Hey, Thanks for the update on the life over in good old Utah! Well I'm not going to lie it made my year to be able to talk with all of you on Christmas! It made me think a lot of how blessed i am to have such a strong family in the church. You all strength me so much out here!
Well as for this past week of work we came acrossed a couple of new investigators but for the most part it was actualy pretty slow. some times weeks like this happen though. I hope it was just because of all the holidays and crazyness of people partying it up that got in the way. We did how ever come across one family that was pretty interesting to talk with and teach. THe Father named Juan was from New York and was actualy baptized into the church when he was over there but he really didnt understand much i dont think when he was baptized because now he's going to a Penticostl church. We asked him what was up and why he left the church and he said he was sick of hearing about joseph smith and only about him. He said that when he would go to church all they would talk about was Joseph Smith and nothing about Christ... Ha i sort of found that hard to believe, but anyway he was kind enough to listen to us and let us clarify everything. I'm pretty sure we laid to rest his worries about worshiping Joseph Smith and made it clear that the head of the Church is Jesus Christ and only Him because he is our savior. We taught him the Joseph Smith was merly an instument in the hands of the lord that brought about the restoration of the fulness of the Gospel of Christ. It was a good lesson i felt and he has 6 kids and a wife that all listened so i'm excited to see what we can do with this family. This next transfer we have some potential and now its just time to work and make all this potential come to life. I'm looking forward to the work and i appriciate all of your prayers because they really do help.
Well i cant believe this year is coming to an end. It seems like yesterday i was getting ready for early morning work outs over in the small gym of Timpanogos. Its been a years time since then and now i'm here in Puerto Rico searching for ways to help bless the lives of all that i can in a way that will last for eternity. How time can change in a year! Well i hope you all have a great New Year and make sure to set some goals! My goals are what seem to keep me going every day!
Well i love all of you, and wish the family happy New Year for me!!
Much Love,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Feliz Navidad
Mom and Dad,
Well i'm glad to hear that he Holidays back home went great and everyone
one was able to be there at the home. As for my Christmas call goes i'm not
sure exactly what time it will be on Christmas but i heard that we'll get to
tell you on christmas eve by email or a short call or something. Well have to
wait and see. I'm going to try and use that phone card that you gave me to
use because i'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of minutes on it to use up. But if not i'll give you a call and a number you can call me back on.
Anyway this past week went great. We had out baptisim of Erick on saturday and his confirmation yesterday! It was a perfect Christmas present to see a
baptisim. We had "Nene"(Emanuel) a member whose preparing for his
mission right now perform the baptisim and the confirmation and it was a great experience for him as he's preparing to leave for his mission. Elder
Hernandez and i were the wittnesses and he actually had to do it twice but the
second time was definately good! It was a great experience and we even sang
special number to "oh Mi Padre" to the tune of "come thy fount" and it was great! The spirit was definatley there and it was a great experience. After the baptisim we had our Christmas party and ate pig and rice and some other good stuff that i didnt know the name of. Whatever it was it sure was good though! This holiday season we seem to get feed where ever we go. During the baptisim we watched a movie about the restoration that was a great because we had some non-members that were Ericks friends come to! The whole day just went great! The next day in church i got to help in his confirmation and the spirit touched me during the blessing and right then i new that Erick was recieveing the gift of the Holy Ghost and is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints! What day it was! That night Elder Hernandez and i were just like to little kids!
But right now i'm getting kicked off the computer so i got to go! i'll talk with you christmas! I love your all!
Well i'm glad to hear that he Holidays back home went great and everyone
one was able to be there at the home. As for my Christmas call goes i'm not
sure exactly what time it will be on Christmas but i heard that we'll get to
tell you on christmas eve by email or a short call or something. Well have to
wait and see. I'm going to try and use that phone card that you gave me to
use because i'm pretty sure that there are still a lot of minutes on it to use up. But if not i'll give you a call and a number you can call me back on.
Anyway this past week went great. We had out baptisim of Erick on saturday and his confirmation yesterday! It was a perfect Christmas present to see a
baptisim. We had "Nene"(Emanuel) a member whose preparing for his
mission right now perform the baptisim and the confirmation and it was a great experience for him as he's preparing to leave for his mission. Elder
Hernandez and i were the wittnesses and he actually had to do it twice but the
second time was definately good! It was a great experience and we even sang
special number to "oh Mi Padre" to the tune of "come thy fount" and it was great! The spirit was definatley there and it was a great experience. After the baptisim we had our Christmas party and ate pig and rice and some other good stuff that i didnt know the name of. Whatever it was it sure was good though! This holiday season we seem to get feed where ever we go. During the baptisim we watched a movie about the restoration that was a great because we had some non-members that were Ericks friends come to! The whole day just went great! The next day in church i got to help in his confirmation and the spirit touched me during the blessing and right then i new that Erick was recieveing the gift of the Holy Ghost and is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints! What day it was! That night Elder Hernandez and i were just like to little kids!
But right now i'm getting kicked off the computer so i got to go! i'll talk with you christmas! I love your all!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Christmas time (email dated 12/15/2008)
Hey, I'm glade to hear all is going well back home and every one is having a good Christmas season! Where are you going for Christmas day? It sounded like everyone is leaving?
But anyway as for things here in the land of Puerto Rico all is well! THis past week we had our interviews with President Martineau because the transfer is starting to come to an end. We only have a week and a half until transfers! Actually transfers will be on Christmas Eve and were all going to the Mission home to have Christmas eve there which should be really fun. I gave a talk in Church yesterday which was pretty neat! i was a little hesitent at first because
I still dont feel all that confident with the spanish but i got threw it pretty good i thought! I took about 10 min. and once i was done and sat down i thought to myself, "Wow, that was all in spanish"...it wasn't the best spanish but it was spanish non the less. Yesterday we gave the 2nd lesson to Luis and his son Jon and it went really well! This family is really awesome and i hope they keep on progressing like they have been. Jon asked during the lesson, "so where do we go after death?" and it just lead perfectly right into our lesson! All this family is missing right now i think is a strong spiritual experience. Hopefully we can get them to come to our baptizim this week for Eric! Yup thats right we have our first baptisim coming up this next saturday and Eric is looking like he's going to be good to go! We have a Cita with him tonight and we're going to
get him ready for the baptisimal interview and everything! I'm really looking forward to saturday!
This past thursday we had a Christmas devotional that we went to in Arecibo. It
was really nice and really got me into the Christmas mood! Wow its already
Christmas time, i cant believe it! Thank you so much for all of you're support back home! It's great to read your letters and they keep me going, so thanks!
I love you all!
Oh yeah and I'll talk with you in 10 days...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
But anyway as for things here in the land of Puerto Rico all is well! THis past week we had our interviews with President Martineau because the transfer is starting to come to an end. We only have a week and a half until transfers! Actually transfers will be on Christmas Eve and were all going to the Mission home to have Christmas eve there which should be really fun. I gave a talk in Church yesterday which was pretty neat! i was a little hesitent at first because
I still dont feel all that confident with the spanish but i got threw it pretty good i thought! I took about 10 min. and once i was done and sat down i thought to myself, "Wow, that was all in spanish"...it wasn't the best spanish but it was spanish non the less. Yesterday we gave the 2nd lesson to Luis and his son Jon and it went really well! This family is really awesome and i hope they keep on progressing like they have been. Jon asked during the lesson, "so where do we go after death?" and it just lead perfectly right into our lesson! All this family is missing right now i think is a strong spiritual experience. Hopefully we can get them to come to our baptizim this week for Eric! Yup thats right we have our first baptisim coming up this next saturday and Eric is looking like he's going to be good to go! We have a Cita with him tonight and we're going to
get him ready for the baptisimal interview and everything! I'm really looking forward to saturday!
This past thursday we had a Christmas devotional that we went to in Arecibo. It
was really nice and really got me into the Christmas mood! Wow its already
Christmas time, i cant believe it! Thank you so much for all of you're support back home! It's great to read your letters and they keep me going, so thanks!
I love you all!
Oh yeah and I'll talk with you in 10 days...
Love always,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 8, 2008
What a week! (email dated 12/08/2008)
Wow, it sounds like the the christmas season back home is going great. I bet its been awesome to have so much family around and get to spend time together and visit a play games! It really does make me smile to think of you all enjoyingthe blessing that our Loving Father in Heaven has blessed us with. Just look at all the blessings we have in our life. This gospel really does work miracles and is such a blessing.
This week out here in the field was a absolutely great week. Elder Hernandez and I were able to find some good New investigators with some really good potential! During the week we cam accross and older man who is partialy blindand has been living with a lady for 28 years i believe it was. Anyway we contacted them and they let us into the their home and we went ahead and gave them the first lesson. At was really interesting as we gave the lesson becausethey really were interested in everything that we had to say. I asked them the simple question of how they felt and they gave us the best reply i've ever heard so far on my mission. They said that they really could feel that thethings that we were teaching them were true and they loved to just have us in their home. This answer really just blew me away and i couldn't believe my ears. They really have some good potential but the down side is they have somethings that their going to have to change in their life to be baptized into the church. They're really going to have to show some faith in the lord to overcome there one big probablem that a lot of people have out here. Their living together and aren't married because Gloria is recieving money from the government and if they get married she'll stop recieving it. I'm pretty sure this might be their only source of income to because Tito is going blind and cant really move. They have some walls to go through but if they can jus tfind the faith to trust in the Lord i'm sure all will work out. Anyway to make a long story a little shorter, I'm really looking forward to working with them.
This fast sunday we had a special fast for our branch here in Utuado that the less actives would find the desire to come back to church and that the branchwould begin to grow. I feel as though the Lord already has blessed us in our fasting in prayers because we had a less active named Carmen that we visited this passed week show up at church on sunday and we found 4 more new invetigators that night that have some good potential.
This week really has turned out to be a week of Testimony building and strengthening in so many different ways. Its a wonderful feeling to see the hand to the Lord in this work and I'm praying for His guidance every day. Especially during my time here in the mountains of Utuado. Remember to take time and thank the Lord for the blessing that he has so graciously givin to us especially during this Christmas season! We have so much to be grateful for!
Much love,
your son,
Elder Lopez
This week out here in the field was a absolutely great week. Elder Hernandez and I were able to find some good New investigators with some really good potential! During the week we cam accross and older man who is partialy blindand has been living with a lady for 28 years i believe it was. Anyway we contacted them and they let us into the their home and we went ahead and gave them the first lesson. At was really interesting as we gave the lesson becausethey really were interested in everything that we had to say. I asked them the simple question of how they felt and they gave us the best reply i've ever heard so far on my mission. They said that they really could feel that thethings that we were teaching them were true and they loved to just have us in their home. This answer really just blew me away and i couldn't believe my ears. They really have some good potential but the down side is they have somethings that their going to have to change in their life to be baptized into the church. They're really going to have to show some faith in the lord to overcome there one big probablem that a lot of people have out here. Their living together and aren't married because Gloria is recieving money from the government and if they get married she'll stop recieving it. I'm pretty sure this might be their only source of income to because Tito is going blind and cant really move. They have some walls to go through but if they can jus tfind the faith to trust in the Lord i'm sure all will work out. Anyway to make a long story a little shorter, I'm really looking forward to working with them.
This fast sunday we had a special fast for our branch here in Utuado that the less actives would find the desire to come back to church and that the branchwould begin to grow. I feel as though the Lord already has blessed us in our fasting in prayers because we had a less active named Carmen that we visited this passed week show up at church on sunday and we found 4 more new invetigators that night that have some good potential.
This week really has turned out to be a week of Testimony building and strengthening in so many different ways. Its a wonderful feeling to see the hand to the Lord in this work and I'm praying for His guidance every day. Especially during my time here in the mountains of Utuado. Remember to take time and thank the Lord for the blessing that he has so graciously givin to us especially during this Christmas season! We have so much to be grateful for!
Much love,
your son,
Elder Lopez
Here Comes Christmas (email dated 12/08/2008)
Wow its Christmas season and what a time to be greatful! This past sunday night we had the opportunity to go and watch the Christmas Devotional and listen to our beloved Prophet and his councilers speak! It was a great experience and I felt close to home as i watched good Old Motab Choir sing the hymns of Zion! Wow, what a great meeting it was. It really hit home the true meaning of Christmas.
Right now i'd just like to thank you all for the wonderful fiends and family you've all been to me. My testimony of Christ has grown so much out here and i know he lives and loves us all! What a great time of year it is to follow his example and stretch out our hands to help another and show our love for them.
with love,
Elder Lopez
Right now i'd just like to thank you all for the wonderful fiends and family you've all been to me. My testimony of Christ has grown so much out here and i know he lives and loves us all! What a great time of year it is to follow his example and stretch out our hands to help another and show our love for them.
with love,
Elder Lopez
Monday, December 1, 2008
Thanksgiving on the Mission (email dated 12-01-2008)
Hey, its Elder Lopez again. Another week has gone by and now i'm another week smarter and experienced on the mission. This past week we really started to try and get the members that we have in our little branch up in going in the missionary work. Utuado is a big place so we really a lot on our members to help us out in getting from place to place. Its really true that every member is a missionary. As members of this church we have the opportunity to be a flag on the hill standing as an example for all the people in the world to look to. Its a great priviledge and i have to thank all of you back home for being great examples for me to look up to. As members of this church we really do stick out because of the high standards that we have and are striving to up hold. it might seem hard at times with all the things that are going on the world but as we stand united we will not fall. Its just like Elder Uchtdorf talked about in the last conference during the priesthood session to lift were you stand. It doesnt matter where you are, Utah or Puerto Rico, we all have the sacred opportunity to be a beacon of light for the world to see. This work is truely for everyone and it truely is amazing to see in motion. I take comfort in the fact that this gospel, and this church will stand until that great day when the Lord comes back to the earth to reign in His glory. Wow this Gospel is amazing!
Well before i end this i hope all is well back home and that you all had a great Thanksgiving. Remeber "Thanksgiving comes but once a year but times to give thanks are always here"...( is that saying still up in my car with the little dollar bill with the missionary shirt?) Well love you all,
Elder Lopez
Well before i end this i hope all is well back home and that you all had a great Thanksgiving. Remeber "Thanksgiving comes but once a year but times to give thanks are always here"...( is that saying still up in my car with the little dollar bill with the missionary shirt?) Well love you all,
Elder Lopez
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