Sunday, January 18, 2015

Miguel Aleman - January 12, 2015

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!! 
I did not forget! I was thinking about all week actually. Thinking, ``I cannot forget to write Dad, I cannot forget to write Dad :)`` 

I hope that the Birthday dinner was super fun and that everything!

So I have some interesting news. We had 2 hours to write before, but we now have the new rule that we can only write for 1. So, I will try to print off your letters and read them later so that I can take advantage of the time to write :) 

So yeah, with Transfers I was moved out and out in Miguel Aleman, with Elder Weiss from West Valley Utah and as district Leader. Elder Wies has only a few months on the mission, but he tries so hard even despite his bad Spanish to share the gospel. I realized that we get a lot of different reactions from people, because we are both really big white guys, (he is only like an inch shorter) walking around in Mexico, trying to speak Spanish. :) 

I thought it was no big deal that I was called again as District Leader, until I found out that my district was twice as big as before, (from 4 to 8) and that the Zone Leaders are in my district as well, and that I am replacing a missionary who went home because he finished his Mission, Elder Soto (who was Assistant to President and everything. I felt I had big shoes to fill). It was a little stressful at first, but I am getting used to it, and to the new area. 
My companion is helping me to see that I need to be a little bolder when it comes to being a leader, and when it comes to helping those missionaries that aren’t working as hard as they could be. We are working on that :) 

This week was very had actually. We made a goal as a Zone to find new people to teach. We don’t have very many investigators in this area, so we full-heartedly agreed and went right to it, but with Zero success! If we had an appointment, we went, but all of our time with appointments, we were looking for people whom we had contacted, visiting their houses trying to find new people. A few answered their doors, but all told us to come back later. We worked so hard, with the attitude of refusing to go back to the house until we had fulfilled our goals, with contacting people especially. I have never been so tired on my mission! And we didn’t find a single new person.... 
And then all the phone calls afterwards in the night to check up on my district, and it was super cold this week. I have felt very stressed, to the point of neck pain, but it’s ok. I am getting used to things day by day, and I hope that all our hard works pays off and that we see success as we keep on keeping at it! (don’t worry, I still have plenty of ibuprofen :) No, everything is ok though. It’s just an adjusting thing :) 

We were rewarded though by two AWESOME lessons though on Sunday night. One with a couple, Alfredo and Martha, who are super friendly, but super talkative, and in the past have let us hardly talk in the lessons. But this time, they listened the whole time, the Spirit was just so thick, as us two Gringos tried to share the message of the Restoration with them. It just felt great! And we knew they felt it too, despite the language barrier. 

And then another one with Adan Zapato, an atheist turned Christian with a die had passion for the bible, who could not see the reason God would reveal new scripture that taught the same thing as the bible. We shared the First Vision with him and just full on pure testimonies about the Book of Mormon, as the previous Companion of Elder Weiss had tried to Bible Bash, but didn’t do any good. But at the end of the lesson, he decided on his own that he wanted to read it to see if it was true. So! It was an AWEOME NIGHT: We felt bad for getting chewed out for our terrible numbers for the week, but we know we did our best. 

I am learning a lot here and working hard. It is great. 

I am still waiting for the packages! 

Thanks for everything and I love you all so much! 


Elder Hayden Redford

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