November 4, 2013 - 20th Birthday!!!

Hey Fammmilllyyy!!!

Well it was another really good week here!! We have had some miracles happen this past week! I have loved every minute of it! Except the part of throwing up food...haha it has been good! I am feeling alot better! I havent thrown up for the past 2 days so thats good. We have been workin pretty hard this past week! We have also been able to find some more new investigators to start teaching! Really the end of the week was the best. So we always go and visit an older lady in our Ward. She is less active but loves the church, She is like 80 years old and has to take care of her handicapped son that lives with her and still do all of the things around her house.  We try and visit with her as much as we can. She loves the missionaries and loves to talk with us and tell us her stories and things! Haha... usually just complains about all the weird sicknesses that she has because she is so old!.

 So Friday and Saturday here is something called dia de muertos ( day of the dead) It is really a huge catholic holiday. What they do is Friday is for all the kids that have passed away when they were little. The families will go visit them and bring flowers and things to their tombs. The graveyards are packed with people these two days of the year. So Thursday night we got a call from our zone leaders asking us to go to the cemetaries and do some service and help clean the tombs and then we can talk with some people about the Plan of Salvation. Such a good idea! I gues it came straight from the President. So the whole misión Friday and Saturday we went to the cemetaries in the morning to do service and contact people. It went really good! We were able to find alot of people! It was cool to be able to talk to families that have lost loved ones and to be able to tell them that they can see their child or mom or dad again. We are so blessed to be able to know abou this plan that Heavenly Father has prepared for all of us! It helped out my companion alot to! He got to learn how to do some quick teaching! All in all we were able to find 1 new person to start teaching and 1 reference to pass to some other elders.... haha just shows you how Heavenly Father Works!

 Later that day Friday we went and visited some less actives. We went with a girl named Karen. She was baptized like 1 year ago but has fallen away because her mom is not a member and its hard for her to figure out what to do. We started talking about the things that have been going on and I remembered a quote from Elder Eyring, Something like- when we are in the góspel it will always be an uphill climb, and if we catch ourselves in the decline and things get easy, its because we have left the path of the straight and narrow. This is what I explained to this girl, that even though things are hard, if we do what we are supposed to, Heavenly Father will always make up for the rest!

 Saturday we went back to the graveyard and did some more contacting and got to talk to a bunch of people that wanted to hear about our message! It was kinda cool! haha People usually always stare at me just because Im not from here, but when I got in the cemetary and were talking with a group of people, more and more just kept stopping and listening! It was kinda of cool!

That afternoon our Ward had their 5 year aniversery, It was really fun! We got there and they were all playing basketball. We got to play with them for a Little bit! That was the best! I loved it! Then after they... hahha had killed a cow a day before and had done barbacoa!! Anything that your have eaten in the states will never compare to what this was!! It was unreal!!! 

That night we went with our investigator Abrabam. He and his wife Marbella had just gotten married like a month ago. We havent had any chances to meet with him because he worked all of the time. So Saturday night we went to the house and had our first lesson with him. It went really well! I dont know, from the begining teaching with this family was easy, and it was like they were already prepared to hear us. We taught the Restoration and out of all the times in my misión that I have taught this lesson, that night I felt was the best that I have ever taught it. I felt the spirit with us. One of those times where after I got done talking, I had no clue how I said that or how I said it. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. Everyone was all so happy, especially his wife. They are close to the same age as us, she is 19 and he is 21. We started talking after the lesson and we talked about sports. I guess he played american football here in mexico, and played outside linebacker. We played the same position and both played football, American football here really doesnt exist! so when he told me that I knew that Heavenly Father had prepared this family for us!

Everything here is going so good! Well today is kinda a big day, haha... so weird that i am 20!! This morning we went into Villa with some ex missionaries that took us to Fuddruckers!! It was sooo good!! I was so surprised that there was one here! I miss and love all of you guys soo much, My testimony has grown this past week , and I could not be more grateful for this góspel and all of you.

Love,

Elder Liljenquist