Temple Day!

Hey!

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the weather over there! How´s everyone doing? 

The new area that I was assigned to is very interesting! It is very close by my old area and the ward is fairly large. The ward is much larger than my last area but the size of my area is about the same. We are 4 missionaries here in this ward. and we´re right up against El Cerro de la Silla, the very famous mountain here in Monterrey. We have some great investigators as well. We are pretty far away from the church building but one of our investigators actually made it to church this last Sunday! His name is Jorge, and he has a few drinking problems and really wants to change his life. He sells ice cream for a living and is always selling near schools as they get out. When he went to church almost everyone knew him because they have bought his ice cream before. We are very excited for him because he accepted a baptism date for November 13th. We´ll keep you posted! I have also been emailing my last companion and I think Jesus from my last area was baptized! After 6 months of teaching him and taking him to church, he was baptized! 

Today we went to the temple! We got up super early, we got up at about 4:45 to get to the temple at 6:00 am and get ready for our session at 7:00. The temple was very full of missionaries and the spirit this morning. It was a great reminder of the covenants we make in the temple and the blessing it is to have one in our mission. 

Thanks for all your support! Hope everyone is doing ok, write you next week!

Elder George

D&C 46:9

Happy Birthday Mom!

Hi Everyone!

I hope everyone had a good time at lagoon! It looked super fun. Things here are busier than ever but are going great. We are looking forward to the cold season here, if the sun will still be out this week we´ll all be missionary jurkey.

First off, Happy Birthday Mom! I`m working on getting the photos sent, my companion is working on getting them sent to me so i`ll forward them to you. 

This next monday is also my companions birthday so we´ll have a few more photos to send.

Our ward is doing fantastic, yesterday I gave a talk on the plan of salvation! Alma 34:32. We didn`t see Jorge this week at church. We are teaching him lesson one now and says he`s going to church next week.Next week is also our primary program. 

Thanks all the time i have for now. Tomorrow we are going to be teaching the zone about diligence and using time wisely and i`ll be going to two different areas this week to see how everything is going with the missionaries. Love you all see you next week!

Transfers are here!

Hey Everyone!

So we got the news last night! I`m going to be changing areas! So were all busy cleaning the house, and packing up everything to go to the mission home tomorrow and receive my new assignment. Tonight they are going to be telling us our new areas and new companions. I have been in this last area for 6 months and it has been pretty hard but every second was worth it. 

Elder Fonseca has finished his training! He`s going to stay in the area and take care of everything. I`m not sure if I was able to tell you guys but we had to drop Josefina. Jesus is doing great! A little sad that i`m changing but im going to keep writing him. Still hangin in there. And our other Investigator Guadalupe went to church with her whole family yesterday! We didn`t get the chance to talk to them but they were also able to visit the temple here in Monterrey with all of her children for a primary activity they did this weekend. Their oldest son has cancer and have been really stressed out this past week, the Primary President was able to help Lupita (Guadalupe) put her sons name on the prayer list of the temple which was awesome. We are going to put a baptism date with her this week.

I also heard there was a tornado in Orem or something!?! The primary president in the ward has family that lives in sandy near Alta high school and showed me pictures of the tornado... Crazy. 

We also had Zone Conference last week about consecrations if that's how you spell it. It was a very inspired topic and impacted the whole mission. Great things are happening! 

It`s been super hot! This week we are going to see some rain as well. We got pretty wet last night as well. I`d say its almost more extreme here than in Utah.

This is my letter. See you all next week with a new companion and area!

E. George

Things got really busy!

Hey Family!

Things are pretty busy here in 21 de Enero! We are looking forward to another busy week. Hopefully the weather will be a bit less crazy as well! 

This last week we had transfers and I was called as a district leader! I`m in charge of calling and taking care of 10 other missionaries so things are really busy, I just finished writing a letter to president about them. It will take a little bit of time to get use to but this is all I can write today.

Cool things coming up! A Seventy is coming to visit in about 2 weeks! Training is also going well with Elder Fonseca! Great to hear everyone is good, love you all! Read the book of Mormon!

Bye!

Elder George

The Power of Prayer!

Hey everyone!

So to answer your guys question about what I am thankful, would surely be for Prayer. About a month ago we had a pretty amazing experience thanks to prayer. A month ago we were in exchanges with some other missionaries while we were contacting people looking to teach new investigators. We arrived to a neighborhood where we never really go to and we decided to say a quick prayer to find someone and put a baptism date with them. That was when we found Rodolfo, the man who was baptized when he was 10 years old, the first thing we did was give him a book of Mormon. Recently it has been hard to find him, it turns out for the last two weeks that Rodolfo was working a bit in a factory that he was working in before he retired. Many people do this here, factory only hire young people but they always need repairs and improvements for the factory and so they called in Rodolfo. After two weeks without seeing him we ran into him when we were passing by his house. We put an appointment with him later that week and now he is done working for now. In the time we haden´t seen him he has still been reading the book of Mormon and reading his pamphlets. We visited him this last Friday to read lehi´s vision and invite him to church, We arrived 10 minutes early and he had already entered the chapel and was waiting for us! You can see his faith increasing as he´s reading the book of mormon. We have also confirmed that he is a member, the mission offices looked up his church records and yes! he is a member! I know i´m looking a bit too ahead, but one day we hope he can go to the temple and do the work for his diseased brothers and parents.

I´m almost done with the book of Mormon as well! This week i´ll be starting Moroni. This book is a strong testimony builder. Read it!

The weather here has been very extreme! We´ll be sweating in the day in short sleeve shirts and we´ll be putting on heavy jackets in the afternoon. That means winter is coming! Starting on Friday. the church will be starting a Christmas activity here in Mexico as well with a new Christmas video. We´ll be getting more instructions but the church has put advertisements on about 4 bus routes so everyone will see the message. 

Love you all! I´ll send pictures next week!

Elder George

Matthew 10:32

Happy Halloween!

his was part of my letter to our mission president! Sorry for not putting a translation!

Me encanta las experiencias y testimonios que he podido recibir al estudiar El Libro de Mormon, Voy en 3 Nefi 16 y me dio mucho gusto al leer 3 Nefi 14:21-27 en mis estudios hoy. Estos escrituras nos invitan a conocer El Señor aun mas en nuestros vidas y nos invita a hacer la voluntad de nuestro Padre Celestial. Me pongo a pensar mucho en el discurso de Elder Bednar de este Conferencia General pasada, y reflejo mucho en como puedo ser mas consagrado y dejar el hombre natural atrás de mi. En en este semana yo quero ver y dejar algunos de mis hábitos para poder conocer nuestro salvador mejor y vivir el mandamiento  arrepentimiento.

Elder Covarrubias feel great and excited for this upcoming week, we are struggling a lot with new investigators in our area but my companion and I feel blessed and happy to have the opportunity to look for new investigators. This week we are going to be diligent in our planning sessions and have the faith that people are ready to hear our message in our area. We felt really happy for a less active member named Rodolfo who is 60 years old and was baptized with all of his brothers and his mom when Rodolfo was 10 years old. We left him The Book of Mormon and by the next appointment he had read the introduction up until 1 Nephi 4! He understood the stories that were being told and recited to us all the names of Nephi´s family and why they had left Jerusalem and why they had returned for the bronze plates! We will be seeing him tomorrow, we have the bishop in mind to help us befriend him, they live very close to one another.

Have a great Halloween! Love you all!

Elder George

The Craziest Week In The Mission

Hey everyone!

So yesterday we were told about the transfers that would be coming! So me and my companion are not moving, almost the entire mission is... We had to make space for 21 new missionaries! This is a huge ammout! When president Monson made the age change there were about 210 missionaries here in this mission. Before these transfers we only had about 140 missionaries so many new areas are going to be opening and several other changes with the zones are happening. We were 9 zones and now we are only going to be 5 zones... its a drastic change but so far so good! Everything is great with the ward as well. We are now putting goals as a ward and we are working for a baptism in december! Learnings lots, and teaching alot! Take care everyone!

Elder George

hi

We were very excited for the zone capacitacion that we had with our zone this last week, we used your graph that you gave us in Leadership Counsel and we also used a talk from President Monson in the Liahona of this last October on the blessings that we receive from obedience. My favorite quote from President Monson in the article is "The greatest lesson that we can learn on earth is that when god speaks and we obey, we will always be doing the right thing". Me and my companion want to be able to give our zone and our ward a strong example, we know that trough obedience through obeying the mission rules is the strongest most Christlike way to receive confidence in our zone and ward. To start off we want to update our area book every day and put sufficient plans for the day to be more diligent.

My study in The Book of Mormon has taught me a lot about the repentance process, right now I am starting the book of Ether. It has been an incredible experience to learn from the prophets in the book of Mormon and the trials that they went through, especially Moroni when he had lost everything due to the laminates. My studies have helped me find newer ways to use the book of Mormon in this work and a stronger and deeper testimony for the love of our Savior and his plan for each one of us.
One of my new personal goals is to become a stronger desiple of our Savior and follow him, and give everything to him and for him. (Juan 8:31)

I almost forgot to talk about our investigators! We are teaching Hna. Lorena and her 9 year old son Naser. It is a reference from some members in our area. Lorena hasen´t been able to be baptized because she hasen´t been able to keep the law of chastity and lives with very difficult circumstances in her house. Me and my companion decided to call her in our weekly planing session this last week and she answered the phone when she was with the family that had given us the reference and had been talking with them about baptism. Later that day we went by to visit Lorena with the Mendez family and we were able to put a baptism date with her but for her circumstances she was going to change houses to Juarez. She was unable to go to the special stake conference on Sunday but we also heard that the house owners are going to see if they can get the man out of the house where Lorena is living. We hope to continue teaching Lorena and her son. We have planned to be able to teach them repentance this next visit and hopefully baptize them in December.

The package arrived!

Hey!

Christmas is starting off really well here, we have a bunch of Catholic churches doing parades and dancing, I took a short video of them outside of our house ill send to you guys in the future. I got the package and I am making a ton of gifts for converts, companions and families here in the ward. Thanks for all the great gifts, my companion is very happy as well, thanks for sending him something. Sorry, but I ran out of time, love you all see you next week with more stuff!
 

Almost Christmas!

Hey! Don`t know much about the call yet, transfers are here! We didn`t change so that's nice. Photos next week!

Christmas

We are very blessed in our area after a great experience we had after helping a member move houses this last weekend. We had a great time packing everything up in a large truck and then relocating his family in a new home for them. I learned a powerful lesson from Elder Domingez after this service project. The member we served is the young mens president and he helped us understand the importance of serving the members and including them more in the comida. Elder Domingez has alwayes taken the inicitave in helping the members with real intent. It has become really easy us to take the members services for granted and I learned that we should alwayes try to serve the members even though they don´t except our service all the time. I beleve that this is what our wards and stakes need more from the missionaries, is service with a real intent.

My companion and I now hope to help our zone out better by helping them use and understand faith better in their areas. We are going to base our capacitacion in the importance in visions and in the Faith using President Uctorfts talk The 4th floor last door. I loved a scripture that was cited from 1 Corintains 2:14 where the natural man cannot understand the things that come from the spirit. Because of this we alwayes need to be humble and obedient to have this gift to be with us. This last week me and my companion also had the oppertunity for another service project where we painted over the grafiti of an older womens house this last week. It was actually pretty interesting because we had contacted this lady sweeping in front of her yard. She didnt want to accept our message because she thought we were only going to change our religion. We returned on saturday and to her supprise we returned! She took out some old paint buckets she had and while we prepared the paint we were able to get to know her a bit better, by the end of our service project she felt very blessed. We felt very blessed as well even though she continued to tell us that she wouldent accept our message, we hope that we were able to leave a good impression with her and that in the coming months or years that she can once again receive the missionaries in her house.

We also had a family go to sacrament meeting! :)

See you in sunday!

Happy New Year!

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone had a happy new year! Things were pretty interesting here, there were a lot of fireworks, confetti and music in all parts.

We had a pretty great week as well, I got to go to the other side of the mission for exchanges with one of the presidents assistents. Every transfer we haev exchanges with one of them. I learned alot from our day, I learned alot about the personal responsibility that we have in our areas, everything that we do depends on our diligence in finding and teaching. I loved the exchanges that we had with Elder Tovar and Elder Romero this last week because it helped us see the things we need to change in ourselfs for better success. Elder Romero and I had a very succesful day where we were able to teach several new investigators and my personal testimony was strengthed as we taught about eternal life. One of the things we are going to improve is our relacionship with the ward and teaching in the moment. We are very excited in our zone as well to acheive the goal of 1 baptism for month. This week we have the goal of using our time wisely in the day. My companion was reading in preach my gospel in the morning relating to missionary work like fishing. The longer we have our hooks in the water, the more likely we are to find new people to teach. We should use every moment we have during the day to teach and testify of christ.

Keep up the good work with the book of mormon! I started it again and i´m in 2 nephi 7. I´m also reading Jesus the Christ, an excelent study tool for the New Testament! We were also going to go to the temple, but our trip got canceled at the last minute and we won´t be going for another month. 

See ya later!

Elder George

1 Nephi 14:14

The Blessings of the Priestood!

Hey everyone!

It's great to hear that there's a lot of snow! Its gotten pretty cold down here for the past week as well but it's starting to heat back up again. 

Rodolfo was ordained a Priest yesterday! we're all pretty excited for him now that hes returning back to the church. Since he's been going he hasn't missed a sacrament meeting yet. Yesterday he stayed all three hours and it looks like he's ready for more! His study has also improved a lot, he always recites the stories he reads from the book of Mormon.

We`ve got a lot coming up this week as well with a few conferences we will be having. on the 26th the church will be doing another broadcast for all the missionaries in the work again like last year. It should help us out a lot this year. 

Hope everything is going well back at home, tell everyone i said hi!

Elder George 

Mosiah 4:30

A Possiable Baptism!

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather, things have cooled down a lot here as well in these past few days. 

We had a pretty exciting week! On Friday we had a lesson that changed everything with an Investigator we have named Juan Jose. His wife is a member ans we have been teaching him for about 2 or 3 months now. The only thing that is keeping him from getting baptized is getting married and living the word of wisdom. On Friday in the visit we had with them we taught the word of wisdom like any other visit. For a minute everything got quiet and Juan Jose said that he had been preying and that he finally felt the need to be baptized! He basically bore his testimony to us and asked us what he needed to do to be baptized. His wife cried for a little bit but it was a very powerful lesson. They have seen all types of trials, it´s safe to say that they have about seen everything. They are going through financial problems but we are going to do everything in our power to get them married possibly this week. Super cool!

We also had leadership counsel. With President Maoucotel we are changing the mission a lot. It was great to learn from him and his wife. We´re working a lot on Diligence and Obedience right now in our mission.

That's about everything for this week. we hope we can get moving with Juan Jose, he has a great conversion. They are going to make a great family!

See you all next week!

Elder George

John 7:17

Dust Storm!

Hey everyone!

Things are doing great! We had a pretty crazy dust storm this last weekend but everything has calmed down and is back to normal. 

Juan Jose has gone through just about everything this past month but is now working full time again! He went to church on Sunday with his family and is participating really well. They only need to print out one of their birth certificates and put a date for their wedding. We are going to visit them later today to see if they were able to put a date down and everything. 

Transfers are next week to we hope we can get everything settled in this coming with with Juan.

Lots of great things going on in our zone as well, wish I had more time. Love you all see you next week!

Elder George

2 Samuel 12:7

Thou art the man!