The Love of the Savior

chispas! este semana fue lo mejor! solo quiero empezar por diciendo que no voy a escribir en español todo el correo porque la mitad de ustedes no saben espanol, entonces voy a ser muy amable y escribir en ingles! jaja. but this week was such a crazy amazing week! this week we found a lot of new investigators, and some of the ones we have now, are not progressing because they are not going to church. and sometimes it just drives me nuts, because i love them so dang much but they are not taking that step to go to church. but other than that, we did get one of our families to come to see a baptism with us, and they loved it, it was amazing! she also has these thwo three year old twin daughters, that are just soo adorable, but they cried a lot during the baptism until i switched seats with another member so that i could see the twins and make some of my elder wasden faces, to keep them happy and smiling and quiet during the baptism. but we were able to feel the spirit more. you start to notice things are different as a missionary. all the church services, baptisms, activities, you are always worrying that they are going perfect for the investigators, always you are trying to think of what the investigators are feeling and hoping that it goes perfect. 

well also this week, we had the opportunity to go to church again, like every sunday, but this week was different than the other weeks, they youth had just recently got back from EFY this week, and the bishop asked the youth to come up and share their testimonies, and during this hour, the spirit was SOO strong, and it was amazing to hear the testimonies of all the youth. and we ended up going 2 hours in sacrament meeting, because this was a 1 in a life time thing, because the youth just kept coming up and of all the youth that shared their own testimonies, not only did it strengthen us, but you could see it strengthened them too. its amazing how EFY and other activities of the church change so many lives. it was truly a neat experience. 

for a long time now, like for this past month, i have been feeling really stressed and really depressed because thats just what the mission does sometimes, but i was just not happy like i usually am. this week at like 11:30, i was laying in my hammock because i couldnt sleep but felt prompted to ask for a blessing from one of my comps in our house. and so i got up and woke up another companion and ask him for a blessing and went out side in the back and did it. and during the blessing, he said these certain words and in this exact time i felt all these bad feelings leave and i what i felt was sometime really amazing and it literally felt like i was being hugged, in this moment i just cried because in this moment i felt the love of my savior and gave me the comfort that i needed in my life in this time. and i woke up the next morning feeling better than ever, but it is just a great blessing to have the restored gospel and priesthood on this earth again. i know this is the ONLY true church that god had placed this earth, because he loves each and every one of us and wants for us that we return to live with him! i love my father in heaven soooooo much! and im glad for the opportunity here to serve him. 

Stay Happy, Be Strong, and Have Faith!

con mucho amor, 

ELDER WASDEN

one of my favorite hermanos brought us rootbeer!!

mangoes and papaya!!

his is papaya! it almost kind of tastes like a kiwi!

this is sunday when we ate dinner and i went into their laundry room business and fell asleep on their tile floor. i was soo dead that day! 

they literally thought i was dead because my eyes we open! haha. but i eventually woke up to the laughing and cameras in my face!

and then i had my ice cream when i was still half asleep!

Monday sports mornings with the members and our district

choppin the grass that we let grow these past 4 weeks with my machete!

Elder Riveras

making hotdogs for us missionaries in the house. it was my turn to be the cooking mom! 

  

Holy Cow

HOLY COW! That is so crazy everyone is leaving on missions! but thats soo awesome at the same time! wow, has this week been full of a ton of excitement!! i want to start off by saying this week we had the opportunity to see 17 mirachles, i forgot how to spell that in english, but wow was it soo amazing and it is always soo strong spiritually to watch it! all of us 4 elders are still living together until their house is fixed, but this week, elder riveras from the other companionship found a cd with songs from the church website, and he found a new song that he loves and it is the only song he plays, it use to be our favorite song but now that changed. his companion ended up hiding the cd! boy do i love elder riveras, we are like the same kind of person! here in campeche, we take a lot of public buses called camiones and the are soo sketchy, but this week, we hopped on this bus and like sometimes they can be really full piled with poeple, so i got on and i was pretty much out the door hanging on for my life it felt like. that was the 3rd time in my mission that has happened to me! this week we also ate with a sister and her daughter from the church and we ate outside because we couldnt be inside because there wasnt another guy, but as we were eating outside, it just started down pouring, and as we were all eating we all looked up at each other and smiled like okay what should we do, because at this point we were half way soaked, they didnt care and we started eating again in the pouring rain like nothing was happening, it was pretty cool. but then it started pouring harder, so i told them ´´i dont know about you guys but im chilling in the dog house´´ so i walked over with my food and chilled with their dog in the dog house, they eventually made fun of me, but i made a new friend with the dog, but then we werent because he ate my food. later that day we had a mission activity in the church and we watched meet the mormons with all the members and the investigators we brought! it was soo awesome! and everyone loved it! it really helped our investigators open up and realize who we really are and that we are normal people just like them. well maybe not me, but the other members! :P this sunday, we taught the youth again, ages 12 and 13 and i love having the opportunity to teach them, because if feels like just 6 years ago i was them. we pretty much teach them every week. during priesthood we got asked to go to the primary room and tell this primary class of ages 4 and 5 what we do as missionaries and how the lord has blessed us. and i never realized how easy it sounded but actually how hard it was, because 5 year olds like to shout and talk about random things that made me laugh. the teacher did a review of what we said and asked them how does heavenly father communicate to us, looking for the answer holy ghost, one said respect, and another said blessings which are words we said earlier! it was really funny but i do thank all my primary teachers in the past that had a lot of patience with me! thank you! haha. but now is the time in which i need to close. but i love you all and cuidense!

ELDER WASDEN

a street we had to cross, trying not to get our socks soaked. at first we looked like cats trying to avoid water

my comp and i

missionary selfie in the bishops car that we jacked!

selfie with the bishop in his car that we jacked

we celebrated the bishops wife birthday!

Nelsons 12th birthday, we taught him about the priesthood for this family home evening

our little photo shoot

okay i was trying to make him smile more, i eventually made him smile in the other photo on another camera

my comp, elder mora and i leaving to start our day in the morning

IM RICH!!!

Challenges will come

ín yál bil´'t mech!!! thats another way to say i love you in maya! because les amos a todos! boy do i love this work so much with all my heart! let me just start off by apologizing for now writing last week, i had some other things i had to take care of! but yes! we have made it through the whole first week of this transfer with my new companion in which i love this guy! in our house, our house is still a house of 4 missionaries! this week. every morning we have to all try to shower which are freezing cold in the mornings, eat breakfast, get ready, in one hour! its sometimes crazy in the mornings! haha. i started to notice this week about the dreams i have been having, first of all i realized the the majority of my dreams are finally in spanish! and 2nd of all, they are all about contacting people and sharing the gospel, cant complain about that, i had a dream of an old investigator in the church i was so happy, only to wake up that it didnt happen! :( 

this week we have continued visiting one of our investigators named freddy. he is 26 and he is such an amazing guy, he understands soo much from the book of mormon, and we can feel the spirit so strongly in the lessons with him, but its just hard getting him to come to church because he is always in a pueblo where his family lives on the weekends, but we are slowly progressing with him! this week we also found a family while looking for this reference that we recieved. but we came across this giant family, that was soo giant i dont even remember how many people live in that house. but we had a lesson with the mom Mari and her daughter, Laura and her 5 kids. the youngest ones are 3 year old twins that are just soo adorable, and the other 3 are so energetic! turns out they took lessons from the missionaries about 18 years ago when laura was still a teenager, and they told us about their experiences with them, we also had the opportunity to share a little bit about our lives with them and talk about eternal families.
one day this week we had the opportunity to eat with these members, and we literally ate sooo much fish!! im not the best fan of fish but i ate it, and she literally brought us every different way you could eat fish, fish soup, shrimp, a full friend fish in which i ate eyeballs which are pretty interesting. but i got full of so much fish that i didnt want to see any more fish for the rest of the month. after we found out that us 4 missionaries were also scheduled on accident to eat with some other members, in which already prepped the food, so we had to go over there too because they were waiting for us, we got there only to find out, well lets just say im not watching finding nemo in a long time! haha

we also went to the house of this family of members who are passing through a tough time in their life, and they are having so many difficulties in theirs lives, they got robbed of soo many things, their mom got diagnosed with this infection and she cant leave the house, just many aweful things happening all in one week. we had the chance to share with them a video from the church website, called mountains to climb (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-003-mountains-to-climb?lang=eng) and the spirit struck us soo strongly in that room, i even shared my experience and how i learned to put my faith in lord, even in the most challenging moment of my life! i shared with them the scripture that helped me realize of why i was having this trial in my life, D&C 122:7
every trial that i had in my own life, or bad experience, i wouldnt have changed, because i wouldnt have the knowledge that i have know of how to overcome that challenge and how much it built me spiritually. the love that i have for my heavenly father and jesus christ is so much there isnt even a word for it! i am so greatful for the restored gospel of jesus christ on the earth and i know for a fact that every single part of it is true. i would not be here walking a billion hills everyday, sweating like crazy, carrying a heavy bag with like 5 copies of the most correct book on this earth(book of mormon) if i didnt know it to be true. i know our heavenly father loves us and that we are not on this earth to fail, but to learn, to grow and become just like him! i know that we all can return to live in his presence! i just want to share my love for the gospel, the missionary work, for my savior jesus christ and for all of you. member or not, if you have not read the book of mormon, i suggest you to read it, if you already have, read it again and find something new. pues tengo que irme, pero les amo mucho y les hable la semana siguente!

ELDER WASDEN

Fun Pictures

This is our awesome bishop we have here in Santa Lucia, Campeche

Gotta love those Iguanas!

This was our zone when the area 70 and our president came to speak to us

Something from the States

Hahaha, did you ask me if I get to see fireworks here in mexico on the forth of July? Oh mommy, we're in mexico, we see fireworks everyday! Haha. well today I dont have much time because all us leaders have to go to merida tonight, so we have to take a bus at 5 so we will get there before 9pm. But I am going to try to share most of my week, but all this week, we had training meetings tuesday thru friday so we didnt get to work as much as we usually do. But this monday was really sad, we had to help a family that I absolutely love bury their dead dog. But on the upside, our investigator Freddy is awesome, and he is still progressing, and we have some awesome ysa members helping us with him. This week, I also told a member I would teach her how to make something from the states, I forgot many things we make and eat at our home, so I taught them something we do for camping, yeah thats right, we made s'mores! They were soo good and they never heard of them but loved them. We also get to eat out with a family from my area, but first thing I saw that they had was a play place. Friday we made a pizza from scratch with this family. so I had to talk in spanish with an italian accent, you can just try to picture that! haha. and yesterday, elder flores and quintana, the elders in where we stayed at there house till we could find our house, but they came to their house and found our they got robbed, so they are now living with us until they get their house fixed and protected again. but that was pretty much my week. Ill send some pics and sorry for the small email again. 

Lots of amor, 

ELDER WASDEN

i just thought this was pretty funny.

making s'mores!!!

first s'more in over year

CALIFORNIA ELDERS!

CALIFORNIA!!

us at the PLAYPLACE!! :D

last time seeing my papa, trainer, of the mission before he dies and goes home

making pizza with one of our amazing families.

PDAY today with all the missionaries and members

here is part the robbed house, i was hoping they would have stole some of the Books of Mormon!