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