Jose’s Baptism

 This week started off pretty bad, but greatfully it didnt end that way

So I think it was on Tuesday when I woke up and I after I went to the bathroom, I realized I was sick. I felt like I was back in the CCM all over again. And if you know my experience that I had in the Mexico MTC, well lets just say then you already know what I'm talking about and I don't need to say any more haha. So I've been back to eating my bananas and toast. I lost all my energy and my stomach wasnt feeling too great, so I went back to bed and rested, pretty much the whole rest of the day.

After the next day I was pretty much all better.

We found out from asking our mission president that we are allowed to knock on less active and inactive family homes to see if they actually live there, that includes part member families, so now we don't have to wait for the members! I wish I knee that 6 weeks ago when I got here

We have also started to go out and hand out pamphlets to people doors, so that was a nice change for sure

Best part of the week was

The baptism of Jose Alvarado! It was amazing to see his progression through every one of the lessons that we had together. We were grateful to get to attend his baptism, even after we found out he actually wasnt in our area. Him and his while family were very happy and it was a great experience

Today was the end of the transfer, and I have been called to go to the offices, so that's where my new assignment is. My new companion is...

Elder Guerrrero

Until Next Week!

Elder Talbot

Father’s Day

 Summary - here you go, there's not a lot but that's how it goes sometimes

 *   I was asked to speak in church.  I spoke for about 10 minutes.  Wrote my talk out in Spanish which was helpful.
 *   We had multiple lessons with Jose Alvarado.  My companion said we should talk about the word of wisdom. Then before we start the lesson he tells us he likes a song about the word of wisdom and he doesn't have any problems with it so that nice. He accepted the invitation to obey all the commandment and so is progressing very well. He also said that he prayed about his baptismal date.  Then that very night he had a dream that he was in a war on a boat and he got shot, but he said that through his faith in Christ he would be okay.  He was okay and he left the water okay, also that the water was red. Coming out of the water - baptism- red -cleansed through blood of Christ. So he took that as an answer from God so that was a really cool experience for him. Sadly, we later, we found out Jose isn't in our area so we won't teaching and baptizing him anymore. However, we will still be there at his baptism hopefully this sunday!
 *   I was able to call my dad and family on Father’s Day.  That was nice to talk to them. 

Did He Really See Him?

 Hey everybody, we had an interesting week. We had zone conference at the beginning of the week.

-Jose Alvarado came to church again and also these 2 new guys walked into church and so we talked and sat by them, and they'll be back next week, they are both in other elders' areas though so we won't be teaching them. We also got a new guy at church named Dominic, he speaks creole, he's from Haiti. We finally managed to get a member's friend who spoke creole to act as a translator to help us understand him, so we could understand his situation. He needs help with immigration, but he too said he will be back at church next Sunday!

-we had 2 great lessons with Jose Alvarado about the restoration, and about the Book of Mormon, the holy ghost, and our life here on the earth. He wants to be baptized June 26!

Interesting story

-A few days ago, one of our friends, Jesus Ruiz called us 6 times at 11pm, but we were asleep so we missed all the calls because I had put the phone on silent. Then the next night, we got 2 calls at 1 AM from him. We missed the first one, but the second one my companion got up and took the call in our room, and our friend told us "I hope I'm not disrupting your sleep" and I'm thinking to myself while I'm in bed, oh yea no worries it's only 1 AM, what can we do for you haha

Anyways, he then went on to tell us that he had "an act of presence" is what he said, where he saw Jesus Christ, we are not too sure what to think about that, about that was the first time I've had an experience like that before

-we also went to a tehnghis- which is a sale where streets are full of people to buy random stuff people are saying. I bought a $2.5 hat, and then also saw someone that served in our ward over 6 years ago I guess when my mom was RSP, I did not even know that

- we finally got Our air cooler in the house to work now

Have a great week!

Elder Talbot

Pictures 

Pizza, homemade hamburgers, tenghis, and hats

Lots of teaching

This week we got Jose Alvarado and Ian Martinez at church! His wife is a member but he is not. He is classic awesome good guy and he wants to get baptized, he is just waiting on his answer, we are trying to help him recognize that. We also gave him his bom that has all the questions of the soul answers marked in the book.

-Ian Martinez is a little 10 year old boy that comes from a member family that is now inactive, but we got him and his 8 year old sister to come with their uncle

-In 2 hour they all talked about the new member missionary work plan!

- I did a baptism interview for Kevin and Estefani, 2 kids being baptized from other missionaries  in the district, they are awesome

-We Watched the baptism for Kevin and estafania

-Our bishop bought us pizza for fast Sunday, don't tell anybody that

-We started teaching 8 new people this week!

3 new people found on Facebook that aren't in our area. But Yolanda and Ester were 2 of those that are in our area and Yolanda was super emotional because she was so glad to be able to talk to someone about God again:)

-We finally Had our ward council by zoom

-I got to meet Roger, a convert who my zone leader back in 2020, helped baptize so that was cool. He has a daughter that's not a member that we are meeting with tonight.

-A funny thing this Roger guy said-He said that if you have the covid shot then you can have metal, stick to that part of your arm. But its gotta be exactly on the part where you got the shot. He showed us videos of metal spoons apparently sticking to people's arms, so you all should go try it out....

-wWe started teaching Ernesto Orozco and his son this week as well. They were driving past the church when we were doing the primary activity, and his son wanted cotton candy so they came, and that's when we talked to him and set up a lesson. We had that lesson this week and it went really well, he said that he has knows about the LDS church for 47 years, and that he wants to get closer to god, but he doesn't know where to start, so we helped him out with that:)

-That's it for this week, oh yea also I strained my lower back playing soccer somehow...so there will be no exercising for me for the next 2 weeks probably:/

Hasta la Próxima!

Tortas, hamberguesas, and montados:)

Back in Chihuahua

 Here is a summary of what I have been up since arriving in Chihuahua, Mexico on May 18th.  I am currently assigned to the northern part of the city.  My new companion is Elder Saucedo and he is from Mexico.

 *   We had a devotional from elder Holland my first day here
 *   We had a book of mormon activity that has hosted by the primary children and the missionaries helped out.
 *   We received a new recent convert that moved into our area
 *   Found a cockroach in the house….killed it with air freshener spray
 *   A squirrel came in the church and we chased it out
 *   Cleaned the house for 3 hours the first pday here
 *   We are going to start using our first names and using “tu” instead of usted. This is something they are testing out in our mission.  This is only for those who aren’t members of our church.
 *   We ate these things called “hot dogos”.  Lots of different things you can put on them.
 *   We went on a hike with all the youth
 *   We sent a taxi to drop off a book of mormon to someone
 *   Helped a man by giving him lots of cans to sell, then we paid for a taxi for him to go to a homeless shelter
 *   Did the work to get our green cards. I talked to a man named Luciano while doing my green card work and he said he was interested in the book of mormon and that he was going to read it!
 *   We got home and found out that Elder saucedo had the keys.  One of the other elders tried to climb into the house but he ripped his pants on the way. We call the owner and he came to rescue us.
 *   On Pday today, we played soccer and then bought a bunch of food!

Elder Talbot

Pictures

 1.  Picture of the missionaries at the activity
 2.  They lock the Nutella containers up.  I guess they are very popular to steal.

Basketball/Gospel Lesson

 This week has been a great week. We got put into a trio so we have a new Elder named Elder Hall and he's awesome, he loves football.

Service
The best service we had this week was helping the stake youth plant flowers at the draple temple, it was a great experience, as a few nonmembers showed up

Church
This week we were able to bring 7 people to church, and 2 of those(Dayton and Tallon)we had been trying to bring since the day I got here.

Teaching
We also had 2 great opportunities to find and teach 5 youth on the streets with a fun basketball lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We played sports Today for 3 hours as a zone so that was fun. But that's a wrap for this week
Elder Talbot

Baptism

 Hello everybody!

We had a great week this week, but the most memorable thing was definitely the baptisms!

We had the baptisms for Kayla and Phoenix this week and they did awesome! The water was super shallow and they still managed to go all the way under on their first try. It was amazing that they recieved so much support from their family. All their other extended family was there and so there was a huge non-member turnout of about 20 people! We are excited to continue meeting with them to help them progress and we are going to focus and help their mom get baptized as well. She was already baptized in another church and so she didnt see the need to get re-baptized, so we will help her with that.

 

I got word I will be going to the Mexican consulate on May 3rd, and then I will be returning to Chihuahua on May 18th! I got the second dose of the vaccine today and so I am all set to go, once we finish this work here in Sandy! 

Take care and have a great week!

Elder Talbot 

Serving and Loving the Work

 Hey everybody so I forgot to mention last week that I got the first dose of the covid vaccine, so heck yea.

So heres a recap from this last week

We went to a stake conference in person and that was great. We went to the capitol to get some Visa work done for my companion. And we got to see the salt lake city temple under construction.

We Went door knocking with 2 of our ward mission leaders


Our Service for the week

-We had Service at the Bishops storehouse

-We had yard service for multiple members

-We also helped an old man stand up as he had fallen down again as he was walking up the stairs

-We gave service for a non member named Jill and she was so thankful that she actually paid for the cafe rio that a member was going to get us.

-We gave Service to a mother of a daughter who isn't a member, we will be going back to finish the service this week and talk to their daughter.

-We also served a returning member who is the mom of 2 kids that aren't members. -We set up a time to meet with her this week and are excited to get to know them!

-We already have 4 services set up for next week with nonmembers and part member families! So we are really hoping their hearts will be softened and will let us meet and start teaching them and their kids



-We had a great lesson about the plan of salvation with Mason. And right now he says he wants to take baptism slow and he is thinking sometime in august as of right now.

-We will be teaching Victor again tonight in spanish with the sister Missionaries!


Moroni 7:26 is the verse that I want to talk a little bit about

Moroni 7:26
Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.

I love this scripture because it is a promise that if we ask for righteous things, and if it be the will of God, then we will receive what we ask for. We have been praying to find more people to teach through any way possible and that way has been through service.

-The other people that we have been teaching being; Chip, Lexi, Tycen, and Angelina have sadly all had things come up so that we haven't been able to meet with any of them in 2 weeks now. So if you would, please include them in their prayers that we will be able to meet with them again and they will be touched by the spirit. Thank you all and have a great week!


Elder Talbot


Authentic Tacos

And the Salt Lake City temple

Conference

 What a crazy week it has been here! During the Saturday afternoon conference session, we learned that our mission president will be ending his mission a full year early to become a general authority! That's very excitIng for him and we expect to hear him speak at general conference here in the next year or so!

Here's a summary of the week

Food
-We received some delicious Easter meals for both lunch and dinner.

-We went to this all you can eat sushi restaurant called sushi yah. And someone paid for us while we were there

-We ate at chick-fil a in between the saturday conference sessions.

Service
-Cleaned out gutters and raked leaves for another part member family.

-Raked leaves for a lady in a wheelchair

-Helped move heavy concrete out of a yard and into a dumpster.

-We helped the relief Society and helped prepare care packages for the old people in the sunrise branch.

Lessons
- Mason skokos -We taught him the Restoration and we asked him and his dad to be prayerful about an april 24 baptismal date!

-Vicotor Renauld - the nonmember guy from mexico. We taught him in spanish, with the Sister missionaries, the plan of salvation.

General Conference
Conference was amazing and inspiring as always. I just want to talk about my favorite talk, which was from President Nelson on Increasing our faith. There is much to learn from his talk, but what stood out to me the most was the fact that we have to start to increase our faith, Starting Today! This is a direct call to action from the prophet of God. Every day, we need to wake up and decide what are we going to do today that is going to increase our faith in Jesus Christ. And the way we do that is by following the 5 suggestions Template he gave us. The prophet of God himself testified that if you follow that pattern every day, your Faith in Jesus Christ will increase. So I invite you all to follow those 5 suggestions every day by making a specific action plan as to what you are going to do, and also how you are going to do it.

Have a great week full of faith increasing activities and plans!

Elder Talbot

Pictures

1) sushi

2) Meat front the buffet we went to a week ago

3) Conference Food!

Service

 Hey everybody, unfortunately all of our lessons this week that we had planned with all the people we are teaching got postponed to this upcoming week.

But, you can always count on me to have service to talk about, so this week:

 *   We worked in the Bishops storehouse again.
 *   We helped our home owners move in their couches into their house and their old couches into our basement.
 *   With the help of some tools, we helped them move their huge 100-200 lb rocks out of their yard and into a big truck.
 *   We helped move a refrigerator as well as some more furniture into their home, for that part member family.
 *   We did some more yard service for another older part member family
 *   We did have a nice lesson with the recent convert Michael about the word of wisdom.  He is from Colombia and they love their coffee over there so that was fun
 *   We shoveled and rearranged a bunch of dirt
 *   We ripped out 1 plant, 1 small tree
 *   Picked weeds and moved a fireplace to somebody's backyard

I gotta run to a lesson in spanish with a nonmember and the sister missionaries! But have a great week everybody and get pumped for conference this week!



Elder Talbot

Lots of Service and Teaching.

 Alright so this week has been super solid. Let's get right into it

Tomorrow is transfers and I am staying here with my companion Elder Green

We started teaching 4 new people
-Lexi Smith - Shes 9 and is an unbaptized adopted kid.
-Victor Renauld- Hes a catholic from Mexico and he has a family of 5.
-Mason Skokos - He is the unbaptized son of a dad that is reactivating.
-Angelina sandberg - She comes from a part member family. We got to have Elder Costa from the mission presidency join us for the lesson, he shared his conversion story and it went very well. We are super excited to continue meeting with all of these wonderful people.

We had 4 service projects

-We moved a piano then later that night we helped the mother of a part member family move furniture into and out of her house

-We moved 2 couches into a part member family's home.

-Raked leaves, rocks and moved things out of a shed.

-We gave service to another part member family. More raking pine needles.

We went door knocking with our ward mission leader on some part member families homes asking for service and one of them said they would be interested. 

We participated in the Refuge Food Drive.

We met with the recent convert Michael Leone and we had the stake patriarch come and talk to him about what patriarchal blessings are.

We had another lesson with Tycen Hawkins. Him and his family are doing really well and they have a little naea named Sophie who is 3 year old. And she is so sweet because she always comes over to me to hold my hand and rest her head on my shoulder. I love naes:)

So yea that is all the highlights from this week, have a great next week everyone!

Elder Talbot