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!

We had a Wonderful Stake Conference!

Hey guys, Sorry this email is short I am running short on time because we didn't arrive to write very early because we had an appointment a ways away, but here is a bit about our week this week. This week was pretty good for us. We didn't have a ton of lessons this week with investigators because a lot of our appointments fell through, but the lessons we did have were really good. Our new investigator that I told you guys about last week, Tany and her daughter Jennifer are doing really well. They went to the Primary and Relief Society Activity on Friday all on their own and they both really enjoyed it. Then on Saturday the other missionaries in our ward had a baptism at noon and they came early so that we could teach them in the church. We taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation and shared with them the scripture Moses 1:39 about the purpose of God for every single one of us. They enjoyed the baptism and got a picture about how theirs will be. The next day (Sunday) a member picked them up and we went to Stake Conference. It was a wonderful Stake Conference. In the conference they talked a lot about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy because that is the new focus of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It was really cool because the Stake President, The Temple President and his wife, President and Sister Camarillo (our mission president and his wife), and Elder Marion (of the Seventy) all spoke. It was a great conference and she found it very motivating. It was cool too because afterwards we were able to introduce them to the Temple President and his wife and President and Sister Camarillo too. They all told her to keep listening to us and not to worry because she was in good hands (that made me feel good). I am so excited for them because they are ready for this Gospel in their lives, Tany even said so herself, and I feel like it is such a great blessing of the Lord. Other than that we have been still teaching other investigators but they have been struggling to progress. Brenda the other day told us that she had prayed and that she receive the answer that she should be baptized, which was wonderful to hear. She is really great but has a few obstacles still. She has to get married first and she is really close to having her baby (like this week) so with her I think it will be a bit more time. Please keep praying for us to find more people to teach, we need more! Otherwise our work is moving forward and we are finding success little by little. This work is wonderful and I am so thankful to be here! I am so thankful that I have been called to serve as a representative of Jesus Christ and declare unto this nation His Gospel. I know that He lives and He loves every single one of us! I know that He guides this church and this work and I am so thankful for that! I love my Savior and I am so grateful for His hand in my life! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take Care! Love you guys a ton! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie