Note from mom

The last two weeks we have been able to video chat with Brandon!  He goes to a member's home to do his laundry and then uses their computer or tablet to call.  We are continually grateful for the generous and kind members in Mexico!  The family that lets them in their home every week lost their dad a few weeks ago to cancer.  We met their 11 year old son yesterday.   I didn't fully understand but it sounded like towards the of the father's life he was not always coherent.  When his son would sit with him, he would have moments of clarity and during those moments he would teach his son about the afterlife.  His son has been able to better handle his father's passing by remembering those moments.   

Transfers were last week.  B stayed in the same area but has a new companion, Elder Cervantas.  He is from the "estado de Mexico".  B said that he is really fun and excited to work.  He has been on his mission for nine months.  This is his first time as Zone Leader so B is training him.  B said that he has "a lot of willingness to learn and do everything right"!  

They currently have four people scheduled to get baptized in March.  They are also busy finding new people to teach.  Last week they found 13 and this week 8!  So they are excited to see what March brings!!

We sure love and miss our elder Elder Gurney!

  

The visit of a Seventy

This week was incredibly busy! Friday, we had a conference with a member of the Seventy named Rafael E Pino. We had to wake up at 4 o'clock to get there on time. It was an incredibly long day but it was a super good conference. He mostly talked about dedicating more of ourselves and leaving behind the things that don't help us. He said that our mission has a ton of potential. I'm especially happy I didn't drift off during the conference hahah.

Half of the mission with Elder Rafael E. Pino and his wife!

After the conference, the zone leaders stayed in the port and we went to work with different areas because the next day we had a leadership council with the Elder Pino. We luckily got to go with Elder Hernandez (one of my old companions) and Elder Harris from Charlottesville Virginia. They're both super fun and even though I was exhausted we had a lot of fun. They also have a super nice house so it was great. Elder Garcia from Texas (one of my old companions as well) doesn't have a companion right now so he stayed with us as well.

Saturday was great because we were able to talk a lot about how to achieve our potential, and what things we need to improve. I learned a lot about the importance of our studies in the morning and how that helps us have more power in our invitacions. 

Haircut by a recent convert!

The elders in my zone went to eat wings!  Twas fun!

Yesterday we were assigned to talk in sacrament meeting, I was assigned the topic of service so I talked a lot about how my dad is a great example of service and how everytime that it snowed in NJ my brothers and I knew that we had to go help the neighbors shovel their driveways. The ward loved it, I think mostly because none of them have ever seen snow so it was cool to hear what it's like to shovel snow hahah. Anyways that was my week! Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Gurney

February

This week was pretty wild!}

Tuesday was pretty normal. Wednesday, we did divisions and I stayed in the area with an elder that has about 2 months on the mission named Elder Odell. He is super fun and we had a good time even though it was chaotic. In the morning, a sister from the church called us and told us that she had some baptismal clothes she had to give back to us and she wanted to see if we could meet her in a park to give us back the clothes. We went there and she called us that she was on her way. I don't know what happened to her but we ended up waiting for her for about an hour! After we visited a few people, we went to eat, but the sister wasn't ready when we got there and we ended up waiting for her to finish up for about an hour as well haha, she kept saying that it was almost finished! Afterwards we had to help a member fill up the font so he could baptise his son, we spent a lot of time there as well. It was quite the busy day but luckily we got to visit the important people and two of them accepted a baptismal date so it finished well!

Thursday was pretty normal too. Friday we did divisions with the other elders and this time I left the other area and was with Elder Rasor, we have followed each other all over the mission and have become good friends. That day literally all the appointments he had fell through... we ended up knocking doors all day. Luckily he had a few plan Bs that were home and we got to have a couple breaks from knocking doors.

Saturday was pretty normal as well. Sunday was pretty awesome! Our mission president came to Orizaba and surprised us by coming to our area for church! Luckily, it was the day that we had 5 of the people we are teaching attend! However, one of them, named Enrique, scared the heck out of us when he got up to share his testimony! We had no idea what he was going to say but it was really awesome, he just talked about how he loves our church and how he wants to join it! He lived in Oakland California for a long time and his buddy invited him to church, he went many times but didn't get baptised because he worked so much. He has a baptismal date for the 23 of November though we are working with him on that! Ill let you know about the rest of the people we are teaching next week! Hope you all have a great week!!!

Elder Gurney