So this week has been great everyone! We have 3 new investigators and we taught 19 lessions this week and that was crazy! I hope that our numbers keep increasing more and more. Here in the mexico city north we aren't allowed to tract solely referrals and that makes things a little hard. However we keep finding success and 11 of them are menos activos or recen conversos. The people here are so amazing I cant even express it they will not let you leave without either feeding you or giving you food of some kind! Everyone loves the pictures that i brought from home with my family and the Liz Lemon Swindle pictures.
As an idea my companion and I made copies of the pictures and are giving them out as a thank you for referrals we hope that will get people excited. Our investigators our progressing but haven't accepted a date for baptism just yet. A really cool thing one of our investigators had been reading scripture verses as prayers but we got him to pray on his own and have a conversation with the lord it was so special.
The training is going well a lot of it is review of what they taught in the CCM but that's okay because its all for my benefit. My trainer makes me laugh so much and we have a great time. In the leccions its not uncommon for us to spend an hour with a family they love to talk here its so different.
Ohh crazy story this week we were walking to try and catch an investigator to teach and an alcoholic guy invited us back to his place to give him a leccion. I was so against it but my trainer lead the way and 2 hours later we left having taught kind of a leccion and being fed it was unique haha. The ward mission leader here is a recent convert and he gave the other elders 20 references of people to teach it was crazy!
Last night we helped with a family home evening and found out that two of the young adults in the family aren't members and they were really interested in family history work! Ohh this Sunday I gave my first talk here in mexico city north turns out the church is same everywhere when you have a new elder he gives a talk. I way over prepared I think I ended up giving a 10 minute talk in what I hope was understandable Spanish at least that's what people said! haha
I shared with them D&C 6:34 and 36 as well as Alma 5:38! I love these scriptures! They have such power and strength. Jesus Christ is our savior and our redeemer and through him and his gospel we receive the strength to do something more. I would encourage you all to share and do something more every day.
Ohh milestone of the week! I have officially started using only me Spanish scripture for the leccions. I still study in my English but in the leccions its only Spanish scriptures. Here in mexico there is a big emphasis on familia historia and its been really cool to share my family tree with people and talk about my ancestors the pioneers and the faith that they had!
I am really sorry everyone that I haven't been able to write back its been crazy and I'll figure out how to get the pictures working and stuff.
Elder Packham was very excited about the interest in family history work so I sent him this story:
Stillman Pond (great, great, great, great grandfather- through your great grandmother’s side)
In the early days of the Church Stillman Pond was a member of the second quorum of the seventy in Nauvoo. He was an early convert to the Church, having come from Hubbardston, Massachusetts. Like others, he and his wife, Maria, and their children were harassed and driven out of Nauvoo. In September 1846 they became part of the great western migration. The early winter that year brought extreme hardships, including malaria, cholera, and consumption. The family was visited by all three of these diseases. Maria contracted consumption, and all of the children were stricken with malaria. Three of the children died while moving through the early snows. Stillman buried them on the plains. Maria’s condition worsened because of the grief, pain, and the fever of malaria. She could no longer walk. Weakened and sickly, she gave birth to twins. They were named Joseph and Hyrum, and both died within a few days. The Stillman Pond family arrived at Winter Quarters, and like many other families, they suffered bitterly while living in a tent. The death of five children coming across the plains to Winter Quarters was but a beginning. The journal of Horace K. and Helen Mar Whitney verifies the following regarding four more of the children of Stillman Pond who perished: “On Wednesday, the 2nd of December 1846, Laura Jane Pond, age 14 years, … died of chills and fever.” Two days later on “Friday, the 4th of December 1846, Harriet M. Pond, age 11 years, … died with chills.” Three days later, “Monday, the 7th of December, 1846, Abigail A. Pond, age 18 years, … died with chills.” Just five weeks later, “Friday, the 15th of January, 1847, Lyman Pond, age 6 years, … died with chills and fever.” 15 Four months later, on May 17, 1847, his wife, Maria Davis Pond, also died. Crossing the plains, Stillman Pond lost nine children and a wife. He became an outstanding colonizer in Utah and later became a leader in the quorums of the seventy. Having lost these nine children and his wife in crossing the plains, Stillman Pond did not lose his faith. He did not quit. He went forward. He paid a price, as have many others before and since, to become acquainted with God. The Divine Shepherd has a message of hope, strength, and deliverance for all. If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens. We must partake of the bitter with the sweet. There is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day. They prepare, they purge, they purify, and thus they bless. When we pluck the roses, we find we often cannot avoid the thorns which spring from the same stem. Out of the refiner’s fire can come a glorious deliverance. It can be a noble and lasting rebirth. The price to become acquainted with God will have been paid. There can come a sacred peace. There will be a reawakening of dormant, inner resources. A comfortable cloak of righteousness will be drawn around us to protect us and to keep us warm spiritually. Self-pity will vanish as our blessings are counted. The blessings of
eternity will surely come to those who endure refining, as the Lord Himself taught: “He only is saved who endureth unto the end.” 16 I testify that Jesus is the Christ and the Divine Redeemer. He lives! His are the sweet words of eternal life.
STILLMAN POND A Biographical Sketch Compiled By Leon Y. and H. Ray Pond Stillman Pond, an early Utah Pioneer, was born on the 26th of October, 1803, at Hubbardston, Worcester, Massachusetts. He was the son of Preston Pond and Hannah Rice. His paternal grandfather was a revolutionary soldier and served in several campaigns. His great-grandfather, Ezra Pond, of Franklin, being dissatisfied with religious conditions of that time, was a dissenter and a leader of the minority in the Franklin Church troubles between 1680 and 1685. He was a restless soul. At that time the religious, social and civic affairs of the community were the same, and when Ezra Pond refused to comply with the orders of the Selectmen, he was forced to leave town. He moved with his family to Hubbardston. Stillman seemed to have inherited this restlessness and dissatisfaction which manifested itself in his frequent moves as a young man. On his Maternal side, his Grandfather was David Rice, who was a grandson of Lt. Paul Moore, one of the Commanders of the American Army in the battle of Bunkerhill. All of his ancestors were sincere, honest, and God-fearing pioneers and puritans, many of whom were ministers, others were Selectmen of the early towns of New England. Stillman followed in their foot steps as a tiller of the soil. Perhaps few of his ancestors and progenitors ever won national fame and fortune, and fewer still, ever brought reproach or shame upon their name. His ancestors were hard working, honest people, who have left us a heritage which we may be proud. Stillman Pond lived with his parents until he was twenty years of age, during which time he received a common school education corresponding to the first ten grades of our present day educational system. (1965) He worked on his Father's farm and being the oldest, most of the responsibility fell on him. At that time he learned the trade of harness making by which he used, to make a living. On the 22nd of December, 1825, he married Almyra Whittemore, after which his father gave him a tract of land, where he made his home. He lived there but a few years, when the spirit of moving took possession and he sold his property and removed to Westminster, where he purchased several tracts of land. He remained there until 1832, when he moved to Templeton. His wife bore him five children, four girls and a boy. Almyra Pond died on the 25th of July 1833 and was buried at Hubbardston, Mass. On July 4, 1834, he married Maria Louisa Davis at Hubbardston. He settled again in this community until 1837 when he moved his family to New Salem, Franklin County, Mass. Where during the next five years he purchased three large tracts of land. The first purchase date was the 27th of September, 1838. He seemed to have been a speculator in land, as he always bought and sold at a profit.
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