Tastes like heaven

 BUENO

I hope you're all happy. I am super happy!

GOOD:

- I love Elder Wankier. We have so much fun together. This week seemed to FLY by because we were enjoying Hidalgo and all it has to offer. Missionary work is definitely much easier and much happier when you get to work with someone you enjoy! 

- As we went to teach one of our friends named Carlos, we found him in the middle of a bbq with his friends and family. The cool thing about South TX is they will ALWAYS invite you in, give you a plate full of meat, load up the salsa and then listen to what you have to say. I sat in front of this humble home straight up marveling at the fact that on a Saturday night I was sitting in a small border town with a family I barely knew, conversing with them in a language I used to not understand and I had never felt happier. Missionary work is SO cool and I truly love it here in Hidalgo. Such amazing people.

- This week had me loling every day. From the abuela being SO aggressive as she made nachos in the library to the street dogs sneaking up to pee on my companion's bike. From learning the word "lonjas" while we were trying to teach a lesson on Baptism to E. Wankier saying "tastes like heaven" probably 10 different times this week. I truly wish I had a camera following us to capture all the spontaneous fun that we are having. Don't worry we are still working hard, just really enjoying ourselves while we do it.

BETTER:

- We got to go on exchanges with our Zone Leaders and DANG they were amazing. I got to go work with Elder Takahashi in his area and we taught all. day. long. It was super super lit. Elder Takahashi is also such a beast Missionary and taught me a lot of good things. Not to mention I got to go to the legendary "Spicy Tuesday" dinner of a member in their area. This exchange was also legendary because Elder Takahashi and I did not speak one bit of English to each other until we got home from working. I left the exchange feeling motivated and ready to go to work. 

- Sadly many of our friends that we have been teaching stopped keeping commitments this week. For this reason we continued to do our best to meet as many new people as we could this past week. Taught some lessons, met some crazies and also got to have some very cool experiences.

- One of the highlights of the week was helping our friend Elmer, who is a recently baptized 13 year old, make his way to a fiesta at the church after he had a rough day at school. God definitely placed us in his path because we just ran into him in the middle of Hidalgo and it seemed as though it was right when he needed us. We were able to walk him over to the church where he spent the next 3 hours with the other young men at a fiesta. This was a tender mercy because we have been struggling to get Elmer to church. He is a good kid who just needs friends at church to help him keep coming. There was literally no better place for him to be on that evening than in the church with the other boys in the ward!

BEST:

Yesterday we had an amazing second hour lesson from the stake President about preparing ourselves for the temple. The whole hour was amazing however something that stuck out to me was when the stake president said something along the lines of...

"When we talk about the temple and don't mention Christ, then I am worried"

God has richly blessed us with temples all over the world. Beautiful buildings where children of God can make covenants with Him and gain direction for their lives. There is so much beauty in the temple, but how often do we forget that the focus of everything we do there should be Christ. We don't go to the temple simply to be in a pretty building or simply to feel at peace (however those things do come as we attend.) We go to the house of the Lord to learn more about His gospel, grow closer to Him and gain more of His divine power in our lives.

This can be applied to any aspect of our lives. We don't serve missions to go somewhere exotic and eat cool food. We go on missions to learn more about Christ and get closer to Him. We don't study the scriptures to just learn about history - we read the scriptures to know Jesus Christ.

How much time did you spend with Jesus Christ this week? 

#focusonChrist 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

"Work Hard, Keep the Commandments, Have a Positive Attitude and Show Gratitude."

- Elder Stringham