The Power of Fasting and Praying

FAM BAM!! i know i missed last week and im super sorry with a cherry on top! boy has it been super busy here in this side of the world!  so ill start with last week. last week was a big week, we had our preparation day on tuesday becasue tuesday we ALL went  to the temple with president for his last time! he is already finishing his mission! and He gave each and everyone of us 200 missionaries a priesthood blessing before he leaves, i think he leaves this next month. im going to miss him! 

So guess what!! Angel got baptized!! we had his baptism not last saturday but the satuday before that! and we baptized him in a cenote, i dont kn ow how to say cenote in english! BUT IT WAS AWESOME!! now we are just working on his family. he was going to recieve the priesthood this sunday but we had district conference, its like stake conference but smaller. im am supér excited of the growth that is happening here in Cuzama! the lord church is growning a ton. we also found another less active named Jorge that lives in Homun. so we are helping him in the activation process. keep him in your prayers! we also met this old gang member named Angel, of a gang call Sur 13, but he started telling us of all the things he use to do. when we arrived to look for someone else he came out and told us that nobody was home, but we tried to get to know him and he started showing us some of his raps from his gang, so i showed him some of my raps i made before the mission and we pretty much made good friends with him. he is a pretty chill guy that wants to change. 

so with karina and adan, we are helping them on getting married and they are planning it soon so that karina can be baptized! this is one of those families that already look and feel like a member family to me! HAHAH, i love them super much!! 

so one night we were walking home one night, we had no appts left but we passed by centro park and these teens were playing basketball, and they challenged us to play, so we took the oppotunity to get to know some of the youth in the village by playing basketball with them. there was a variety of youth all ages both genders. there was one girl that was pretty good and boy was i out of shape! but it was a great time and we are going back to keep playing with them, because we have become great friends with many people in the pueblo, its funny how almost everyone knows us here. lol. and we are using it as an advangateg to teach the gospel every chance we get! lol.

so we have a neighbor, and his name is santos and maribelle. but sometime i like to wake up early to go cut their weeds in front when they get big, becasue i know the husband works a lot and never has time. i alwasy see their little 6 year old daughter in front everyday, and we are like best buds as we make faces everymorning at eachother. so santos came one night becasue his wife knew that our water pump broke and santos works on that stuff, so he came by at like 10pm to fix it unexpectingly, as he fixed it i started to talk to him and get to know him, i took the moment to talk about the family and the plan that god has for them. we made an appt. and continued on in the night. but we ended up missing the appt becasue we were in an other pueblo. and during my 7 months here in cuzama, i had alwasy felt something special, like an impression with this family in front, like i knew of the potencial they had. and i was just super devistated! and sad that we arrived late to the house! i started a fast to pray for another opportunity with this wonderful family and the next day, santos comes knocking at our door at 10pm asking for some buckets of water becasue they couldnt fill up their tank when the village water came in. we filled up some bucketrs for them to shower and do there stuff, but he started to talk to us, and here we were us sitting in 3 seats in our house/church talking about life, and he started talking to us about his struggles in life with work and family, and starts telling us his life problems and how he wants to change, we took the opportunity to listen to the spirit, even though it was really late and we taught him about the atonement and he accepted to be baptized if his wife accepts too. we ended up giving him a book of mormon and he told us that he was happy because he felt like he needed something to read during his lunch break at work when he goes to merida! we ended up finishing teaching him at like 11pm. but my comp and i felt soo good,and it strengthened my testimony of how god really does answer prayers! we are starting to teach this wonderful humble family! 

boy do i just love missionary work and the blessing of seeing the lives it changes and the hope it brings to families!! i know my savior lives and i knwo that our heavenly father loves us and alwas hears our prayers. what a blessing and privelidge it is to be serving in the lords true church!! 

i love ytou all and i hope you have a great week! ill send some pics!!

ELDER WASDEN

Angels baptism!

here are our youth! i bought each one of them future missionary badges!! haha

my compi fell asleep on our way to Ticul for the district conference

brother eduardo from my first area in tekax!! 

my Tekax family, my first area!! the family Carrillo May! boy did i miss them!

me making tortillas with a sister 

this dog follwed us for miles. its our gaurd dog

Elder Bahr came with us for a day!! he is about to finish his mission! but we met a guy and he showed us his porperty, cenotes and the rooms he rents for the tourists!

one of the room/huts

this is a cenote that got changed in a cenote pool under ground! LEGIT!!

my comp and i on our way to do some service! we got to build a hut out of sticks and palm branches!

got my little birdy friend!! his claws are SUPER sharp! i found it out the hard way! :P

ARRRRRR..... you a Child of God??

this is our less active friend Jorge that we just found last week. he is starting the activation process again! he from Quitana Roo, mexico. he is super cool and friendly!

This week, Angel (16) and Gustavo (14) started coming out with us to teach!! they are literally misisonaries already, they are the examples here in cuzama by sharing the gospel with all of their friedns from school and from their street! i love these two!!

here is a picture of our house/church if you wanted to see it. this small street we are on is the only street that has normal houses like this! 

first time eating fast food hamburgers in about 2 years!! Boy were they super delicious! MERIDA!!

me and my comp on our way to go teach!! i dont know why but i just love this picture!

Where to start?

FAM FAM!! whats going on! well this week has been one of those weeks in which i have no clue how to find another way to start these letters again! haha. well this has been the first week with my new companion Elder Medina! he is pretty chill! we are going great and work in unity! i love this guy! He is from Oaxaca, Mexico. at the beginning of this weekwhen we went to merida, i went to the hospital to get something checked out, and we were there like the whole day! there were also like 6 other missionaries with us waiting to get checked out! but at the end of the day we eventually survived!! haha. so here we have heard that we have another less active in our area, and the mission pres told us. he told us that this less active had a dream that the church would call him and then the next morning he got a call from president zapata. and now we are visiting him! this week we also had an activity for all the members in the village here and we had an activity for mothers day. it was cute, we all gave thanks to our moms, and also read poems and gustavo and angel sang songs, and also the primary girls, Ingrid and Nelsy sang the primary mother i love you song that i taught them sunday! it was great. the best part was that we had a potluck after, in which EVERYONE brought spaghetti! hahaha, its like they all planned it, we had A TON of spaghetti!! lol.  so her in the village we are also looking for another house to put the house of prayer or the church because our house is getting too small. so for any of you who knows of a house for rent here in Cuzama, please tell us! :P also this week out water pump broke so we have to carry water manually in buckets to use the water! FUN!  Also Gustavo, the young man who got baptized last saturday, recieved the priesthood sunday during sacrament meeting!! i was super excited for him!!! we do not have a young man in the branch! we also have an upcoming baptism this saturday, his friend Angel is going to be baptized and he is 16 years old, so he will be the priest of the branch! the lord is building his church here on the earth and everything is going great! i honestly love this work soo much and would not take back these moments for anything!! i have seen the gospel change soo many families!!  so today is our P-Day and i know that it is tuesday, it is because today we got to go to the temple and now since our mision president is going home, he is giving each and everyone of us blessing! now im just waiting to receive mine!! :D well thats all i have for this week, but i love you guys and cant wait to hear back from you!! i love you and hope you have an amazing week!!  LOTS OF LOVE!! ELDER WASDEN Missionary Missionary Monsters Ink I made empanadas! IM yucatecan here is our mothers day family home evening activity! us with the family pech! they invited us over to eat a traditional food here called "Pierna de Reina" or in english Queens Leg! Pierna de Reina (Queens Leg) it is actually pretty good!) Adan made us Quesadillas de Pastor!! HMMMN!! here is my comp filling the buckets of water! a man fell asleep on my shoulder on our way to Merida in a van! lol the family Canul Ayil the family padilla dorantes (the RM family) last night of the tri companionship!  thats right!! who says guys cant cook in mexico! Here was the potluck! Everyone brought spaghetti!!! haha our water pump broke so here is us hauling up our water to the tank on top of the roof! Every morning! takes about 20-30 minutes to fill up. we wake up at like 5:50 to get an early start! lol

Beautiful Baptisms

well i just want to start off by saying sorry for the bad mexican internet connection with skype but it was great to see and hear all of you guys! you guys wont believe how crazy this week has been!! sooo many things have been happening i couldnt even keep track. lets see if i can give you guys a highlight of this amazing week! well last week we did have transfers and we became a companionship of 3 here in cuzama! Elder Foster, Elder Robles and I. it has been an amazing week so far! the investigators that we have are just amazing!! the kingdom of god is literally growing here in Cuzama, and i have been able to see this great change in this pueblo. when i got here inthe begining, we only had 3-4 people going to the services here, and just this last sunday, or yesterday, we had 28 people attend church (in our house) yeah we need to get a bigger house! haha. so pretty much this whole week we have been prepping Marcelina and her son gustavo for their baptism. which was held saturday! It went super well! they are super amazing and their testimonies are super strongs! i love them as mine own family! gustavo is 14 years old and he is such an excellent missionary already! before he was even baptized, he was sharing the restoration with his friend Angel, who is now already an investigator and might get baptized this upcoming week! im super excited. theyeven taught their 2 other cousins who we are now teaching as well! lol. its funny when they are in the lesson with us because Gustavo and Angel ask their cousins the inspired questions that we would normally would ask, like "now i have a question for you guys, if Jesus was perfect why did he need to get baptized"! they are like our little future missionaries! Gustavo will recieve the preisthood next week! :D  now we will have a young man to so the sacrament! :) 

we were also walking in the street and this 16 year old named fernando, in his motorcycle taxi,  stopped us and asked us where we were going, and he took us to our next destination. we did end up contacting him, and he is such an amazing young man who is having problems with his relationship with his girlfriend and they separated, but they have a 2 year old kid. so we visited him and we had an amzing lesson and he even accepted baptism. like 3 days later when we were in Ek'nakan, we contacted this reference from a member and the daughter happened to be the girlfriend of fernando so we ended up talking to her and had a powerful lesson in which i know she felt the spirit too, she accepted baptism too. when we first met her at the beginning of the visit she was really sad and depressed but after she said she felt a lot much lighter and happier and more comfort and calmness. it just goes to show that the spirit really helps out a lot, he is the comforter and also the guide to guide us to this young woman who needed the atonement of Jesus Christ in her life! boy do i just love the missionary work!! we are also working hard with the less active RM and his family. they are all going to church everysunday, even inviting their family members (cousins). they are soo ready for baptism, but they just need to get married first!! why does the government make it soo hard to get married!!! D: haha. but its all good, the progress here is pretty gradual! and i like it, and the lord is helping us a lot!

Oh yeah and new knew of what we just found out today!! WE HAVE SPECIAL TRANSFERS!! we just found out after we bought all the food. BOTH of my companions are leaving, im staying here again! haha. i dont know why i cannot leave this place! lol. but Elder Fostor and Robles are going to different areas! so we will see how this goes with the new comp, i heard his name is Elder Medina. Fingers crossed everything goes well, and that we become bestest friends!!  Elder Foster and I have been going along pretty good these past weeks! and we became close and now hes leaving! i guess the lord has something else for me to learn and develope!

well i just want to testify that i love the missionary work and i know that Christs Church is a missionary church!! i know this gospel is true and i just feel like i just want to shout it out to EVERYONE in their ears until they get it!!!! haha, i know that our Heavenly Father loves us and always helps us with our trials if we are willing to come unto Him and his son Jesus Christ! This Gospel has blessed my life these past 2 years and i am super greatful for the opportunity i have to be hear serving the lord and also of the support of all of you which in whom I love! i challenge all of you to read at least 1 page of the scriptures everyday!! doing so will strengthen our testimony, our spiritual strength to resist temptation, and will help us be more intune with the Holy Ghost! I know its true because i have experienced it in my life!

I love you all and have an amazing week!!

Your loving half black missionary who looks like Obama,

ELDER WASDEN