A Week for Firsts: Baptisms and Thanksgiving!

This week was seriously the best week of my mission! To start I was able to baptize 2 kids from a family we have been working with since I have gotten here. I seriously have grown so close to this family over time I have been here in Mattawa and I can tell you all, I love this family with all my heart. The baptism was this past Saturday and it seriously felt like a dream. Filling up the font early in the morning, to seeing them all dressed in white made it the best day ever. This family has gone through so much with keeping commitments, to not keeping commitments, to setting dates for baptism and then not making them, so seeing them all ready for their baptism was seriously the best feeling ever! I was blessed to have two of the kids pick me to baptize them! Lenin and Roselyn! I love these 2 so much! Lenin reminds me so much of my cousin Vete! So baptizing him was a dream come true! The spirit was so strong during the program and we actually had a lot of people show up, so that was very good to see the support that everyone had for this family! I don't think there is a feeling that can describe the feeling of seeing the people that you have worked with and really got to know enter the waters of baptism. You can really feel the love that heavenly father has for each and everyone of us! As me and my comp have worked with this family we have seen the Holy Ghost really convert them and seeing the atonement working in their life is the best part! After the baptism me and my companion were driving home and we were talking about the baptism. We were saying that baptism is like a trophy when you win a championship: all the studying, all the slammed doors, all the days that suck, waking up early in the morning, not being with your family for 2 years, it's all worth it because of the love and the spirit that you feel as you see a family get closer to their Heavenly Father and really change their life around for the better. It really is a feeling that you can only feel as a missionary! 

The next day, Sunday, they were able to receive the Holy Ghost during sacrament! Another awesome experience to be a part of! Funny story about Sacrament meeting: right after the English ward, we walked out of the chapel and and our Branch President of the Spanish branch came up to us and said, "Hey you guys know you guys are on the program, yeah?" Haha we were like, "What the heck no we did not know!" He was like, "Well Elder Carrasco I know you can wing it in Spanish but Elder Kaili go ahead and skip priesthood and write a little talk." I was like bruh are you serious.... haha so you already know I whipped up a bomb talk in Spanish in 40 mins! But yeah after the family that we baptized received the Holy Ghost they all gave their testimonies and man they were all so good! Roselyn gave her testimony right before I had to talk and man her testimony brought me to tears! She talked about the trials and the doubts that she went through as she was thinking about joining the church and now she knew that this was the right decision to be baptized! The spirit was seriously so strong! As I got up to talk (trying to hold the tears back) I started talking about the Garfias Family and how lucky I was to know them and then bang! It was like my farewell part 2... haha the waterworks started just flowing! Man I just couldn't hold it back because of how happy I was for this family! Man it was seriously the best Saturday and Sunday on the mission for sure! I am so happy for the decision they made and I am so grateful that I was blessed to meet them! Families like this that I meet make it certain to me that I am where I am suppose to be at the exact time I need to be here!

Thanksgiving was also bomb! Man we ate so much!!! I seriously feel like I gained 10lbs! So many Tortillas, Quesadillas, Floutas, Salsa, Carne, Pie, Cake and Soda! After we ate with 3 families I seriously couldn't eat anymore, but the food just kept coming. I ate so much I seriously thought I was going to throw up all night haha but it was worth it! Mexican food is just too good not to get 3-5 plates! But yeah first Thanksgiving on the mission was bomb! I expressed what I am thankful for and grateful for on my Facebook posts haha so if you want to see those things look on my Facebook lol! 

The work and everything is going really good right now! I am loving being a missionary right now and I love everyone we are teaching! Meeting all these people and hearing their stories really make me think through my life and realize how blessed I am to have the gospel in my life. This gospel can seriously change lives. I have seen it change lives in my mission and it makes me want to share it with everyone and anyone! I love you all and encourage you all to find someone that you can share the gospel with or refer to the missionaries! It's almost December and you know what that means ITS TIME TO #LIGHTTHEWORLD. Hope everyone has a bomb week! 

CON AMOR,

Elder Kaili 

Baptism pics!

Lenin and Roselyn!

Baptism clothes boyyyy

Baptism programs!

Baptism Pics 

Thanksgiving Grub!

Floutas! So bomb!

                  

 

                     

 

Decorating the Garfias tree with Lenin! 

Heavenly Fathers love for each and every one of us...

What A WEEK! Before I start my blog about this past week. I just want to shout out and say Happy Birthday to my brother Saione Matagi! Te Amo Mucho! Feliz Cumpleaños!

First off we had MEGA ZONE CONFERENCE this week which was LITT!!! We had all the northern zones together! We were able to do some good training as well, I love zone conference because its such a boost of energy for me! We talked and focused a lot on making goals and planning to become better missionaries. Another focus was working with the members and asking them for referrals, but not just asking them to give us referrals, asking them if they have people that they can teach, and showing them how to use Preach My Gospel! Its crazy that when we work with members we have more people to teach that week! The MEMBERS are the key! President Thomas S. Monson said, "Now is the time for members and Missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the lords vineyard, to brings souls unto him". After all the training we came back into the gym to see the whole gym decorated like it was Christmas! It was so nice we started to plan for LIGHT THE WORLD! I AM SO PUMPED FOR LTW this year! its gonna be crazy! We also made a mission goal of baptizing 22 for the month of December!

Funny story about zone conference: When we were talking about the section of using members and getting referrals for them, President Jackman asked 6 missionaries to come up in front of the zone conference to role play a situation he had thought of! He called on 4 missionaries and then asked for 2 volunteers, I could see him looking around so I was like oh heck no please don't choose me, I don't want to embarrass myself up there (lol) but of course he called on me and my companion to come up. When we got up there I was like oh my trainer will take the lead no big deal, I'll just add in, but then when we got up there my companion straight up was like nope and gave the mic to me. I'm not gonna lie, I was scared (haha) being a new missionary and talking in front of all these missionaries that have been out longer than me... But then I just started to speak and role play and you alreaddddyyyy know I killed it (lol, jk) I did alright and was able to find things I can improve on from the feedback from all the other missionaries! Such a good experience for me though and it really gave me a lot confidence!

This week me and my comp have been able to see a lot of progress in the people that we are teaching! Its so awesome to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for each of his children flow through us as we serve and love the people we teach! Seeing people find that the Book of Mormon is true and the power it has is seriously so awesome! Me and my comp were tracting this past week and ran into an old lady that use to be a member but hates mormons now. She was cussing and yelling at us for a straight 5 mins about how we are wasting our time. For some reason throughout this time she was yelling at us, I couldn't get it out of my head that Heavenly Father loves this woman so much. After the yelling and the cussing, we were able to just calmly talk to her and show her our smiles about how this gospel blesses so many lives everyday! After about 15-20 min talking with her about her past we showed her a video called,"Because of Him"(I recommend 20/10 watch it), after we were able to see peace in her body language as she smiled for the first time we were with her! She told us as we were saying bye that she would like us to come back as well this upcoming week!

Such a good week filled with ups and downs but I know that as we love and serve others and look at those downs as experiences to grow, we will be unstoppable! I know that Heavenly Father loves every one of us so much and wants the best for us! The Book of Mormon is TRUE! I love you all and hope everyone has a good week!

Shout out to Walmart and roll backs because I got a razor and shaving cream for like $9 (haha) letzzzgoooo! Shoutout to Sister Yorgeson as well for hooking it up with the protein drinks!

Con Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

LITTLE BRO RAMZ SENDING ME A LETTER IN SPANISH HAHAH

SHOUTOUT TO SISTER YORGESON FOR THE HOOK UP ON PROTEIN!

#DIET BECAUSE IM GETTING FAT

COLDNESSSS

First Birthday on My Mission

First birthday on my mission was tight! Dang I'm 19? that's crazy! Woke up to an awesome video that my sister made me of all my family saying happy birthday to me! Shout out to her and everyone that sent in their videos! I love you all so much! Also shout out to everyone that sent me emails and packages! I love you all. On my birthday an investigator that we are working with wanted to take me out for pizza and Ice cream so that was tight! but other than that just another day of serving the people of Mattawa! Haha best birthday ever! lol

This week we had doctrine of Christ with President and Sister Jackman. It was for all the 7th weekers and their trainers! It was soooo good! Learned so much and having doctrine of Christ means I am almost done with my training!! Which I am so happy about haha I don't like being a trainee! Also we had interviews with the President! They were also so good! President Jackman and Sister Jackman are seriously the best! They always know what to say to reboot my energy of missionary work!

The weather this week has been so crazy! The mornings you can barely see 20 ft in front of you because of the fog and then its like 25 degrees out here when the sun goes down! If you don't have a beanie or gloves on your done for.... but yeah the fog has literally been crazy!

Highlight of this week is probably having our recent converts starting to come back to church and talk with us a lot! We also had Yohan's whole family at church this Sunday which hasn't happened for like 4 months!

Yeah I don't really feel like writing a lot but yeah such a good week and had a lot of work with people that we haven't talked to for a while! The work is going good and I was able to give a tie away to one of our investigators kids that wanted a tie so bad but his mom didn't have the money at the time to buy him one! He was so happy! I love this work and these people I am blessed to serve! I hope you all have a good week!

Con Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

Birthday breakfast lol made by yours truly chef Montonz

Present from Sister Ka'ili (Fua)

Best birthday ever, serving the Lord

Turned 19 in the field...best day ever!!!

Birthday box from my family

Making tortillas with Vanessa and Arturo! Recent converts

Doctrine of christ shoutout to Sister Jackman snapping this shot

Celebrating Coras birthday at Yohans house

Free-styling to LDS instrumentals can build a bond.....

Ahhh this week was such a good week!!!!

The reason this week was so GOOD is because we got this family of 5, The Garfias back on date!! I have grown so close to this family! They told us that they want to set the date of December 1st but that they will probably do it before because the mom wants the dad to be here and he is going to be leaving for Mexico during Thanksgiving break!! So we should have their whole family getting baptized in the next week or 2! AHHH I’m so happy for them! We also got another kid back on date! His name is Yohan and he’s one of the first people I met in Mattawa! So I am so happy to see him have that desire again to be baptized again, he wasn't able to make the first date because of parental issues but I am praying this one will go through!

We had exchanges and I was able to stay in my area for the first time without my trainer and run the area! It was so nice! I drove for the first time in 3 months so that was a little weird but I definitely missed it! I learned a lot during my exchange! There are so many different ways of how missionary work. So many ways we can be creative and use our different talents that god has given us to bring the gospel to someone! My zone leader Elder Davis is so tight and gives me so much advice of how I can become better! RIP to him though because this is his last transfer ):! But yeah exchanges went so good!

During exchanges I met this 18 years old at our ward mission leaders house named Javier, that we will probably get on date tonight in our lesson with him!! He came up to me when I was walking through the door and said, " Hey I want to join your church, how can I get the lessons?" I literally froze because I don't think it has ever been that easy to get an investigator! During our lesson on Saturday with him we invited him to read the introduction of the BOM and the 1st chapter of Nephi, then he hit us with the, "Wait can I only read that much or can I read more" we were like shoot bro read the whole thing if you want!!! He came to church yesterday too! He’s so ready for all the blessing that come with this church!! I’m so excited for what the future holds for Javier because he’s such a good guy!

This week me and my companion Elder Carraso have been trying to do things to strengthen our relationship so that we can have the spirit strong as we teach. We were going through things that we used to do before our missions and something that we have had in common is that we both messed around with music and made songs before our mission! After we talked about that we started showing each other a little bit of our bars haha! and shoot my boy Elder Carrasco be sounding like Enrique Iglesias haha! He freestyles so good in Spanish! The other day we had a bad lesson and on the way home he was freestyling to the instrumentals we found in the LDS Music app (surprisingly those songs go hard lol) and he was going in!! As crazy as it seems after we had this talk about strengthening our companionship and finding that rap is the thing that is so common between us, we have gotten so many more people back on date, people calling us to have lessons, finding new people, and having more and more people want to learn from us!

Two of the funniest memories on my mission so far have happened this week!

First one: Me and my companion were trying to find a priest aged kid that could come with us to fellowship one Yohan the kid that we got back on date. We went through the list and decided to pick the branch president’s son, Alec. Alec has probably the worst anxiety and people skills I have ever seen in one person but for some reason we decided to choose him and give him a call. He decided he could come with us and we headed over to the house with him. The problem is that Yohan lives at his moms house some days and his mom told us that we can’t come over there because his grandma is catholic and hates us... lol. So we told Alec to go and knock the door and have Yohan come out so we could teach him the lesson. Haha man it was the funniest thing me and my comp hid behind the corner of the house and sent Alec to go get him. I felt so bad Alec looked like he was going to pee his pants when he was knocking the door! but he got him to come out and we taught him the lesson, so mission accomplished. After me and my comp were like we never doing that again... haha but shoot I'll never forget that. Felt like I was doing some shenanigans with the cousins once again lol!

Second one: Me and my comp needed to go get some stamps from the post office to send our monthly miles in to the mission office. When we got to this store a homeless looking dude came up to us and started to ask us if we were Mormons. We said we weren’t but "we were missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"…lol. He then began to tell us that we should be Mormons because Mormons were always so kind to him. We told him what we do but he just kept cutting us off and said," you know what you don't even have to join the church you just need to be kind and they accept you as a member" me and my comp kinda looked at each other and laughed and then he started saying that he was actually a teacher in China and asked us if we wanted to learn some Chinese. we said sure (Now this part shocked me so bad) He then asked for a card and started writing Chinese on it and explaining it (I forgot to say he was like 3 inches away from us talking right in our faces with his no teeth lol). He then started speaking fluent Chinese right in front of us and then asked ohh "puede entender mi ingles o es rapido" me and my comp were like oh you speak Spanish too and he straight up was fluent in spanish too! Crackheads these days I swear have super powers... haha We told him we had to go and tried to leave him a picture of Jesus Christ but he decline and said, " I dont like that picture because I know that Jesus Christ had black hair... you know he was a jew" haha we just laughed and told him that we hope he has a safe flight to China! I was dying laughing in the store after!

AHH such a good week though! A couple shout outs for this email! Shout out to my Aunty Joe.. wehhh I mean my Uncle Joe! Happy Birfday, I’ll be forever grateful for all the things that you have done for me in my life!! Shout out to my boys getting to their Islands, Elder Norman in Tonga and Elder Angilau! Ofaz to you 2! Shout out to Day Light Savings for that extra hour of sleep and shout out to all of you that send me emails and letters! I love you all and hope you guys have a great week! Continue to read the Book of Mormon and study the General Conference Talks for in them you can find true happiness in your life!! Love you All!!

Con Amor,

Elder Ka'ili

package from sister kaili for my bday...and MMT all day lol

scary for Halloween, smashed my face in the printer machine hahaha 

Best Zone out here

sweet pic one of the young woman drew while I was giving a talk!

Im getting fat but shoot mexican food is so bomb!

Im getting fat but shoot mexican food is so bomb!

ME and The zone at the Dari gold and royal dairy

Had to cover up the bingham sign...haha

ME and The zone at the Dari gold and royal dairy

One of the kids of the investigators was playing fortnite so I had to snap a pic!