¿Que Onda amigos? Haha I sat here and legitimately LOLd here in the Cyberg in downtown Madero with a bunch of people looking at me as I read your stories of Ryan and Hadley's prom. That's hilarious. I think its so sick that Miles and Had still kick it at our house quite a bit. I bet Ryan and the whole fam love that. How tall is Ryan right now? He looks taller and less skinny in a lot of those pics. I can't tell you how much I love reading your emails each week with the updates on how everyone is doing. I don't think about it an awful lot during the week but when Mondays come around, I can't wait to come and read and then write. It sounds like both prom groups had an awful lot of fun, lots of good times there.
That's so fun that Grandma has been in town; I bet that was great. Every time we go to the mission office and I see the senior couple in the office I think back to GMa and GPas mission and how much they loved it.
That's sweet that you taught Gospel Principles Mom! Not gonna lie, as a missionary, you learn how important having a good Gospel Principles teacher is. Elder Rindlisbacher and I are super lucky, our ward has a super super good gospel principles teacher that throws down easy-to-understand, involving, spiritual lessons each week, which is such a relief that we don't have to worry about that when we bring investigators and less actives.
So Elder Rindlisbacher and I have been working non stop since we have been here and it has been HARD work. We had 0 investigators to start, in an incredibly small ward, with tons of less actives; but this week, we saw miracles. We have been working non stop, trying to find new investigators, trying to visit less actives and part-member families, trying to find people that will even listen to our message, and for a lot of our time since we've been here, we hadn't seen a lot of results. We are super close to downtown Madero and there are tons of churches downtown in the Centro so its been hard to find people even willing to listen for a lot of our time here. Elder Rindlisbacher (who is like one of the three wise men, he's a total stud, haha) said this is the hardest time he's ever had in his mission to find people to teach. But we've just kept working every single second, kept contacting in the street, kept visiting and teaching less actives, kept obeying, and kept having faith that everything would work out; and it did! Late this week we found an older lady named Ernestina. She is old and looks like it, but she is totally there mentally. She listened to us along with her helper who lives with her named Olga. We found them Friday and set a return appointment with them for Saturday. They read the chapter in the Book of Mormon we gave them and they came to church on Sunday. Gaudalupe had a great week as well, she is very convinced that we have the authority to act in God's name, and also that the Book of Mormon is true, but she is very Catholic and is having a hard time leaving that behind, but she is praying and reading and she came to church as well!
So like I said, week one in Barrio Francia we had 38 members in attendance. This week we had 69! It was an incredible miracle. We had like 5 different less active families there, 5 non members, and a bunch of other less actives who are part member families. This week, and really my whole mission so far, has built my testimony of the small and simple things in the church. So many of the less actives in our ward only want for somebody to care that they are there, that's all. It shows me the importance of things like home teaching, personal prayer, and scripture reading. All things that we do and as we do them, we build our foundation on the rock of Christ. We must remember to always do these things and also to help those who are in our ward family to do them as well. But it was so awesome to have so many members at church. We still have so much more work to do and we are finding more people every day.
I am so lucky to have Elder Rindlisbacher, we get along super well and he is such an awesome example of hard work and obedience. We have a blast every single day.
Thanks for the updates on my missionary friends. If someone will holla at me where all my college friends are serving at it would be greatly appreciated. And to everyone serving missions soon it's pretty simple, work hard, obey, have faith, work hard, obey, have faith and if you do this, you qualify for the spirit and you will see miracles. Don't forget it either.
I love you all so much and I love hearing from you so much. I will let you know when mail comes for sure. I have really missed hearing from Brandon, Lisa and G ma every week haha. I love you all and know that all is well. Remember to have faith and press forward.
Como el versículo mas mejor en todas las escrituras dice Debemos seguir adelante con firmeza en Cristo.
Love you all,
Elder Stockard
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