Monday, August 20, 2012

Amar, Servir, Enseñar

Hey Guys
We enjoyed a busy fun week.  On preparation day we had our zone soccer tournament and had a ton of fun.  We have a great group of elders here right now and they are all great friends of mine.  On Tuesday, we received some more special changes as President opened the village Zumpango again.  So two new missionaries arrived and we took them to their area and showed them around.  The members there were waiting for quite a while anxiously to have missionaries there again so they received the elders with open arms.  They are excited to work there because the members are so willing to work with them.  As we were heading to the bus station there in Zumpango to travel back to Chilpo, a man contacted us in English and we found out he is from Denver.  He is there visiting his family because they are from Zumpango and he was looking for a church there.  He told me to visit him when I get home from the mission and he seems like a really cool guy.  We were able to meet his family and invite them to go to the church there in Zumpango.  On Wednesday, we did divisiones with Obrera.  I went with our district leader Elder Gray in his area and we enjoyed a fun day together.  He is super cool and we enjoyed getting to know each other better.  On Thursday, we spent the whole day planning our zone conference that we had on Friday.  President Kusch and his wife came and we had a very successful zone conference.  Everything turned out well  and I learned so much about working with members and local leaders of the church.  My companion and I are trying to put into practice what we learned and we are confident that we will have more success by doing it.  I taught a workshop about gaining the trust of the members and it was entitled Love, Serve, and Teach.  Those are the principles that we must use to gain the trust of the members so that we can teach their family members and friends.  President told us that our capacitations were the best ones he had seen from the other zone conferences they had had and I really did feel the Spirit so strong in the conference.  On Saturday we went to the stake primary talents night and watched our wards primary perform a skit of the story of Ammon from the Book of Mormon.  Alma´s daughters participated and they did such a great job.  Little Barbie (4 year old daughter) dressed up in a sheep costume and got scattered by the Lamanites haha.  It was pretty cute.  We had a very spritual experience with some members on night after their grandma had died.  Ambar, Luis and Jesus are all converts of about a year and their ages range from 23-30.  The rest of their huge extended family is catholic and isnt interested still in the church.  They were sad to see their grandma die but with their new knowledge of the plan of salvation and the missionary work in the spirit world, they were able to accept the situation better than their family members.  What makes them the most sad right now is the hard hearts of their family members.  But they have always been great examples for them and I am confident that after this experience, the family will be more open to talk to us.  But the night we went to go talk to them we offered a kneeling prayer with them and the husband of the grandma that died who cannot hear or speak.  He had never tried to communicate with us before but after the prayer, his eyes were filled with tears and he was making noices that sounded like he was trying to thank us.  It was a very spiritual moment for all of us and I will never forget it.  On Sunday, we had 7 investigators come to church and we had a great lesson in Gospel Principles.  We taught about prophets and Alma was the only member there with all the investigators.  The investigators were expressing a lot of doubts and questions about Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson and Alma boldly shared her testimony that she knows that it is all true and she even told us how she came to know that it is true.  The Spirit was so strong as she did so and the investigators seemed amazed at the confiction of this recent convert to the church.  She hasnt missed a Sunday since her baptism and every week she gets her 4 kids dressed and ready by herself and drags them to church.  She is a truly converted convert to the church.  She even recently bought a white shirt and tie for her one year old son who looks super cute now at church.  If that family is the last family that I baptize here, I will still rejoice in the progress that has been made with her and the great change that has happened in her life the last couple months.  I love you guys lots and I appreciate your prayers on my behalf.  Have a great week!!
Elder Stutz      

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