Mommmma:
Yo so check it! Another sick week up here in Ciudad Victoria. I say that all the time, but it is legitimately the truth! I straight love this place so much. I would be so content serving the rest of my mish here. Part of this comes from serving with Elder Garry because we get along so well, but a lot of this comes with time and hard work as well, but in these last probably 5 or 6 weeks, I've transitioned from the attitude of, 'I love my mish but I miss my fam and friends and I will be happy when I can see them again,' to the attitude of, 'I love my mish so much and every day is a challenge but it's straight SICK WIT IT everyday up in here.' I seriously love it so much. There are some days where I wake up, pray, think about the plans we have for the day and just can't wait to get out there. It's been pretty cool. I think this also comes as I learn more and more about the eternal laws that govern all happiness that it just so happens that we as humans many times make the choice to ignore. Those laws are the commandments, they don't change and they always bring us happiness, it's a very simple process, the problem is that Satan has dressed up and twisted disobedience to the commandments in such a way that many people have been misled as to what really brings happiness. The good thing is that the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, have that guide for us as to what really brings happiness and our obedience the these principles will always keep us on the path of joy here in this life and eternal life in the next. Pretty good plan I'd say.
So the best thing this week happened with Lorenzo's family, la Familia Villanueva. Their whole family lives together, and when I say whole family, I'm talking like 3 generations, lots of people. Not all of them are members, but all of the sudden a ton of them want to listen to us. We now have 7 investigators in that fam and 5 of them want to be baptized really soon! #Blessing. Two of them have already been to church a lot and are going to be baptized in two weeks and the rest is a work in progress as we are going to have to help get two of them married. This is usually somewhat of an obstacle due to the cost, but not to worry, one of our super awesome member neighbors has the government hook ups and has a way to get it done for free! So that's pretty sick, we should be baptizing an awful lot in these next couple of weeks with all these part member families. Something I've really seen a lot of success with with these less actives is to always start with some questions about how they met the missionaries, their conversion process, and their baptism day. This serves two purposes: 1, It gets them talking about themselves, which everyone wants to do, it gets them telling experiences which they will almost always ending up telling you why they are menos activo, and 2, it gets them remembering, thinking and feeling some of the same spirit that they felt at the time of their conversion. My ability to get people to talk about themselves has been something that has really grown and it's a really great tool in missionary work, not gonna lie. Remember all you future missionaries slash car salesmen, EVERYBODY WANTS TO TALK ABOUT THEMSELVES, and if you let them do it for long enough, you will know what you need to teach, read, say, or do... I promise.
Another super sick part of this last week was that I had my first dia de independencia here in Mexico!!! The stake had this huge fiesta with a focus of getting investigators and menos activos out to it... And we did. There was over 1000 people there, tons of food, games, and Mexican music. We had like 8 investigators there and a ton of less active families. The Elders were allowed to go if we had investigators there and so I got to see the Mexican version of 4th of July. Not quite as good as a good ole patriotic 4th of July with Booner Ray Giles, but still it was fun. Plus one thing is that Mexican people just flat out know how to cook, that's for sure. It was a really fun time though and a successful activity for our investigators and menos activos.
Well, the church is true, it's something I feel every single day in my heart. And even if I didn't, I could just look at their financial records and I think that would be sufficient evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel. Hahah jk, but like for real.
Love you all to death. #DYT #143
Love,
Elder Stockard
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