Christmas time definitely feels different here in Mexico!

Hey Everyone, I hope that you all had a wonderful wonderful week this week! I hope that you are enjoying this wonderful time of the year! Christmas is such a great season! It definitely feels different here in Mexico than it does in Utah! I am missing the snow, but I am not missing the cold too much. It has been colder here the last couple of weeks which is nice in some ways but bad in others. It means I have been walking around in a sweater. It is just hard sometimes because here the weather is super bipolar. One minute it is cold, the next the sun is out and we are sweating and then it gets cold again! Haha! I am going to miss a white christmas! Our week went pretty well. We taught a lot of different people including investigators and less active and inactive members! We finally had an investigator come to church yesterday! His name is Jorge. He is the brother of Carmen Ramirez (the Ramirez family I have been telling you guys about)! We had a pretty intense lesson with them on Friday telling them that unless they actually read and pray and attend they will never get an answer. We went and invited them again to church on Sunday morning and he came to Sacrament. I really hope that we can help them to really develop a testimony and be baptized. He told us afterwards that he really liked the meeting. We are going to visit them again tonight and I hope we can help them to move forward! We also visited with Enrique a couple of times this week. He is pretty hard to convince about the necesity of attending church. He has been reading and praying however so hopefully that helps him to gain a greater desire to come to church. He has some pretty crazy ideas sometimes and it really challenges me to answer his questions in a way that helps him to understand and at the same time have a continuing desire to learn more. Our other investigator that we were teaching for awhile, Guadalupe, moved all of the sudden and now we do not know where she is. Hopefully we can find her and teach her more because she did seem quite interested in the message. Other than them we don't have many investigators right now and we are trying to continue to find more! Overall the work here is going well. We had exchanges on Tuesday with the Zone Leaders and it went pretty well. I was in our area and we had some really good lessons. Then on Friday morning we went and got another elder, Elder Ruiz, from Sahuayo because his companion went home and he was with us until this morning and we took him so that he could get his new companion. Elder Muñoa and I still have one more transfer together until February. I am excited for this week in a way because we have to go to Zamora, Michoacan for a training on good health on Saturday, then on the following Monday we have Zone Conference with President Egginton in Zamora. We will be there practically all day because we have the meetings in the morning and then in the evening we are having a Christmas Devotional and Dinner with President and Sister Egginton. I am excited for it and I look forward to Christmas the next week! I just want to tell you all that I know that this church is true! I know that Jesus Christ restored it through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I am so thankful that I have been given this opportunity to represent Jesus Christ as a missionary. I am so thankful for this time of year that we have to remember and celebrate His Birth and Mission here upon the earth! I know He lives and that He loves us. The greatest gift we can ever give to Him is to follow His commandments! I love each and every single one of you! I hope you all have a great week! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I hope that you may all have a Wonderful Christmas!!

​ ​I just wanted to write to you and let you know that I am thinking of you this Christmas! I am so thankful for you and for all you have done for me! I hope you know that I am thinking of you this Christmas season and that you are in my heart and prayers! I hope that you can remember the true meaning of this holiday celebration which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know that He lives and that is the reason we celebrate at this time of year! I know that He came in the most humble of circumstances and that He continued to be our greatest example of love and humility. I know that He came to fulfill a special purpose. That purpose was to teach all of us the best way to live and how to one day return to live in the presence of our loving Heavenly Father. He came to be a sacrifice for all sin, sadness, pain, affliction, and temptation so that we might overcome the sin, sadness, pain, affliction, and temptation we all face. He knows how to succor us and comfort us because He felt all that we feel. I know that He came above all to save us from this fallen state that we might be lifted up and made clean. He died and rose so that we might live again. At this Christmas I hope that all of you may remember Him and His great gift to the world! I know He loves each and every single one of us! He loves you and me and all of us. I know He lives and because He lives we can find true joy and happiness now and forever! I love Him. I thank Him. And I strive to be like Him. 6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 2 Nephi 19:6 I wish you all the warmest of Christmas wishes! I hope you all can enjoy this beautiful time of year in which we celebrate the birth of that little babe born in Bethlehem. I know that #ASaviorIsBorn unto us this day and because of Him we can live in eternal happiness. I love and miss each and every single one of you! I hope that you may have a wonderful Christmas this week! I am thinking of all of you while I am far away in Mexico! Merry Christmas! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I pray that you are all well at this special time of year!

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! Our week went pretty well although it was quite a busy week full of lots of traveling back and forth. This week we were able to enjoy teaching and sharing our gospel message with investigators and others. I am super excited right now because it is the Christmas Season and we have a great new initiative to share with everyone. Our investigators are doing pretty well. We have been working hard with them to keep their commitments and come to church. It is a big challenge. None of our investigators came to church with us yesterday, but Enrique did accompany us to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I was excited that he came with us (it took us quite a bit of convincing in his front door) and I feel like he was able to feel of the Spirit as he listened. Afterwards we had a refreshment of Atole (it is a hot drink made usually with flour, or corn meal (masa) and a flavor of some sort, this time chocolate) and cookies and lemon leaf tea (it isn't against the word of wisdom I promise). It was a fun and Enrique seemed to feel comfortable with the members there as we visited. We really hope that this helps him to have more confidence in attending with us next week at church! Please keep praying for our investigators to attend! All of our other investigators are doing okay. The Ramirez family is doing pretty good. We had a great lesson with them last week about the Plan of Salvation and they have lots of interest and questions. The hardest part is that they are torn between their catholic roots (the dad who died a few years back was a catholic priest) and their uncle is very pentocostal. We have only been teaching them a short time though and I hope that we can help them attend church and decide to be baptized. All of the other investigators aren't really progressing much so we are working to decide what more we can do to help them! We went to Guadalajara on Wednesday afternoon so that on Thursday morning I could go sign and renew my visa. It was really pretty quick signing and being fingerprinted. After that we got a chance to see just a little snippet of downtown Guadalajara (it is part of the other mission so we don't get to see it regularly). It was quite fun and made me want to see more of Guadalajara more in-depth one day! It was also fun getting to see some of the Elders I haven't seen since I got here in the field! On Friday we had our Zone Meeting. It went well and we learned a lot about our new Christmas initiative called #ASaviorIsBorn or better said in Spanish #HaNacidoUnSalvador. It is a new website that the church has designed just for Christmas that has two beautiful videos one called A Savior is Born and another Why We Need a Savior. I hope that all of you will go visit the page at www.christmas.mormon.org so that you can see the videos, explore the page, and share it with all of your friends, neigbors, and family members! It is a beautiful video that helps us to remember the reason for Christmas and it is a great way to share our beliefs in Jesus Christ. I just want to say that I know that Jesus Christ lives. A Savior is Born, and He came to Earth for each and every single one of us so that we might become better! I know that it is through Jesus Christ the Savior that we can repent of our sins and become clean once more! I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am so thankful that Christ came in such humble circumstances that we might have everlasting life one day in the presence of God the Eternal Father. I love this time of year and I believe the greatest gift of all is Him. I am so thankful for Jesus Christ and I love Him. I love each and every one of you. I pray that you are well and that at this special time of year you can feel the very special Spirit in the air that comes only throught the Prince of Peace! Merry Christmas! Take Care! Have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I missed being able to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, but I still tried to think of everything that I am grateful for!

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week and a very happy Thanksgiving Day! I missed being able to celebrate it this year. Here they really do not celebrate it, so I definitely missed out on the Turkey and all of the goods! I hope it was a very enjoyable holiday for all and that you were able to truly remember how incredibly blessed we all are! I tried to still think about what I am grateful for and it was then that I realized we are so blessed in every aspect. More than anything in our knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our Families! This week went pretty well for Elder Muñoa and I. We were able to find six new investigators. Five are a family, the Ramirez family. The mother is Carmen and she has three daughters, Milagros (Mili), Ramona, and Andrea. We also taught Carmen's brother, but I don't remember his name. We taught them two times this last week. They seem quite interested in knowing about the truthfulness of our message and we taught a lot about the need to read The Book of Mormon and also to pray and attend church. So far only Andrea has read in the Book of Mormon and none of them made it to church on Sunday. The other new investigator is Jose Chavez. He is related to one of the brothers in the branch and he introduced us to him. We gave him a Book of Mormon, but we haven't had a chance to teach him much because when we went to talk to him we were running late for our lunch appointment, but hopefully we can teach him better in the coming days! Our other investigators are doing alright, but this week we really didn't get much of an opportunity to teach them because many of them were not home when we tried to visit and many were out of town. Guadalupe was out of town until yesterday afternoon and when we went she was busy taking care of all of the chores she didn't have a chance to do until she got back. Enrique we visited on Tuesday and had a good lesson with him about the Plan of Salavation. With him his biggest impediment is that he still hasn't received an answer and he doesn't want to come to church and feel like an outsider. With Fransico he has been super busy working on their house, he is constructing on the roof a wall to go all of the way around so that they can put their dogs up there. None of them came to church. That really is our biggest challenge is getting people to church on Sunday. Please pray for us to help them attend! We are trying to figure out what more we can do to help them to come. Overall this week was a pretty good week. We visited a lot of less active members and those visits went well. It was nice because even though we didn't have investigators in Sacrament Meeting we did have a higher attendance than most Sundays lately. I hope we can continue to strengthen the members here. Really that is a big job and we are trying to do all we can to help this branch become stronger! Really I know that the Lord is at the head of this great work. It is His work. He wants all of us to come unto Him and become perfected through His Atonement. I know that even though there are challenges and trials in all of our lives that He is aware and watching. He is willing and waiting for us to ask for His hand that He may help us up and out of any trial or tribulation. I know that He loves me and every single one of you! I have come to feel that same love for all of those we teach. He truly is there for us and loves us always no matter who we are, who we have been or what we have done; He loves us. I know that it is through Jesus Christ, the Lord, that we can overcome anything and everything that attacks us or that we face! I am so thankful for that knowledge and for His continued help and guidance in my life! I love each and every single one of you and I hope that all is well! Have a wonderful week and take good care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We has a great week of fun teaching and new experiences with my new companion Elder Munoa! 11-23-15

Hey Everyone, I hope that you all had a good week. We had a great week full of fun teaching and new experiences with my new companion Elder Muñoa. We had some pretty great lessons and some fun times, along with a challenge or two here or there (what is to be expected?). I am kind of sad because this last Friday we were supposed to have our Zone Conference and Elder Benjamin D. Hoyos (the Mexico Area President) and his wife were going to be there as they were going to come tour our mission with President and Sister Egginton, but they didn't end up coming because Sister Egginton got really sick. At this point we do not know if they will end up coming or not. I still hope so, but I guess we will see. Well this week was a pretty relaxed week in comparison to the past few weeks we have had! It was nice to finally just focus on teaching and working and training my companion. Elder Muñoa is doing really well. It amazes me how quickly he is learning and how much he has to contribute to all of our lessons. This week we focused our study as a companionship on learning and practicing lesson one which is about the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith. We practiced a lot in our studies and he learned a lot about how he can become a better teacher. I am excited to see how well he learns the other lessons. Our investigators are doing pretty well. Francisco we didn't get a chance to visit with this last week because he was working a lot and his brother broke his leg and he had to take him to the hospital in Guadalajara. He didn't come to church either which was a bummer, but we are going to continue to work with him on that! Guadalupe is doing good. She is a young mother and has a two year old named Juan. When we are teaching he gets pretty restless which makes it a trial sometimes, but she still has learned a lot. We usually teach her along with her friend who is inactive so we are trying to strengthen and help them both at the same time! Enrique our other investigator is doing pretty good. We found him along with his family, but his family hasn't listened since the first time, just him and his mom (who has alzheimer's according to him, but she seems pretty with it to me!) He is pretty full of odd ideas and hard to convince. It has made me have to listen well and discern more what we need to say. I have been pretty direct with him while teaching, but I think it has been a good way to help him learn. We taught a lot on baptism and I hope that he will decide to be baptized. He doesn't say 'no' but he just wants to be sure. He still hasn't come to church and I know it will help him to know! Other than that we have been trying to teach a lot of less active members and help them. We had a cool experience. One family that I have only seen in the church one time came yesterday to church after a great lesson with them. We taught about keeping the sabbath day holy and we had a pretty in-depth discussion. They don't come because of a problem between the dad and his ex-wife who lives here still. She is hostile towards him and makes it very uncomfortable for them. Well we were talking to them about how maybe even if it is uncomfortable that they should come because of the blessings and that God blesses us when we make sacrifices. Even though the dad himself didn't come, his wife and two daughters did come to Sacrament Meeting. I could tell she was uncomfortable but I tried to tell her how happy I was to see her there! It really was a miracle that she came because the situation really is very hard. Also on Saturday morning I had a huge surprise. As Elder Muñoa and I were walking from a visit to go to lunch and we were just talking when all of the sudden a man crossed the street in front of us. It was one of my old investigators from my last area in Guadalajara! Here in Tizapan. It was Damian Vazquez, I don't know if you remember about him or not but I told you a lot about him and his family. He is a taxi driver and was here to take someone to Guadalajara. It was great to see and talk to him and his son Jonathan. It is kind of crazy how small the world really is! We took pictures and talked for a minute, it was great! Then also that same day in the afternoon we went to go teach Guadalupe and her friend (Maria) who is the less active sister. When we got there to teach Maria brought out a jar to show us. Inside she had two scorpions! She had told us another time that she has a lot in her house and finds them all of the time and we told her we wanted one if she found one so that we could dry it and keep it as a souvenir. She gave them to me. One is dead and the other one is still alive. It hasn't been eating anything we give it though so I am sure it will die in the next couple of days. It was kind of fun! Anyway overall everything is going pretty well. We are enjoying our time together and doing everything we can to further the work! I want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving even though I will not be there to share it with you! I just want to tell you all what I am thankful for! First of all I am so thankful for a Loving Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Savior and Redeemer! They are so kind and loving to me and I cannot express my fulness of gratitude to them! I am also incredibly thankful for my family, especially my parents and siblings. They are my biggest love and support. I know that they are such a huge blessing from God. I am thankful for my knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the opportunity I have to share it as a missionary! I am thankful for Joseph Smith and that he was called as a Prophet of God to restore His true church here on the earth! I am thankful for a living Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and for living, modern-day apostles! I am so thankful for my country and the freedoms I enjoy as an american and also that I have this wonderful opportunity to live and serve here in Mexico for two years and to know and learn the culture, language, and get to know the people! I have been so blessed and I owe it all to a Loving Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ. I know they live and that they provide for us, love us, and are there for us in what ever may be our needs! I love all of you and am thankful for you! Take care! Happy Thanksgiving! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I can see the hand of the Lord in my life as a missionary!

Hey Everyone, I hope this email finds you all happy and well (even if it means you are a bit cold from the fresh snow!) I had a really good week last week. I can definitely see the hand of the Lord in my life as a missionary and how He is constantly blessing each one of us. This week was the first week for Elder Muñoa and I together. It went pretty well for us. He is a good kid and I can see a lot of potential in him to be a great missionary. I know that I have been blessed to be able to train him and to be able to share what little knowledge I have about Missionary Work. I am excited to see how much he grows in the coming weeks and months together. I have already seen him share some very great thoughts during our lessons. Our job now is to just strengthen his teaching skills and his knowledge of the basic principles of the lessons! We had some really great blessings in our work this week. We found 8 new investigators. I am super excited to teach them. The first two are Hermila Arroyo and her husband. She was a referral that we received through the self-reliance program. I could tell that she has a desire to find peace and happiness in her life and I hope that we can help her to find it through the Gospel. The other six are part of a family. Enrique is the dad and we talked to him a few weeks back as we were traveling home from Ajijic. He seems to be the one most interested. We have taught him two times and his family once. I hope that we can help him to gain a greater understanding of the Gospel and strengthen his faith in Christ. It was a great blessing to us. Our other investigators are doing pretty good. Francisco (Lorena's husband) is doing well. We had a lesson with him on Friday after we got back from Guadalajara. We taught him the whole lesson of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went really well and we were able to teach him with Lorena a bit more about the Book of Mormon and how he can develop his own testimony. I can see a desire to learn and to work towards keeping his commitments and being baptized. The biggest thing is he has lots of questions and doubts and we are going to have to help him quit smoking and drinking coffee. Our other new investigator from last week is Guadalupe. She is a friend of an inactive sister we have been teaching lately. We taught her about the Book of Mormon as well and emphasized how she can find an answer through prayer, scripture study, and church attendance. Unfortunately none of our investigators came to church yesterday. I hope we can get them to come next week! It was pretty cool because yesterday President and Sister Egginton along with Elder and Sister Anderson (the new senior couple who will be secretaries in the mission office and sister and brother-in-law of Sister Egginton) came to church in our Branch of Tizapan. It was great to see them and get to hear them speak. I ended up teaching them in Gospel Principles (Sunday School) in both English and Spanish because they are still learning. I think it went pretty well. Afterwards we had a potluck at church for lunch (every third Sunday we do it) and they stayed and ate with us. It was fun and I was able to talk to them a bit more about the branch. I love them they are great leaders and they show so much love, support and confidence in us. Overall it was a great week and I am excited to see how the work goes with Elder Muñoa and our new investigators! Please pray for us to help them to be baptized! I just want to share my testimony of the preparation that God is giving to all of His children. I know that He is working in the lives of all of His children to bless them with a knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have seen how He prepares people. I know that He is aware of every single one of His children. I am so thankful to know that He is a loving father that wants to bless each of us as His sons and daughters. We must only choose to let Him in and change our lives. I know He is changing mine and that He can change yours! I love each one of you and pray for you always! I hope you have a fun and happy week! Take care. Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

This week was full of lots fun and crazy things!

Hey everyone, Wow this week was a long week full of lots of fun and crazy things! I had food poisioning last week and I was in bed almost all day Monday and Tuesday. We were finally able to go out and teach on Wednesday and I am now finally feeling all better! It was a horrible sickness and I am just glad that it is over now. Arturo seemed to be doing pretty well this week. He has continued working to not drink, but I know that it is super hard on him. The other day we had an appointment to go visit with him and we arrived at his house and his son was there and told us that Arturo had left to go to Guadalajara for awhile, but didn't tell us exactly how long. We ended up visiting his mom a couple of days later and we asked her why he left and she said for his own benefit and didn't tell us much more. We think that he is probably in some sort of rehabilitation center but they haven't told us that directly. Whatever he is doing and wherever he is though I really hope that it is for his benefit and that it helps him. It was just kind of a bummer because they didn't tell us anything and we don't know when he will be returning! Other than that on Friday night Elder Raya, one of the Assistants to the President called me and told me that I have been selected to train a new elder for the next two transfers. Honestly it didn't surprise me to much but it was a little unexpected for the timing. I am excited to be able to train a new elder and we will be staying in our area of Tizapan. My son (that is our language for the elder whom we train) is Elder Muñoa from Chiapas. He is 18 and seems really excited to share the gospel. I hope that I can do a good job training him how to be a hardworking and successful missionary! I hope you will all pray for me! I need all the help I can get in doing this. Honestly I think it is a great blessing and responsibility and I just hope that I do a good job teaching him and being a good example! On Saturday night we had a miracle happen. We went to go visit with Hna. Lorena to let Elder Menchu tell her goodbye, but she was visiting her mom in Guadalajara. It surprised us though because Francisco, her husband, invited us in to talk to him. He told us that he is ready for us to teach him the lessons so that he can be baptized. Honestly it was a huge surprise because before he pretty much didn't show interest in our lessons. He told us though that he has felt that for a long time God has been trying to talk to him and that he is ready to change his life! I am super excited to start working with him along side with Elder Muñoa because I was at first worried to train an elder here with so many challenges in finding people to teach! Really I know it was an answer to my prayers! I just want to share with you my testimony of the work of the Lord. I know that missionary work is His work because it is helping Him with His work of "bring[ing] to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). I know that He is preparing the way for His children to accept the Gospel. I am so thankful that I have this wonderful opportunity to work alongside Him in the greatest work on earth. Honestly I have a sure testimony that this is His work and He guides us in it. "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." -3 Nephi 5:13 I hope you all have a great week! Love you all and take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I have food poisoning, but we survived the Hurricane okay!

Hey Everyone! This last week was a pretty good week until last night. I got food poisioning from some chinese food that some members gave us. I feel horrible today. Thankfully though it was just me and Elder Menchu didn't get sick. I hope that within the next couple days I get feeling better because I don't feel great right now. Other than the food poisioning it was a pretty normal week. We traveled a lot in the last week. First on Sunday we went to Ajijic for our district conference. It went really well we had the theme "To the Rescue" it was focused on working with the less-active and inactive members more. I really hope that it helps us to better work with the members here to re-activate those who are not actively coming. Then on Monday we had a trip to Guadalajara with the Eye Doctor, and that went pretty well except that we returned home so late. Then on Tuesday we went to Ajijic again for our District Meeting. Thankfully we don't have to travel this week until Friday to Ajijic for our Zone Meeting. The Hurricane Patricia a week ago didn't actually do very much damage where we are at, so that means we didn't really get any service opportunities at all. I am thankful though that it wasn't worse because everyone was expecting a huge disaster. It did cool down the weather last week and it rained a couple of more days. I am hoping that the weather stays a bit cooler, but at the same time last night with my fever I was freezing and I don't have extra blankets. Overall we are doing pretty good here. Next week are transfers and we really don't know what will happen. In a way I hope that Elder Menchu and I get to stay together again, but I don't know if that will happen, we already have three transfers together. Anyway whatever happens I am sure it will all end up fine. We haven't found any new investigators still. We have been searching a lot still, but they just haven't shown up for us yet! We were trying to visit with one lady for like six weeks and it just never worked out and now she is in the U.S. so we lost that chance. Hno. Arturo is pretty much our only investigator that we have at the moment. He is struggling quite a bit with his addiction. For like three weeks he didn't drink but then he relapsed a couple of weeks ago and has been struggling since then. Sometimes it is frustrating trying to help him because he has only come to church once and doesn't read in the Book of Mormon much. We have tried to help him to learn that those two things along with prayer are the keys to having strength to overcome! Hopefully we can help him to keep his commitments so that he actually can progress. We have still been trying to teach Leslie (Lorena's Niece). She is really smart and knows a lot about the gospel (missionaries visited their family before). She has a desire to do what is right and to live the commandments. The biggest challenge with her is that she goes to school in the afternoon and we only really get to teach her on Saturdays. She is only thirteen, but she is super smart. The other challenge is that her mom let's her listen to us, but I think it will be hard trying to convince her to let Leslie be baptized. We are going to keep working with her though! I just want to tell you all that I know that the Gospel is true. I know that God loves each and every single one of us! I have truly been able to see the love that God feels for each and every single one of His children through my service as a missionary. I want so badly for all to have the same joy and happiness that I feel through living the gospel! I am so thankful for this opportunity I have to share it with everyone else. I know that He is guiding and directing this work and I have learned more to trust in Him. I hope you will all trust in Him as well I know it will bless all of your lives! I love all of you and I hope you have a great week! Take care! Thank you for all of your continued prayers and love towards me! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We survived Hurricane Patricia okay and our prayers were answered!

Hey Everyone, This week was a pretty crazy week with a Hurricane and all. Today we went to Guadalajara so I am very short on time to email. I just want you to all know that we were fine throughout the Hurricane Patricia and that we didn't have any problems! Just lots and lots of rain and a bit of wind. I was thankful for the rain though! It made the weather cooler! Yesterday we had our District Conference (it is like stake conference but we are in a district here) and we talked a lot about going "to the Rescue" of the lost sheep of the church. We are really focusing on working with less active and inactive members to strengthen and help them! I really hope that what we all learned will help us to better work with the members here to strengthen the saints! I just want you all to know that I have a testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel! I know that Jesus Christ is our shepherd and that He cares for each and every one of his sheep! I know that He loves us and is aware of us in every moment. I saw that last week as many people were very worried about the hurricane that was so huge and it did very very little damage. He hears our prayers and he answers our prayers! I love each and every one of you and hope you have a wonderful week! Happy Halloween! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had the great opportunity to be trained by a General Authority of the Church.

Hey Everyone, I hope that you are all happy and well! I am doing pretty well and I had a good week. We had another full week, but it was a great one. We were able to teach and learn a lot this week and I am excited to share all about it with you! First of all this week we were able to have lots of lessons with our converts and also less active members. Hna. Lorena finally returned home from Guadalajara Monday night and we were able to have a lesson with her. She is such a fun and great person and I am so excited to see how much she grows from now on. It was really cool because the self-reliance course started this week and her husband (who is not a member) is now attending. I hope that it helps us to have a better opportunity to teach him about the gospel and to help him to one day be baptized so that their family can be sealed in the Temple! We also had the opportunity to go and visit another convert Jose who has been struggling lately with his addiction to alcohol and other family problems. I am really hoping and praying that we can strengthen and help him to overcome these struggles and trials that he is having and become a more active and faithful member of the church! We also had the opportunity to teach Cecilio another convert and he told us that he was able to get Sundays off of work so that he can come to church. We also asked him if he would come visit with us, so I am hoping that by working with him we can find some new investigators! We still didn't find any new investigators this week so we have been focusing in speaking with more people, but also we have been focusing on helping our existing investigators. Arturo is our investigator with the most progress right now, but unfortunately he relapsed and drank this last week on Friday and Saturday. He didn't end up coming to church on Sunday because of the problems. We visited him though and I could tell he felt kind of silly for letting a small dispute with his wife make him drink. He really wants to change and I can see lots of changes already and I hope that we can just keep helping him to move forward and work to overcome his addiction. Other than him our other investigators aren't really progressing right now. On Saturday we had a really great opportunity to go and participate in a training given by a visiting General Authority of the Church in Guadalajara. President Devin G. Durrant, the First Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency of the Church, came and visited our mission and gave a training for all of the missionaries in Guadalajara and our zone in Chapala. It was a really cool experience to get to listen to and learn from him how we can become better teachers and missionaries. He also focused a lot on how we can better have the Spirit when we teach through our personal preparation and teaching techniques. It was cool to get to participate in that training and later get to shake his hand along with two other Seventies. Really it was a cool experience getting to have a special meeting with a General Authority just for us as missionaries! I just want to leave you all with my testimony of the Power of the Holy Ghost. I know that the Holy Ghost is a member of the Godhead and that He truly can dwell with each and every one of us. I know that the Spirit can testify to each and every one of us of Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, and of any other truth. I am so thankful that we can all have the Gift of the Holy Ghost if we are baptized by the proper authority. I know that the Spirit guides and directs us in decisions and in avoiding danger. I am thankful that God has sent to us the greatest gift He can give. I know that if we will heed the direction and counsel we all receive through the Holy Ghost we can all remain safe and receive personal, direct revelation from God. I know that our Father in Heaven communicates to us through the Holy Spirit and that we can to find comfort through Him. I love each and every single one of you and I hope that you all have a great week! Take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We started a new course about Self-Reliance

Hey everyone, I hope that you all had a great week and that you have a good one coming up! Our week went pretty well. It amazes me that it is already Monday again, time seems to be flying by. We were pretty busy this past week with a trip to Guadalajara on Monday and then Ajijic (Chapala) on Tuesday with lessons and a devotional the rest of the week! Overall it went pretty well. Last week we had a devotional to start a free course on self-reliance. The plan for the area of Mexico in 2015 is learning to become more self-reliant and this course is offered to help people improve their economic circumstances. It is set up so that people can see how they can better meet their financial needs and what they can do to improve their income. It includes a twelve week course in three different areas of the person's choosing. They are: how to improve my education, how to search for a better job, and how to start or grow a business. We were working all week long to make it successful devotional on Saturday night. We made and passed out fliers to a lot of people and helped coordinate meetings between the District President and our Branch President. Not a ton of people actually came compared to those who we invited, but we had about twenty-five. Six of them are non-members and we only knew one of them which is Lorena's husband and is already an investigator. I hope that with them we can find some new investigators and help them to be baptized. Also a less-active sister who we have visited with since I got here went and that was the first time I have seen her at the church. I hope that it really helps push the work along here in our area! I think it will! Other than that devotional we taught quite a few lessons. Our main focus right now is Arturo. He is doing pretty good and he hasn't drunk for the last two weeks. I am hoping that we can help him to continue to resist and overcome his addiction to alcohol. He is doing pretty well. Last Tuesday they invited us to eat dinner and they made us ceviche. It was really good and we got to meet his wife officially. They are working out their problems together (now that he has stopped drinking) and we were able to teach her as well. We are hoping to be able to help him and his wife and son to all listen to the lessons and prepare for baptism although I think that Arturo will be the first baptized. Unfortunately he didn't come to church yesterday because he pinched a nerve or something while working (he is a mechanic) and he couldn't walk very good. We had to change his baptism date, but he is still progressing quite well! Really the work is slowly moving forward here. It is kind of hard to be patient sometimes, but I know that with our efforts and patience that we will be able to find more people to teach. We have been working to talk to more people in order to find investigators and I think we have some good prostpects. Thank you all for your continued prayers for us to find and teach God's children here! I know that through our efforts and His immense help we can help many others come unto the knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel. I just want to share with you all my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that this sacred book is the word of God given to the ancient inhabitants of America. I know that they received revelation by the Spirit of God just as our modern day prophet, Thomas S. Monson, recieves. I know that it was translated by Joseph Smith Jr. only through the gift and power of God that he was able to translate the ancient record from Golden Plates. I know of a surety that the Book of Mormon is true and that if we will read it daily and live the principles it teaches us that we will be immensly blessed by God and given the things that we need. I love the Book of Mormon and I am so grateful that God has revealed it to us through one of His chosen servants! I love each and every one of you and I hope you are all doing well! I hope you all have a lovely week this week and that you all take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I loved General Conference

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! Our week was pretty crazy busy once again. It went okay teaching, but we didn't have many lessons because we don't really have many investigators at the moment and Lorena our convert has been gone so we didn't get to visit with her either. Overall though it was a pretty great week, just because we got to listen to General Conference. We pretty much only taught lessons this week with one of our investigators because the rest were not home or they were busy. We visited with Hno. Arturo three times. He drank again this week and the day after we had a pretty good lesson with him. I think he really does have a great desire to quit drinking, but as an addict it just isn't all that easy. I have seen some great efforts by him though to change and to become better! We taught him about how he just has to keep on trying, just like the conference talk from April "Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying" by Elder Dale G. Renlund (one of our newly called apostles). After that lesson with him we visited him the next two days in a row and invited him to conference. He didn't end up coming to conference, which was kind of a bummer, but on Sunday night afterwards we went and visited him. We taught him more about the requirements for baptism (like that he has to have five attendances in church) and we scheduled a new baptism date for the 7th of November. I really hope we can help him to prepare and be baptized on that day! Other than visiting with Arturo we visited with some other less active members and converts. I really hope that we can continue to find and help some of those members return to church through our efforts. We are trying to find new investigators because honestly right now we don't have very many. Arturo is the only one who is really showing true interest and desire to keep his commitments. Please pray for us to find new investigators, we need them! That is definitely going to be one of our biggest focuses in the coming weeks! I absolutely loved General Conference! If you have not had a chance to watch it or only a section of it I invite you to watch it or watch the sessions that you did not get to hear/see. It was absolutely amazing and incredibly inspired. I felt as if every single word was spoken directly to me, but I also know that it will help others too! I can tell you that they are all inspired to share what they do! I saw a huge theme about faith, centering our lives on Jesus Christ, obeying the commandments and living righteously, and also keeping the sabbath day holy. I loved everything that was spoken. One of my absolute favorite talks was by Elder Dallin H. Oaks (I believe in the Saturday Afternoon Session) that was talking all about the power of the Atonement. I loved how he talked about using that power to overcome adversity and trials. I loved his focus on how Jesus Christ suffered every single pain, affliction, and temptation that we face or experience. His Atonement isn't just for sin, it is complete and all-encompassing. It was a wonderful talk that helped strengthen me! I loved all of the talks but that one especially stood out among others by President Monson, Elder Bednar, President Nelson, and Elder Holland. I love their inspiration and ways of speaking to all of us! I just want to end my email today with my testimony of modern-day revelation. I know that God continues to speak to His children, us. He loves each and every single one of us and He is always available if we but turn to Him in humble prayer and strive to live His commandments. I know that He has called modern-day, living prophets to lead and guide and direct His church here on Earth so that all men may one day return to His presence in our heavenly home. I am so grateful that we receive revelation through our Prophet Thomas S. Monson and the apostles. I know that God has called three new apostles and I fully sustain them. I know that we too can receive personal revelation directly from Him. He will and does answer our prayers through the power of the Holy Ghost, His prophets, and the Scriptures. I am so grateful that He has not changed and that He continues to speak to us in love. I love each and every single one of you and I hope you are all doing well! I hope you all have a great week and take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Guadalajara Temple!

Hey Everyone, I hope that this email finds all of you happy and healthy. I hope you all had another great week this week. I had a pretty great week and it was a little bit less crazy for once which was kind of nice for a change. On Tuesday we had a wonderful opportunity to go to Guadalajara and attend the temple there. I was so grateful to be able to enter into the House of the Lord and feel the incredibly strong and beautiful spirit that resides there. The Guadalajara Temple is one of the little ones that you see around the world. It really is super teeny-tiny. It only has one ordinance room and I am pretty sure that it could only fit like fifty people at a time there. It is still incredibly beautiful and peaceful there. That is definitely something I realized being there, is that no matter how big or small a temple is, it is still the House of the Lord. I really loved how all around it is the super huge city of Guadalajara and as you are inside it is completely silent and peaceful! It was kind of sad because Elder Menchu forgot his reccomend and I didn't think to ask him about it and we didn't realize until it was too late to return home for it! We got to the temple and they tried to call President Egginton but he didn't answer in time to enter the session. They still let me go in because I had mine with me and Elder Menchu had to wait with one of the Temple President's Counselors. About ten minutes after the session started Pres. Egginton called back and said he could go in, but the session had already started. At least he was able to go help with sealings, but I think he was kind of bummed out about it! I hope we get to go again soon so that he can participate! It was also really cool because the temple is outside of our mission (it is in the Mexico Guadalajara Mission), so we had to leave the mission to go. We saw a group of other missionaries there at their zone conference (right in front of the temple is a stake center). One of them was my cousin Elder Rider (Natalie's son)! We had arrived early so we got to talk to him for a minute and I took a photo with him! It was kind of cool getting to see him! Other than our trip to the temple our week was quite normal. It was really cool because yesterday Arturo, our investigator we have been teaching for a little while (off and on) now, finally came to church for the very first time. He stayed for all of our classes and at the end he said that he really liked it and felt comfortable there because he knows one of the sisters in the branch. We have been working a lot with him trying to help him improve and keep his commitments. I was glad to see him arrive at church because it really shows a desire to do what we have invited him to do! I hope that we can help him to learn and progress and prepare to be baptized! Other than our regular visits with various investigators and members not much has changed. With our baptism last week we are trying to find new people and trying to help our existing investigators to progress. Please keep praying for us to find those who are ready here in our area! I am excited because today was transfers once again, but Elder Menchu and I will be together for at least six more weeks. I am excited to see what more we can accomplish together here! I just want to leave you all with my testimony about our beloved prophets. I know that Jesus Christ has always called prophets to teach us, guide us, and to lead His church here on the earth. I know that prophets have written our holy scriptures and I know them to be the word of God. I know that a prophet must be called of God and by His authority. I know that Joseph Smith was the Prophet of the Restoration and that he translated the Book of Mormon. I know that Thomas S. Monson is our living prophet here on the earth today. I am so excited for the General Conference this Saturday and Sunday and for the opportunity that we have to listen to and learn from our beloved prophet and the Apostles of God. I know that they receive revelation for us in our day and I invite all of you to listen intently to what they speak and apply what you learn in your lives. I am so grateful for a living prophet who guides and directs us in our day! I love each and every one of you and pray for you always! I hope that you have a wonderful week and are able to learn and grow from General Conference this weekend! I love you all! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had a wonderful week full of traveling, adventures, and a baptism!

Hey Everyone, This week was a really good and long and crazy week for us! It was full of a lot of traveling and adventures! We had the opportunity to go to Zone Conference, have exchanges, and our baptism on Saturday! It was a good week that was full of lots of things to do! First of all on Tuesday we went to a city named Ocotlan for our Zone Conference with President Egginton. We had to travel like three hours to get there and we didn't have a great idea on how to arrive there. We had to take three different buses to get there. We made the first two without a problem, but where we were supposed to take the third was a town that we have never been to and we didn't know where we were supposed to get off. We ended getting off early and then saw the third bus coming and we tried to stop it as usual and it just passed us. So we tried to follow where it went and see if it stopped further on and found out that it stopped in a bus station (that nobody told us existed) and the bus that we took to get there was parked right next to the one we needed to take. Luckily we didn't miss the third bus, but we just ended up walking extra that we didn't need too! Our Zone Conference was really good and we talked a lot about Charity and Love, Humility, and Diligence. It was really cool because the Spirit was really strong there. We also talked about our purpose as missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ. I really enjoyed it. Because our meeting started late and we weren't going to be able to get home before midnight we stayed overnight with the elders there and came home on Wednesday morning. On Thursday we had exchanges so that our District Leader, Elder Toala, could do Lorena's baptism interview. She passed her interview which was really good. It was fun to have exchanges with Elder Toala. He is from Samoa, but lives in Washington State. It was fun to talk to him in English all day long and get a break from Spanish. I honestly feel like now it is easier to speak in Spanish than English because I am so used to talking in Spanish all of the time, but after talking for awhile in English it became a bit easier again. It is funny how we change words sometimes or how we randomly say a word in Spanish while we are talking. It made me laugh. On Saturday we had the baptism with Hna. Lorena. I was the one who baptized her and it went pretty well! The baptismal service was really good. We had quite a few members there to support her; that was nice because we were a little worried about that because not very many people have been attending church lately. Both of the sisters who spoke did a great job and are friends or family of her's and the Spirit was super strong. Elder Menchu and I sang Nearer My God to Thee and it went okay. I was super excited that she got baptized because we have been working a lot with her. She really is such a wonderful and fun lady and I just hope that she can help her family to get baptized now! It was good because her sister-in-law who isn't a member came to the baptism. On Sunday Elder Menchu did the Confirmation for her. He did a good job and gave her a great blessing. I am super excited to see how much more she grows as we continue to work with her! I know that her testimony will become much stronger and I am excited to see the effect she has on her husband and other relatives! Other than that we taught some other lessons, but not really anyone is progressing. I hope that with our investigator Arturo we can start helping him attend church and stuff, but last we knew he was drinking again and all of his family is worried about him. I hope that we can really help him to stop and change his life and be able to fix some of the family problems that he has because of his addiction. I am super excited because tomorrow we are going to Guadalajara to the TEMPLE!!!! I am so excited because I haven't been to the temple for over nine months now! I can't wait to feel of the beautiful, peaceful, and tranquil Spirit that there is in the House of the Lord. I hope this is the first of many trips to the temple! I love the temple so much and it is really cool because we got to see the re-dedication of the Mexico City Temple just last week! I just want to leave you with my testimony of Our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that He is the author and writer of our faith and that through our faith in Him that we can receive many miracles and great blessings in our own lives. I know that He suffered and died for us, but that too He was resurrected that we might live once again just as He did! I know that it is only through that great Atoning Sacrifice that He made for all mankind that we may be made clean of our sins, have comfort in trials, and return to live in the presence of God. I am incredibly grateful for Him. I love all of you so much and I hope you all are doing well. I hope you all have a wonderful week this week and take care of yourselves! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We got to watch the Re-dedication of the Mexico City Temple.

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a good week this week! My week was a pretty great week. We were able to teach quite a bit and had the opportunity to participate in some fun events! This week we finished teaching Hna. Lorena the lessons. She is doing really well. She has developed a testimony of the Gospel and we can see her growth everytime we visit with her! This week we taught her about the Temple and Family History Work and she was excited to look up pictures of the temple on her computer. We also taught her about service to all men and in the church as well. Yesterday we had a practice baptismal interview with her and I think she is very ready to be baptized this Saturday! We asked her who she wanted to baptize her and she asked me to do it. Elder Menchú will confirm her on Sunday. I am super excited that she is going to be baptized because we have been working really hard to help her prepare! She is such a wonderful lady and I am so excited that she has made the decision to be baptized. Do you remember Arturo?? He is an investigator I told you guys about awhile back. Well he went to rehab for drinking and hadn't had much of an opportunity to visit with him lately. Well this last week he got out of rehab and we went and visited with him. He has a great desire to change his life and fix the problems he has made for himself. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom the other day and he said he would do all he could to live it day by day and step by step. I really hope that we can help him to progress and be baptized. I know it will help him to change his life so much. Well yesterday we had the opportunity to go to the Rededication of the Mexico City Temple. It was absolutely wonderful and the Spirit was super strong. President Henry B. Eyring presided and said the rededicatory prayer. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was also there and we got to hear them both speak on the importance of temples and the blessings they bring in our lives. We went to two of three sessions and it was absolutely wonderful to be able to see and participate in the rededication. I understood everything that was said both in Spanish and English! Haha. It was a really neat experience and I am thankful that we got to go! On Saturday night we also had the opportunity to watch the Cultural Celebration for the Temple. They broadcast it to all of Mexico. It was cool to get to watch it. They had lots of dancing and singing. They told a story of the History of the Church in Mexico and some specific stories about some of the first members here. It all led up to yesterday when the temple was to be rededicated. It was a really fun program and I loved it. I just want to share with all of you my testimony of the Temple. I know that the Temple is the House of the Lord and therein we can receive ordinances and make sacred covenants necessary for our salvation. I am so thankful for the Priesthood Authority of God that has been restored here on the Earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I testify that our Prophet today, Thomas S. Monson, holds that same Priesthood Authority. I know that through this authority we can be sealed as families for time and all eternity. I am so thankful to know that my family can be together forever thanks to the temple. I love each and every one of you and hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I hope you all had a wonderful week!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this last week! I had a pretty good week. We are just working on finding people to teach and trying to teach those people that we do have! I had a week full of traveling once again! I went to Sahuayo for companion exchanges and then on Friday we had Zone Meeting and we went to Chapala. I am doing pretty good and I had a good week! On Tuesday last week I went to Sahuayo with Elder Ruiz (he is the companion of my district leader, Elder Toala (who is from Samoa)). I was there Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday morning I returned to Tizapan. Elder Ruiz is a new missionary in his second transfer. It was kind of fun to go teaching with him and see how it is to be a new missionary from the perspective of someone else! I can see in Him such a vigor for the work and excitement in being here, and it makes me want to redouble my efforts everyday. I could see him striving to learn to be a better teacher and the little things that he can improve and do better. It was a cool experience for me because it helped me to see really how much I have grown and learned in the months since I arrived in the mission. I still feel new somedays, but really I have grown so much and I cannot wait to see how much more I can learn in the coming months! It was super hot in Sahuayo (it is about an hour away in Michoacán) and it helped me to be thankful for my area. Really here in Tizapan it is rather temperate because of Chapala Lake and we receive more rain here too! This week it was a bit cooler because it rained a little bit more. On Saturday it rained almost all afternoon which was much appreciated. Really I like my area a lot it is super green and beautiful. Hna. Lorena is doing really good. We got to visit her two times this week (well I visited her once and my companion visited her twice because of exchanges). She is progressing really well and I can see her testimony growing. Last week we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she liked to drink coffee but when we taught her she said she would try to quit. This week when we visited her she told us that she hadn't drunk coffee since that lesson and that she only had a headache for two days afterward (she was afraid of more problems from quitting the coffee but was surprised that she could do it!) On Thursday we taught her about Priesthood and Missionary Work and we were able to help her understand better some of her questions. She understood the lesson really well and we invited her to share the Gospel. A day later we saw her husband in the street and talked to him for a minute and asked how they were both doing. He told us that they were doing good and then said "ella va convenciéndome me" which means that she is convincing him about the gospel. He then asked us about a class about self-sufficiency that we are going to have in the coming month. I hope that through her and this class we can help him to be baptized as well! She has a baptism date for the 19th of September and I hope that we can baptize her on that day! She is getting excited for her baptism! Other than that we had our Zone Meeting on Friday in Chapala. It went really well and we talked a lot about Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel which is about developing Christlike attributes! I love this chapter and President Eggington wants to use it as a way to strengthen all of us as missionaries, so that we can then strengthen the members and investigators we teach. He has also asked us that we start working more with less active members to strengthen the wards and branches where we serve. He told us that of 1.4 million members of the church in Mexico only 400,000 are active and we have a great responsiblility to help those who are not active to become active and to keep the covenants they have already made. I am excited to see how it goes. It was a good meeting. I just want to testify of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that there is not other way to find greater joy or happiness in this life than by following the teachings of Jesus Christ. I know He lives. I know He loves each one of us. I am so thankful for Him and His great atoning sacrifice that makes it possible for us to become better every single day! I know that He is aware of all of us and that through Him and His loving hand we can do anything! I hope you have a wonderful week this week! I love all of you! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We found some new investigators!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! I hope that you are all doing well and that life is going good for you all! Last week I wrote to you about hope and the need we all have to remain hopeful and to patiently persevere through our trials and challenges. I am not going to say that all of our challenges and trials automatically disappear at once and that everything becomes perfect if we have hope, but it helps us to continue forward with faith and a surety that something better will come from what we are experiencing in the moment. The last few weeks have been challenging for me and my companion in that we have not had many investigators and not had many teaching opportunities, but this week we got a little glimpse of what can come if we remain hopeful and continue to work diligently and obediently inspite of dificulties and challenges. This past week we found NINE new investigators. Six of them we found last Monday in a Family Home Evening with a Family in the Branch who invited us to give a message to their neighbors. They are two different families and we shared a message about the Articles of Faith to give them an idea about what we believe as "Mormons" or members of the church, we used that to transition to a short message about the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. We left them with a Book of Mormon and a commitment to start reading it. Unfortunately they didn't come to church, but we are going to visit them this week and hopefully we can help them begin to gain a greater understanding of the Gospel and start gaining a testimony. The other three are part of Maria Luisa's family (she is Arturo's Mom) we visited her this week and we realized that many of her children live with her still and two of her sons and her husband are our new investigators. We taught them about the Book of Mormon as well and they showed a great deal of interest in reading and learning more. I was very excited about being able to start teaching them and look forward to helping them to learn and grow in the gospel. Our only other investigator at this time that is really progressing is Lorena. She has her baptism date scheduled for September 19th. She is doing quite well and has a strong desire to learn and grow and progress. The hardest part with her right now is that with her son, Jesus, who is 3, it makes it really hard for her to stay to all 3 hours at church because he is really active and doesn't like to stay in his class. Yesterday finally he stayed there but she had to stay in his class with him, but the members are finally starting to be more helpful with him, so I hope in the coming weeks she will be able to get a better feel for Sunday School and Relief Society, not just Sacrament Meeting. She is reading in the Book of Mormon really well and has questions every time we visit her about what she has read. We taught her the other day about the Word of Wisdom and she hasn't drank a cup of coffee since. I am very excited for her. Otherwise we are just trying to find other investigators and this week we are going to focus a lot in those new investigators we found last week and try to help them to progress! Really the work is slowly moving along here! Sometimes it is hard, but really I have seen the hand of the Lord in our work as we have worked to do our part. I know that He is blessing us for our efforts to do what He wants us to do to find those who have been prepared to receive this gospel. I want to leave you all with my testimony of Joseph Smith. I know that he was called to be the Prophet of the Restoration. I know that in 1820 God the Eternal Father and Jesus Christ appeared unto him and called him to be a prophet in our day and to restore once again the Gospel on the Earth. I know that through him, Jesus Christ has restored His church here on the Earth and that we now have the fulness of the everlasting gospel. I know that the Book of Mormon was a key part of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Joseph Smith translated that ancient record by the power of God and that it is truly the word of God. I know that if we will study and live the principles in the Book of Mormon that we can become closer to our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. It has strengthened my testimony of Jesus Christ. I love that book and I know it is true. I love each and every one of you and I hope you all have a great week! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I learned something very important this week!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week. Our week was a pretty good week. It went super fast. It amazes me how quickly time seems to be moving as a missionary. This week was a pretty normal week for us. We did a lot of walking and a lot of appointments fell through as usual but really when I look back on it all I learned something very important this week. It doesn't matter how much we walk, how many appointments we have, or even how many lessons we teach; if we as missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ are working diligently, striving to be obedient and doing everything possible to serve Him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength; then it was a success. This week, then I would consider was a great success for Elder Menchú and I. Serving in Tizapan has been hard, the branch is small and there are few people here that have shown a real interest in the Gospel. We have been searching for new investigators, visiting less-active members, and trying to strengthen those who are active, so that we can find those who are prepared to receive our message. This week we did not have a single lesson with a member and an investigator present until Saturday. We had multiple appointments earlier in the week and we were trying hard to visit with people but all of our plans had been falling through. Both of us were feeling a bit discouraged. One day in my personal study I was reading in Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel which teaches about Christlike Attributes. I was reading especially about Hope. There it says that "Hope helps overcome discouragement" it is "an abiding perseverance" and "waiting and expecting that something will occur" reading this the other morning helped me to stay hopeful and not be quite as discouraged for not having lessons. On Saturday we were finally able to visit with Hna. Lorena and we had a wonderful lesson with Hna. Elisa in our company. Later that day we found a new investigator named Mauro. It was a good day. Then yesterday we were unsure how everything would end up. We didn't know if we would be able to have a member accompany us to visit with our investigators because many cannot com with us because they have meetings and others do not come to church. After church my companion asked a young man to come with us and his mother said he could. We ended up having three more lessons with him and investigators and we found another new investigator yesterday. After all week long having few lessons and walking all day everyday with little to show for our efforts we were able to find a little success. I know it was a blessing of the Lord for our efforts to work diligently even when it was hard. About our investigators. Well Lorena it doing pretty well. We only got to visit her once this week because they had family members visiting all week long and they were traveling, but they left Friday night so we were able to see her on Saturday morning. We went Saturday morning and had a great lesson with her about following the prophet, the Ten Commandments, and Honoring the Law of the Land. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and is understanding it very well. We are not sure when she is going to be baptized as of right now because the re-dedication of the Mexico City Temple will be on September 13th and there will not be church that day, she would have been baptized on the 12th and confirmed on the 13th so we are thinking the following week, but we will see in the coming weeks! This week we found two new investigators. Mauro, who is an older man. He lives alone and the majority of his family lives in the United States. From what he has told us he has lived quite a tough life, but he has a strong desire to change his life. We have only taught him once, so we will see how it goes with him in the coming days. The other new investigator is Aturo"s mother. Her name is Maria Luisa. We talked to her the other day when we were searching for him and she was looking for him too! He has been drinking a lot lately I guess (we haven't been able to find him for over a week) and yesterday when we went and taught her she told us that he is in the alcoholic rehabilitation center. She is really interested in our message because of the trials she faces with her son and his addiction. Hopefully as we teach her more she will come to a knowledge of the truth of the Gospel. Lately there has been a lot of talk about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. Yesterday in Priesthood Meeting we also had a lesson that was based on Elder Russell M. Nelson's talk from the April General Conference "The Sabbath is a Delight" and it was a wonderful lesson. It sounds like many of you have been hearing continued lessons and training's on this subject and I want to leave you with my testimony on the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. I know that this commandment has been given to us from the beginning of times. Just as Moses received this commandment as part of the original Ten Commandments Jesus Christ kept this commandment as our perfect example. Later as He was preparing for His great Atoning Sacrifice He instituted the Sacrament in remembrance of Him. The Sacrament is the single most important thing we can do on Sunday or the Sabbath Day. As we partake of the sacrament we renew our covenants with our Heavenly Father. I know that keeping this day holy as a sign for our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is essential in our lives. I know this for myself from keeping this day holy. By only doing things that remind us of our Savior, and by refraining from work and other activities we can have renewed physical and spiritual strength given to us to face our week. The Sabbath Day is truly a delight for me. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer and by keeping the Sabbath Day holy that I am giving Him a sign that I love Him. I love every single one of you and hope you have a wonderful week this week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

Yea we have a New District!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! I had a better week this week than the past week which was a blessing. My headaches have been a bit less intense which is nice and we were able to visit with our investigators a bit more. First of all I wanted to tell you about a new little change that happened last night with transfer day. Elder Menchú and I will both be staying in Tizapan as I expected because he only had one transfer when I got here and usually we have three to four transfers in an area. We did however have a fun new change that I am excited for. Before our zone, which is Chapala, only had one district because it only had three branches with four sets of missionaries, but with with the transfer they are adding another branch to our zone. Sahuayo is a city about an hour past us, so now there will be two districts in our zone. That means on Tuesday mornings for our District Meetings we will go to Sahuayo instead of Chapala. I think that will mean a little less traveling and hopefully a bit more sleep! I hope that will help me with my headaches a little bit too! Other than that we have another month and a half here together and we are excited to see what we can accomplish! We are hoping to have a baptism this transfer so please pray for us to be able to accomplish that goal!!!! Our weather here has been pretty hot for the last few weeks it is in a time year that they call the Canícula which is forty days of strong sun usually with little to no rain. It supposedly ends on the 24th or 26th. That means it has been pretty hot here lately. But, yesterday it decided to rain even though it is supposedly the Canícula, which was appreciated really, but it was quite the downpour right when we headed to church. That meant that only twenty five people arrived at church yesterday including five visitors (three from the district presidency and two from the mission presidency) so it was kind of a sad church service yesterday. None of our investigators arrived. Lorena is doing pretty well except for the fact that she hasn't come to church for the last two weeks. We were able to visit her three times last week and she understands well the things that we teach her. Honestly she has a strong desire to learn and to change, but there are always things that hold people back from progressing. The best part is that she has a friend in the church. Hna. Elisa always accompanies us to visit and teach our lessons with Lorena and we have seen a relationship develop between the two. It is really neat to see how Lorena responds better to the testimonies that Hna. Elisa shares than to our testimony. I know that the work of the Lord and that our work as missionaries is much more successful with the help of members! Now we just have to find a member like Elisa for every single investigator we teach! I just want to share with all of you my testimony. I know that the Lord is watching over us. I know that even in the hardest of times, in the deepest of sorrows, and thickest of tears that He is here. He never forsakes us. He knows each and every single one of us individually and perfectly. He knows our pains and afflictions and our unique problems and pains. When no one else knows how we feel or how to help He does. I have found the greatest comfort through knowing that He is always there for me without exception. He never faileth. His Atoning Sacrifice is infinite just as is His love. Nothing is impossible with His loving hand. I know He lives and that He loves us. I love each and every single one of you and hope all of you are doing well! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

This week was kind of a trying one!

Hey everyone, How was your week this week? I hope it was a good one!!! Honestly my week was kind of a trying one. My headache has been pretty bad this week which made it hard and we didn't have very many lessons with our investigators because one of them got sick, but other than that it went pretty well! Lorena is doing pretty well other than she got sick so she cancelled our appointment with her on Saturday and didn't end up attending church on Sunday. We went to see how she was doing yesterday and she said she isn't feeling very well. We set another appointment for Wednesday because tomorrow we have to travel to Chapala and she wasn't sure how she would be feeling. We could see from that, that it is really Lorena that is the most interested in the Gospel because she was the only one sick, but none of the others arrived at church yesterday even though we had asked Hna. Elisa, who has been visiting with us to invite them to go. Hopefully we can help them to gain a stronger desire to receive the Gospel and through Lorena's example they will gain a desire as well through the changes they see in her. Other than the fact that she is sick they are doing fairly well. Last Friday we found a new investigator named Arturo. He is probably around forty years old and has a pretty hard life. I can tell that he has been through quite a few problems and hopefully we can help him through the gospel message we share. His family is falling apart and him and his wife are seperated. We have only visited him once and we shared with him the message of the Restoration. I felt the Spirit strongly as I testified of the First Vision and of Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Restoration. I hope that through our visits with him we can help him to find direction and help in his life! We tried to visit him yesterday but he wasn't home. Hopefully we can find him again this week! Really this week was kind of slow in teaching and it was kind of a challenge physically, mentally, and emotionally for me, but looking back on the challenges that I faced I can see that the Lord was there helping me and comforting me through it all! I know that the Lord is always with us in everything that we suffer. I have a testimony of true comforting power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that He allows us to suffer so that we can receive His succor. I have a great deal of love for my Savior Jesus Christ because I know He never has forsaken me nor will He ever forsake me. I am reminded of my mission scripture "Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:9). I am thankful for the true comfort that we can receive through fervent prayer and priesthood blessings. I know that my Father loves me and that my Savior loves me too! I love all of you and I know that our Savior loves you! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I am so thankful to be a missionary!

Hello Everyone, I hope you had a good week this week. We had a good week, but as I was afraid it was super busy! After going to Guadalajara on Monday for my eye appointment we had to go to Chapala on Friday for our Zone Meeting and then back to Guadalajara on Saturday for Interviews with President Egginton, and then tomorrow back to Chapala for District Meeting. It was pretty crazy busy, but it was a great week! Last week we found three new investigators and I am so excited to tell you about them. They are the ones I told you about who came to our Pioneer Day activity. Their names are Lorena and Leslie and Leslie's Mom (I feel silly I forgot her name! but she is Lorena's sister-in-law and Leslie is her niece). We had three lessons with them this past week and they came to church yesterday. Like I said before they were listening to the missionaries in the State of Mexico before, but returned home (they live here really all of the time but visited there for a few months) and thankfully, we have been able to teach them. They are really interested to learn about the Gospel and I really think that they are going to progress well! The best part is that Lorena's husband and her sister-in-law's husband are brothers to a member of the Branch Presidency and I hope that helps them to have some support in the Gospel! We went and ate with all of them yesterday! Really I am enjoying it here in Tizapan. Even though it has been hard finding investigators to teach I know that the Lord has been blessing us and I know that with hard work we will be able to find more. I really just like that it is a lot smaller here than in Guadalajara. It is so pretty and usually it is cooler too, but for the last two weeks it has only rained like once so it has been a bit hotter! I hope it rains more this week. I am loving this area and I hope I get to stay here for a little while, so that I can see the work progress! Our Zone Meeting last week was really good. We talked about the importance of developing Christ-like Attributes. It is Chapter 6 in Preach My Gospel and it is one of my favorite chapters! Our new mission president, Pres. Egginton is really focusing on helping us to be more Christ-like and to focus on our main purpose of Inviting others to come unto Christ through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I am excited to see how the mission improves and changes under his leadership. We had our interviews with him on Saturday and it was fun to get to talk to him a bit better and to share some things about myself with him. He asked us to share about our family, ourselves, why we chose to come on a mission, why we stay in the mission, and our testimony. I felt so wonderful talking to him and sharing with him my answers to these five simple questions. I can feel that him and Sister Egginton really love us and they show it, which is nice to me! I got to share with him as well about my headaches and we are going to start trying some other medications to hopefully get rid of them. He also invited my companion and my zone leaders in and I asked him for a blessing. It was really good to have another priesthood blessing. I just want to share with all of you my answer to two of those questions he asked me. Why did I choose to serve a mission? I think the answer to that question is quite simple really, I chose to serve because I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that it is incredibly small my mission in the form of a gift to Him because He gives us everything, but I want to offer my mission to Him because I love Him. My testimony. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He loves each one of us! I know that He suffered and paid the price of all sin and pain that we have and experience. I know that this is His church and that it is guided by Him through His living prophet Thomas S. Monson. I am so thankful for a living prophet to lead and guide this church and also for apostles and their continued guidance and direction. I know that Joseph Smith was called to be the Prophet of the Restoration and that he translated the Book of Mormon through the power and authority of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I cherish that divine gift from our Loving Heavenly Father. I know without a doubt that all of these things are true and more than anything that I am in the Service of God. I know that I am where I have been called to be and I am so thankful to be a missionary. I love all of you guys so much and I hope you have a wonderful week this week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had a Great Pioneer Day Celebration here in Mexico!

Hey Everyone, How has your week been? I hope all of you are doing well. My week was a good and very busy week, and the following week will probably be busy too! This week we had companion exchanges for two days and we also had to go to Guadalajara today for an Eye Appointment that I had. I am kind of tired, but I don't think we will get to rest much this week because we are supposed to have our Interviews with President and our Zone Meeting as well. Our exchanges were good we started on Tuesday and returned to our own area on Thursday. I went to Chapala with Elder Lavery one of our zone leaders who was actually my first District Leader and Elder Benitez (yes my old companion) our other zone leader went with Elder Menchu to our area. They finally found some new investigators, but unfortunately when we tried to return to visit them someone told us that they didn't actually live where they visited the first time and so now we don't have their actual address. Hopefully we will be able to find them again because I don't even know who they are! Ha!Ha! Our work here continues to be trying to actually find someone to teach. Beforehand we didn't have permission to knock on people's doors unless we had first talked with them in the street, but I asked President for permission to knock on peoples' doors and he told me yes. He just said that we need to be selective with where we go and to not knock on a whole neighborhood at a time, and to not systematically work the area. Hopefully as we carefully work to know where to go and to follow the Spirit we can find some new investigators that way. Because really not very many people that we talk to in the street want to receive our visits. Our Pioneer Day was very wonderful. We had a great activity at the church and I really enjoyed participating in it. It was a simple activity but it was fun and the Spirit was present. We had a short little 'Trek' and a lot of the members came dressed as pioneers. We didn't have a handcart or anything but we walked from "city to city" from Kirtland to Nauvoo and to Salt Lake. At each city we listened to someone share a little bit of what the pioneers went through. After we arrived in Salt Lake City we sang Come, Come Ye Saints and the Spirit was very strong. Afterwards we had dinner in the church and talked among ourselves for awhile. I had been reading about the pioneers in the book "Our Heritage" that morning and I asked if I could share something as people were finishing eating. I didn't share anything that I had read in the book, but I decided to share one of our family history stories that comes from the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. I shared with them about our 4x Great Grandmother Mary Ann Mellor, whose story is featured in the movie 17 Miracles. She is the one who felt she could go no further and sat down on a boulder and cried. She told her family to go on without her because she could not do it. Her husband resolved to come back for her that night after helping their family reach camp, but her daughter would not leave her. Her daughter stayed behind with her mother as the rest continued onward. Her daughter decided to go a little way off and offer a prayer. As she prayed for guidance and comfort she cried not knowing what to do. As she stood up and headed back towards her mother she found in the path in front of her a pie; it was manna sent from heaven to help them have the strength to move forward. She took the pie to her mother and together they ate and gave thanks unto God for His mercy. She then said afterward, everytime she felt she could not go further she remembered that miracle and the goodness of God and then had the faith enough to continue. As I shared that story in our activity and my testimony of the pioneers the Spirit was incredibly strong. I could feel Him touch everyone's heart and I felt very grateful that I could share that story with those who came to that activity. The best part about the activity is that two sisters arrived there who are not members. They recently moved back here from the State of Mexico and were listening to the missionaries there. We tried to visit them the other day but they weren't home, but they still showed up to Sacrament Meeting yesterday and tonight we are going to try to visit them again. I hope they become progressing investigators who can be baptized. That would be another miracle to add to my family history. I know that God lives and that He loves us. I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth and that He is at the head. I am strengthened by my pioneer ancestors and all that they suffered so that I may have the Gospel in my life today. I love those stories and to be able to see the faith they had. I too am striving to have Faith in Every Footstep. I love each and every one of you and hope you all have a wonderful week! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

It is super beautiful here in Tizapan and we hope we can find someone to share our message with!

Hello Everyone, How has your week been this week? I hope that all of you are doing well and enjoying life! Our week this week was pretty good. I finally feel like I am getting a better knowledge of my new area and that I am getting used to being here. Really it is super beautiful here in Tizapan because it is so green and pretty everywhere. It rains quite a bit here and when it rains it usually rains pretty hard. I really like it here because it is much cooler than Guadalajara with all of the rain and because of Chapala Lake closeby. Although I am loving the area it is quite a challenge in the missionary side of things. There are a lot of catholics here. There are a lot of Catholic Churches and not very many people want to accept a visit from us. We haven't found a single new investigator in the two weeks that I have been here, so that is a challenge. I know we are going to have to get creative in our ways of finding people. Although it is a challenge to have new investigators, I am excited for the work here because really there are a lot of people and I know that there are people here who need this message, we just have to find them!!! Haha. We have been working a lot with less-active members trying to strengthen the branch. It was interesting because last week there were 50 people in Sacrament Meeting and this week there were only 25. That means that the majority of the members are not as committed and I hope that we can help them to be stronger. We really only have one investigator that we are really working with right now. Her name is Guadalupe. She lives with her parents-in-law. Her father-in-law is a less-active member and that is how she became interested in the church. We have only taught her two times, but she seems interested in the message that we have and always thanks us for sharing it with her. I hope that we can help her to progress and become a faithful member here. The biggest challenge is finding her at home, but we try to visit almost everyday so sometimes we find her! I know that this message will help her and I am just praying that we can help her! Other than that we have been searching! Hopefully we are able to find some people to teach! Please keep praying for us to find them and send us ideas on how to find people!!! haha! Really even though I know it is a challenge to be here I am so excited to be here and to work here as a missionary! I want to tell you all that I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that it is the only way that we can return to live with our loving Heavenly Father. I am so thankful to my Savior, that He came to earth, lived a perfect life, taught the way to return to live as an Eternal Family with our Father in Heaven, and that He made it possible through His Infinite Atonment. I know that He loves each and every one of us and that He strengthens us in every trial. I am so grateful for Joseph Smith that he had the courage and the faith to pray for divine guidance and that he did everything necessary to restore the Lord's Gospel on earth. I know with all of my heart that this is Jesus Christ's Church on the Earth and that He is at the head. I know He directs this work. I love this work and I am so grateful that He has trusted me enough to call me as one of His servants! I love all of you and I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

It is a little cooler here in my new area!

Hey Everyone, I hope that all of you had a good week this week! I had a pretty good week here in my new area of Tizapan. It was an interesting week getting to know the area and some of the people here. I still have a lot to learn and I still feel a bit out of place, but I know with a bit more time here I will get used to it all and I am sure I will come to love it here just as I did in my last area. It is kind of hard trying to learn everything about an area all over again but it is going good. A little bit about my area... it is a bit cooler here than in Guadalajara thanks to Chapala Lake close by it keeps the climate quite temperate. If I am right Chapala Lake is the largest lake in Mexico. There are a lot of cerros here (that means mountains or hills) so we walk up and down a lot, but that is normal, as far as I know none of them are as big as the cerro in my last area. It is really green here and it rains quite a bit. More than in Guadalajara. I love the rain, but if it rains in the morning then it is super humid in the afternoon and that makes it somewhat miserable. Because our area is far away from the other areas in our district we have to travel to Chapala every Tuesday for our District Meeting and that means that we have to travel almost three hours to get there in bus, so we wake up at 4:00 AM on Tuesday to catch the bus and get there on time!!! Yay!! haha. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that. Elder Menchu and I get along pretty well. He is pretty excited to work hard. He is from, Totonicapán, Guatemala. He has only been here in this area for one transfer so I am sure that we will end up learning a lot together. As for right now we don't have a ton of investigators and I have only met a couple of them so in the coming weeks I will tell you more about all of them as I get to know them better. Last Wednesday we taught English classes to about ten kids and that was kind of fun! It is hard to teach English using Spanish. haha. I am sure that it will help me to learn Spanish better though. Yesterday church was a bit different that in my last area. We had fifty people there and that was a lot according to my companion. We are the ones who get to prepare and bless the sacrament because there aren't very many priesthood holders. I am just excited to get to know everyone and the area better in the coming week! I just want to tell you guys that I know that the Gospel is true! I know that this work I am doing is the work of the Lord and that His hand is in it. He guides and directs this work through the Holy Ghost and His inspired leaders. I am so grateful that I have been called to do this work and that the Lord trusts me enought to do it! I hope you all have wonderful week! I love you all so much! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie Elder Condie still needs your prayers because he is still having headaches!

I got transferred to Tizapan!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a good week this week! I had a pretty good week. We were able to teach a lot and enjoy ourselves. I am so thankful for all you guys do to support and help me in my mission and just wanted to say thank you! Today was transfers and I got transferred. Honestly it is kind of hard because I had to leave a good companion and a really good investigator who is progressing and going to be baptized. Honestly I think that the hardest part of transfers is leaving behind all of our work to start in a different place, but I know that it will all be alright and that I have a great new opportunity to learn and grow. My new area is a city or little town more like called Tizapan. It is a pueblito which means that it is pretty small kind of like Enoch I would say, but maybe just a bit bigger! It is next to Chapala Lake if you try to look for it on a map. It is a branch that we are part of and I am sure that will be different for me, but I am excited to be here. Tany is still doing good and her and her daughter Jennifer are going to be baptized on July 18th. I was kind of sad that I got transferred because we finally found someone who was progressing and going to be baptized and that is hard. I am excited to see her picture when she is baptized. She is progressing so well and seeing her and how well-prepared she was to be baptized built my testimony that the Lord truly is preparing people to receive our message. It was really cool because we called and talked to her last night when we found I was being transferred to tell her and she was very excited for me and told me how much she appreciated me and all that I had helped teach her. She is wonderful and I am so excited for her. I hope that Elder Arellanes takes good care of them. Today we left our house at 7:30 so that we could catch our bus to our area Tizapan. It was a two and a half hour bus ride, but it really isn't very far from Guadalajara. An hour of the ride was inside of Guadalajara itself. It is pretty green here and the trees are really pretty. I like the town it is what you think of when you think of Mexico. I will try to send some photos in the next couple of weeks. Really I am just excited to get to know the area. My compaanion is Elder Manchu, he is from Guatemala. He only has five months in the mission and one transfer here so I am sure we will be learning a lot together! I just want to leave my testimony with all of you that I know that the Lord directs His work. I have full confidence that he is aware of every single one of us and our specific needs. I know that He places us where we need to be and where we can grow. I am thankful for His hand in my life. I know that He watches over us always and that He is always there. I love Him so dearly and I am so thankful to Him for all that I have, and especially for all of you! I hope you all have a wonderful wonderful week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We got our New Mission President!

Hey Everyone, This week has been a pretty great week for us! I hope that it was a good week for all of you guys as well. Yesterday our new President and his wife arrived in our mission. His name is President Egginton. They are from Virginia. He was a General in the United States Air Force. We still have not actually met him, but I am sure we will have that opportunity in the next few weeks. I am excited to get to know them and see how they work. This week was a good week for us in our work as missionaries. We were able to have quite a few lessons and teach our investigators as well as recent converts and less active members. Of course our best lessons were with Tany and Jennifer. They are progressing so well and so quickly. They have such a big desire to learn and grow. They have attended every Sunday since we had our first lesson and they are so excited to be baptized. It was so awesome because she asked us the other day "how many people can I invite to my baptism?" we just kind of laughed because usually people don't invite very many, but we told her to invite everyone! It made me smile so big to hear that question. Really it has been such a blessing to have an investigator so ready to be baptized and so pre-prepared. The biggest challenge we are going to have is finishing all of the lessons before her baptism. I am so thankful that the Lord put her in our path so that we were able to share with her this message. She has told us many times that ''I've found something I didn't know I was looking for," It truly is such a blessing to have the opportunity to see how the Lord is preparing his children to receive this message. It makes me think of Alma 13:24, where it talks about that their are angels preparing people to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We visited Brenda yesterday and she is super close to having her baby. She already passed her due date, so we will see how soon she has it. It was neat because they asked me to give her a blessing so that she would be okay and that everything will go well with the delivery. She also asked us to pray for her which is cool, because we can see that she trusts in the Lord to watch over and protect her! Hopefully next week I will have a picture of her baby!! We are excited for her, but for right now she isn't progressing much because of her pregnancy. Hopefully afterwards we will be able to help her to progress more and be baptized. Other than them our other investigators are doing okay but haven't been attending church or progressing much. We are trying to find more investigators that will progress and keep their commitments. That is honestly one of our greatest challenges is finding people to teach, it is the first and one of the hardest steps for me personally. Please continue to pray for us to find those who are prepared to receive our message! I know that your prayers constantly help us! I want you all to know how thankful I am for you and for the Lord. I know that you all have been sent to me from him and I am so grateful for that! I know that the Lord is concious of every single one of us and everything that we are going through. I have felt His hand lead and guide me. I feel His love for me and for the people that we are teaching. It amazes me how easy it is to love those we teach, I know it is a gift given from our Savior. I only wish I could love as perfectly as he loves. I know that he wants us to be happy and healthy and successful in all that we do. I know that through our Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that nothing is impossible and that He will help us with whatever we ask of Him. I love all of you and hope you have a great week! Take Care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie A note from Elder Condie's Mom: He is still having A Daily Constant Headache so we would really appreciate your continued prayers on his behalf! He is trying hard to ignore them and concentrate on his mission, but I'm sure some days it's pretty hard! Thanks for your prayers and support!