Eat Cactus when in Mexico! And enjoy "snow"!

May 22nd

This week was nice because we worked more in our area! I don't remember if I told you but a few weeks ago we received a referral of a sister that has been to church lots of times, has been going to institute and that wanted to get baptized! She's gonna get baptized this week! She was sick the whole week and yesterday she couldn't go to church because of it, like didn't even go to university, so we thought we would have to change the date, but we went to visit her last night and she told us she prayed about it and feels that she shouldn't wait! Great example for her family. Only sad part is that I barely know her because it was all so fast hahah. 

O, our X-drug addict has had a hard time with letting go of smoking :( but this week he stayed put the whole sacrement meeting, but he has to stop smoking completely this week if he is gonna get baptized on the day we have planned so please pray for him. Also his mom went to church again and she LOVED it even though she says she's super catholic and is never going to change :) 

We also had our zone conference this week and it was one of the best I have been to! President asked the missionaries who are converts to share their stories, and it was very spiritual. The thing they said was that they don't remember anythig of what the missionaries taught them, they just remember how they felt. We have started focussing on giving our investigators experiences instead of just lessons. We have to do things differently! We have also been focussing a lot on the sacrament in our lessons, and even though the invitation to church and the invitation to the sacrament are almost the same, there is a very different spirit when we teach about the sacrament. 

Scott Wolff does get it! The work is never over! I like your spiritual thought a lot mom, feel free to share it on my blog, and also I was reading in Matthew 10 this week when Jesus called his apostles and it goes along with that too. Spiritual thought:

It’s about being part of a royal army. "Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I sent for many hunters, and they shall have them from your mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” Jeremiah 16:16
President Monson said, "the priesthood represents a mighty army of righteousness – even a Royal army. We are led by a prophet of God. In supreme command is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Our marching orders are clear. They are concise. Matthew describes our challenging these words from the Master: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matthew 28:19)

I will keep Sam Palmer in my prayers, that boy has too much potential to let something like that slow him down, he is going to be a very good missionary. 

Thanks for everything that you do for me! I love to tell people about the blessings of the gospel I have seen in my own family, and try to live in a way that represents the fruit of teaching our children the principles of the gospel. Keep serving with all your heart, might, mind and strength!

Love you all!

Elder Lethaby

May 29th

Hello!
This week was one of the best I have had in the mission honestly. I feel like the Lord is pleased with my progress in the work, and personally. 

M got baptized! She was the golden referal that had already gone to church lots and was going to institute and wanted to get baptized before we started teaching her. 70 people were at her baptism so we had to have the service in the chapel, she has a lot of family that are members. Her uncle that is in the picture was in the font with her and started crying and took a while to baptize her because he was way too happy! After, she shared her testimony about just how good she felt, even if she didnt know everything, she knows it's true because she feels it. That's all we need. After the baptism, her uncle came to us and said, "Thank you Elders, you have no idea how long we have been waiting for this moment." We honestly didn't do much, what did it, was the faith, example, and prayers of her family. She was so prepared and I know that she will serve faithfully in this church for her whole life (and more). I also know that her family will soon follow. 

We also started teaching a man whose girlfriend of like 15 years is a member, but he hasn't been able to get baptized becuase she can't (or hasn't) gotten a divorce from her previous marriage. He talks about how he wants to get sealed in the temple and do baptisms in the temple, and he knows his ancestors are getting impatient with him. We decided to talk to the stake mission leader who also happens to be a lawyer and we explained him the situation and he said he can get them divorced and married again in less than a month! After 15 years of waiting, another prayer is being answered. 

We should never lose hope, or think that our prayers aren't working. Sometimes God needs to test our obedience and patience. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work as the hands of the Lord and for the moments I have had when I know that I have been an angel in the life of someone else. This is His work, we just get to help. But it is so cool to help!

Have a great week, thanks for all that you do for me!

Love you

Elder Lethaby

Questions Answered:

May 22nd

How goes the sister who had the dream about her grandpa? Getting taught?

Mmm havent talked to her because she's not from our area, but her daughter went to church this week (she is from our ward) and we have a FHE (Family Home Evening) with them both tonight so we will see :)

What lesson did you learn this week? Life lesson? Money lesson? Spiritual lesson? People skill lesson? Companion lesson?!

That we can really trust in prayer. We had a lesson with a family of only women because the dad was working and the brother that was gonna go with us canceled so we had to teach outside, but then it was gonna rain so we said a prayer and even though there was thunder and lightning all around us, the rain didn't start until the closing prayer :)

Is it getting hot again? Even in the evenings?

Today it was very hot! The house is always hot at night and cold in the morning. But overall yes it's getting hot

Is it weird that you don’t really get that many more daylight hours? It’s light until about 10:00pm right now here at home, and the sun is up before 5. LOVE IT!

No but I do tell people about that a lot and they don't believe it

Do you have any regrets on your mission so far, and how can you make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Not really because I have learned from them all, and I wouldn't be able to progress without mistakes. 

May 29th

Did your referral sister get baptised?

YEEEEEE she got baptized real good!

How’s Oscar doing on his smoking? Buy him big packs of gum!

Mmm not too good :( 

What hard life lesson did you learn this week?

I learned to be more punctual; a family we were going to teach left when we got there 10 minutes to the lesson and when we called them they said "well we were waiting for you at 8:00 like you told us you were going to come."

Name some service your companion did for you. Name a service you did for him.

My companion always does little things for us when I am showering or calling someone that I don't notice until after, like call the lunch appointment for the next day to give them their reading asignment or just get things organized. I have to repent because I can't think of how I served him this week, hoping that means it has become so normal that I don't remember and not that I don't serve him. 

Any new foods you tried? New region sometimes means new foods (or spices).

We eat gorditas, nopales(cactus), and tlacoyos. Those are some very comon foods here. (Note from mom: See the pics I added from the internet)

SNOW!!!!

 Zone Conference (Elder Lethaby back, center and Elder Barfuss far left)

San Juan Totolac 

We saw Pyramids - pics

Hey we went to a place called Cacaxtla today and also to a bull ring and it was fun but we don't have much time now so I will just share this weeks hits:

we had a cool experience with another reference of a member who went with her friend to the temple on Saturday. We went to visit her after and she told us that she had a dream a little while ago that she was in a room with her grandpa and her kids and that her grandpa (who died a long time ago) told her to take care of her kids, and that when she went to the visitors centre, she recognised the pictures of the temple from that dream! 

We started teaching a woman and her sister who went to church with their uncle when they were little but now they haven't gone much but then she got a blessing and was healed and started going to church again in another ward and institute by herself but now we are gonna teach them and hopefully their family and they're gonna get baptised. 

Recent converts went to temple for the first time, the girl I sent a picture of a lil while ago and her dad and brother! First time I have seen that happen with people we taught or baptised! 

Talked with the fam and it was nice. :) I am so grateful for my family. I feel like I have changed a lot though hahah.

We have been so happy and busy and we have spiritual experiences every day! LOVE being a narry.

Love you all so much!

Elder Lethaby

Pyramid Visit

Elder Barfuss 

Pyramid 

View from the pyramid

Bull Ring

Sacrament is Personal

YEEEE

I like what you said about enjoying it all and not getting to stressed and just work hard and have faith but ENJOY it!
This week I learned an important lesson about that. In a meeting with President Nelson and a few other missionaries this week we were talking about the importance of the Sacrament and that maybe by focusing more in that, more investigators will come to church. We learned a lot about the importance of that up to the point that we decided that the key indicator of "Investigators in sacrament meeting" will now be "Investigators who are there for the sacrament" meaning that if they get there late, it doesn't count! I think President has a very good point, if we aren't participating in the way Heavenly Father wants in the sacrament, nothing that we do in the week really counts! We have to teach that to the investigators to change the culture of the church! We applied that this week and I was able to have a more spiritual experience and enjoy the moment to sit still and think about how I can improve in my service, and love this week. Presidente also said something like, "The whole week we are to be thinking about everyone else, but during the sacrament is the only time the whole week that you can think about yourselves, so enjoy it!" So glad to come from a ward where almost everyone gets there early!

We also had our MTC for members activity this week and it was honestly really spiritual. We talked about some ways that we can share the gospel, but the main theme was forgiveness. When the ward mission leader suggested that I was pretty confused, but then I got it. How can we build up a ward if the members don't get along? Someone new will come and they will feel the contention right away. We watched a video from Elder Holland that I don't know what its called in English but it talks about just letting other people repent, don't dig up the past. And then we showed the way we are going to work with them! We have been working with the members so much that honestly we don't have too many investigators, but these last two weeks, the result has been that the way we find new investigators is by contacting them in sacrament meeting because their friends are bringing them! One sister brought a friend and she is also gonna take her to the visitors centre in the temple this Saturday! I like the way we are working and I think we will start to see a lot of success now. Love the things I am learning on the mission every day. Love my Saviour Jesus Christ, and I know that we really can talk to our heavenly Father in prayer. I hope everyone is happy and free of stress at home! See you next week! 

Love,

Elder Lethaby

P.S. Got to work in Teotlaltzingo for the first time since I left the area and a brother that we started teaching in my last week there is gonna get baptised and I got to teach him again! 

Questions Answered:

Did you make it to the pyramids?No the youth and YSA of the ward had the day off so we all went to play soccer instead but next week!

How are your eyes doing? Still 20/20?I think so! haha

Do you wear sunglasses?Never

Did Cinco di Mayo (probably butchered that!) go away pretty quietly, or was a it a big deal?Hahaha honestly didnt even realise that was a thing. We went to Puebla for a meeting that day and that's literally where all of cinco de mayo started and we didn't see of hear a thing.

Who are you teaching right now, and what’s the best thing about one of them?We are teaching one man named O that is the brother of a member in the ward and he used to have SUPER heavy drug problems but then he went to rehab and now he isn't using drugs (still smoking) but he wants to change a lot. He can't control his body very well because of the effect of the drugs and so he is like really really shaky to the point that others have to feed him. Despite all of that though, with all the health problems, he made it to church for the first time and today we are gonna invite him to be baptised! Lots of problems but he is showing a desire to change.

Short!

Wowsers! Elder Barfuss is in our zona hahaha so we decided to go to their district meeting this week so I could see him hahha and my companion did a practice with him and was pretty surprised by how well he's doing with the language. We gossiped a bit too :) I think we are gonna invite them to go see some pyramids this Monday too! Good guys, him and his trainer are twins haha. 

Gained the trust of the members a lot I think because we decided to go visit ALL of them and work with ALL of them and today we are going to 2 FHE's (Family Home Evening).

The singing in lessons is going good, brings the spirit a lot and then they remember who else needs to hear the gospel. Mmmm ya that's about all I got time for haha so sorry, will write more next week. 

Highlights of the week cuz not much time:

Taught a lesson in a tree, kinda fun I guess, but didn't go to church :(

F got baptised :))))

Love ya

All good here. 

Elder Lethaby 

Questions Answered:

How’s the new companionship working out?

Just great! He's got a lot of experience and good ideas of things we can change and improve here but also is very humble and open to my ideas and I feel more confident about everything now. I am still the junior companion but I feel like we are very 50 50 in everything :)

Do you want help with ideas for doing a Family History Fair?

Sure!

Will you be able to Skype on the 14th (Sunday), or will it be on your regular p-day?

No the 14th is our plan

Favourite scripture this week…most meaning or “aha” moment?

In Alma 10 where it talks about the way Alma as a missionary was working with the members (Amulek), and we are going to share it in a bit in a FHE. Should read it and think about how you can help!