Dear family and friends,
well this week was a pretty tough one for me, but it was o.k. because it was christmas, i hope you all had a great christmas. this week we had a deadline to meet for the dates of baptism of everyone in the ward. it has been a week of a lot of walking and sore legs. it was really fun because we got visit all the inactives and try to get them reactivated. Most of the people here are willing to listen to the message, and want to change, but aren´t willing to. except for one. there is this one really cool guy that we visit about every other day. he has not been going to church for about two years now. he has been drinking and a whole bunch of other stuff, we have been helping him with quitting those things and helping him get back into church. this Sunday he finally went to church and it was like he was glowing, he seemed so happy there. it was way worth it to me to do those lists and go through hundreds of names and more streets just to find this one person who was a little lost. i am so glad that we found him and he is doing good. Every time we see him he looks like he is happier and he is doing better. i know this to be because he is doing the things that the lord wants him to do. i know that whatever thing that happens in our life bad or good we can have happiness. Happiness comes from obeying the commandments of God. In the Book of Mormon it says every experience bad or good is for our good. so if you feel depressed and fell like there is no end, have joy because there is an end to your pain. It doesn´t always have to be in this life, if we are faithful in this life we are blessed for ever and ever. Blessings never stop if we are faithful in this life and do all we can to follow the commandments of the lord. well i have to go right now, but i wish you all a happy week.
love,elder robert atwood
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Dear family and friends,
how has everything been going? every thing here in mexico has been going really good. my companion and i have been trying really hard to teach 30 lessons every week to non members. we are getting closer every week to this goal. we have 8 investigators right now who are just the coolest people ever. they are all so awesome. we have been working really hard to get them excited to be baptized. we have been stressing the point that when we are baptized we become clean from all of our sins and after we receive the holy ghost and we can feel peace in our lives. it is so cool to see the joy of the gospel in their eyes when we teach them. the other day one of our investigators had this doubt or question. why do we need to go to church every week, why do i need one church when all the churches are really good. my companion tried to do everything to prove why we need to go to church every week and why we need one church with the scriptures. she started getting mad and said that, that doesn´t make any sense. he tried some more. then she shoved him aside and said to me, i want to hear your opinion on this. so i was like oh no i have to explain this in spanish. so i started off slow, but as it went on i was speaking perfect spanish and words i didn´t know were flowing. i swear i learned how to speak so much more spanish from this experience. i told her. that i don´t know all the reasons why we need to go to church every week, but i know that christ taught that we should go to church every week. christ also taught one chruch, one faith, one baptism, and i is u to u to find this church and b members o this church because this i also a commandment. d and of the closeness our family has become of that experience. i then told her, that at the moment everything may seem bad, but if you put you trust in the lord, the blessings that will come will be all worth it. i told her that it seems like your trial will never end, but it will end one day and if you put your trust in the lord, the blessings will come. i am telling you all today, that if you all put your trust in the lord and do your best, you will be blessed through your trials and they will seem to be easier. i promise you that, because God himself has said it and God doesn´t lie or he would not be God. i love you all and i hope you all have a great week. you guys are all so awesome. do you best, God loves you and there is nothing you can do about that. i can tell that God has been blessing us with through our hard times. as i said before my comp and i have been working harder than ever. this sunday we saw the fruits of our labor. we had all of our investigators come to church. I felt like God was pleased with my work, and i was so happy that they all came. i couldn´t even explain it. we have three baptisms for the fourth of january. it will be a great day to see them all baptized. i just know that we are so close with all of our investigators and that i can´t slow down. i need to work harder, because we all can do better, because we are all imperfect. o.k. i have to go now, but have a great week. oh one last thing. i was santa this week and it was so funny because they gave me these prescription glasses and it was dark and they wanted me to give candy to all the kids in the party, so i couldn´t see and i tripped so many times, but it was so fun to be santa. i said jo jo jo mer feliz navidad. i kept on trying to say merry christmas, but i forgot i was in mexico and i needed to speak spanish. it was so cool also because this little girl came up to me and said with the coolest face, le quiero mucho santa and gave me the biggest hug ever, i was a pretty horrible santa, but it was so fun. all the adults call me elder santa now, but not in front of the kids. o.k. i really have to go now. i love you all.
love,elder robert atwood
how has everything been going? every thing here in mexico has been going really good. my companion and i have been trying really hard to teach 30 lessons every week to non members. we are getting closer every week to this goal. we have 8 investigators right now who are just the coolest people ever. they are all so awesome. we have been working really hard to get them excited to be baptized. we have been stressing the point that when we are baptized we become clean from all of our sins and after we receive the holy ghost and we can feel peace in our lives. it is so cool to see the joy of the gospel in their eyes when we teach them. the other day one of our investigators had this doubt or question. why do we need to go to church every week, why do i need one church when all the churches are really good. my companion tried to do everything to prove why we need to go to church every week and why we need one church with the scriptures. she started getting mad and said that, that doesn´t make any sense. he tried some more. then she shoved him aside and said to me, i want to hear your opinion on this. so i was like oh no i have to explain this in spanish. so i started off slow, but as it went on i was speaking perfect spanish and words i didn´t know were flowing. i swear i learned how to speak so much more spanish from this experience. i told her. that i don´t know all the reasons why we need to go to church every week, but i know that christ taught that we should go to church every week. christ also taught one chruch, one faith, one baptism, and i is u to u to find this church and b members o this church because this i also a commandment. d and of the closeness our family has become of that experience. i then told her, that at the moment everything may seem bad, but if you put you trust in the lord, the blessings that will come will be all worth it. i told her that it seems like your trial will never end, but it will end one day and if you put your trust in the lord, the blessings will come. i am telling you all today, that if you all put your trust in the lord and do your best, you will be blessed through your trials and they will seem to be easier. i promise you that, because God himself has said it and God doesn´t lie or he would not be God. i love you all and i hope you all have a great week. you guys are all so awesome. do you best, God loves you and there is nothing you can do about that. i can tell that God has been blessing us with through our hard times. as i said before my comp and i have been working harder than ever. this sunday we saw the fruits of our labor. we had all of our investigators come to church. I felt like God was pleased with my work, and i was so happy that they all came. i couldn´t even explain it. we have three baptisms for the fourth of january. it will be a great day to see them all baptized. i just know that we are so close with all of our investigators and that i can´t slow down. i need to work harder, because we all can do better, because we are all imperfect. o.k. i have to go now, but have a great week. oh one last thing. i was santa this week and it was so funny because they gave me these prescription glasses and it was dark and they wanted me to give candy to all the kids in the party, so i couldn´t see and i tripped so many times, but it was so fun to be santa. i said jo jo jo mer feliz navidad. i kept on trying to say merry christmas, but i forgot i was in mexico and i needed to speak spanish. it was so cool also because this little girl came up to me and said with the coolest face, le quiero mucho santa and gave me the biggest hug ever, i was a pretty horrible santa, but it was so fun. all the adults call me elder santa now, but not in front of the kids. o.k. i really have to go now. i love you all.
love,elder robert atwood
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Hello family and friends.
well this week was a regular week, but it was a really cool week because i was in the service of the lord. oh one funny thing that happened this week is that i acquired a dog. my comp and i were out tracting one day and this stray dog was looking at me really sad. i felt bad for it and gave it the last of my food which was like a crumb. i shouldn´t have done that. the dog started to follow me every where. i swear that that dog followed me for about two hours. i didn´t know what to do. i tried every thing to get that dog to go away, but it wouldn´t go away. i threw a rock at it, i screamed at it. nothing worked. it loved me too much. so my comp and i ran across a busy street but the dog i swear is a cat because it had nine lives. it almost got hit like five times. finally we got tired of having a dog so we just took a taxi to get rid of it. it looked at me really sad when i left, but i wasn´t fooled that time. i don´t really have too much time on the computer, but i would like to tell you all that you are all in my prayers. i hope all is going well with you all. have you all been getting ready for navidad? my comp and i have. this past week we decorated our apartment with christmas decorations. it is really cool i will have to send some pictures of the decorations next week. well i don´t really have much to write about this week because we have been not really doing anything except the christmas campaign. it is where we go around giving people this dvd who call for it. it is a dvd about jesus christ and his birth. it is call joy to the world or in spanish regocijous jesus nació. but the thing i like most about my mission so far is this one family. the santos family. they are the coolest family ever. like i said before the dad has been drinking and he has asked us to help him do good. so we have been helping him. i told him how to make resisting sin easier. and i told him to start your day with christ by reading scriptures and prayer. he has listened to my council and he hasn´t drank for over a month now and he is now one of the strongest members in the ward. i love seeing the change in his face every time i get to see him. it is so awesome. i see how happy he is in his life and how the light of christ just shines about him. his family never fights any more and his house has the spirit of the lord. every time i go into that house i feel the spirit stronger. it just makes you happy when you see someones life change because of the gospel. i know the gospel seems like it has a lot of rules, but i can sincerely tell you that when we follow these rules with faith, we are truly blessed. it may sound like it binds us down, but when we follow them it does exactly the opposite. i know this to be a fact and not an opinion because i have seen it and i have felt it.
Elder Atwood
well this week was a regular week, but it was a really cool week because i was in the service of the lord. oh one funny thing that happened this week is that i acquired a dog. my comp and i were out tracting one day and this stray dog was looking at me really sad. i felt bad for it and gave it the last of my food which was like a crumb. i shouldn´t have done that. the dog started to follow me every where. i swear that that dog followed me for about two hours. i didn´t know what to do. i tried every thing to get that dog to go away, but it wouldn´t go away. i threw a rock at it, i screamed at it. nothing worked. it loved me too much. so my comp and i ran across a busy street but the dog i swear is a cat because it had nine lives. it almost got hit like five times. finally we got tired of having a dog so we just took a taxi to get rid of it. it looked at me really sad when i left, but i wasn´t fooled that time. i don´t really have too much time on the computer, but i would like to tell you all that you are all in my prayers. i hope all is going well with you all. have you all been getting ready for navidad? my comp and i have. this past week we decorated our apartment with christmas decorations. it is really cool i will have to send some pictures of the decorations next week. well i don´t really have much to write about this week because we have been not really doing anything except the christmas campaign. it is where we go around giving people this dvd who call for it. it is a dvd about jesus christ and his birth. it is call joy to the world or in spanish regocijous jesus nació. but the thing i like most about my mission so far is this one family. the santos family. they are the coolest family ever. like i said before the dad has been drinking and he has asked us to help him do good. so we have been helping him. i told him how to make resisting sin easier. and i told him to start your day with christ by reading scriptures and prayer. he has listened to my council and he hasn´t drank for over a month now and he is now one of the strongest members in the ward. i love seeing the change in his face every time i get to see him. it is so awesome. i see how happy he is in his life and how the light of christ just shines about him. his family never fights any more and his house has the spirit of the lord. every time i go into that house i feel the spirit stronger. it just makes you happy when you see someones life change because of the gospel. i know the gospel seems like it has a lot of rules, but i can sincerely tell you that when we follow these rules with faith, we are truly blessed. it may sound like it binds us down, but when we follow them it does exactly the opposite. i know this to be a fact and not an opinion because i have seen it and i have felt it.
Elder Atwood
Monday, December 15, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Durango Mexico 12/8/08 (Companion: Elder Rincon)
mom,
i forgot to tell you about some cool experiences this week, well i have had the chance to give three blessings this week, i was so nervous, but the lord put the words in my mouth. that was really cool, but the scary thing before that was what happened for us to give the blessing. we went into this members house to activate our lists and so we walked in and everyone was crying, and i couldn´t understand the words they were saying and i saw this old lady laying down in the next room with people surrounding her and so i thought someone was dying. then all of the sudden i heard a scream from the ladies son in that room that was laying down and i thought the kid was dying, because it was like he was being murdered scream, then it looked like he wasn´t breathing and his dad and his uncle had him in the air looking like they were doing some type of cpr and everyone is running around freaking out and they are all talking extremely fast and i can´t understand a word. so we gave him a blessing and it turned out that he just hit his stomach when he fell and that everyone was crying because they had contention in the family, but the cool part was the spirit that was in the house after we gave the blessing. it was so strong i could not begin to describe it. it was like the holy ghost had his arm around me. i felt like a cry baby. i don´t know why, but i felt so much love in that room, everyone felt calm after the prayer too. everyone was just dead silent and no one wanted to talk because everyone felt that same spirit. ok. a more funny note. it is funny when people ask me where i am from because i say las vegas with an american accent, but they don´t understand. so i say las begas nebatha, once i say that they are like oh o.k. oh and yesterday i ate the hottest pepper of my life, i didn´t know what to do with myself, it was so hott, i can´t remember the name of the pepper, but the mexicans said that they couldn´t even handle that pepper, i drank so much soda to get the hot to go away. well mom i have to go. i love you so much.
love, elder robert atwood
p.s. please send this to the usual people for me please :)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
November 24, 2008
Family and friends> >
well this week has been really short. time flyes by when you are working all day. we have had some really great experiences. this week i we have recileved two new progressing investigators. and we have one with a baptizimal date and two on their way. all in all we have about six progressing investigators. The language is finally coming along. i can finally understand what people are saying. talk about the gift of tongues. it is still a struggle for me to speak, but i have been doing my hardest to speak. i love every minute of my mission. the peole here are so nice. even though i don´t know everything that is going on i know that God is pleased with where i am at right now. well i don´t have too much time so i will write a little longer one next week.>
well this week has been really short. time flyes by when you are working all day. we have had some really great experiences. this week i we have recileved two new progressing investigators. and we have one with a baptizimal date and two on their way. all in all we have about six progressing investigators. The language is finally coming along. i can finally understand what people are saying. talk about the gift of tongues. it is still a struggle for me to speak, but i have been doing my hardest to speak. i love every minute of my mission. the peole here are so nice. even though i don´t know everything that is going on i know that God is pleased with where i am at right now. well i don´t have too much time so i will write a little longer one next week.>
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)