and was already talking about baptism. When we were teaching we coould tell that she has been going through a lot of hard things because when we asked her about what the role of Christ is in her life and she could barely talk about it and tears were visible. I knew that it was the perfect moment to invite her to be baptized. I look over at Elder Arias to have him be the one to invite her but we had a member in between us and were all sitting in this tight cramped place. However i didnt want to take the opportunity away from him to be able to invite her to be baptized so i leaned forward and mouthed "BAPTISM" I did not know if he got the message or not so i watched him and i saw that he pulled out a Book of Mormon and he took out his notebook where he has the invitation memorized and he went and read off the invitation too her. It was awesome i was so proud of him and we talked about it after he was like i dont think she knew i read it hahaha he is so funny! I love him

I always love those days when our plans just get ruined and then it makes you kind of get out of whatever you are doing or wherever you are and then always, always you are guided somewhere you need to be and that is exactly what happened on wednesday. we were able to find a part member family.

On Thursday we went back to Camille and she is someone that we found a while ago that had so many questions about the Book of Mormon. We finally got a chance to see her again with members and in the middle of our lesson she said wait can i share something...and then she told everything! It was awesome because she opened up about how before she was super close to God but then over time as she got older things changed and she hasnt found a place where she feels comfortable and it was perfect because the spirit was there and we were able to testify and having the members there i know really helped create the environment for the spirit to be able to abide.

We are teaching this new investigator named Annie and we had really good lessons but this week she was not able to go to church this week but we had the chance to meet her family and they were really interseted in the message and wanted to know if it was true. So we invited them to come to church. Well they said they would go to church if annie did. We were sad to find out that Annie was not going to be able to make it but on sunday morning we were at church and Annie had talked to them and they came to church without her! Crazy! we were so happy to see them and they seemed like they really enjoyed church. So did Nadia we are so excited that Nadia will be getting baptized on May 26th! Miracles! We just got in the area and we see that God is blessing in more than one way!

I love sharing the Gospel, this work and serving God!

I hope you all have a great week!

I love you all!

Elder Wright