Cunduacan

Hello Family, (Note from Mary:  This is from Monday, April 11th)

Everything here is going super awesome...and yes it is super sunny. Every day is a good day!!!!

That's very interesting that course you are taking.  I hope you guys find the answers and solutions that you are looking for. No worries....I will be praying for all of you guys. I pray for all of you specifically every day. That is so cool that Jenna got to go to Washington DC. I am very jealous that she has gone to two huge cities with her Choir. I'm glad that she had a fun time. Every time that I travel on a bus here, I remember those trips (long traveling is done on the same types of buses). 

I am also super jealous of Jessica. I really want to be a part of that kind of stuff. It sounds and looks so amazing. I will definitely write her and convince her to go another year. I want to go to school with her!!! I just need to retake that humanities class....right? I can do that right when I get home. Get it done in two...three weeks. (Note from Mary:  Jessica performed in BYU's Folk Dance Concert last weekend and I was able to go up there and see it...sooooo fun!  And Brett is commenting on my questions about next year...because I always think a year ahead!!!)

I'll check into the scholarship, and start practicing every morning as I get ready. I might annoy my companion, but he is really cool and I think he'll understand. I am not sure what job I want when I get home. But I want to work hard, and earn a lot of money. The assistant Elder Johnson offered me to go and work with him on a ranch in Idaho during the summer. He says they pay super well, and that it is hard work, but a lot of fun. I would also like to maybe lifeguard. I would really like to doNauvoo, but I'm just not sure. I feel like it is time to move on with my life....but at the same time, it is sooo amazing.

Anyways.....right now everything is going very well here in the mission. Today we had transfers, (I only have 6 transfers left!!!!) but my companion and I are staying together. This is the first time that I have had a companion for more than one transfer!!! I am very excited because we get along super well. In the zone we only had four changes in companionships. We are super excited because we are just making a few more adjustments, and our zone is going to do really well this transfer. We are all pumped to work super hard and find a ton of people. Last month as a zone we baptized 16...and now we have a goal for 20. Really, I think that we can have more...but we'll see how that goes.

Last week flew by! Time is just flying by!!! I now only have 9 months left.

On Wednesday we had mission council. It was awesome. We started en the Temple at 8:00 in the morning. That was so wonderful to be in the Temple again. I learn so much everytime I go...and I now have the last part memorized in Spanish:) After the Temple we had the council. We talked about the missions problems and how to fix them. One of the biggest problems that we saw is that we are finding a lot of new investigators, but not many come to church. We came up with a new teaching model to help investigators understand the importance of coming to church and participating in the sacrament. I really believe that this will help us have more investigators at church every week. We will see in the next month.

On Thursday we had our zone class. It was another success. Elder de los Cobos and I were up until 2:00 in the morning planning everything. It turned out really well and really spiritual. Towards the end we had a really spiritual moment. I sang Where Love Is, while my companion played the piano...and after, we asked everyone to share what the fest when they thought about and remembered their own baptisms. Several missionaries were crying. I then gave a firm testimony about our calling as missionaries. That what we experienced in our baptisms, we have the power to create those experiences in the lives of everyone we teach. It was awesome.

That night I went to Cunduacan to do interviews for the sisters. They had a family of six. I only did two interviews on Thursday night because the rest of the family wasn't there. I stayed with Elder Chavesta and Elder Barajas on Friday, and Friday night I did the rest of the interviews. Then a member took us back to Comalcalco. It was a great day working with them. We got lost looking on our way to the lunch appointment, and ended up walking like four miles in the wrong direction. Then we had to walk all the way back. Eventually we found the house, and they gave us tostadas!!!! It was super good.

On Friday I was with my companion again, and we had an awesome day. We found Cidel. She was very receptive and accepted baptism. The only problem with her is that she is always working. She is going to talk to her boss to see if she can get a couple hours off in order to get baptized. So that will be happening this week or the next.

We are also teaching a couple and their son. Raul, Fanny and...I can't remember their sons name, but he 8 years old and is super cool. They are progressing and want to get baptized, but they just haven't come to church yet. We are working with them this week to get them to church. Elder de los Cobos and I have made a goal to find two new families this week. Big ones:) We want to start baptizing more.

Sunday was an amazing day. One of our investigators stood up and bore her testimony!!! She cried and was so full of the Spirit. It was awesome. On tuesday she is moving to Tiajana, so she will be getting baptized there.

Anyways...this week was awesome, and next week is going to be even better.

I love you all and wish you an amazing week!!!!

Love,

Elder Cavenee

General Conference!

Hello Everyone, (Note from Mary:  this is from Monday, April 4th)

It's good to hear about what's going on back at home. I'm sorry for all of the problems.  I understand that life sometimes can and will be stressful and hard. Full of challenges. But....all of those challenges and hard times are to help us become more like Christ. I pray for you all everyday so that you can all have the strength to overcome the problems that come into your lives.

That is really amazing all that is going on with Jackson. Although he has many setbacks, and a long way to go for full recovery....I think this experience was a for the best. We all strengthened our faith...we know that miracles still exist. We are witnesses of many, that have passed in the past couple weeks. Jackson has become closer to his spiritual side...improving his spiritual talents, and having those sacred experiences.

No worries about the call. Everything was working perfectly on my end. I could see and hear you all....I don't know what the problem was. Oh well....it was good to see you all and listen to your voices. I Love you all!!!

How about that weekend? That was one of the most inspirational weekends that I have had on my mission, and by far my favorite General Conference. As a missionary it is a little stressful because we are worrying about investigators coming, and we were in charge of setting up the church....so it was really stressful at the beginning, but once it started.....I received an overwhelming peace that calmed me down. It was wonderful. Saturday I watched the first two sessions in Spanish. I watched the priesthood session and the two sessions on Sunday in English. It was great.

Russell M Nelson gave an amazing talk in the priesthood session. The Price of Priesthood Power. He taught us that as priesthood holders we are not living up to our potential. One thing that he said hit me really hard ''In a coming day, only those men who have taken their priesthood seriously, by diligently seeking to be taught by the Lord Himself, will be able to bless, guide, protect, strengthen, and heal others. Only a man who had paid the price for priesthood power will be able to bring miracles to those he loves and keep his marriage and family safe, now and throughout eternity''.  ''If we will humbly present ourselves before the Lord and ask Him to teach us, He will show us how to increase our access to His power''. It made me think about what I am doing to strengthen and grow my priesthood. I still have a long way to go. I am now going to search this teaching from the Lord to learn how to increase my access to His power.

And on Sunday....Elder Holland's talk was my favorite. ''Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever.'' Our desire to do good, if we try, we can be changed by the atonement of Jesus Christ. He will help us to keep going. God loves us....He really does. I feel and see that love in the lives of everyone I teach here. God wants us to change, and that is why he Gave us His son.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that anyone can be changed by applying the principles of that Gospel to their lives. Anyone. Not a single one of us is alone in this world. Se con todo mi corazon que somos hijos de Dios. El nos reservo para esta época. Somos sus mas fuertes, preparado a enfrentar los mas difíciles situaciones. Y no lo tenemos que hacer solos. Nuestro hermano Jesucristo esta a nuestro lado en cada momento. Se que todo eso es verdad. Lo se sin ninguna duda.

I love you all. I love being in the mission. I love life.

I wish you all a wonderful and spirit filled week. I'll talk to you all soon.

Love,

Elder Cavenee

P.S. Sorry....I didn't take any pictures this week.

Cardenas Pictures!

Note from Mary:  Brett was able to facetime us for a little bit on Monday, Feb. 28th so that his brother could gain some memory back by seeing him.   Hence, no letter this week but he sent pictures!!!

This is from Monday, Feb. 28th

Cardenas Week 3/Baptism!

Dear Family, (Note from Mary:  This is from Monday Feb. 21st)

How is everyone doing? It is great to hear about the progress of Jackson, and that he is out of the Hospital now!!!! Honestly I think the best rehab would be to just relax with the people that love him the most. Were the videos that you sent me from his rehab home? Did they give you a definite response in how long he has to be there?

Congratulations Vanessa on your speech. Did you guys record it? I would love to see some of it:) How is piano going? I miss you:) Jenna, how is your manfriend? How are you doing? I miss you. All of the Elders that see our family pictures always comment on how beautiful you both are:)

I'm sorry for all of the stress that it has been on all of you. I know that I don't feel any of it being here, so busy, but I imagine that it is very difficult for all of you. I want you to know that my companion and I pray for you all...all the time. My companion knows a little about what is going on.

My companion is the coolest guy ever. My favorite companion:) He is from México, and has 7 months in the mission. He is an awesome teacher, and a wonderful companion. We don't get to spend a ton of time together, because we do a lot of divisions, but we always miss each other. Right now our zone is the second best in the mission (not like it's a competition...okay maybe a little). The best zone in the mission is Carmen, and they have always been the best, but we have plans to pass them up. We'll see how that goes. Right now we are working on helping all of the Elders in the zone to invite their investigators to be baptized in the first lesson. We have several elders that are still afraid to do it, so we spend time in divisions with them showing them how it is done, and helping them feel more comfortable doing it.

This week was another crazy week of finding, teaching, interviewing, sweating, getting dehydrated...all of the good stuff. And.....we baptized!!!! We baptized an investigator named Marcial. It was a really neat experience. On Thursday, a sister in our ward told us that she wanted us to teach her brother. He had been taught by missionaries before, and has come to church, but just didn't want to change his life, and habits. His sister told us that she wanted us to visit with him and see if we could help him with his problems. We went on Friday, and taught him. We started by showing him the video Hallelujah. Then we talked to him about the Holy Ghost and what He is in our lives. We talked to Marcial about how the Holy Ghost can help him in his life, and asked him if he really wanted to change. He said that he did want to change his life around, and become a better example for his little boys. We then....following the Spirit, invited him to be baptized on Saturday, and he accepted!!!! I had the privilege to baptize him on Saturday. It was wonderful. All of his family were there. They were all so happy because they are all members, and he is the only one that has not been baptized. He told us that he has been taught by missionaries for years, and until the day we had visited him, he had never felt the Spirit that strong. He is very excited to start a new life. It is wonderful.

We have another baptism planned for this Saturday as well. We have been working on getting all of the areas baptizing every week....and this week only two areas don't have dates. We are going to be working with them to see if we can save some baptismal dates.

It has been very hot here. The heat months are getting closer. I've been told that Comalcalco is the hottest place in the mission. We'll see:) Today was a nice break. It rained and the weather cooled down.

Things are going really good here. I am really loving the mission. I love my area, zone, companion...everything. It is awesome.

I continue to pray for you all.

Love you tons,

Elder Cavenee

p.s. I'll send the pictures in a moment:)

Cardenas Week 2

Hey Guys,  (Note from Mary:  This is from Monday, Mar. 14th)

I'm sorry that this is going to be a little shorter that last week because I don't have as much time, but I'll get in all the detail that I can.

First of all, I am so happy to hear how you are all doing. It seems like you are all keeping very busy back at home. I can't believe that we are already halfway through March. Time is just flying by.

This week was just as crazy as last week. On Monday, we had giant Nerf war in the church for like three hours. It was awesome!!!

Tuesday was the only day that I was able to work in my area with my companion. Like always, we worked really hard. We found this couple, Andres and Martha. They are golden investigators. The only problem with them is that they are not married. We cannot baptize them until they are married. So...we looked up all of the information and helped them find all of their papers. Then we found out that Andres was married before. He separated from his wife, but never got divorced. That was three years ago, so now we are trying to help him get his divorce papers from her, so that he can get married to Martha. That process takes like a month, so we have to wait for all of that to go through. Andres and Martha want to be baptized so bad. They come to church every week and are doing everything that they can to complete with that goal. they are awesome.

At 8:00 our lesson fell through, so we went contacting. I contacted this house, and a drunk guy answered the door. We asked if anyone else was there, and he was with his 8year old daughter. Realizing that he was the only adult home, and that he was drunk, we told them that we would come back later. This guy got a little mad and told us to come in. We told him we would come back another day, but he insisted that we come in and teach him. He finally threatened us that if we didn't come in, he would shoot us with his pistol. That scared us and we didn't know what to do, so we went in. We sat down and he offered us food. We told him we were okay, and he threatened us again. He told us if we didn't eat, he would shoot us with his pistol. He sent his daughter in the kitchen to prepare the food. He then told us to go help her. So, we went into the kitchen and started helping Miriam. She told us not to worry because her dad didn't have a gun. She told us that she lived there with her dad and her 12 year old brother. We asked if her dad drank a lot, and she told us that sometimes he does. She was very sweet. We packaged the food up, and were getting ready leave when the dad asked us to give his children blessings. We gave them blessings. It was a Spirit filled moment. At the end, I was crying, my companion was crying and the dad was crying. He promised that he was going to stop drinking and that he would try to be a better dad. We set up an appointment with him for Friday. It was an awesome experience.

Wednesday we went to district class in Cárdenas to visit the other district. Elder Enriquez (my second companion) is district leader there. He gave a really good district class and we introduced the new video from the church for Easter. It's called ''Hallelujah'' https://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_SU_3-13-2016_dMIS_fSPC_xLIDyL1-A_. It is really good. Post it on facebook and share it with everyone. We are using it here now to find new investigators. It is really good. After district class, Elder de los Cobos stayed in Cardenas, and I went back to my area with Elder Antauywa. I spent the day working with him. It was super fun. I taught him how to be more effective in his lessons, and to be able to invite to baptism without fear. He gets very nervous when it comes to inviting to baptism, so we taught a lot of lesson 1 inviting them all to baptism. He got a lot better by the end of the day, and we some improvement in their area in the rest of the week.

On Thursday, Elder Antauywa went back to his area with his companion, and I went to Petrolera to do interviews for the sisters. My companion was in Cunduacan in other divisions, so I took Elder Dimas with me. It was really fun. We went out to a little pueblo and met Sister Longi and Sister Freire to do their interviews. I interviewed a 12 year old boy named Jonathan. He was super cool, and was super ready for his baptism. His mom gave us pozol (corn dough blended with water) with peanuts. It was super good. I'm pretty sure that none of you would like it, but it is delicious.  

Afterwards, we went outside and took pictures in the field that was right outside of his house. Then we headed into Cardenas to meet with another investigator of the sisters. I spent almost two hours talking with this mom and her son. They had decided that they wanted to wait longer to get baptized. I talked with them for two hours about the Holy Ghost and influence that it has in our lives. We talked about the blessings that come from obedience, and the blessings that come from having the Holy Ghost in your life forever. With the help of the Spirit, they let go of their fears, and decided to be baptized this week. After we finished the interviews, we went out and ate tacos. Tacos al pastor. They are seriously the best tacos I have ever eaten in my life, and they do not exist in the United States. That night we stayed with Elder Chavesta and Elder Barajas.

Friday morning we headed back to Comalcalco, and Elder Dimas stayed with me working in our area. Elder de los Cobos was with Elder Alejandro (president's secratary) visiting other areas and trying to save baptismal dates. We found some really cool people. We went and visited Miriam, and her dad again. This time he wasn't drunk. We taught them lesson 1 and they accepted baptism for this Saturday. We are going to visit them again tomorrow.

Sorry, I don't have much time left.

Saturday was a normal working day.

Sunday I gave a talk in church about missionary work between members and missionaries. We had three investigators at church....130 members. At night we had ward choir practice. It was great.

This week was crazy, but it feels so good to work so hard. I hardly have time to think about myself, or be with my companion.

I Love you all so much!!!

Love,

Elder Cavenee

Baptismal interviews

Random Picture I found on my camera