Monday, November 30, 2009
Na Mi Mama i Tata
So here are some pictures that i've taken while down here in the wonderful ABC Islands!The one family where i'm holding the Book Of Mormon is Alexandras family. She's the way cool investigator we had in Aruba who is just waiting to get married before she can be baptized. Then there's a picture of Luisa's family on the last day we visited her before i was transfered. then theres a picture at all the languages we come in contact with here in these Islands that were in and have to find a way to comunicate in Papiamentu, Spanish or inglish. Yeah pretty crazzy huh. i'm pretty sure there are 9 different languages there of Books of mormon that we have to five to people we meet. A lot of culture right?....Also the bowling was one of our Pday activities we just barely did down here in Curacao! So as you can see were making memories down here that last a life time!
Getting to know Curacao
Bon Dia,
Con ta bia mi kerido famia i amigunan?! Mi ta spera tur kos ta bon bon pasobra Tata Celestial stimanos hopi! Well i just thought i'd through a little of papiamento in there for you to let you see how we speak out here in Curacao. Its really a fun language to be honest. its really similar to spanish which makes it easier to pick up but it still comes out the mouth a little rough... ma poco poco manera e hende ta bisa no. ( but little by little like they say right?) We had a good building week this week here in our area my 1st week here. The whole week just was spent trying to get a hold of our investigators because they all had things coming up and canceling our visits which made it really tough. So i wasnt able to even meet all of our investigators this week but i did meet most of them. We have a couple of promising investigators named Nilson and his wife Anna. Their actualy from Colombia and have been here for a couple of years. They really seem to have interse in finding more happiness from what we've been teaching and have been injoying us coming over. But they didnt make it to church this week which was sort of a blow for us because we were so excited for them to come... but sometimes that happens i guess... We'll have better luck next week though and they'll get up intime to come to church.
The Branch here is pretty cool and should help us out a lot to help this branch grow! I'm looking forward to working with them and making some good relations so we can get the work moving here! My district is a great district also which always makes things injoyable... oh yeah i'm district leader again by the way... i dont rembember if i metioned that last week or not. it will be fun. I'm starting to get to the point in my mission were i really dont remember what it was like to be at home in the real world. I think i actually hit that a couple of months ago but i never really thought about it. Mission work has just become my way of life now and its awesome! It full of fun moments mixed in with some funny experiences that only happen on the mission. I cant believe how fast time has flown though and its almost christmas already. Decemeber has made it and 2009 is coming to an end... looks like my year of none exsitence is coming to an end rapidly.. ugh oh... anyhow to be honest that about sums up my week here in Curacao because nothing else is coming to mind and time is running short. So until next time, God speed! Ayo.
Elder Lopez
Con ta bia mi kerido famia i amigunan?! Mi ta spera tur kos ta bon bon pasobra Tata Celestial stimanos hopi! Well i just thought i'd through a little of papiamento in there for you to let you see how we speak out here in Curacao. Its really a fun language to be honest. its really similar to spanish which makes it easier to pick up but it still comes out the mouth a little rough... ma poco poco manera e hende ta bisa no. ( but little by little like they say right?) We had a good building week this week here in our area my 1st week here. The whole week just was spent trying to get a hold of our investigators because they all had things coming up and canceling our visits which made it really tough. So i wasnt able to even meet all of our investigators this week but i did meet most of them. We have a couple of promising investigators named Nilson and his wife Anna. Their actualy from Colombia and have been here for a couple of years. They really seem to have interse in finding more happiness from what we've been teaching and have been injoying us coming over. But they didnt make it to church this week which was sort of a blow for us because we were so excited for them to come... but sometimes that happens i guess... We'll have better luck next week though and they'll get up intime to come to church.
The Branch here is pretty cool and should help us out a lot to help this branch grow! I'm looking forward to working with them and making some good relations so we can get the work moving here! My district is a great district also which always makes things injoyable... oh yeah i'm district leader again by the way... i dont rembember if i metioned that last week or not. it will be fun. I'm starting to get to the point in my mission were i really dont remember what it was like to be at home in the real world. I think i actually hit that a couple of months ago but i never really thought about it. Mission work has just become my way of life now and its awesome! It full of fun moments mixed in with some funny experiences that only happen on the mission. I cant believe how fast time has flown though and its almost christmas already. Decemeber has made it and 2009 is coming to an end... looks like my year of none exsitence is coming to an end rapidly.. ugh oh... anyhow to be honest that about sums up my week here in Curacao because nothing else is coming to mind and time is running short. So until next time, God speed! Ayo.
Elder Lopez
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A New Island (email datd 11/24/2009)
HEY, Well i'm sure your wondering where could Elder Lopez be at right now... and the answer is Curacao!! Its an island right next to Aruba! Its a lot bigger then Aruba i'm begining to realize and I'm stoked to be able to serve hear on such a beautiful island with a awesome companion also! I'm with Elder Turner from Layton Utah. He's a big boy, he played football at Weber and we get a long great. Really i think it might be impossible to not be able to get a long with him, were going to have an awesome transfer together. So as you can tell i'm pretty excited to be able to be here and start a whole new transfer for the holiday season. Unfortunately Thanksgiving isn't really known here but i'll have you all know i'm very thankful for you all back home and your thoughts and prayers that are always with me.
So my last week in Aruba was spent with a lot of hard work like usual, preparing all of our investigators the best i could before i left. I was happy to leave it in a good condition with some future baptism waiting to happen which is always great to be able to do but tough to leave...Alexandra's husband, Alexander, came to church and had a great experience which i think is going to help him a lot to progress toward baptism. It was tough to leave their family behind but i'm sure that they will be getting baptized here down the road and enjoy the blessings of the gospel in their family!
Also i had to say good bye to Luisa and her family which was really tough but good none the less. She's doing so good right now and learning every day and strengthing her testimony and looking forward to going to the temple in the future! Not only that but she was liking the idea if some way i would be able to go with her because it would be after i return home and i'd be free for that maybe... Cool thought!!! oh yeah, and you could pretty much say that i got a new home in Aruba!!! Definately going to have to take advatage of that some day!
So as you can see i'm very content and happy with life right now and am looking forward to making a bunch of new memory's this transfer here in Curacao. I arrived yesterday and we went out and worked, because P-day is on tuesday during transfers, and we came across a family who came out and recieved us very happily! Always a good sign! so we started to talk with them and then they told us that they had heard the missionary's before through their friends who had moved so they lost contact i guess. They said they really enjoyed it though as the missionary's visited them before and said they'd love to have us over again. As you can see the Lord is blessing us already on our first day of the transfer to get it started off right with finding a great family with some potential. So we're passing by tonight to visit them with the whole family present! Hopefuly all goes well! Looks like you'll have to tune in next week to find out for sure. .. I know the suspense.
Well that about sums it up for now in the life of Elder Lopez so until next time much love, and remember i am really thankful for you all this thanksgiving week and all the rest also!
Love,
Elder Lopez
So my last week in Aruba was spent with a lot of hard work like usual, preparing all of our investigators the best i could before i left. I was happy to leave it in a good condition with some future baptism waiting to happen which is always great to be able to do but tough to leave...Alexandra's husband, Alexander, came to church and had a great experience which i think is going to help him a lot to progress toward baptism. It was tough to leave their family behind but i'm sure that they will be getting baptized here down the road and enjoy the blessings of the gospel in their family!
Also i had to say good bye to Luisa and her family which was really tough but good none the less. She's doing so good right now and learning every day and strengthing her testimony and looking forward to going to the temple in the future! Not only that but she was liking the idea if some way i would be able to go with her because it would be after i return home and i'd be free for that maybe... Cool thought!!! oh yeah, and you could pretty much say that i got a new home in Aruba!!! Definately going to have to take advatage of that some day!
So as you can see i'm very content and happy with life right now and am looking forward to making a bunch of new memory's this transfer here in Curacao. I arrived yesterday and we went out and worked, because P-day is on tuesday during transfers, and we came across a family who came out and recieved us very happily! Always a good sign! so we started to talk with them and then they told us that they had heard the missionary's before through their friends who had moved so they lost contact i guess. They said they really enjoyed it though as the missionary's visited them before and said they'd love to have us over again. As you can see the Lord is blessing us already on our first day of the transfer to get it started off right with finding a great family with some potential. So we're passing by tonight to visit them with the whole family present! Hopefuly all goes well! Looks like you'll have to tune in next week to find out for sure. .. I know the suspense.
Well that about sums it up for now in the life of Elder Lopez so until next time much love, and remember i am really thankful for you all this thanksgiving week and all the rest also!
Love,
Elder Lopez
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Update from Aruba (email dated 11/16/2009)
So this week we had a nice hard working week with a lot of lessons! The weeks just have flown by out here in Aruba and now out of no where i'm on my last week here in Aruba... Yeah, they've made some new laws which only alow us 90 days here legally. So pretty much that means i'm off to a different island this next week which i'm pretty sure is going to be Corocao which is right next to aruba. Yeah i'm going to miss here a lot because i've really come to love here in aruba and the branch and area and just everything. The only thing i wont miss is the bike ride to the church all the time. Yeah that was just hot and long... but it was good for me!
Anyhow this week in church we had Alexandra and Fransisco. We were very excited to see them both there but at the same time we were a little sad not to see other investigators of ours there in church. Alexandra is progressing really great with her testimony and basicaly is just waiting to be baptized because she's still not married to Sandro. But the good news is that we're starting to get Sandro involved in the teaching now! He's finaly starting to let us teach him and he's actualy liking it all up till now. I wasnt very suprised that he likes it though because i mean its true who could listen to this message with sincer heart and not like it? NO one! I think we got on his good side when we started becoming better friends with him and decided to do an activity with him of bowling! Yeah, it was pretty fun not to mention that he showed me a trick or 2... He's in a bowling league and averages almost 200 which in my book is way good! Any how from there we scheduled a vist with him and went over the first lesson with him and his future wife Alexandra and we even had Luisa come along with us to help out. Lets just say it was by far one of the most spiritual lessons on my mission just from the sweet testimony Luisa gave of her own baptism a couple of weeks back! She shared an experience that she had never shared with us before about when she prayed that just my heart as i listened! I don't know what its like being a parent, but i do know how proud i was to see Luisa grow so much spiritualy ever since we began teaching her a couple of months ago. She shared her experience of how at first when we would pass by it was just to be nice, and then when we started to invite her to come to church she would just find excuses to say no. Then when we started to call her on sunday mornings to come she was a little tired and didnt want to come but she did anyway because she promised she would. Now she comes to church and is amazed at how fast it fly's by she loves it so much and just wants there to another class added to it. Then she started to share about her first time to actualy pray about what we taught her to see if it was true and she shared her feelings as she prayed as though she felt a tingling from the top of her head to the tip of her toes that was a comfort to her. She had never felt it before and went to ask a friend what it ment. (this friend actualy had been giving us problems before because she goes to some other church and thinks that the story about Joseph smith is crazy) Her friend told her that the feeling was a good answer to her prayer and it just helped Luisa confirm her testimony that the BOM truely is the word of God and that he was called as a prophet to restore the true church to the earth! thats just a little piece if anything of the what she was bearing testimony of as we were with Alexandra and Sandro and the spirit was so strong! It was a perfect experience for Sandro, helped Alexandra grow in the testimony she already has and i was so happy for Luisa and her strong testimony! HOnestly that night was a night to remember! That right there just made my whole week awesome not to mention we got to see Elder M. Russell Ballard speak to the whole Caribbean at a fireside on Saturday! Listing to apostles has definately become my favorit thing about the mission! To hear from the Lords chosen servents on the earth is truely an edifying experience! Let me just confirm to all of you once again that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth and just like every week my testimony has been confirmed this week that Christ's church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!
Man do i love this work!
Much Love from Aruba,
Elder Lopez
Anyhow this week in church we had Alexandra and Fransisco. We were very excited to see them both there but at the same time we were a little sad not to see other investigators of ours there in church. Alexandra is progressing really great with her testimony and basicaly is just waiting to be baptized because she's still not married to Sandro. But the good news is that we're starting to get Sandro involved in the teaching now! He's finaly starting to let us teach him and he's actualy liking it all up till now. I wasnt very suprised that he likes it though because i mean its true who could listen to this message with sincer heart and not like it? NO one! I think we got on his good side when we started becoming better friends with him and decided to do an activity with him of bowling! Yeah, it was pretty fun not to mention that he showed me a trick or 2... He's in a bowling league and averages almost 200 which in my book is way good! Any how from there we scheduled a vist with him and went over the first lesson with him and his future wife Alexandra and we even had Luisa come along with us to help out. Lets just say it was by far one of the most spiritual lessons on my mission just from the sweet testimony Luisa gave of her own baptism a couple of weeks back! She shared an experience that she had never shared with us before about when she prayed that just my heart as i listened! I don't know what its like being a parent, but i do know how proud i was to see Luisa grow so much spiritualy ever since we began teaching her a couple of months ago. She shared her experience of how at first when we would pass by it was just to be nice, and then when we started to invite her to come to church she would just find excuses to say no. Then when we started to call her on sunday mornings to come she was a little tired and didnt want to come but she did anyway because she promised she would. Now she comes to church and is amazed at how fast it fly's by she loves it so much and just wants there to another class added to it. Then she started to share about her first time to actualy pray about what we taught her to see if it was true and she shared her feelings as she prayed as though she felt a tingling from the top of her head to the tip of her toes that was a comfort to her. She had never felt it before and went to ask a friend what it ment. (this friend actualy had been giving us problems before because she goes to some other church and thinks that the story about Joseph smith is crazy) Her friend told her that the feeling was a good answer to her prayer and it just helped Luisa confirm her testimony that the BOM truely is the word of God and that he was called as a prophet to restore the true church to the earth! thats just a little piece if anything of the what she was bearing testimony of as we were with Alexandra and Sandro and the spirit was so strong! It was a perfect experience for Sandro, helped Alexandra grow in the testimony she already has and i was so happy for Luisa and her strong testimony! HOnestly that night was a night to remember! That right there just made my whole week awesome not to mention we got to see Elder M. Russell Ballard speak to the whole Caribbean at a fireside on Saturday! Listing to apostles has definately become my favorit thing about the mission! To hear from the Lords chosen servents on the earth is truely an edifying experience! Let me just confirm to all of you once again that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth and just like every week my testimony has been confirmed this week that Christ's church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!
Man do i love this work!
Much Love from Aruba,
Elder Lopez
Monday, November 9, 2009
Hey hey hey! (email dated 11/9/2009)
Hello back in Cold Utah,
Well i'm going to go ahead and start this letter off with giving my loving Father a big BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT!!! Hey, Love you Dad and hope you have a great Birthday!
So now for this week we've been out going from lesson to lesson and enjoying working together Elder Kolar and I. I think our companionship just clicks and we just get work done together and we have a great time while doing it. Thats what mission work is all about! going out and loving the work that you do and striving to become better every day! We had another week with 3 investigators in church but that 3 we were hoping to be a little more because we have some good investigators that didnt show unfortunately.. As for Alexandra who's our investigator with the fecha she's doing great and we're now putting our sights on her significant other who we still haven't been able to teach yet. but for this week we schedualed a cita with him specificaly so we're looking forward to that because a whole family in church is way more beautiful than just some.... Anyhow speaking of family's i'm so happy for Luisa's family recently! She's been getting her boys to come to church now and we're going to start teaching them and getting them ready for baptism also! Not only does she have that going on her life but she is now starting to do missionary work her self and with the missionary's! this past week she went out for her first time to help the missionary's teach a Dominican lady as a member helping! I felt like a proud father to see our new recent convert going out to preach the gospel and help the missionary's out! She's doing great right now and really liking church and the difference it has made in her life! Any how in other news this past week we came across 9 new investigators and we're hoping for a lot in church this next week, well at least more than 3... As for learning papiamento goes, its sort of slowed down because lately we've been finding a lot of Spanish speakers and talking a lot of spanish. That should change though here coming up soon because soon i'll be heading over to Curacao because my time here in Aruba is coming to an end. Yeah we only have a tourist passport so they only alow us 90 days in Aruba and after ward they have to ship us out because of laws and things. But the time they give me to stary here will start back over again at the beginning of the year so mabye i'll have a chance to come back here to Aruba... But i'm pretty sure i'll be in Curacao for Thanksgiving and also Christmas and the new year... So i'm going to get to see how it feels to party up the new year in Curacao.. I hear their pretty crazy over there but i'll let you know when i get over there. My time here in Aruba ends on the 23rd of this month so on that day i'll be on a plane going some where. Any way, i really dont want to leave this awesome little island because its really growing on me and i dont want to leave it. Even though its way hot always and all desert and you have to bike every where i love it! Any ways i hope that was a pretty good up date and you all are doing great back home!
Much love,
Elder Lopez
Well i'm going to go ahead and start this letter off with giving my loving Father a big BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT!!! Hey, Love you Dad and hope you have a great Birthday!
So now for this week we've been out going from lesson to lesson and enjoying working together Elder Kolar and I. I think our companionship just clicks and we just get work done together and we have a great time while doing it. Thats what mission work is all about! going out and loving the work that you do and striving to become better every day! We had another week with 3 investigators in church but that 3 we were hoping to be a little more because we have some good investigators that didnt show unfortunately.. As for Alexandra who's our investigator with the fecha she's doing great and we're now putting our sights on her significant other who we still haven't been able to teach yet. but for this week we schedualed a cita with him specificaly so we're looking forward to that because a whole family in church is way more beautiful than just some.... Anyhow speaking of family's i'm so happy for Luisa's family recently! She's been getting her boys to come to church now and we're going to start teaching them and getting them ready for baptism also! Not only does she have that going on her life but she is now starting to do missionary work her self and with the missionary's! this past week she went out for her first time to help the missionary's teach a Dominican lady as a member helping! I felt like a proud father to see our new recent convert going out to preach the gospel and help the missionary's out! She's doing great right now and really liking church and the difference it has made in her life! Any how in other news this past week we came across 9 new investigators and we're hoping for a lot in church this next week, well at least more than 3... As for learning papiamento goes, its sort of slowed down because lately we've been finding a lot of Spanish speakers and talking a lot of spanish. That should change though here coming up soon because soon i'll be heading over to Curacao because my time here in Aruba is coming to an end. Yeah we only have a tourist passport so they only alow us 90 days in Aruba and after ward they have to ship us out because of laws and things. But the time they give me to stary here will start back over again at the beginning of the year so mabye i'll have a chance to come back here to Aruba... But i'm pretty sure i'll be in Curacao for Thanksgiving and also Christmas and the new year... So i'm going to get to see how it feels to party up the new year in Curacao.. I hear their pretty crazy over there but i'll let you know when i get over there. My time here in Aruba ends on the 23rd of this month so on that day i'll be on a plane going some where. Any way, i really dont want to leave this awesome little island because its really growing on me and i dont want to leave it. Even though its way hot always and all desert and you have to bike every where i love it! Any ways i hope that was a pretty good up date and you all are doing great back home!
Much love,
Elder Lopez
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
(email dated 11/2/2009)
i'm doing great out here in Aruba. We've been working really hard out here in the heat and everything, biking in the wind like its no ones business and even preparing people to be baptized. We ran into a little delay with Alexandra this week and were going to have to move her fecha back a little bit! yup... lame right... I wont be here for her baptism anymore.( i know thats selfish of me but thats really how i feel) we taught her the law of chastity this week and she was all good with it but, she's not married to the guy she's living with right yet. They have 2 kids together already but are planning to get married this December which will be great! So on the bright side at least their already willing to get married and want to get married! Anyway this week was her first time coming to church though which was awesome. It was a great fast and testimony meeting with a lot to the spirit there which was awesome for her. In Gospel principle class we talked about chastity also which just made sure Alexandra understood it completly! Not only was it good for Alexandra but it was great for the son of Luisa ( who we just baptized). He's 18 years old and living in a world with morals like you know how they are and is at a big time in his life. It was good for him to hear and learn about the law of Chastity though to help him make good choices when it comes to girls. He's a good kid though and is starting to progress to join his mom in the waters of baptism i think... it might take a little longer but we'll see what happens.
Anyway church was Awesome for the mission work here in aruba! we had 13 investigators there out of us 8 missionary's in our branch! The principles of the gospel class was pact! it was awesome to see Luisa's entire family there in church! Man family's are awesome!
So for Halloween we had to be inside at 6 o'clock as a mission rule so what we did was play monopoly with the Elders from O-stad 2. It was a blast to be honest even though unfortunatly i didnt win either of the games we played. Yeah i guess monopoly just isn't my game
..So sounds like back home everyone is having a good time with the new little Camdon in town. I loved looking at his pic's! especialy the one's with the state championship rings on his fingers ( Bling Bling)! thats what i'm talking about! He's definately coming up the right way!
Love you!
Elder Lopez
Anyway church was Awesome for the mission work here in aruba! we had 13 investigators there out of us 8 missionary's in our branch! The principles of the gospel class was pact! it was awesome to see Luisa's entire family there in church! Man family's are awesome!
So for Halloween we had to be inside at 6 o'clock as a mission rule so what we did was play monopoly with the Elders from O-stad 2. It was a blast to be honest even though unfortunatly i didnt win either of the games we played. Yeah i guess monopoly just isn't my game
..So sounds like back home everyone is having a good time with the new little Camdon in town. I loved looking at his pic's! especialy the one's with the state championship rings on his fingers ( Bling Bling)! thats what i'm talking about! He's definately coming up the right way!
Love you!
Elder Lopez
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