Thanksgiving Week

Hey Family,                                                  Monday, November 21, 2016

So.....here in México Christmas has officially started. In church on Sunday we sang Christmas hymns, and I broke out the Christmas music in the house. I know that it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but we don't celebrate that here so....Christmas here we come!!!

Can you believe that I only have six weeks left!!! What!!! Do you know how fast six weeks passes? Really fast, and even faster when Christmas is coming. I can't believe it....I still have so much that I have to learn and do. I have a couple more goals that I need to meet before my time is up....but I'm almost there.

This week was great. On Thursday I went back to Hidalgo (my old area) in divisions. It was awesome. I worked with Elder Jensen. He is a new missionary that just got here two weeks ago. He is a great guy from Georgia. He comes from a family of five and is the youngest, but also the first missionary. We had a great day together. Special experience: We were walking down a street looking for a contact that they had made the other day when we passed a house of a family that I was teaching when I was there. As we were passing, I saw one of the daughters of this family, and when she saw me, she ran inside and the out came her entire family. Obviously we went over to talk to them. I quickly found out that after I left, the missionaries stopped visiting them. But, they totally remembered me. They invited us inside and we taught them lesson one. They came to church on Sunday!!! I also got to visit another sister that I was teaching two years ago. Mayra....it turns out that she got baptized shortly after I left. It was very special for me to see that and to be able to visit her.

On Tuesday I was in divisions with Elder Maldonado. He is from Cuahila....a state underneath Texas. Really cool guy. As we were working, it started raining....not just raining, but absolutely down pouring. In seconds we were soaked to the bone....but we just kept walking. All of the morning appointments fell through, so we were looking for someone to teach...but nobody was outside (for obvious reasons) so we just got soaked. When we got to our lunch appointment, the sister made us take off our shoes and socks, and gave us towels to dry off. Although it was very cold, that was one of my favorite days of the week. Not sure why, but it was awesome.

Lunch

Lunch while we were soaked

Wednesday we had interviews with President Haws. It was great to see him and talk to him again. They only thing that he said to me was ''Elder Cavenee, great work. You are working hard and finishing strong. Now, do not take your foot off the gas pedal. Keep it up until the end.'' In the conference we talked about using converts and investigators as a way to find new investigators by asking them for references. My companion and I are still working on that, but we'll get there:) We also talked about the Christmas Initiative that starts on December 1st. The video is amazing and will be available on mormon.org this Friday!!!!! Watch it!!!! Mom, I was talking to Sister Haws, and she told me that an Elder Knudson from Missouri just got to the mission. Do we know them? She said that his family has a whole performance thing. I feel like we know them, but I can't remember. The name is so familiar.

Our Zone

This week we did not baptize....but we did have 11 investigators at church!!! We also have 4 baptisms planned for December 2nd, 10th and 17th. Our goal now is to give follow up to all 11 of those investigators, and hopefully invite all of them to baptism this week. We'll see how that goes.

President gave me permission to go to Palanque in December. Palanque is where the giant ruins are....and I haven't been. I never was in an area close to there. So that will be awesome.

We are going to have a 70 come and visit us. We have a special conference with him next Wednesday the 30th and then us zone leaders have our mission leadership council with him on December 3rd....that Saturday. I'm also going to ask permission to go to the temple on December 10th. One more time before I go home.

So....on Thursday I invite all of you that are in the United States to remember everything that you are grateful for. It's actually something that we should do every day when we kneel before our Heavenly Father before going to bed. Thank Him for the blessings that you have in your life. One of my greatest friends once asked me ''What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for Today?''. Sometimes we are so caught up in what we need, that we forget to give thanks for what we have. Heavenly Father loves us, and has blessed each one of us with so many things. I invite you all, and I will do the same, to say a prayer of thanks, and only thanks, for the blessings that you have. And this week, take moments out of every day to notice the little miracles that are always passing in your lives. God is great.

I hope you all have an amazing week:) I Love you all!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Cavenee

Grafiti in Mexico

This is how we dry our shoes here

They don't have a lot of toilet seats here.....but when they do....

The leaves are HUGE here!