Out Preaching in Ohio

Finally, after 73 days of service in this area, I am finally part of a formal Spanish unit of the Church!  For those of you who aren't familiar with how congregations work in the church, there are "wards" which are the largest type of congregation (usually like 80-200 people) and then the next largest group is called a "branch" (can be as small as 10 people to around as big as 80). Now we get to the level where we're at right now in Western Hills, OH, which is called a "group" (lovingly called a twig or stick because it's smaller than a branch) which is a very tiny group of members. As of right now, we have 1 active Spanish member, but thats why we're here, to fix that and grow it into a branch and eventually a ward! Not much else happened this week.  We had a couple of good lessons, a couple of less good lessons, and way too many cancelled lessons (including 2 where we had members show up and the friend didn't answer the door/weren...

This week was pretty Loco, but I have very little motivation to write this email right now so y'all are gonna get the bare bones version of the week! Last P-day was pretty brutal. We had to take 2 of the kids we're teaching off-date for their baptism because they aren't living the commandments and apparently have lost their desire to do so (like broskis, you're 9 and 11, what are you doing?) The next day we were in a trio temporarily while our ZL was at MLC, so we were going crazy with Elder Montie!  Wednesday we had our District Council and I finally got my piano back. We had a lesson with our friend that lived in Spain and he gave us his whole backstory, so we were there for a minute. We also had 7 people show up to our English Class! Thursday we got double parked in an apartment because a lady was super mad we parked in her parking spot. We also had Dinner with the Stokes and they went all out making basically 2 Italian dishes and we had Graeters Ice Cream go finish ...

Buenos días! Cómo andan? Todo fino? This week was full of a lot of ups, and about an equal amount of downs, but I'll try to keep the email focussed on the ups! Long story short, we put 2 more of our friends on date!  Our friend Yelson is awesome! I think I talked about him briefly last week, but on Monday, we put him on date for the 15th of March! When we put him on date, we promised him that he would find work as he strived to work towards being baptized (because he hadn't had a job in 5 weeks) and THE NEXT DAY he got a job! We also went over the Baptismal Interview questions with him this week (and taught the Word of Wisdom at the same time 😬) and when we told him that he would need to stop drinking coffee to be baptized, he told us that it had been hurting his stomach so he already was going to stop drinking it! What a miracle! Bro also doesn't have a car, but said he'd run to church on Sunday because he "needs the exercise anyway" We also put our friend A...

"If I had a nickel for every time [one of our friends was in the hospital this week],  I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't very much but it's weird that it happened twice" This week was unfortunately very uneventful. As far as the missionary work went, not a lot of progress was made. Also, seeing as everyone we teach and are trying to invite to church is scared out of their minds about immigration officers still, realistically nobody wanted to open their door to us (literally nor figuratively).  We still made due though. Last Sunday we only had one friend come to church, but it was our guy Albeiro and we had a really good lesson with him afterwards about the Restoration of the church!  We also found out of friend with their daughter in the Hospital were discharged and all are back and ready to go! We had some exchanges with our ZL in Kentucky on Tuesday which was a lot of fun. We taught a couple of Venezuelans that were very high, but were aware enough to understand a...

This last week and a half has been a wild one for sure. Basically last time I emailed you we were having sub-0° days pretty much every day and now it's supposed to get up to 60° today (and somehow we still have snow on the ground? It doesn't make sense) Since I'm covering a ton of days in this email, I'm gonna break it down into one short section for each day Tuesday: basically nobody wanted to talk to us. But we did have french dip with the APs and President and Sister Rasmussen at the mission home which was quite nice!  Wednesday: we had our district council and went to Raising Canes afterwards which is always good! We had our 1st lesson with our friend Pedro who talks a ton. We had dinner with the Richards and I found out a lot of their family is part of the Miami River Branch I was just in! We had a few people come to English Class, but not a ton sadly. We had two more lessons which were pretty good but we found out one of our friends who is progressing needs to get...

What's up?  I'm super tired so I'm gonna keep this short! Because we had to replace all the SIM cards in the mission, we basically spent 3 full days at all of our mission's zone conferences to get new SIM cards to the whole mission! It was really fun to be able to see all of my friends in the mission and to be able to have multiple chances to digest the message of the Zone Conference! We didn't end up having a ton of time to actually have lessons or go out proselytizing, so unfortunately I don't have any fun stories from that. We did have some new friends at church and our teaching assistant was finally called and set apart by the ward! Other news: I officially hit 18 months in the mission! Kinda crazy for sure Spiritual Thought: 3 Nephi 19:9,20-21 "9 And they did pray for that which they most desired; and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them. 20 Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen; an...

This week was pretty good! We still have a lot of snow, but eventually the roads got cleared off enough for people to start driving again. We helped out a lot of latinos whose cars were stuck in the snow (some considerably more stuck than others, we were helping one guy with his camioneta -- work truck -- for half an hour) We didn't have a lot of lessons sadly this week, but we did have one with our friend David which was a little chaotic because there's about 16 people in their apartment and we also helped him with his flat tire. But it was good and they gave us a Venezuelan cookie and fried shrimp. We also taught Albeiro about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he was down to get baptized which is awesome! He also came to our English class and to church! Speaking of church, we had 11 friends pull up on Sunday! We almost ran out of our translating equipment! It was awesome, but translating is tiring to do. Still a major win overall. We also had exchanges with the Miami River Elder...