Discípulos en la Familia

Wow!  What a great conference week!  We sent off the sister missionaries from Centro ward this past monday and went to clean out their house and pay the rent.  After these activities we went to Cuernavaca for our council with President Kusch and the other zone leaders.  We talked about priesthood keys and how we can build Zion in the Cuernavaca mission.  We are excited to teach the elders later today about how we can build up Zion in this part of the world as missionaries so that they can be more successful and happy in and after the mission.  Upon or return to Chilpancingo we started teaching a man that had recieved a few of the lessons from other elders.  His name is Antonio and he was so prepared by the Lord before we met him.  He lives in the Centro ward and after just a couple meetings with him, we found he was ready to be baptized that saturday.  We held the service after the first session of conference and the Spirit was so strong.  Since all the elders were there in the stake center watching conference, about 16 of us were in the service and we sang a special musical number for Antonio.  He was so happy that day and I know he will become a great leader in the church because he has made so many changes in his life to obey the commandments.  He is truly converted.  We were happy to hear that the minimum missionary age was lowered because that means that so many more young men and women will be joining the ranks in the near future.  We will certainly need more missionaries in the field with the Gospel spreading so much and with large countries that I assume will soon be opened up to proselyting soon.  I encourage all the women especially to make that decision a matter of prayer so that the Lord can let you know by the Spirit if He would have you serve in that way in your life or no.  I know that Heavenly Father always answers our prayers.  I had a fun experience at the beginning of the priesthood session.  We got to the church to watch it and learned that the satelite was not working and we were not getting the feed.  The stake president asked me to call Salt Lake to figure out what was going on.  While I was on hold, the elders in the zone offered up a prayer in one of the rooms that we would be able to fix the problem and that the feed would start going through in 5 minutes.  After the prayer, the call went through and I was able to work with a tech guy and translate to the stake leaders to fix the problem.  Within 5 minutes, the feed came back and we watched the rest of the session.  Sometimes, we are scared to pray for very specific blessings, but its only through specific prayers that we can receive the most important blessings in our life.  I felt so inspired by the talks given this weekend.  The two themes that stuck in my mind were the importance of spending time with the family doing wholesome things and being a true disciple of Christ forever.  I know that I must become a dedicated disciple of Christ during these two years so that I will never leave His side for the rest of eternity.  Love you all and wish everyone a great week.

Elder Stutz       

El Enseñar es la Esencia de Liderazgo

Hey everyone!

Well i apologize again for not sending more pictures, I have so many to send still but I have yet to find a good computer to be able to send them haha.  We got our soccer jerseys that we custom made for the zone and they turned out awesome!!!!  The elders really liked them and we are going to go play soccer today in them.  We continue to visit the members very frequently and currently, we are eating with a lot of sisters from the ward that we had eaten with before.  So we are getting to know the members better everyday.  We were able to meet the last bishop better when we ate and his house last week.  He is a great guy and we learned that his wife got baptized right before they got married.  She is the only member in her family of several brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces.  We are working with them to start teaching them.  We also went with the second conselor of the elders quorom this past week to visit some inactives.  It went really well and we found two families to teach while we were out visiting with him.  Both families are in really tough economic situations and live in very humble conditions.  We will see if they put their trust in the Lord by making sacrifices to recieve blessings.  One family has already accepted a baptismal date for the end of the month so we are excited for them.  They have the cutest kids too that want to learn more about Jesus Christ.  We continue to teach Ariana and Ignacio, the couple that is planning on getting married soon so that Ariana can get baptized.  She continues to progress well and we are excited for her.  They are planning out their wedding right now so we should be able to have the baptism in a couple weeks.  Dulce and Laura, the two college girls we are teaching are also progressing toward baptism for either this week or the next.  We also had more special changes in the zone this past week.  One elder got here to be in a trio and the sister missionaries are getting changed out today.  So Elder Quinnelly and I are going to help the investigators that they had get baptized.  It sounds like there will be like 4 or 5 from that ward in the next couple weeks.  So we are excited for all these people and the changes they are making in their lives for the better.  We had the opportunity to go with some priesthood leaders to eat corn on the cob in a little cabin that is basically a man hang out for the priesthood leaders here haha.  It was good to get to know the leaders better and get more of their confidence.  And the corn was super delicious!!!  I was feeling pretty mexican eating the corn with the mayonnaise and cheese on it, talking and making jokes with all the guys haha.  We had interviews this past week with President Kusch and I really enjoyed mine.  He complimented on my work, sacrifice, and dedication.  I talked to him about how I could become a better leader.  He told me that the essence of leadership is being a great teacher.  He said that the greatest leaders he has ever met are amazing teachers.  So right now I am working on becoming a better teacher and I know the things I am learning and applying now will help me for the rest of my life in my family, work, and in the church.  The work is going well and I have been able to see, especially in this area, that those who obey the commandments are blessed in every way of their lives.  Those that obey some of the commandments lose many blessings for them and for their family.  I invite all to obey ALL the commandments of God, for they are for our physical and spiritual well being.  Love you all

Elder Stutz

La Caridad: El Amor Puro de Cristo

Another eventful week here in Chilpancingo.  Today, we spent the WHOLE day in a bus going to and from Cuernavaca.  Elder Cangahaula got special changes to Cuernavaca so now its just Elder Quinnelly and I again.  We had a lot of fun with Elder Cangahuala and I think he learned a lot from us.  He brought a new energy into the companionship that we are going to try to keep up. We did divisions to start the week with Zumpango.  I went to Zumpango with Elder Jimenez and we had a lot of success.  A bunch of people accepted baptismal date and we were feeling the Spirit strong in the lessons.  Afterwards, we had another conference with President Kusch here in Chilpancingo.  He and the assistants taught us about spiritual planning and being worthy to have the Spirit with us always.  After the conference, we did divisions with the assistants.  I stayed in our area with Elder Forrest and Elder Cangahuala.  Elder Forrest was in my leadership class at BYU first semester so we know each other pretty well.  He was also in the MTC when I had just got there and we had fun dueling it out in bball there.  So it was fun to catch up with him and to also get some tips from him on how we can improve our teaching skills.  On Saturday, we had our bbq with the young men and young single adults.  None of the leaders showed up so we had to go buy everything for it but it turned out pretty well.  Not many of the young men showed up but a few young single adults did and we were able to talk to them a little bit about the blessings of going on a mission.  There are a few in the ward right now that are trying to decide to go or not.  We are trying to motivate them by having them come with us to appointments and baptisms.  That is something that helped me a bunch when I would go with the elders like Elder Burton, Elder White, Elder Rasmussen, Elder Da Silva, etc.  I love those guys so much and I hope to be a similar example for the young men here.  We have 2 possible baptisms this next week.  Dulce and Laura are two young girls that are studying college here in Chilpo but are from other cities or villages here in Guerrero.  They have shown a lot of desires to be baptized, we just need to teach them a little more and they will be ready.  We did a special fast with Laura last week so that she could get accepted into a school.  Things didnt work out exactly how she wanted but she was able to enter into a course that, if she passes, she can get into the university.  We are going to help them this week so that they can get baptized soon.  Also, we are teaching a part member couple that is really nice.  They are both like 23 years old, the guy is a member that is just getting active again and the girl is not a member but wants to get baptized.  She has loved coming to church and she loves the emphasis we put on eternal families because she is 6 months pregnant.  They are planning on getting married soon so that she can get baptized and so that they can later be sealed as an eternal family in the temple.  She has been pretty sick because of the pregnancy so on Sunday in church we gave her a blessing and she enjoyed that and felt a little better leaving the church.  After being in this country so many months, working so much with the Mexican people, I have come to develop such a love for them.  It is sad a lot of the time to see the terrible poverty, wickedness, etc. that is so common in this culture and also in so many cultures in the whole world.  But I love this people so much and the gift of charity that I have been blessed with motivates me everyday to go out in the hot sun, climb a mountain, and do everything I can to help these people find true joy and happiness through Christ and His healing power.  This work is my joy!

Elder Stutz