Together again

My CCM district together again

I love the beach in Lebu

Baptism of Luz (it means light)

Hey Mom,                                                                        July 28, 2014                                                                                                                                  

 I was able to meet with president and we had a pretty nice talk. He is a funny down to earth guy who has learned to work hard but enjoy life at the same time. He is a very balanced person if you know what I mean.  

I cant  believe it has been 1 year since we put in that walk way, that went by really fast haha. I just realized that I almost have a year in the mission, that scares me. Pretty crazy.

The week went okay, we were able to have another baptism this week. Her name is Luz (light). She is the mom of three.  She is a really funny lady and I think that if she can hold strong and learn more about the gospel and how it can help her that she will benefit tremendously from it.

Im glad that you have taken the challenge to try and recognize Christ more in your life. That is something that alot of us stuggle with. Even as missionaries  sometimes we get so caught up in other things that we forget why we are even here in the first place.  Honestly, I feel like when I see Christ in my life I see him in someone elses.  I see him answering prayers or comforting people and when investigators and members tell us experiences you can see that God had a plan all along.  There was a talk  by Pres Monson. About seeing God in our lives. He sees that when we are in the middle of the tornado we cannot, or it's difficult to see God's hand directly in our lives. But when we conquer the trial we can look back and see that he was there the whole time, every step of the way.

I think i will be getting transfered this cambio. it ends the 12 of Aug.  I don't want to leave Cañete. I actually like it here.  But the Lord's will right? 

Keep on recognizing the Lord's hand in your life. 

Love you!!! 

Elder Noel!

Another successful week

La familia H

Baptism Day

Hey Mom,                                                                         July 21, 2014                                                               

This week we were able to baptize a great family of 3. La familia H. They are a really great loving family and have the goal to go to the temple next year. Its really quite amazing what the Lord can do as soon as people decide to follow him. It was cool to see them get baptized and the mom and dad actually got married this week as well. The Lord has really been giving us great people to find teach and baptize. Hopefully we can keep up the process.

Today for pday we went to the beach in Lebu. My companion kept saying he felt like he was home because he is from Hawaii and he hasn't seen a beach in like 3 months.

Things with training are going okay, all I can do is my best and let the Lord take care of the part that I can't do.  My comp seems to be doing good. He laughs a lot and jokes around too, so thats good. I feel like a bad father haha but I told him that he has been training me. He is a good kid and I have learned a lot from him.  Spanish is coming along good. I can understand basically everything everyone says and get across what I need to say. I would like to be able to speak a lot better, so I will be trying to work on that.

(I asked Hayden what a typical day was for him)

A typical day, at 7 we wake up, pray, get ready eat, at 8:30 personal study, 9:30 we plan and have comp study. Then at 11 we have his training program for one hour and then at 12 we do practices or leave to go work. At 1:30 we have lunch and at 3 we have language study, worst time for language study, ever. At 4 we work and we get back at 9:30 sleep at 11. Same thing for two years. I feel like I am used to the schedule, but we have to make sure we take advantage of all the things that we are doing so that we can be efficient and effective. 

I'm sure that you have noticed in my latest pictures, I am getting fat. I have gained almost 20 pounds haha. 20 pounds! I can't believe it. There is another reason for me to start working out again.

Your the best and before you know it I will be home. But in the meantime, I've got some work to do. I love you mom! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Noel!

Great story!!

Hey Dad,                                      July 7, 2014                                                              

I thought about you guys alot on the fourth of July and I kept thinking about what you guys were doing as I went on throughout the day. Elder Wallace and I had an intercambio and him, me and my comp all sang the Star Spangled Banner the morning of the fourth, it was pretty funny.

This week we had another baptism. The Lord has really been blessing us with great people to teach. Remember Pablo and his brother Oscar? Well this week their mom was baptized. I can say that I really love this family. It might be hard for me to show or explain sometimes but I think that I love them. I asked Pablo what he thought about it and he said, well now everyone in our house has been baptized, I want an eternal family. I was really surprised by his response and it sort of hit me pretty hard. Kind of a cool thing.

The day of her baptism, Ruth (pablos mom) called me and said, Elder, I am not going to get baptized.  I tried to talk her into it but she wouldn't budge. I finally just told her to pray and ask God if she should do it, and then I would call her in a half of an hour.  She agreed. Well we decided to go to her house and when we walked in Pablo opened the door. He said, My mom is going to get baptized, I thought what the heck? Just then Ruth walked out of the bathroom with a big smile on her face and said Im going to get baptized. I asked her what changed. She said she prayed and that she decided to flip through the scriptures. She said according to the scripture that her finger landed on, that she would get baptized. She flipped to DC 11:27-31. You guys can look it up. 

Interesting thing is, that the scripture doesnt say get baptized. But she told us that to her, she felt like the Lord would guide her in every way in her life. As she told me the experience  I started to tear up. She was baptized later that day.

I know God lives. He loves us and answers our prayers. I know that he knows us personally. Each one of us perfectly and that it is our job to search Him, and He will do the rest. 

Love you!!

Elder Noel

A surprise baptism :)

Familia Monkey:)

Hey Mom,                                    June30, 2014

I am glad that you guys had fun while you were in Washington and that you guys were able to watch the game. It was a great game even though Chile lost. The city of Cañete was sort of quiet for the rest of the week but later they were really supportive of the team and how well they played in this mundial. 

It sounds like this summer is packed for you guys with vacations, work, sports etc.. make sure with all the stuff going on that you still have time to do family stuff. I will sure miss the fourth of July! that is one holiday that really is my favorite!

Winter is cold but its not to bad. Actually we are going to be moving houses within the next two weeks because the house that we are in right now is a piece. 

This week in sacrament meeting I had to give a talk about the family, I was nervous because it was my first one in spanish but I think it went alright. I know that families can be together forever!

This week we had 2 more baptisms! They were sort of unexpected but it was awesome to be able to see this mother and her daugter get baptized. Its a family of 6 but the dad is a non active. He was baptized when he was eleven and never went back. This sunday he came to church, took the sacrament and we are hoping that we can get this family going strong in the church. Me and Elder Precourt first found them when we bought churrascos from them. It was neat to see them get baptized.

I thank God everyday for the great family I have and I know that you love and pray for me all the time. I love you! Take care!

Elder Noel!

Chile! Chile! Chile!

Oscar, Pablo and Ruth

Chile! Chile! Chile!

Hey Mom!                                      June 23, 2014                                                                              

 I am glad to hear that you guys are rooting for Chile.  It does get pretty crazy down here when they play and stuff. When they won on wednesday I thought a rocket went off when people were running up and down the streets screaming CHILE CHILE CHILE!

Today for pday our mission president let us watch the game. It was really nice of him to do that. He leaves this next monday and the new president gets here on friday. I have heard a lot of good things about him and Im sure he will be a great mission president. He has my back 100 percent.

The week was good. The two baptisms went through! It was a really cool thing to see my comp be able to baptize. We baptized Oscar and Pablo. They are the two sons of Ruth.   It was cool to see them baptized. The monday before his baptism Pablo said he was sorta if'y about it. But when we came over to his house, his family’s cat had been lost. Well he said the closing prayer and not 2 minutes later his cat showed up at the door. He said from that experience his testimony about prayer and God grew. Something simple like that helped him gain a testimony about Gods love for him.

  

Time is flying and I will try and make the best out of it. I love you!

Elder Noel