My mission is flying by way too quickly!!

Hey everyone, This week was a pretty good week for me! I hope it went well for all of you too! It seems like the weeks just go by faster and faster each time and that I never have time to get anything done in the meantime. Well overall it just seems that my mission is flying by way to quickly and I don't like it. I only have three more months left and I really hope that it doesn't fly by nearly as quickly as it has been. Transfers are next week and I am pretty certain that I will be transferred. I have no idea to what area I will be transferred, but hopefully it will be a good area and I will have a great companion. This week went well and overall we were able to focus pretty well on our area. We had exchanges with the zone leaders so that still complicated things a little tiny bit, but we at least had a bit more time to focus on the people here. We were finally able to have a formal lesson with Hna. Araceli and her family. The people that arrived to the baptism of Hna. Beatriz and to church last Sunday. Araceli lives with her boyfriend, Gonzalo, (she is separated from her husband and the father of her children) and has six children. Her kids are, Brenda (18), Remegio (17), Omar (15), Marizta (12), Brezait (10), and Cynthia (8). They are all quite interested in learning about the Gospel and they are all at the age to be baptized. It would be such a miracle if they all decided to be and were baptized together! I feel like it has been such a tender mercy of the Lord to find them! I hope that they can progress together and that they can all be blessed by the Gospel. Our only other investigator that is really progressing is Jose Vazquez, Beatriz's son. He told us that he does want to be baptized and he had a baptismal date, but he told us that he isn't sure about that date. We are going to visit him this week and talk a bit more about a date a bit further in the future and help him to prepare himself for that date. He really has a desire to learn and to be baptized we just have to help him to live the commandments and do what he is necessary to be completely ready. He still hasn't received all of the lessons so I know that as he learns more he will feel more ready too. More than anything I am thankful to have this opportunity to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I know that as we let Him use us to bless the lives of others we can truly become tools in His hands. I know that He has blessed the lives of many other people through me and for that I am so grateful. I know that we must be meek, humble, and have charity towards all others that He may work through us. I know that as we strive to be more like Him and see others as He sees them that we can be a blessing to many others! I am so thankful for this opportunity I have been given to serve and bless the lives of many of God's children here. As I have done it many of His children have blessed my life. I love all of you and I hope you have a wonderful week full of joy and happiness! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had a baptism!! Yea!!

Hey Everyone, I hope that all of you have been doing well. This week went really well for us. It was full of many more adventures and a lovely experience! We had a baptism!!!! YAY!!!! Hna. Beatriz was baptized and it was super beautiful. She asked me to baptize her and I was very happy to do so. She was super prepared and a very choice investigator. She was only baptized a week later than her first planned baptismal date because she was sick one Sunday and was unable to attend church. She has learned and progressed so quickly and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to teach and help her progress towards this huge step in her eternal progression. Really It was such a special experience and the Spirit was so strong. Yesterday she told us after church as we went to her house to visit her that Jose her son had told her that he wished he had prepared himself to be baptized with her and that he wants to be baptized. We don't know how soon but I hope that in not a long amount of time he will follow the example of his mother and be baptized too! She also told us that as Elder Felix confirmed her a member of the Church and after he said the words "Recibe el Espíritu Santo" that she felt a very warm feeling flood all over her whole body and she couldn't hear the words that he said following that for a minute as she felt a strong peace and tranquility. It was very neat hearing her tell us and the Barragan Family (the family that has helped us the whole process of teaching her) and the Spirit was palpable in the room. Really she is such a special daughter of our Heavenly Father and I have grown to love her very dearly in a short time. Really I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to help her to come to the knowledge of the truth and that God trusted her in our hands. The coolest other thing that happened this week was that a future investigator talked to us the other day while we were in the store trying to find umbrellas because it was raining and there wasn't any, but a lady came up to us and told us she wanted to listen to our message and get to know the church. Her name is Araceli. We invited her to the baptism and to church on Sunday and took her information to visit her another day. As we were preparing the baptism, she arrived with her four children and we were completely taken by surprise because that never happens. Hna. Beatriz was also super happy to see that new people arrived to her baptism. Then yesterday at church Araceli came and she brought her kids and her sister and her whole family. That meant that in all they were eight new people at church. In all there were twelve investigators in Sacrament Meeting yesterday from our area (not including the Sister's). That is more than I have ever had in my entire mission. It was a miracle and we are going to visit them this week and hopefully they can all progress in the Gospel as well! Overall this week I saw many miracles. I have learned in my time as a missionary that sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways and sometimes not so much, but in all times He blesses us if we live worthy of His abundant blessings. He prepares people to receive His Gospel and those that are ready to receive it will do so. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to teach and preach of this great gospel news to the good people of Guadalajara. It has been the biggest blessing of my life. Really I know that the Lord lives. I know that He provides the way for us all to come unto Him and to be saved from sin and sorrow if we repent and rely on His Atoning Sacrifice. I love all of you and I am thankful for all of your love and support and sacrifices for me! Take care and have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We had a very full and busy week with a great opportunity to learn new leadership skills!

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a very special week this week. Our week was a good one. A very occupied and busy and tired one. We had few lessons because every single day of the week except for last Monday and yesterday we had to go to Guadalajara for one reason or another. Everyday was full of traveling and very early mornings and late nights and I am therefore exhausted, but it was all worth it because I felt the Spirit very strongly on many occasions and I felt very uplifted, edified, and instructed by the Lord in this past week and I learned many things. On Wednesday I was invited by President Egginton to attend Leadership Counsel, a meeting of Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders of the entire mission to asses the state and needs of the mission and address ways to further the work and improve our efforts. He talked to me as I was there and I now feel as if I will not be continuing in Industrial in the coming transfer in three weeks time. It was a great opportunity for me to learn new leadership skills and see the real worry President and us as missionary leaders feel for the mission, missionaries and those we teach here. I learned a lot and I felt a great responsibility to improve my abilities to teach and lead those under my stewardship. On Thursday we went to the see the Doctor as we have bed bugs and luckily we don't have any parasite or anything. We are going to fumigate our house and receive new mattresses as soon as possible, but we have been so busy that we still haven't done it yet. Hopefully this week! On Friday we participated as all the missionaries in our mission in the Guadalajara Area in a Youth Conference activity in teaching young men and women, future missionaries how to teach in a real situation looking for less active members and contacting people in the street. It was a fun activity and there I was able to see many young members of my first ward here in Guadalajara Buenos Aires. On Saturday morning we woke up at 3:45 AM and were on the bus by 4:30 AM so we could attend the temple in the 6:30 session. It was a beautiful experience for me. I love attending the temple and I was in need of a visit to the Lord's Holy House. I feel His great love for me there every time I go. As they were praying I thought of how my Mom told me that Grandma Lynda had called and had my name put on the temple list and in the prayer I thought of how they were praying especially for me. I felt the Spirit give me strength to work hard and to continue to seek His guidance and direction for the challenges in our areas. We have been facing a great challenge with Beatriz as we have been teaching her trying to help her to make the decision to be baptized. I was looking for inspiration and guidance in how to help her to make the choice to be baptized on her date. We had visited her during the week and she seemed as if she was unsure and not ready to accept the date with confidence, but that same Saturday as we taught her it rained on us outside of her door. We ended the lesson early and were going to leave, but I felt the need to ask her how she felt about her baptismal date. She said she had finally arrived at the decision that she wanted to do it. That she didn't understand why she was waiting. It was something she understands is correct and she is wants to do. She told us that day that she wanted to be baptized this coming Saturday and it changed everything. From that moment we have been running like crazy trying to finish teaching her the lessons and organize everything necessary so she can be baptized, but thankfully today we will finish the lessons and this Saturday she will be baptized, although her son will not be baptized with her I am confident that soon he will decide to follow her example. I know that the Lord has a way of changing our hearts and the hearts of others and I know He can work mighty miracles. I know that He has not ceased working miracles because I have seen His miracles every day of my mission. I know that His power is real and that His power is matchless. I know with all of my heart that we are nothing without Him and without His Spirit. I know that without His Spirit we can do nothing in the way of converting and helping others come unto the truthfulness of the Gospel. I know that these things are true with my whole heart and I know that if we obey we will be blessed in all things! I know our faith is essential in working His miracles and we manifest our faith through our obedience to Him. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week! Take care and know that I miss you all and think of you often! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I hope you are all well! We found three new investigators this week!

Hey Everyone, I hope that all of you are doing well. This week went pretty well for us. It was a good week overall and we felt a bit better together as we have started to get a bit more accustomed to each other Elder Felix and I. We were able to teach a lot of lessons and we found some new people to teach fortunately! We found three new investigators this week. Two of which I feel like are likely to progress. Two are referrals from members. One is Berenice. She is married to a member and they just moved to our ward. They are a young couple and they have and eight month old daughter. She is interested in the Gospel because her husband is a member. They have been attending in the ward where he is from, so they still haven't been to our ward services yet, so that is going to be the greatest challenge with them, but hopefully we can help them to attend with us in the coming weeks. Our other new investigator is Tania. She is the referral of another sister of our ward. On Friday as we arrived to our lunch appoinment she was there to eat with us and we taught her the first missionary lesson and invited her to church on Sunday. She told us that she is Catholic, but that she has many questions and after having listened to our lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel she had even more questions for us. She is young and also has a newly born baby girl. They came to church yesterday but didn't make it to Sacrament Meeting and we will be seeing her again on Friday in our other lunch appointment. Beatriz is still doing pretty well. She will not be baptized this Saturday like we had first planned on baptizing her for two reasons. Yesterday they didn't come to church because she was really sick and couldn't get out of bed, we went to visit her afterwards and she didn't look very good. She was worried because two years ago she got hit by a car and had a bad accident and it almost paralyzed her and she felt like this may have been related because for like three days she didn't feel good and her back has been hurting her. But she said she had started to feel better by the time we went to see her last night. Therefore, she still needs another attendance in church to be baptized. The second reason she doesn't want to be baptized yet is because she feels she needs to forgive a couple of people before she is baptized that is costing her a bit of work to do so. We taught her that she can do it with the help of the Lord and that if she prays for her enemies and asks for the Lord's help to love them then he will help her. She accepted the challenge to be baptized on the 13th of August, so hopefully she will be! Please pray for her and her son Jose!! We are praying hard! Overall it was a really good week and we were able to teach a lot of lessons and have a lot of fun! Elder Felix is a good missionary and he is a pretty good guy. I have learned a lot with him already and I am just trying to learn as much from him as I can. I think that is the good thing of having lots of companions, is the opportunity to learn from many different people. I know that this Gospel is true and I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ here upon the Earth. I am certain that as we live the commandments of God we can experience greater happiness than in any other way. I am certain that as President Thomas S. Monson has said that, "Decisions determine destiny," and as we make righteous choices we will be blessed with happiness and prosperity. I have felt greater happiness here as I have been in the service of God than in any other moment in my life and I know that as we lose ourselves in the service of others we will be blessed forever! I love each and every one of you and I hope you have a great week! Take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie