November 25, 2013

Well it has been a really good week this week! We have been having some pretty good success with the investigators that we do have! It has been pretty good! The weather has been a lot better here! The sun finally came out and we went right back up into the high 90s, it was so good!

The last Monday in the night we had another lesson with Jessica and her family. It was the first time that we has met her family and because she is only 17 we have to have permission from her parents to be able to teach her. So it turns out that her mom is Catholic and her dad is Ateo (Doesn't believe in the Bible or in God) So I was like great, how in the world am I supposed to teach someone that doesn't believe in the Bible or in God. He told me from the beginning to be ready to answer his questions that he is going to have! So as we got started I was a little nervous! We taught the Restoration, and I'm not even gonna tell you how long it took us to get through the lesson! We sat there for 2 hours!! I have never been pounded with so many random questions in my life! Luckily I'm pretty sure that we answered him well! At the end of the lesson her mom was actually really interested! It all went really well! The dad is still really nice to us and everything just haha... I'm not sure what he thinks of us! 

Tuesday we had a Zone conference in Villa with our mission president. It went really good! We learned a lot more things that we could do better and things that we definitely need to work on! He changed on rule of the mission though. I guess that its a rule for all of the missions in Mexico that we have to have our investigators come 5 times to church before we can baptize them! That's gonna be rough! it is hard enough to get our investigators to come to church but now they have to have come 5 times before baptism. That next day right as we were ending the day and walking to our last appointment. I got a call from our mission President and he said that he was in my area in front of  my church waiting for us, he wanted to come and see our house!! Haha.... luckily the house was clean! Haha but he and all of his family came and talked with us for a bit and then we went around to get to know our area. He told us to find a nicer house to buy!! Haha and he gave us money to buy new mattresses!! It was sweet!!

Saturday in the morning we had an activity in the Stake center with the whole zone! We had to help teach the youth with an activity called a day in the mission. We taught them the First lesson and then we went out and started teaching all the less actives in the area. We left them to do all of the teachings! We just lead them around to the houses! It was pretty fun. 

That night we had a lesson with Abraham. It went really good! He is living the Word of Wisdom and he told me that he feels really good about his decision for the 7 of December! We are really excited about that! The next day in Church another one of our investigators showed up! Felix! The old man that we have been teaching for a while! After church we had a lesson with him and our ward mission leader, he accepted a date for the 21 of December! It was really cool to be able to see him there! The only bad part is that Jessica and her family didn't show up! So we had to move back her date a week! But hopefully everything will work out! 

That night we had a special meeting in Villa with the area President Elder Johnson from the Seventy. He wanted all the ward council and missionaries to be there. He spoke to us about how we could be so much better, I guess that our numbers as a mission are not where they should be. And he talked about what we are doing as a ward and as missionaries to be finding news and reactivation. Mexico has the most baptisms but also has the most less and inactive members in the world!. 

It was really cool because the stake from my first area here in Mexico was there!! So all the members from Paraiso were there!!! It was way cool to be able to see them! and to be able to talk to them!!! Haha I couldn't speak at all when I was there and they were all so surprised at my Spanish and how I have changed.... supposedly!! Haha.

Everything is going good here! We are going to be changing some things here in the mission! I love and miss all of you!!

 Elder Liljenquist

November 18, 2013 - 11 Months!!

Hey Family!

Another week down here in Parrilla, Tabasco! It was a pretty good week this week! We had a lot of rain and it actually got cold!! Some of you might laugh but I have been here for almost a year now and have kinda gotten used to the 100 and 110s! haha.... So when we dropped down into the 60s, I was frezzing my butt off!!! It wasnt that bad.. but haha I was really cold! and the shower!! It was the worst! Pure ice!

It has been a really good week in the work! We have been having a hard time finding new people to teach and to work with! We have been praying really hard that we could be able to find some new people to begin teaching! There is a family of recent converts that we have been working with alot! Family Figaroa. They are a really awesome family and have helped us this week with a lot of references with people to start teaching! One of the families daughter has a friend that is really interested in listening to us! So they invited her over to their house Saturday night and we had a little family night together. It went really well! We taught her the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. At the end, she asked us how we baptize. Because she was baptized in the Catholic church was she was just a baby. So we explained to her how Jesus Christ was baptized, and then explained that if we dont get baptized in the same way as Christ, we cant have a baptism that is valid. Then we invited her to be baptized and she accepted!! Her name is Jessica. I know that Heavenly Father is listening to our prayers!

We have another lesson with Abraham! He is doing really well! and progressing a ton! He just doesnt see it. We taught him the Plan of Salvation. It went really well! And in the plan, we explained the Word of Wisdom as well! Turns out he is clean! haha! and at the end of the lesson, we put a date for him for the 7 of December! He says that he will prepare to be baptized this day haha so not really much we can do there! 

We have had some really good lessons this past week with new investigators and new things happening. It has been really good! We had another lesson with the less active family that I told you about the last week. We caught them with all of their family and we had not really planned anything to share with them. I felt that we should share something about Jesus. I shared a scripture about the life of Jesus and his purpose for you and me (Mosiah 3) It went really good, this family has been trying to reactivate themselves for a long time! I could see the look on their faces that it was time to start changing!

I have been learning so much here in the mission, more than I have in my whole life! I have learned how much I love each and every one of you and how important this Gospel is in our lives. That Change is apart of life, and we need to roll with the punches and let our faith and love for God pick us back up. Humility is something that has been the biggest change for me. Being humble is the hardest attribute that we can learn in this life, but when we do, all the others come with it. I know that this Gospel is true, and I am so thankful for each and everyone of you. I love you all.

Elder Liljenquist

November 11, 2013

Hey Family!

 Well it has been another good week here in Parilla! We have had a lot of rain here the last couple of days! It has been crazy! We have no idea what rain is in Utah!! So Wednesday me and my companion were leaving the house and we have to walk a huge stretch of road, like at least a mile or mile and a half. So we were just walking like normal and the sky was dark as dark! It had like that Greenish look to it when you know its gonna get bad quick! Haha... I told my comp that we had a good five minutes to get some cover! And we were a good mile out of our área still!! And in this strech of road there is nothing! So we started to pick up our pace! And right as we did we stopped and like 50 yards ahead of me rain was falling!! It was the craziest thing ever! I turned to my comp and and pointed ahead of us at the rain, as we stood completly dry! Haha then....We were soaked!!!!! The rain drops were the biggest things ever!  We looked like we had just jumped into a pool! It has rained like this for the past couple of days!

We had a pretty good week in the work! Our área is unreal! Monday was my Birthday so the Bishop and his family invited us to his house for a family night! The family night went really good and after they surprised me with a cake and stuff! It was really nice of them! They are a really good family! This week we have really been working on our less actives in our Ward! We seem to have a ton of them! The bishop had asked us if we can spend some more time working with them, so we have dedicated a lot of the time that we had this week on that. It has been going really good. We have found a lot of lost members and been able to help them get back into the church! We have been working really hard on finding new investigators to start teaching! We have been doing alright at getting references from our Ward, but we can do better! We have planned to have a family night with the members of our Ward to be able get more references from them! and we have planned more activities with our Ward to be able to get people more involved!

 Sunday was a really good day! We had a ton of people at church! We had 133 people there! Us and the Bishop were really happy with the assistance! Sunday in the afternoon we had a family night with a less active family in our Ward. The dad is a Ex missionary and he had two daughters just a Little older than me. So we had our lesson set on the The Family, A Proclamation to the World. It was a really powerful lesson! You could tell that the family really needed it! After they all bore there testimonies! It felt really good to say that I know ill be with my family again! and someday have my own family forever! One of the daughters asked her parents if they could be better in going to church and being a more close family. That was a really cool thing to be able to hear. After we had a lesson with Abrham and Marbella. Their family is really cool and we all get along really well! We had a really good lesson with Abraham. He had the question of how is he going to feel when he receives his answer?? We focused our lesson on the Holy Ghost. It went really well. He has some big problems in his life right now. He has not talked to his family in over a month and they wont let him in at his house. Every since he married Marbella, his family has pretty much kicked him out. Its really hard for him and you can see it. We just hope he will be able to put his trust in Heavenly Father and make the right choices!

It has been a really good week! I miss all of you sooo much!! Time is flyin! feels so weird to tell people that I will be at a year in my misión in the next month! I love all of you!

Elder Liljenquist

Food for Thought....

After recently being reminded of the power Atonement, I thought of this video I first listened to awhile back. Elder Liljenquist and his group of friends listened to it the night before four of them left to the MTC. SO powerful and worth sharing:) Love our missionaries!!

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

Happy Birthday Elder Liljenquist!!!

We are all SO proud of you and love you SO much!!! Have the best day!!!
(Click on the Vimeo link in the bottom right corner to watch the video a little bit bigger:)

October 28, 2013

Hey Everyone!

Sorry! I don't have much time to write very much but we had a pretty good week! The only crappy thing is that I have been a little bit sick to the stomach the past couple of days! It sucks! But other than that we have had somewhat of a good week! Friday, because Saturday was stake conference, we had our baptism for Yareli! She was so excited and couldn't wait for it to happen! It was really cool to because it was my companions first baptism of his mission! I was happy that he was able to baptize her. Everything went really well! The service was really good and this week we are going to go buy her a hymn book for a present! I am feeling better and excited to get back to work! We should be seeing more baptisms for the next month of November! So weird that I am going to be 20 the next week! I love and miss all of you soo much!

 Elder Liljenquist