A surprise this week!

Hola Mi Familia Fantastica!

 

I had a crazy awesome week!  I'll start out by giving you two cool experiences and then end with a grand finale:) 

 

So Elder Fuentes and I were whitewashed out of our area this last Wednesday at transfers and the Assistants to the Presidents took over the area.  They called me the day after transfers and asked me to go on splits with them for the day.  What a great experience!  I was able to introduce the APs to all of my investigators and the 9 people on date.  They were shocked by the work that E. Fuentes and I accomplished in one transfer and are thankful.  As APs, they don't get too much time to go out proselyting but with the investigators we left behind they be a baptizing machine!  The Lord blessed E. Fuentes and I so much and we saw tons of miracles.  I look forward to seeing the names of the families that I loved in the weekly newsletter the mission sends out!  It was such a treat to go out with seasoned AP missionaries and just soak in all I could learn from them.  I cannot believe the amazing experiences that the Lord is blessing me with.  When I first received my temporary reassignment, I was thinking "ok I'll do it but why Salt Lake City?"  Now I know why and I am so thankful for every moment that I have had here.

 

We have a Christmas season baptism tomorrow!  His name is Paulo and his fellowshipper, Pablo, is a wonderful recent convert that is introducing his soccer team and friends to the church.  Paulo and Pablo are both planning on serving missions!  The other day Paulo asked us, "Should I start saving for my mission right now?"  My companions and I were all over that one!  He and Paulo are Seniors in High School and are so excited about the gospel.  I have loved watching the Gospel and the Savior make these guys, who are only a little younger than me, change so much.  It brings me so much joy to watch Pablo excitedly explain the Law of Tithing or the Plan of Salvation to his humble friend.  It makes me wonder how much joy Christ feels as he watches His sons and daughters learn more about him and even pray to gain faith.  The happiness and joy I feel as I watch an investigator come to knowledge of a living Savior and then repent of their sins to become baptized is comparably insignificant and smaller than the size of a quark (the material that composes atoms).  I have loved being a missionary in this Christmas season and taking upon my mantle and role as a representative of Christ.  I cannot help but be humbled by the opportunity I have to strive everyday to become more and more Christlike.  Christ is our perfect example and Savior.  We have an investigator that used to be atheist  but when we told her that if she would ask God directly in prayer if He exists that she would get an answer.  We called her the next day and she informed us that she had an amazing experience.  I cannot comprehend the happiness God felt as one of His daughters sought out His existence and is seeking to know more of His will for her!  The work is amazing and I am SOOO blessed to be a missionary right HERE, right now!!

 

GRAND FINALE!!!!  So guess who got their Visa on Tuesday and is flying to Mexico City on Monday morning at 9am?!!!!!:)  ME!!!!  I went to the Mexican Consulate on Tuesday and received my flight plans today!  WOW am I excited or what!!!!! [Haha, if you didn't notice by all the exclamation marks and caps!]  I really have had the most wonderful, amazing, fantastic experience and feel so ready to take on Distrito Federal.  So basically the next email you'll get from me will probably be from a computer in Mexico City!

 

Ok so, I am going to call on Friday morning for about 5 minutes to set up a time to call for the real thing on Saturday.  I'll only have a max of 1 hr. on Christmas Day so we'll have to set up some time slot type thing like E. Janis (Damon) set up.  So I was thinking we could start out with 10 minutes with the whole family, 6 minutes for each sibling individually, and 20 minutes for Mom and Dad.  It doesn't have to be like this exactly but I thought this would be a fun way to do it!  Maybe during the first 10 minutes you could have some questions prepared so that I don't lose anytime taking to anyone!!  (again another idea attributed to E. (Damon) Janis).  I love you all so much and am so thankful to every single one of you.  Thanks to all the extended family who sent me such wonderful Christmas notes and gifts.  I look forward to opening them all on the 25th!!  I can't tell you enough of how thankful I am for your thoughtfulness.

 

Merry Christmas to all!!

-Elder Janis

 

A "crazy awesome" week

Hola Familia!

 

This last week explained in two words would be "crazy  awesome"!!!!  So many wonderful things happened and the Lord was most definitely behind all of it.  Elder Fuentes and I were blessed to take 14 investigators to church on Sunday!  4 whole families!  We also had a baptism for Daniel Chavarrin.   Looking back on the last 6 weeks and starting this next transfer, I can see that the 8 hour door knocking days really paid off.  When Elder Fuentes and I entered our area 6 weeks ago, we had no one on date and a very small pool of investigators.  Both he and I were transferred out this morning leaving behind 10 people on date and tons of potential.  It was hard for the two of us to say goodbye to all the wonderful families we were teaching but I'm sure the next missionaries that come in will do a great job!

 

As I said, transfers were this morning so now I am in the Salt Lake Zone with two new companions, Elder Whiting and Elder Reese.  Elder Whiting is from Mississippi and Elder Reese is from Alabama making us a trio of Southerners!  I don't know Elder Reese very well but he seems super friendly and hard working.  Elder Whiting was in my district last transfer and so we already get along really well.  We were actually joking before this transfer about how cool it would be if we became companions and here we are!

 

So out of the 16 Visa waiters that came into the Salt Lake Mission with me, 12 of them are leaving tomorrow morning for Mexico.  I and 3 other Visa waiters still haven't gotten ours.  I was a little disappointed to find out that I didn't get mine yet but know that I am meant to stay in this mission for longer.  Everything happens for a purpose, I just need to find out why.  I will most definitely learn more!  In addition, the fact that I was put into a trio is significant reason to guess mine may be coming soon.  I'll be super excited when it comes but for now I will just keep focused as if I wasn't waiting.  All is well in Zion!

 

I love all of you so much and am SO grateful for all the letters and packages from home.  I haven't had the chance to open the packages yet because they gave them to me and then I was transferred.  I look forward to opening them tonight before going to bed!! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the Christmas cookies and presents.  I love the tie and socks!  My Zone Leaders brought me the fresh cookies earlier than mail and so Elder Fuentes and I enjoyed some great cookies.  Have a wonder Christmas Holiday!

 

Con todo mi amor,

Elder Janis

An Embarrassing but Hilarious Spanish Mistake

Hola Mi Familia Maravillosa!

 

Elder Fuentes and I had an amazing week!  All our 8 hour tracting days where we knocked hundreds of doors have really paid off.  We have 9 people on date for baptism for December!!!  8 of them were found from knocking doors and 1 of them was from a referral.  The Lord has helped us find the people that have been prepared for the Gospel.  I am pretty stressed with all the work it requires to keep these people on date but I know that they have been prepared and that as we work hard things will work out!  Mom and Dad, you will be proud to know that I have learned how to not worry so much and to even elimate the word "worry" from my vocabulary.  Most of this comes from learning how to put my trust in the Lord and that every thing happens for a reason.  I have loved my mission so far because of all the amazing growing and testimony building experiences!

 

So I had a pretty embarrasing but hilarious Spanish mistake during a lesson.  I was reading a General Conference talk in Spanish during language study in order to learn more vocabulary when I came across the words Varon and Hembra, which means male and female.  I quickly memorized this phrase just in case I could use it later.  In a lesson later that night, we were inviting a couple to Church and were telling them how the women go to Relief Society and the men go to Priesthood.  I thought it would be great to use my new vocabulary and said that the "varones" go to one class and the "hembras" to another.  The couple that we were teaching looked like I was crazy and had no idea what I was talking about which it turns out, I didn't.  Elder Fuentes corrected the situation by saying that I meant to say "hombres" and "mujeres" meaning men and women.  He then told me after the lesson that "varones and hembras" means male and female for animals only...I was basically calling them animals or implying that lifestock would be in church with us!!  Ha ha, Elder Fuentes and I just laughed and laughed about it later!

 

I found this amazing scripture in the Bible in 2 Timothy 2:3.  "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."  This scripture came at the perfect time for me the other morning during morning study!  I have been trying to work well under trial and keep up a great attitude.  The scripture was referenced under a song called "Oid, el toque del clarin" and is about an army marshalling together to fight against evil foes and principalities.  It also talks about enduring trials well.  I read the scriptures that come under the hymns and that was a scripture that I will memorize and keep as my battle motto here in the field. 

 

I am having a wonderful Christmas season in the SLC valley, loving the slightly warmer weather, and looking forward to the mountains of success the Lord is intrusting to Elder Fuentes and me!  I love you all so much and have really enjoyed the letters and support!

 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Janis

I was the answer to a prayer

Hola Familia!

 

This week was full of success and wonderful experiences!  We added 6 new investigators and have three people on date for baptism for the second of December!  The cold weather isn't slowing Elder Fuentes and I down at all but actually makes us faster because members have taken pity on us in the snow and go on splits with us almost every night.  We also get people that stop and ask if we need rides while proselyting in the afternoon.  We cannot thank them enough for helping us use our time more effectively.  The Lord is blessing us so much with people prepared to listen and ways to get to all of them!

 

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I ate a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving feast at an American family's home named the Duvalls.  They are 88 and 96 years old respectively and we had such a great time with them.  They stuffed us full of hilarious life experiences and wonderful food.  Elder Fuentes and I waddled home for the evening to take a nap and prepare for the Thanksgiving night Mission Proselyting Game.  The game is where you get 1 point for every investigator and recent converts you visit to wish a Happy Thanksgiving and 3 points for every referral.  Elder Fuentes and I ran around like crazy and met with 14 different families and got 18 REFERRALS.  Through this we have added many new investigators!

 

I cannot tell you have much I loved the lovin' from home in all those packages I received!  I have been really enjoying all the candy,  and the hot chocolate was perfect for Elder Fuentes and me on those particularly cold nights.  I appreciate all the time, thought, and effort you put into every item in the packages.  THANKS!  Oh, I really liked the testimony cards in the Christmas package, they were such a wonderful idea!  I shared them with Elder Fuentes and we will look for ways to use them with our new investigators.  Thanks for that great idea and for taking the time to make those for me!

 

One of the investigators we have on date named Lucio and his wife (who we will be putting on date soon) are the best investigators that I have ever had.  They just soak up every lesson and love the Book of Mormon.  They came to church with us this last Sunday and just ate it all up!  The members did a wonderful job of befriending them and they were basically smiling the whole time!  We have gone to their house everyday this week because they want to learn everything and do everything they can to learn.  We took them to temple square to see the Christmas lights and go on the Families Forever Tour which they also just loved.  They were a family we found while tracting and we feel so trusted and blessed by the Lord with the opportunity to help them prepare for baptism.

 

Leo Paur, the less active guy we met last week, went to church with us this last Sunday also for the first time in a long time with his daughter and one of his sons.  We visited him a couple of times before church to remind him and he was just so thankful for us coming by.  He also told us that we knocked on his door literally 5 minutes after he had prayed to the Lord for guidance.  He also told us that if we hadn't been Spanish speaking missionaries, he probably wouldn't have listened to us.  He didn't clarify why that was the way it was but we are thankful for the opportunity we had to help him.  I am also so humbled that I of all people was the answer to a prayer.  The Lord really does qualify those he calls because without the Spirit we would not have been able to help Leo in the way we did!

 

I love all of you soooo much!  Thanks for all that you do and all the prayers.

 

Love,

Elder Janis

My Conversion & Testimony

Hola Familia!

 

This week has been such an adventure!  I cannot believe the all the "first-times" that I am having while on a mission in SLC of all places!   This past week, Elder Fuentes and I tracted like crazy.  Most days we tracted, knocking door after door, for 5 hours with a couple of 8 hour days in there also.  I have learned to love the surprise of meeting the person answering the door, getting to know them, and teaching them a principle or two.  We will then ask the Americans if they know of any Latinos in their neighborhood and then go and knock those doors.  If they are Spanish-speaking, we will then close our door approach with a commitment to baptism.  At first I thought such boldness would just scare our investigators away, but it has really helped us find some really solid new investigators.  E. Fuentes and I thanked Heavenly Father everyday for the success we are having this week after the trials of little finding success last week.  We are now pretty stock full of wonderful families to teach and now actually have to find time to tract sometimes.  I can definitely see the hand of the Lord in our finding these families and look forward to teaching them!!

 

Yesterday was quite the experience for E. Fuentes and I.  We were eating dinner when the blizzard hit the SLC Valley and when we came out, everything was covered in snow.  What I really love about our companionship is that this blizzard didn't slow us down one bit!  Despite the onslaught of snow and the 7 degree wind chill, Elder Fuentes and I hit the streets of the South Salt Lake Stake with a determination to show the Lord that we could be diligent despite all of the opposition.  We made a game out of it almost!  Anytime either of us said anything about it being cold, we would joke about how scourchingly hot it was outside and that we wished we were in bathing suits and flip-flops.  We continued this as we walked around the very quiet and vacant streets of our area going from appointment to appointment.  However, one of our appointments fell through and we were given the opportunity to tract an apartment complex that we hadn't knocked yet.  The fifth door we knocked  in the complex turned out to be the most spiritual lesson that I have ever been in!

 

We knocked on door five of the complex to be greeted by a man who seemed rather annoyed at our bothering him.  We found out that he has been less active for many years now because of the culture of the LDS church.  After we showed interest in trying to help him see the importance of going to church, he invited us into his home to discuss more. Inside his home, he explained to us that he was mad at the church for their refusal to answer certain questions he had about Joseph Smith and the practice of polygamy.  We shared with him Mosiah 4:9, a beautifully pointed scripture, and then bore testimony of the importance of only concentrating on the knowledge and faith necessary for salvation.  He then admitted that before we knocked on his door he had been praying for certain answers to his questions and he knew that us coming to his home was an answer to his prayer.  Before leaving, we offered a prayer in which we asked the Lord to help him come back to church and have to power to overcome his trials. The Spirit was so strong in the room and at the end of the prayer, we opened our eyes to a grown man bawling.  He, while trying to choke back his emotions, thanked us and as we left, he invited us out for dinner sometime.  I have never been in such a spiritual lesson in my life.  The questions and the words we spoke were not our own.  I will never forget this experience and the power the Spirit had on a hard-hearted member of the church.  We are going to visit him again tonight and see how he is doing.

 

I also came to a wonderful realization while pondering the events of the night.  I am on my mission to help in every possible way the conversion of the people here, but to also continue to convert myself.  As I have taught the wonderful doctrines of the church, read the Book of Mormon, prayed, and bore testimony everyday, I can feel myself more and more converted.  The most noticeable difference I have seen in myself is a greater desire to share the gospel and work harder everyday.  I am finding it easier and easier to want to work hard and to be diligent even though it would be so easy to just be lazy.  My conversion and testimony has brought me so much peace and joy and I want to share this with every person I can!  I know that Christ lives.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I know that this is the Lord's work and man do I love it!!

 

I love all you so much and hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  The lovin' from home in the last package was awesome Mom, thanks!  I can't wait to enjoy the treats you brought to me.  I was so excited to see the homemade granola!!!!!!  Laura, thanks for sticking in that huge Butterfinger, you are so wonderful!  Enjoy the family and holidays!

 

Until next week with love and thanks,

Elder Janis

Learning to ride a bike, maybe...

Hola Familia!

 

What a week it has been!  I have had a lot of experiences this week that have been amazing and others that have been insanely crazy.  I only have a short amount of time to email so I am going straight to the stories this week.

 

This last week I got to do temple service in the Salt Lake City Temple.  In all honesty, being a visa waiter and the few amount of times that missionaries are asked to help, I was very lucky to be able to go.  Wow, what a blessing!  They had a temple worker devotional in the Solemn Assembly room of the temple which is where the General Authorities meet before General Conference to prepare.  It is a huge room in the top story of the temple that looks relatively like a stadium with many, many seats.  They asked us missionaries to help take down the chairs and store them and then clean the baptistry.  The whole time I was in the Solemn Assembly room I was taken aback by the beauty and elegance that went into the 40 year construction of the temple.  I could not help but think about the many consecrated hours of service and selfless talent that was spent to make every inch of the House of the Lord such a work of art.  The Solemn Assembly room especially.  As we put away chairs, swept, and vacuumed, I decided that I needed to put as much or even more care in the way I cleaned the House of the Lord as the people building it did.  The early saints of the Church went through SO much in order to build this temple and bring such an amazing blessing to each of our lives.  I thought about this pretty much the whole time I was cleaning and tried so hard to work just as hard and meticulous as the early saints!  I will never forget the wonderful peace and joy I felt as I went about cleaning the temple.

 

So, Elder Fuentes and I are in this ginormous area in the South Salt Lake Stake with only our own two feet to get us around.  However, we talked to the Stake President about how usually there is a car in this particular area and that without one we were wasting tons of time walking from place to place.  He really likes Elder Fuentes and me because we have been working as hard as we can and so he went out and got us bikes.  He got two bikes donated and then paid to have them repaired.  Grateful to have a faster way to get around, we started this week proselyting for the first time on bikes.  HA HA, E. Fuentes and I have had some pretty crazy adventures already on the bikes.  First night that we were out riding we got in a wreck.  The streets are really dark and some person put a gigantic pile of leaves in the middle of the bike lane of the street.  I was in front and saw it but it was to late to stop and mowed right through it.  I didn't know what it was other than a pile of something and seriously thought I was going to die for a good couple seconds.  On the other side of the pile, I breathed a sigh of relief while looking back to see if E. Fuentes made it through safely too.  He was not as lucky.  As I turned my head around I heard a grunt and a bike crashing to the ground.  I ran over to my companion who was face down in the pile of leaves.  I helped him up, brushed him off, discovered that he was fine, and we both started laughing hysterically!  We both wished that we had had a camera to film my reaction and his enormous tumble.

 

Then the next day, we were pedaling down the street and E. Fuentes was telling me how wobbly and unstable his seat was feeling.  Not knowing exactly what to do about it at the moment we just kept going.  At the next stop light, we were coming to a stop when E. Fuentes's seat came completely of the bike!  We then had to spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how to put on the seat and then do it exactly right so it didn't happen again.  We have many other problems with the bikes and have almost decided that they might be more trouble than they're worth.  We just laugh a ton as we recount our experiences to other missionaries in the Zone.

 

Well, I just ran out of time...but I wanted to quickly add that we had a great week and found many more great families to teach!  We are working so hard and see the hand of the Lord every day!  I love missionary work and thank Heavenly Father every day for the opportunity to be a missionary!!!  Thanks for the all the wonderful letters!  Aunt Mindy and Uncle Brandon, I really appreciate the letter you sent me.  Thanks for thinking of me.

 

Love,

Elder Janis

A week of miracles

Hey Family,

 

Cold weather has finally come to stay and it is supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow!  The mountains are beautiful and I love the crisp cold air as I walk my area.  Me and Elder Fuentes think we walk upwards of 4 or 5 miles-a-day.  I am so thankful for the exercise because the Spanish ward here feeds us like kings at every dinner.  After most meals, I feel like just rolling around to all our lessons!

 

This week, Elder Fuentes and I had some AMAZING experiences.  What I am learning from Elder Fuentes that will really help me now and later on in the mission is to diligently follow all of the counsel and advice of our Mission Leaders.  I came into this area with no one on date for baptism and only one or two that were even close to reaching that point.  We discussed what we wanted to do in order to gain more investigators and help the ones we have progress.  The first thing we did was make a goal to talk to every person that we met on the streets and tract out the apartment complexes in our area.  The second thing we did was make a goal to hard commit someone to baptism everyday.  (A hard commit= "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the authority of God?)  The third thing we did was pray and have faith that the Lord will help us find one new investigator every day.  The fourth thing we did was commit to asking for referrals from every investigator, less active member, and recent convert we talked to.  The fifth thing we did was decide that we would do everything we could to enable ourselves for the Lords blessings such as obedience and really hard work.

 

After making these goals, we hit the ground running and have been working hard to meet every one of these goals.  Through this last week have added one or more investigators, received tons of referrals, and have put four people on date for baptism! I have seen many miracles this last week, but due to time I will tell you my two favorite experiences.

 

The first experience was with Rene Balan.  We were walking down 300 East when we saw a Latino man out racking his front lawn.  Both of us without really saying anything knew that we must talk to him because we had made a commitment to talk to everyone.  As we started up a conversation with Gorge, the man racking the leaves, we found out that he was a less active member.  We talked to him about coming back to church and the blessings that would come from following the commandments.  In this situation we would normally end with a prayer and go on our way, but as we offered to say a prayer he invited us in his home.  Inside his home, Gorge introduced us to his girlfriend Rene.  Rene then told us how she was interested in our church and had been taught a couple of times by sister missionaries.  Due to her working on Sundays, the sisters dropped her.  However, she recently become unemployed and has time for both the lessons and to go to church.  Elder Fuentes and I then taught her a couple of principles and then hard committed her to be baptized on the 20th of November which she then unhesitatingly responded yes.  We then made a calender of lessons for the next two weeks.  I know that the Lord had been preparing Rene for us and blessed us with the opportunity to meet with her.  This was undeniably a miracle to which I am so thankful to the Lord for blessing us with.

 

The next of my favorite miracles happened last night.  In the theater of the General Conference building, the church was putting on a musical theater production called "El Salvador del Mundo" (means "The Savior of the World").  It was an amazing depiction of the Savior's birth and post-Resurrection ministry.  I loved it and am thankful for the opportunity that I had to go.  However, the real miracle was who we went with to the theater production.

 

The Burton Ward and South Salt Lake Stake that we work in love Elder Fuentes and me.  On Saturday, they handed us an envelope of tickets to the show and desired that we invite all of our investigators to go.  We realized later that they had given us 30 tickets!  We have been working hard to gain the 10 or so really solid investigators and were not going to be able to find 30 investigators to go with.  That next few days and especially Tuesday, we worked as hard as we could on top of normal proselyting to get our investigators to go.  On Tuesday about 2 hours before we needed to go to the Conference Center, we had found only a couple of member families to take the tickets.  We didn't give up though.  We went to a young couple's home who we had just started out their lessons and asked them if they could go with us.  With only an hour to go before the the show, they surprisingly said yes and even invited some of their friends to come.

 

Not only had we been blessed to take investigators to the show but we were also blessed to meet two of their friends.  During the show, I could see them loving it and afterwards they thanked us many, many times.  This was just what they needed for their conversion and I anticipate they will be more excited to know more!  Also, since we met their friends we are going to start inviting them to the lessons.  Not only did the Lord bless us with two very solid people to go with, but we were also blessed with two very good potential investigators.  I even was blessed with the opportunity to go to the show also!

 

I love missionary work and am so excited to see what miracles are in store for Elder Fuentes and I next week!!!  I love you all tons and hope you have a great week because I know I will!!

 

Con abrazos,

Elder Janis