Working With Members

Hey People!

I'm tweeting from Mexico!

Elder Greenwood wearing his favorite sunblock

This week was a nice and hot week, reaching about 100 degrees a couple of days here. I am learning how to love the heat! Hahaha!

We have been working recently with a less-active family that we found who were baptized YEARS ago. We're working on reactivating them and helping their daughter get baptized this week. We had been talking with the Bishopric about how we could help them reactivate, baptize their daughter, and help them stay in the church. They gave us the idea of inviting them to a ward activity to celebrate father's day.

Now, lots of times it's a struggle to have investigators in ward activities because they kind of just stand awkwardly in the corner with us. And some people will come sometimes and say, "Hi!"... and that's it. BUT! When we took them there, they were doing a Father's Day sack race with the fathers and they invited our investigator up in front of everyone! And he just lit up during the race. And his kids LOVED it. Afterwards they even participated in another activity with everybody else and got to know a couple of people.

I learned that the best missionary work, the kind where the people stay in the Church with us for time and all eternity, is when the members and the missionaries work together to bring others to Christ. Members can do incredible things by themselves to bring others unto Christ, and so can missionaries. But only when we work together will we find more success than we even imagined.

Lightning in Mexico!

My invitation this week is that you can all invite someone to an activity, to church, to anything. And then, bring the missionaries. And together, you'll help your spiritual brother or sister receive the happiness and joy that you have in this gospel.

I love you all!

Have a FANtastic week!

Elder Greenwood :)

Second Week in the Heat of Delicias (one day I'll get a better subject name) hahaha

What's up everybody!?

Happy Father's Day!

We did an activity with that Father's Day frame in a park by the church where we told people that we were taking free pictures. We'd take the pics, get their addresses, and now we'll print out the pics and take them to the houses with a message about Christ. :)

This week was a pretty great week. I got to see the weather tuesday morning and prepared for the worst. But the Lord blessed us this week with a day of Rain!!! Oh it was wonderful. My comp and I rejoiced.

This week we also had our final meeting with Presidente Chavez. He came to Delicias, took pictures with us, and gave us many words of advice. As a 70 and a Mission President, he was able to give us a few spiritual promises. They were incredible and sounded like a page out of Doctrine and Covenants.

The Church is true and God loves us and wants so so badly to bless us. But he only can when we do something first. That's how it goes. A testimony comes after a trial of Faith. Testimonies always come through blessings and experiences that we have. So, through our faith (our actions that we take believing that God will help us or others in our lives), we will receive blessings and a greater testimony of our Father in Heaven. That's a little spiritual thought that I had this week that I wanted to share.

Elders Lee, Lopez, Greenwood, and Brindis (companion)

I hope that you all have a great week, a wonderful summer, and the best of times in your lives :)

Love you all!

Elder Greenwood :)

First Week in the Heat of Delicias‏

Pretty good week this week.

I'm getting to know Delicias more and more. It is incredibly hot. I'm going to be able to very proudly say that I survived the heat of Delicias in the summer when all is said and done. hahahaha!

Didn't put sunblock on my legs...

Not too much happened this week. It was a pretty normal week of missionary work -- helping people go to church and helping people remember who they are, Children of God; and as such, the things that they can do to become like their Father.

I had an interesting experience this week with a Chinese man that I met in his store. My comp and I were buying some food when the Chinese man asked me, in very broken Spanish, where I was from.

#aloevera

I told him, "the U.S."

He said, "And how much time have you had here in Mexico?"

I told him, "About 9 months."

He was amazed and said that he had been here for about 2 years now and that my Spanish was way better than his.

That was a reminder to me of how blessed I have been here in the mission. And how blessed we are as members of the True Church of God on the Earth. When we put our shoulder to the wheel and do our best to help God in His work, He blesses us and helps us progress faster to help us help Him bring about His eternal work. I would not have made it as far as I did in my Spanish as quickly as I did without the help of my Heavenly Father. I am eternally grateful for His presence in my life, and I hope that I may be worthy to help His children, my brothers and sisters, come unto Him.

I love you all! Hope that you have an INcredible week!

Para Siempre Dios Este con Vos.

Elder Greenwood :)

Cambios!

Crazy stuff going on down here in good ol' Mexico!

This week my comp, Elder Murillo, and I were able to help one of our investigators get baptized! It's crazy because he had only been to the Church 1 time. We had been teaching him for about a month, and he couldn't go to church one week, got lost the 2nd week, and made it at last the 3rd.

But this guy is one of the most chosen people that I have ever had the privilege to meet. He always was down with the idea of getting baptized. He knows the Bible inside out and, after a week and a half, he was in Alma 5 in the Book of Mormon.

Jose Adan Ramos Ayala's Baptism

He just kept asking and asking about when he could get baptized, so we brought the mission leader with us to a lesson. He said that he could get baptized if we got special permission. The zone leader interviewed him, found him worthy, and called one of President's counselors (President was out of town), and he said, "yes!!"

Crazy to see someone so chosen in those moments to have been baptized so early. The Lord's time is something that I will never fully understand in this life. Everything will happen in it's time.

Elders Sanchez, Greenwood, Murillo (former companion), and Jimenez

New Abode

Speaking of "in it's time," after 5 months and 22 days down in the south end of Chihuahua city, I have been changed to the city of Delicias. The city 2nd most known for the heat in the state of Chihuahua. hahahahahaha! God likes to laugh at this white ginger. But I know that I am here for a reason and that there are people here that need help. If learning how to endure the heat of Delicias is the way to do it, then so be it.

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Greenwood :)