River and Stake Conference

Hello Family!!!!  (Note from  Mary:  this is from Monday, May 16th)

I hope that you have all had a wonderful week, because I sure did. Jenna, I am so excited for your graduation this week. I´m so proud of you!!! I wish I could be there. Your anouncement is awesome! 

You´re going to study dentistry? I didn´t know that....I´ve been thinking about maybe studying that too.

Going to California again? Have tons of fun and swim a ton for me....I really miss swimming. Take lots of pictures!!!

Dad, that fathers and sons sounds like it was a blast. I have so many memories from those with you. Thanks for being such an amazing dad. I Love you. I don´t think I´ve told you enough. You rock. All of you rock, and I miss you guys:( But hey, only 8 months left and in reality, the time is going to fly by.

So this week was wonderful. We found a ton of new investigators, several of them are amazing. We are also continuing with a couple others, that are progressing and really experiencing the changes that come with living the Gospel. Elder Velasquez and I get along really well, and teaching together is so natural because we get along so well. It´s awesome. The ward here is one of my favorite wards that I have been in. The members are so nice and they are always looking for ways to help us out. I love it....missionary work is so much easier with the help of members.

On Tuesday morning we had district class. We focused a lot on contacting people. How we should talk with everyone that we see, and always from the start, share with them about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then we had practices. My companion and I practiced with one of the assistants, teaching lesson 1. It was a really good lesson, and everything flowed together really nicely. After we finished, we asked the Elder what we needed to do to improve, he told us that the only thing was to include more questions for the investigator. But other than that, he said that we have it down. That was really cool coming from an assistant.

Later that day we traveled out to a little pueblo to eat lunch with a less active family. They made some really good tacos, and mole. It was delicious. While we were eating, one of their neighbors came in. So we invited her to eat with us (here, you always invite others to eat if you are eating). Her name is Karina and she is friends with Christina (the member). As we were eating, we started talking a little about what we do, and she was very interested. We shared a video with her, and invited her to an activity of the relief society the next day, and she accepted.

The next day we met her and Christina in the church and taught Karina lesson 1. She totally accepted the Book of Mormon, coming to church, and Baptism. We set her date for the 21st. She was so excited. On Friday she came by herself to a ward activity (i´ll explain the activity in a minute) and went to institute!!! Sunday was stake conference (i´ll explain that in a minute also) and she traveled two hours, on her own to come!!!! She loved it. She is seriously a golden investigator. She has accepted everything we are teaching her, and is progressing. We are very excited for her.

Do you guys remember the family that i told you about last week? Lady and her two daughters Suary and Patricia...they had an amazing week. On Thursday night, we had some plans, but we were running behind and did not have time to head over to the appointment we had. We called and cancelled it and went to visit this family. We had a sister in the ward that was working with us, so we went over to this family's house. When we got there, this sister and Lady greeted each other very surprised. They are old friends and know each other really well. It was an amazing lesson because this sister is a single mom that was converted 2 years ago. She related perfectly to Lady. It was awesome. We also invited them to come to the ward activity the next day. On Friday, they showed up and absolutely enjoyed the activity. They couldn´t come to church yesterday because Lady had to work, but we visited them last night. And what they shared with us was more miracles in their lives and answers to prayers. One of the things she shared with us is that she talked to her boss about Sunday´s and wanting to go to church. Turns out that her boss is a sister in the stake, and was so happy to find out that she was listening to us!!! She got permission to come to church next week. Her and her daughters are all very excited!! It's the best.

On Friday we had a ward activity. The stake music director is in the other ward that comes to the same building, and she put together a restoration musical. Somehow she heard about me and called me up asking me to sing in the choir and a few solos. It was super last minute, but I did it and it was super fun. The activity was awesome. There is a sister in the other ward who is famous or something....she sings really well. After the activity she performed some of her songs from her CD. It was awesome. We had 5 investigators in the activity!!! It was a big success.

Saturday we went to Teapa again to visit less active members over there. We are working with a really awesome family to help all these people come back to church. At lunchtime, they took us to the river. It was so beautiful. We were by this river in the mountains. It was so beautiful and awesome!!! I´ll send pictures.

Sunday was Stake Conference and I was again asked to sing in the choir. We were visited by a member of the area seventy. He was awesome. He talked about dedicating our families and making traditions not of the world, but of the church. It was amazing. He said that all priesthood holders should be attending the temple every week, and studying the Book of Mormon daily. He talked about the traditions of his family. Fasting and paying a fast offering every week, family home evening every week, giving service to the community once a month. All that stuff. It was very powerful, and you could really feel that Spirit. I got to see all of the members from Frontera in Conference.

It was so good to see them all. They were all so excited too. I almost cried realizing how much they lovedme. It was really special to see them again. I also saw several of my converts too. It was awesome.

Sorry, I´m out of time...but I am doing great!!! I hope that you all have a wonderful week and all stay safe with all of your activities.

I Love you all!!!!

Elder Cavenee

River Pictures