We had a good week and found some new investigators!

Hey Everyone, This week was a really good week for us. We were able to find a few new investigators and teach a lot of lessons. Our only investigator that is really progressing right now is Joshua. He attended church yesterday and has a baptismal date for November 12th. We are hoping to help him a lot towards being baptized. He is a great kid with a lot of desires to follow the Lord and do as he wishes of us. He arrived yesterday at church an hour and a half early, he is that excited about learning about the church. I love his excitement to learn. All of the others are lacking the desire to live their commitments and attend church. We are trying to help them to do so but it is a great challenge. I have learned throughout my mission the importance of keeping commitments in order to become as the Lord wishes we will become. I know that the key to becoming better is being commited to changing and living up to the promises and covenants we make to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. If we make up our mind and put our will to following Him all is possible unto us. We must just follow Him and decide to live His will in every moment. Once we take that determination nothing can stop us but our own limits that we ourselves set. I know that we can do amazing things with His divine help, but we must simply trust in His ability to make wonders of us. Of this I am sure. I am certain of His power and ability to make of us great things, wonderful things, powerful people, and strong disciples of the Lord. I love you all and hope for you a wonderful week! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

We worked hard this week to find some new investigators!

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week. I was able to have a pretty good week. Elder Hernandez and I worked pretty hard this week together looking for new investigators to teach. We were looking for the way to find people, and we just started to talk to a ton of people in the street. Honestly that has always been a really difficult thing for me to do. I don't really like just going up to whatever person, randomly and telling them that we are missionaries and would like to share a message with them. I have done it my whole mission, but I have never liked it all that much and I haven't done it very happily. This week though my companion has been helping me to get over that fear. He is pretty fearless which is good for me and I think it is just easier for him to focus on looking for others easier than it is for me. We talked to a lot of people this week, so hopefully that means that in the coming weeks as we go contacting all of those future investigators we will find some serious investigators. We were able to find a new investigator this week through a referral. His name is Miguel Jimenez. It is the father of Ricardo (our convert). We have taught him twice and he seems pretty interested in learning about the gospel. Unfortunately, he didn't attend church yesterday as he said he was going to, but hopefully in the coming week he will. He is a good guy with a desire to become better. He has had many challenges and trials in his family. His wife left him and his family for another man and many things like that and he has an addiction to alcohol. Hopefully as we work with him we can help him to build a testimony of the gospel and he can learn the importance of living the commandments in his life. Our other investigators are doing alright. With Dayana we haven't seen her for over a week and it seems she has kind of lost interest in learning about the gospel. It has been awhile since she last attended church, so we are trying to decide if we are going to continue teaching her. Joshua didn't attend church yesterday either. I am not exactly sure what is going on with him. We talked to his mom this week and invited her to listen to our message and set an appointment with her and she seemed interested and open to listening and learning from us, but then she wasn't home. We haven't been able to have a lesson with Joshua for some time now, so it is kind of a frustrating situation there too. Hopefully we can help him attend church and continue to learn because I would really love to see him be baptized before I have to come home! Anyway, overall the work is going pretty well. We have been trying to focus a lot on finding new people to teach because the majority of the people we have been teaching really haven't been progressing so there is a need to find others. We have a lot of really great prospects so I am excited. The saddest part now is that the majority of them if they do get baptized will be baptized after I come home. 🙁 Oh well at least I can say that I helped to find them and had a part in planting the seed of their conversion. I just want all of you to know that I love you that I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that there is now other way to find true happiness now or in the future than to continue firmly on in our journey as His disciples. If we follow Him with true purpose of heart desiring always to serve Him and His children we will find joy and happiness in the journey and even in the trials and challenges. I am certain of the joy that can be found because I have found joy in my own journey. I know that these principles and doctrines are true. There is no other thing anywhere to be found that will give us greater joy. Of this I am certain. We must serve Him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength so that we might receive in Him our gift. I love all of you and I hope you are all well. Take care and have a wonderful week. Love Elder Mitchell J Condie

My week was full of spiritual and uplifting experiences and another companion change!

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well and that you were able to have a great week this week. My week was full of many things to do but also full of spiritual and uplifting experiences. We were able to have our zone meeting and also able to establish a new focus for the mission during the leadership council. During our leadership council we were discussing the needs of the mission and the things that are lacking in our mission with the missionaries and what could help us to improve our efforts in the work. We were looking all for things that would help the missionaries become more effective servants of the Lord and also work towards building up their abilities as effective teachers. As we were in that meeting we decided that we needed to focus a lot on Discipleship, Establishing the Church, and Teaching the Doctrine of Christ. It felt so inspired as we were looking for what would inspire the missionaries to work hard and give a greater part of themselves in this work. I am so excited to focus on these things with the missionaries in the coming months. Well my companion Elder Ramon ended his mission today. I am kind of sad because he was a super great companion for me and I am going to miss him. It was a good last week together getting to teach the missionaries in the zone meeting about the need to represent the Savior in all that we do and follow Him in every footstep. I learned so much from him and he inspired me to work harder everyday. I will definitely be missing him by my side as my companion but I know he will continue to bless many lives as he returns home. My new companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Cancun and has 17 months in the mission. I don´t know very much about him except that he has been a zone leader already for quite awhile so I am sure I will be able to learn a lot of things from him. I am excited to see what I can learn with him and what we can accomplish together here. Right now not much is happening in the area. Our investigators didn´t come to church yesterday. Joshua couldn´t go because his mom grounded him. Kind of frustrating. But hopefully we can continue to teach him and help him prepare for baptism. We are still looking for new people to teach. I am excited to work with Elder Hernandez I am sure he will help a lot. I just want you all to know that I know that as we follow Jesus Christ in all that we do we can truly become true disciples of Him and become a light to others. We must strive to do as He did and love the way He loves. I know that as we strive to bless the lives of others our lives will be blessed and we will become closer to our Savior and our Father in Heaven as well as others that surround us. I know that as we strive to obey Him and bring others unto Him we can become truly happy and find true joy in the journey here in this life. I know that there is no greater path than the path of true discipleship and as we seek Him, we will find ourselves. I love all of you and hope you have a great week. Take care. Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference as much as I did!

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week this week. I really did. I enjoyed the weekend probably more than any other moment or part of the week. I absolutely LOVED General Conference this weekend. It was so full of inspiration and wonderful direction from the Prophet, Apostles and other General Authorities. I was so full of light and the Spirit as I listened and I loved hearing and listening to their inspired counsels. I cannot say that any one talk was my single favorite because they all seemed to have a great impact on me. I saw many themes and I loved what I felt and heard there. On Saturday I felt the theme of missionary work and the work of home teaching and the role we have in strengthening others. I also felt one of the biggest themes in the whole conference was the theme of coming closer to Christ and getting to know Him personally and on an individual basis. We must grow to know Him through fervent prayer and continued service in all that we do. I feel that it was a powerful message to us that as we strive to repent and become more like Him we can be better sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and we can comprehend better each day the power in the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. I loved every minute of the conference and especially hearing the messages from our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson, both in the Priesthood Session and in the Sunday Morning Session speak of the Plan of Salvation and the Word of Wisdom. This week went well for us and we were able to find a new investigator named Joshua. He is a referral from a young sister in the Primary of the ward. She is ten years old named Alison. He is thirteen, but they are good friends and one day she just decided to invite him to church and he showed up to their house on Sunday morning three weeks ago and attended church with them. He has come two weeks in a row, but we were unable to visit him because of fallen through appoinments until this last week. He has a great desire to learn of Jesus Christ and come unto Him and attend church. I am amazed by Him. He accepted a baptismal date, but because he didn't attend church this week we are going to have to change it, but I am sure he will be baptized soon. He is an awesome kid. I just want to share with you my testimony of a living prophet of God. I know that our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, is God's Prophet here upon the Earth today and that he speaks God's word. I know that he holds the authority and keys of the Priesthood to guide and direct the Lord's church in this time and to guide us through the darkness of wicked times and perilous moments. If we will listen to a prophet's voice and give heed to his counsel we will not be lost but be guided safely through strife and pain. I know that God loves us and for this He has called prophets and apostles to guide us and direct us in Latter-Days. We must listen to and rely on their guide to be safe and to avoid danger and temptations grasp. I am sure that if we follow them we will be greatly blessed in these difficult times. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week! Take great care and know that I love all of you! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie

I've learned that God's Plans for Us are Perfect even when things are hard!

Hey Everyone, Well this week was a pretty good week. We were able to teach some good lessons and have a few opportunities to learn and find ways to improve. We are still in need of new investigators and this week we talked to a lot of people in the street and we knocked on a lot of doors and we learned as many others about the hardships of missionary work as many others before us have as we didn´t find any new people to teach just yet. Hopefully of the contacts we made we will be able to find some people in the coming days to teach. We were able to learn an important lesson about not letting sad circumstances get us down and let them make us sad or give up. On Tuesday we walked all over the area and all of our plans fell through within the first hour and a half of working in our area. The family that had agreed to feed us that day weren´t home and we didn't have anything to eat, and had little money to buy food with us. We bought a torta and thankfully we felt full. But later on in the day as the hours passed and our plans kept on falling through it became harder to stay excited and positive. I was trying to remain positive and optimistic as we looked for people to visit and things to do or meaningful activities, but it was difficult. Together Elder Ramon and I became discouraged and we sat down to think about what we needed to do. I thought we need to say a prayer. And so I did. I thought of many names and so we went and looked for those people. None of them received us. The thought came to my mind, what then should we do, and why did those names come to my mind? The lesson I think to be learned from all of this and from all of our daily difficulties and trials and all of the trials of our lifes--from all unanswered questions and all unsureties of life-- is diligence and patience. I think the Lord in this moment was trying us to see if we would continue trying, continue pressing forward with faith looking for those He had waiting for us. It required a constant effort and patience in the downturns and the disappointment. It required a firm belief that if we continued trying something good was waiting for us around the next turn or down the next street or behind the next door, and if not that the next time would be different. Life always has its downfalls and its challenges, but we have to look for its uplifting moments and blessings. Eventually something good came of the efforts and we ended up having two uplifting and worthwhile lessons. One of which made us lose another appointment which we wanted to attend. A day later we realized it was a blessing that we did not arrive as there was a family problem that took place during the time in which we would have been present in that home. As I have been here on my mission I have learned many lessons and one of the greatest to me, and one He has continued and continues to teach me is that His plans are perfect. I love this scripture from Mosiah, ``Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.`` (Mosiah 4:9) I know that His plan is perfect. I know that if we trust in Him and His perfect timing all will go the way He has planned for us. If we follow Him and His commandments we can have a firm hope and belief that all will be well and all will be for our best good. Of that I am sure and of that I know. I am a witness of His great love and His merciful direction in my own life. I know at times we may feel like things aren`t going right or that everything is wrong, but according to Him and His plan all is going just fine. Trust in Him and His timing and all will be well. Of that I am sure. I hope we can all work to trust more in God and His plans that are perfect for each of us. I know we can and that as we strive to do so we will be guided and directed by Him and His Spirit. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week! Take care! Love, Elder Mitchell J Condie