Eyipantla Falls

Visited the Eyipantla Falls in my area on my preparation day! 

View from the church!

Galleteando con Presidente

Life is all good here in the beautiful San Andres, Tuxela.  Elder Spencer is still super funny and an awesome missionary.

My new companion, Elder Spencer

We are really working hard here.  Our goal this week, as a district, was to teach five lessons everyday, or 30 lessons a week.  We put that as our goal so that we can work towards achieving the mission wide standard of excellence of 36 lessons a week.  Elder Spencer and I really focused on completing our goal and even though we fell three lessons short, we are quite proud of the week.  We did lose quite a bit of time with a Zone Conference on Friday and interviews on Saturday morning.  Both the conference and interviews were fun so we aren't complaining.

Photos from Zone Conference 

Zone Conference:  The focus was on the importance of bearing our testimonies more in our lessons.  Our testimony always brings the Spirit and it is a powerful tool that we have.  We also talked about our focus ... inviting people to come unto Christ.  It was a great conference.  They also brought Domino's Pizza so that was awesome!  :)  The most exciting part of the day was that our Mission President told us that he wanted to come with us to the lessons we had scheduled that night.  So after the Zone Conference., Elder Spencer and I ran home to change out of our suits and then plan as best as we could for the night with Presidente Palmer.  The night actually went pretty well.  The first two people we went to visit weren't home, however, they are neighbors so we didn't lose too much time.  We decided to go contacting on that street and the first house that we knocked on, we found an inactive member and her husband seems very interested.  So that was awesome!!  We then went to introduce Presidente Palmer to our super awesome investigator, Hermana Rosa Torres.  She is going to be baptized this Saturday.  That lesson went really well so we were very happy at this point.  We ended the evening by going to the house of a member, Hermana Olivia.  She is our neighbor and almost always gives us dinner and food.  We always teach our investigator, Jose, who is a member of her family, at her home.  The only problem was that Jose showed up 30 minutes late.   He eventually got there and we had a quick sharing of testimonies and then left.  Overall ... it was a good night!!

As an update to my "things I have eaten" list,  I had "pig foot soup" on Saturday.  It was interesting.  It was pretty good ... if you can forget about what you are eating.

But yeah, that's my week!  Miss you all!!  Have a great week!!
Love Elder Gurney

Transferred!

Transfers were this week and I moved to San Andres, Tuxlas!  It is gorgeous here.  It is a much bigger area than Tres Valles.  I am pretty lost.  My new companion is Elder Spencer from Vernal Utah.  He has been on his mission about 13 months!  He is super funny!  We are working hard but having a lot of fun at the same time!  I am going to miss the amazing people I met in Tres Valles but I am excited to serve here!

So basically ... new companion, way fun, big area, super lost, lots of English, beautiful area ... good times!

Yo ya me voy (tal vez...)

So this week was quite busy!  Wednesday we had the weekly activity at the church!  This time we set up the volleyball net and the members had a lot of fun.  There were about 40 people that came, many of which were not members, which is awesome!  We are quite happy with the turnout we are getting!

Me and my boy, Vicente!

Me and the Cancinos, an awesome family in the ward!

Thursday was a crazy day.  We went on divisions with the zone leaders.  I went to Tierra Blanca and Elder Uribe came to Tres Valles.  I assumed that I was going to be with Elder Browning all day ... but nope!  I got there and I went with Elder Rangel and we went door-to-door contacting for a few hours.  We then met up with the other missionaries and I went with and Elder Brimley (from Long Beach, CA) to eat lunch and to teach his investigators.  Not a single one of his investigators was available ... so we went door-to-door knocking for another few hours.  Basically, I spent all of Thursday just walking all over Tierra Blanca.

Saturday was pretty awesome! Jose got baptized!!  On Tuesday, we had a good lesson with him and his mom.  We invited them to be baptized.  Jose said, "I'm all ready, baptized me this Saturday" (more or less).  Hermana Flor said she wanted to see the baptism of Jose first and then get baptized the next week.  Jose is setting the example for his mother!

Jose's baptism!

However, transfers are tomorrow and I am most likely leaving.  So I probably won't be able to see her baptism.  But they haven't told us anything yet about transfers so who knows!!  Stay tuned until next week to find out.

Sunday was awesome because Joseph (a 19 year old boy in the ward that goes on visits with us) got his mission call.  He is leaving for Hermosillo, Mexico on March 13th.  It was way fun to see him open his call.  It brought back all the feelings from when I opened mine.

The mission call!

But yeah that was my week!  Hope you all had a great week too and that you have a great week this week!

Miss you all!
Elder Gurney
(can't believe the Eagles won the Super Bowl!!!)

January 29, 2018

This week started off well with a zone conference!  These are always fun because we get great food (J), see old friends, and learn quite a bit too.  This conference was centered mostly around reading the Book of Mormon and then asking questions about the passage.  We call this a mini-bloque here in Veracraz, and we practiced this mini-bloques quite a bit.  And then we ate a ton of pizza … it was a good day!

Ready for zone conference ... we slept over at Elders Olsen and Brimley!

Wednesday was fun too because we had our weekly activity.  We had another Family Home Evening, however we weren’t able to plan it super well, or announce it, because we were in Tierra Blanca the whole day Tuesday for the zone conference.  Luckily, we still had a fair amount show up .. around 40 came.  We shared a message, ate food, then played charades for the adults and had a soccer game outside for the kids.  It went pretty well!!

Thursday and Friday were rough days because it was raining a ton.  We got thoroughly soaked despite our rain jackets and umbrellas.  Thankfully, we didn’t get sick. 

Eating Tacos with Elders Barcenas and Andrade

Saturday was awesome because Iris got baptized!!  It was an awesome experience!  I was blessed with the opportunity to baptize her and it went great!  

This week were also able to talk with Hermana Flor and Jose about baptism as well.  They wanted to talk and pray about it a little more.  Jose just had his stitches removed from when he broke his arm so they also wanted to make sure he’ll be ready physically too.   We’re going to see what they think tomorrow!  We also had a great lesson with Hermana Ausencia.  The Spirit was super strong and she looks like she might be ready this week as well!!  We’ll see what happens!!  But yeah, that’s all I’ve got for you all this week!!  Have a great week!!

Elder Gurney