Happy Anniversary Mission Mexico Saltillo!!

Que onda familia!!!

Que dicen?? Que me cuentan??

Well, today marks the one year mark that President Rodriguez and his wife arrived here to Saltillo to begin the best mission in the world!! (sorry to any serving or ex missionaries) So to celebrate, President is having a carne asada at his house with the 4 secretaries and the 2 assistants. So that is why i am on earlier than normal. But it's going to be awesome!! I'll be sure to send you guys lots of pictures. We're also planning on making t-shirts for the office.  It's crazy how fast the time goes by, i feel like it wasn't too long ago i was in the house with Elder Peralta waiting for the changes to see which mission i would end up staying in. 

Well, i have a couple exciting news for you guys. First off, we had a baptism on Saturday!!!! Everything went really well, and the service was very very spiritual. I will send you guys the pictures later, but we're just working with the dad now so that he can make the decision as well. And HOPEFULLY before i leave the area... 

President has already told me i am leaving this transfer (in 3 weeks) to go to a new area. He also told me where i'm going and as what, but i'll wait a few weeks to tell you guys to let it be a surprise:)  But i'm excited, because the office life is a stressful life and i'm excited to just be a normal field missionary again. And i will NEVER touch the cell phone once i'm not secretary anymore, i'll let my companion be in charge of that. Haha, but i'm still not sure who my replacement will be, but President will probably let me know next week to be able to bring him in a few days early so i can train him. 

Well this week was great because we had a ton of lessons with members in the ward, they have really been such a great support to us and even more so as of late. I think the visit of Elder Johnson motivated all of them to be more involved in the missionary work. Almost every day of the week we had a member accompany us to more than 1 or 2 appointments with either investigators or less active members, which really helps so much because as missionaries we can only do so much. And thanks to our combined efforts we should have 4 or 5 investigadors in church again this week, which will be awesome! because this week is ward conference! So the service should be really nice, and we were asked to be a part of the ward choir (mainly because no on else would do it), but to say the choir sounds a little bad would be an understatement... haha so let's just hope the spirit is strong enough so they don't realize how bad we sound. But we're working really hard and hopefully we can have 1 or 2 more baptisms before I leave the area. So we'll keep working hard to bring more souls to Christ!!! 

I love the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, where Paul talks about the importance of having charity, the pure love of christ, in all that we do, because if not he tells us that it doesn't serve for anything. (just ignore my horrible english grammar) And the REASON we do things is just as important, if not more, then the fact that we actually do them. God knows our heart and it's important that we do things because we love God and because we love the people.  Haha, but i love studying about charity and i invite you guys to do the same:)

Well, hopefully i'll be able to get on later to hear from some of you guys, but if not just know that i love you all and i miss you! But i hope you have a greatttttt week:)

con mucho amor,

Elder Bird

One More Month in the Office then Back to Full Time Proselyting

Well this week was the week of transfers here in the mission, which means i slept probably about 20 hours this entire week. So i'm a LITTLE tired. But president told me this will be my last change here in the offices which means no more transfer weeks for me here in the offices! Which is good because the next transfer, 10 missionaries go home and 11 missionaries get here so it's going to be crazyyyy! President told me to start thinking in a replacement but i really have no one in mind! So i gotta start looking into who is going to take my place here in the offices. I'm pretty excited to be able to go out into the field again, I think Taylor can atest to the fact that being secretary is A LOT of work and i'm ready to just be able to focus on my area again! And not have to receive 87 phone calls a day... 

This Wednesday Elder Rosa went home, and we went to the airport to drop him off and it always feels really weird to see someone go home, especially someone I know really well. Can you guys believe that will be me in less than 7 months?! But it was cracking me up all of the stuff he took home, he brought tamales, mexican soda, dulces, and over 80 pounds of other random little memories. Haha but it was a pain packing it all because we had to cover everything up in bubble wrap and then cover it in tape. So we didn't finish packing his stuff until almost 1 in the morning, and then we had to wake up at 4:30 to get to the airport by 5:45.

Well the familia De La Cruz went to church again this sunday but the sister had a pretty bad diabetes attack at the end of the sunday school, which was kinda scary, so we had everyone get out to give her some space and then we gave her a blessing. Luckily though there is a doctor in our ward who was able to help her out, and so we got her to the car and her husband drove them home, but then about an hour later they called us again to tell us that the hermano de la cruz had been fixing the car and that something broke and gasoline fell all over his face and into his ears and his skin was burning really really bad. So talk about opposition?! But after a few days of recovering we were able to go with them again last night and luckily they are both doing better, and the family still says they're ready for their baptism in 2 weeks. We also had an awesome lesson with the familiy Muñoz Rodriguez yesterday, and we taught them more in depth about the book of mormon and they were SUPER interested! And they said they are coming to church on Sunday, but on Monday the hermana has an appointment in monterrey to see if her cancer is completely gone, and if it's not she is going to have to start chemotherapy treatment again:/ so we are going to fast for her tomorrow and pray for the best. 

Well today was super crazy because mexico played in the world cup, and the entire city basically just shut down to watch it. The mall/plaza here by the offices converted into a giant arena basically and they had big screens up everywhere with the game on and there were thousands of people in the streets and inside watching the game. And it was soooo cool when they scored the goal because everyone just went crazy! Haha, we were in the offices and we heard them so we went to see what was going on. I was going to take pictures but i forgot my camera,but i'll take some on Tuesday when they play Brazil because i'm assuming that will be even crazier.

Not the best week :(

Hey guys!!!!

This week has been superrrrrrrrrrr long. I've actually been in kind of a funk lately, and been feeling a little bummed, not for any reason in specific, just been in kind of a bad mood and i couldn't seem to snap out of it, BUT something awesome happened yesterday! Which i will tell you guys about shortly...

But first off, i didn't get many emails from you guys this week so i'm guessing it was a crazy week finishing up school! Now you guys are all gradumakated and stuff. When is Kendall's graduation ceremony? You guys gotta send me pictures!!!!! I also heard from Kendall that the house was flooded? Someone has GOT to explain that story to me! 

Well on saturday we had a special conference with Elder Johnson on his last day here just with the mission leaders, so it was about 15 missionaries, the mission president and his wife, and then elder johnson and his wife. And it was seriously one of the most incredible meetings i have ever been in. The spirit was SOOOO strong. I won't try to describe some of the things he taught to us in the meeting, because it won't be nearly as powerful as the way he taught us. But a cool thing that he taught us is something that comes in D&C 68, and says that anything said under the influence of the spirit, is scripture, and has just as much power as the scriptures we find in the bible and book of mormon, even though we almost always just think of those books to be the only scripture, and forget the power of the spirit revealing new scripture through his servants here in the earth.

(i'm just apologizing for my HORRIBLE english grammar by the way)

Haha, but the meeting was just really really special. It was the closest and most personal meeting that i've had with a general authority and the spirit he has is incredible. It definitely motivated all of us to be better.

But back to what i was saying earlier, i'm not exactly why i was stuck in this funk, i was just a little frustrated with some elders in my district being dumb and a little frustrated with my companion and then just overwhelmed with all the work i have in the offices and then the work in our area on top of that and i was just ready to explode yesterday. We had a HORRIBLE lesson with the family of Lalo, and his grandma (who has promised us the last 3 weeks she will come to church but hasn't) had a huge breakdown and expressed to us how she doesn't even believe in God anymore and how she doesn't believe that He is there and that He knows her, because she is still emotionally scarred from the loss of her daughter about 6 months ago. And she told us she doesn't want anything anymore and basically just kicked us out of our house. And so when we left their house, i was about ready to just lose it. I was just beyond frustrated and just wanted to go home for the night, but we still had one more appointment with the familia de la cruz before we were going to go home. So when we got to their house me and my companion were both in a horrible mood and just not in a good spirit to teach. But we taught the lesson anyways, and it went pretty well but nothing great. Then we said the closing prayer and just out of habit asked them if they had any questions or something we could do for them before leaving. And that's when things started to get AWESOME! They told us that they have been praying together as a family and reading the book of mormon together and have decided that they want to get baptized. And they asked us how many more lessons we needed to teach them before they get baptized or when was the soonest they could get baptized. Then they told us that they have been studying baptism in the scriptures (something that we still hadn't left for them to do) and that the daughter has already read the ENTIRE book of mormon! So cool!!! So they will get baptized on June 22!!! (or maybe the 15th if we get permission from president). But they are seriously the most prepared and gospel ready family i have ever met on my mission. It was just so cool, and then right as we left the house i got a call from the family i baptized in my first area telling me that they have already started taking the temple prep classes and that within a month will be going to the temple to get sealed as a family. So i am SUPER excited to be able to go with them soon! And then the other family (Nieto) from my first area also wrote me saying that soon they will start the classes as well because they are about to complete a year as well. So i'm super excited to go to the temple with them!! 

Well i love you guys and i hope you have a great week!! But write me this week becaue i didn't hear from you guys much this week! But i love you all:))

con mucho amor,

Elder Bird