Week Forty-six and a half: Estrés

STRESS. This week was super stressful with a LOT of office work. This monday, the new mission president is coming, so we were crazy busy getting everything ready for his arrival.

Monday we had our last conference with President Camarillo. we had a special training from him and his wife about the Book of Mormon and the Sabbath day and then we took a break to take pictures as zones and photos with just us and the President and his wife (picture 1)

Here's a pic of our zone this last Monday!

After taking pictures we had a testimony meeting with the 2 zones in our stake (the only 2 zones who went to this conference) and it was super awesome! Before the mission i just kind of dozed through testimony meetings and didnt take advantage of them but now i appreciate them! the spirit is so strong and i got to learn so much about so many missionaries who had to go through some crazy stuff to get on the mission and make huge sacrifices to be out in the mission field and that really helped strengthen my testimony about the work we are doing and why we are doing it. After the meeting we gave our "last goodbyes" to President Camarillo and his wife but instead of saying goodbye to me they just said "see you soon! we still have work to do!" haha so i wont say goodbye to them until monday when the new president is already here.

Other than the conference this week was full of working furiously at the computer trying to get as much work done as i could before President Camarillo leaves.

Also, we bought a ton of parasite medication for all the missionaries in the mission 
so we built towers out of the boxes! (picture 2)

Challenge: Read 1 Nephi 13. I read it this week and it hit me really hard how much it testifies of the restoration of the gospel and the establishment of the United States. READ IT! I PROMISE YOU WONT REGRET IT!

Thank you for all your prayers, love and support! i love you all! -Elder Wagner

Week Forty-five and a half: President's second to last week

Elote!
 I finally found corn like in nacho libre! i feel like i have filled an emptiness that has been in my soul for years.

This week was full of tender mercies! i didnt even realize in until now, but thinking about the past week i can see the Lords hand helping me out in small but big ways. I found a lot of stuff that i can do differently in my assignment that i didnt know how to do before and now i can work more effectively and with a lot less stress, we got to eat a giant BBQ with president, his wife, his daughter, the assistants, and all of the missionaries in the offices, and a thousand other small things.

Elder Guillen's Birthday. we bought him a dairy queen cake

Elder Zurita and me eating an entire 3 milk cake (pastel de tres leches)

We woke up this morning and saw we had a message from president and i was expecting an emergency or he needed us to run and do something for him that moment, but it turns out he just invited us to eat at his house! we had a BBQ and relaxed at the mission home for about 4 hours and got to joke around with the president which is something we almost never get to do. So thats pretty much all i did today and im suuuper full!

BBQ with President, the assistants and the secretaries!

BBQ with President, the assistants and the secretaries!

The investigators we have are really having troubles with keeping commitments and i think we are going to start working hard to find new investigators. Beatrice is amazing, she is christian but she has a hard time accepting that one church is the right one and she doesnt think that its important to have an organization. Hopefully this week she can come to church and find out for herself why we teach her the things we do!

Beatrice! we took her to the temple and had a great lesson!

Everything is coming up really fast. President will be leaving the 29th and just has a few more days! its crazy in the offices because we are trying to prepare everything and im trying to close the books from Pres. Camarillo so Pres. Egginton had a clean slate.

Tomorrow we have stake conference and ill be able to see some of the members from my first area and hopefully my converts will be there and ill be able to see how they are doing!

Challenge: Smile! A few months ago we went to visit a reference we had received and after knocking for a good 5 minutes we decided she wasnt home. as we were leaving we walked past an older woman and in stead of saying hi to her or something like that we kind of ignored her and started thinking of the next plans we had. about 5 seconds later we realized that the woman lived in the house we were looking at just a few moments earlier. we then went over and spoke with her. she said we should have been kinder and said hi to her and smiled because thats what nice people do and it helps brighten other peoples days. we ended up talking with her for a good little bit and we came back another day to find out she was catholic through and through, but she taught us a lesson that we should always smile and say hi to someone because we never know how that one smile or one word could change someones day or brighten it a little bit. Smile!!!

I hope you all have a great week! thank you for all your love and support! les quiero mucho! con mucho amor, Elder Wagner

Week Forty-four and a half: !Hola todos!

This week was pretty normal to be honest, we had divisions with the zone leaders and that was the most crazy/exciting thing we did. we worked a lot with our investigators and found a new couple that is very nice, but we havnt seen any progress with them yet because we only taught them once and we will teach themtomorrow. they are named Aldo and Judith. Aldo already knows a little about the church, but never investigated seriously but now i think he will progress because he has his wife to learn alongside him.

We also have been teaching beatrice a lot. she is very christian and we lost contact with her for a while but now we are teaching her and we have plans to go with her to the temple grounds next week! she is reading the book of mormon and even watched the live story of Thomas S. Monson because we invited her to see one of his talks. she really enjoyed it, but her biggest challenge is accepting one true church. she believes that everything from God is good and she is saved because she already accepted Jesus Christ, but hopefully we can explain the gospel a little more clear and with more emphasis in the saving ordinances when we go to the temple to help her out.

Hymns. We have found that singing hymns brings a special spirit to every lesson. we now try to start lessons with hymns to invite the spirit and it almost always goes better when we do it!

Challenge: Read at least one hymn about the atonement of Jesus Christ and ponder its message. and then sing it and i promise you will feel the spirit really strong!

Thank you for all your love and support! sorry for the shortish letter, ill try to make next weeks letter better and send photos!

Elder Wagner

Week Forty-three and a half: 10 months!

The view from our new apartment this morning

Today i finished ten months in the misson! its crazy how fast time is going by! i think just last month people were asking me how long i had been in the mission and when i said 9 they said stuff like i was just starting and i was still new, but now when i say 10 people say stuff like wow youve almost got a year! or youre already on your way back! i guess once you hit double digits people see two numbers and think its way more haha.

This week we had a ton of work to do because monday we had to move out of our old house and take all of our stuff to a new house and then tuesday we had to turn it in and clean it and we had the leadership council so i was running around doing errands for them and we had people painting the offices all week so i had to go a dayish without a computer and it was really hard to get stuff done. oh and yesterday we had our zone meeting so we lost pretty much the entire work day. so this next week we have a lot of catchup work to do. its going to be a tough week, but were going to work hard and get everything done!

oh yeah so now we live in a new house in some apartments right next to the offices so in the morning we only have to walk about 30 seconds to get to the offices!

This week we started working with a old investigator named feliza. she says she likes the church and she likes it when we come but she never keeps her commitments and its extremely lazy. but we had a good lesson with some members yesterday and i hope she starts improving. she says she is trying to decide between the catholic church and the "mormon" church and cant decide, but she hasnt ever read the book of mormon so were going to focus on that and really try to get her converted.

On thursday we got to the offices and started working really hard right away and then on of the assistants to the president called me and told me and my companion to be ready in 10 minutes in the mcdonalds parking lot with our area book. president then picked us up and we went on a small trip to a town called Tepatitlán and did our weekly planning while he did some interviews with some missionaries (i think. im not actually sure what he did) so we lost a lot of work time for that, but it was good because we had a really good weekly planning session!

Challenge: Read the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Sometimes we just read the book of mormon because we know we should but we dont really understand what it is, and others have never touched or even seen the Book of Mormon. so i invite all of you to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and ponder what it says. its only a page and a half, so dont worry about how long itll take you to read it!

Extra challenge! I want to hear some of you experiences! if you have a conversion story or a spiritual experience you would like to share with me, please send me an email! Also, if youre not a member and want to know more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but are too afraid to ask someone, ask me! i can answer any question you might have and help l you learn a little more about what the church is all about.

Also, if you have any questions for me about what i do, how things are in mexico or any other question send me an email and ill answer it for you!

Love you all! -Elder Wagner

Week Forty-two and a half: Transfers and blessings

Me and Elder Toala from Seattle. he is going to play football for UW after the mission

Last weekend we had transfers and it was pretty interesting... i worked all day....and was feeling kind of sick, but figured i would get over it and it was just something small, but then i woke up....morning and could hardly move because my body ached so bad. i took some medicine and asked for a blessing and by midday i was actually feeling pretty good. after church we went back to the offices so president could start doing to exit interviews for all the leaving missionaries and i started feeling really sick again. it got to the point where i just had my head on a sleeping bag we had in the offices and i tried to sleep. eventually the assistants made me go home and sleep. so i went home, ate something and slept. i wasnt sure if i was going to be able to go to the airport the next morning to take everyone home and i got really scared i was going to have to use some extreme measures to get everything done (call in the old financial secretary, talk to president, or something like that) but then by the time it was time to go to the airport, i felt pretty good again. so i took everyone to the airport and after being in the airport for 5 hours we finally got in a taxi to go home and start preparing for the new missionaries. i still felt weird and sick, but somehow i had energy and i could still work, so i kept working. Through the whole weekend i somehow finished all the changes and all the finances for the end of the month while being sick. i can say with even more certainty that this is the Lords work and that he help us finish the trials we have as missionaries.

Elder Marion and me with Elder Raya in the backround. this is 3 of the 4 elders in my first district. Elder Marion trained Elder Raya and Elder Raya is now an assistant to the president. How weird would it be to receive training by the guy who you trained?

This week we welcomed elder zurita to the offices! he is bolivian, but he grew up in provo utah haha so he is %100 american even thought everyone thinks hes latino because he looks like hes from south america. he will be the visas secretary and right now is being trained by elder guillen. my companion is elder garcia still and he is now being trained by sister guillen how to be the materials secretary. elder peterson is now completely in charge of his position (executive secretary) and im still the financial secretary.

in just one month we will be welcoming president and sister eggington! its crazy how fast everything is coming up! im super excited and cant wait!

This week i went on another trip with president. we went to morelia michoacan (my first time leaving guadalajara) with the assistants for a leadership training. morelia reminded me a lot of seattle. its really green and the climate is alot more fresh. oh and it rained a little like it does in seattle so that helped haha. it was cool to be so close to president and the assistants for almost 2 full days. i got to learn a lot and i got to know them a lot better.

elder marion, elder toala, elder raya and elder ventura (elder marions companion)

all these pictures were taken at the leadership training in moreliea, michoacan

Challenge: read Matthew 5 the sermon on the mount. im trying to get to know the New Testament better and i love this chapter. its literally a sermon directly from Jesus Christ. if we are studying it with an open heart and with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, we can learn a lot of great stuff!

Thank you for all your love and support!! keep up the missionary work wherever you are!

Con más amor, Elder Wagner

a giant snake someone had outside their house in a cage

Week Forty-one and a half: Transfers

Elder Denton's last day helping us out in the offices before he gets changed

Transfers are already upon us! it all starts in about 2 hours when all the elders and sisters come to the offices to start the weekend process which is always exciting and suuuper stressful. YAY!

This sunday we got a new bishop called! we had some issues with the old bishop because he always had work out of town and he had actually been gone for about 3 months until a few weeks ago. but the stake presidency and the high council decided we needed a new bishop and the new bishop was a big surprise for everyone! we all thought they could call one of his counselors, but they ended up calling the secretary to the bishopric! he is about 30 years old and 5 feet tall so everyone felt like they had to comment on his size haha. "he may not look like a bishop, but i know hell be a good bishop!" yeah in mexico they just kind of call it as they see it.

At the beginning of the week President had interviews with one of the zones here in Guadalajara in the offices so all day there were elders and sisters in the offices distracting us and all that good stuff. about halfway through the interviews, president came out and asked the assistants if they were good at ping pong and they said they they weren't, but that i was (we have a ping pong table in the offices and the elders were playing outside). President then told me to that we were going to play and that after his next interview we were going to play. we played and i beat him! he was actually really good. he told me i am one of just 3 people to beat him so i guess that pretty good haha. 

We had a family home evening with the ward yesterday and it went really well! we actually had a decent number of members come and a couple investigators!

Family home evening with the ward! it went really well and we had an investagor there named Feliza. she is in the back left corner and you can only see her head.

This week we will be getting a new secretary! we dont know who it is, but im pretty sure itll be a mexican because we already have 2 americans here, but well see!

Challenge: share your testimony with someone! you dont have to tell them your whole testimony, just share a small simple truth that you know from being a member of the church. you can tweet it, put in on facebook, snapchat it, Instagram it, vine it, or put it on another social network if you want, but share the church through your testimony this week! and if youre not a member, ask a member to share their testimony with you!

i love you all! con cariño, Elder Wagner

Week Forty and a half: Bonus interview with President!

Man, its hot in here.. if only i had a fan..... oh wait, i have money

This week we took a missionary to the airport for medical complications and president took me with him and the other missionary. on the way back from the airport, i got a bonus mini interview! it was interesting to see how he isnt always serious and that he actually tells some jokes. Also, i think he thinks im in love with one of the sisters from my district in the mtc because i told him i was thinking about learning another language after the mission and he asked me which one and i said french. he asked me why and i said there was a sister from my district in the mtc who spoke french and in spanish when i said the language caught my attention, i didnt specify that it was the language that caught my attention, so when i said it caught my attention he thought i was talking about the sister haha. i realized that i didnt clarify it very well about 5 seconds after and said "THE LANGUAGE! THE LANGUAGE CAUGHT MY ATTENTION!" hahaha we started laughing and he said he thought i was talking about the sister haha. we also had a really good talk about my position and what my plans were for after the mission and it was really cool to have a conversation with someone so wise about what i want to do with my life. 

Elder Guillen was hot too....

We taught Andrea yesterday and it went really well! Right now she is living with here boyfriend who is an activating member, but they want to get married so we just have to get done and then teach her really well! we taught her about the book of mormon and temples. temples was kind of just talking about them after the lesson because someone mentioned something about temples and we felt like we needed to explain it, but it was good because we think it got them excited for her baptism and for them getting married! we are hoping that we can get her baptized within one month from today, but were going to see.

Challenge: After we taught Andrea about the book of mormon i realized (for the millionth time) how important the book of mormon is for us. the introduction says it was written specifically for us in these latter days (ok it doesnt say it exactly like that word for word, but you get the idea). The book of mormon is litterally Gods gift to us in these days. he knew what we would need and when we would need it, and He has provided everything for us in the book of mormon. whenever we need to feel His love, or find an answer to a big question, or when we need to strengthen our testimony (which is always) we have the book available to us! you can even download it on our phone! So the challenge is this: read the book of mormon every day this week. you dont have to read for an hour, you can read half of a chapter if thats all you have time for, but read it everyday! and even if you are already a member and have a testimony of its truth, kneel down before reading and ask to recieve an answer if its true or not, and then offer another kneeling prayer afterward and ask for the answer again, and i promise as a representative of Jesus Christ that you will recieve an answer that it is true if you have true intent in your heart.

I love you all! thank you for all your support!

Con Mucho Amor, Elder Wagner