July 11, 2011
Hey Hey Hey guys!

How is everything? I hope all is well. This past week here in Edinburg has been great. We've further learned the importance of members in missionary work. We've seen success and that’s because we've worked with the members to become better and as well to give our investigators fellowship they need. The zone as well picked it up this past week and we were excited to see that. This past week we had a bunch of meetings Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The meetings were pretty much all day and just for the leaders in the mission. It made it tough to work our area, but that’s ok. We still saw some miracles and really helped some of our people to progress. Super excited! We learned a lot at the meetings. And now we need to take what we learned and apply it and help the zone apply it. Since we are zone leaders, we have to give trainings at every training we get. So this past one we gave a training on the importance of teaching people and not lessons. We focused on asking inspired questions and listening. We used the story of Aaron from Alma 22. It was good. Aaron was successful because he asked inspired questions, listened and opened up the scriptures. And so that’s what Elder Vasquez and I applied and that’s what Elder Simmons and I are applying. We've seen lots of success from it. The scriptures are powerful and it’s like having a Prophet with you to teach. A missionary here that I really look up to, who goes home next week, once said "a successful missionary knows how to ask questions and knows their scriptures." That’s very true. So that’s something I’ve worked on ever since. But we've taught a lot this past week and have tried to bring a member from the ward with us every second lesson.

We've been teaching this lady. She's older and she's studied with tons of different religions and been baptized twice. She reads from the BOM every time we leave a chapter, and she likes it. But she has lots of stories and likes to talk. We felt that she wasn't really progressing and when we went by Saturday, we tried to have a good focused lesson. She just kept saying how she didn’t want to baptize again and how she learned all this other stuff from other people. Stuff that doesn't show too much interest. So at the end of the lesson it turned into a drop lesson. We told her if she didn't come to church tomorrow that we couldn't keep coming by. She said she probably wasn't going to come. It was a big bummer. But we called her yesterday before church and she said she was coming. We called the member for her ride and the member said Aurora had already called her and everything. That was great to see and she came to church yesterday which was awesome and we are going to keep teaching her.

We ended up having 12 people at church, just me and my comp. That’s a huge week that we received a ton of help from the Lord. The coolest thing is, out of those twelve people, 11 have bds so they’re not just random people. We are teaching this big family right now. The dad is a less active member and he has like 8 kids, five of which have bds for the 31st. They've came to church twice, but they are worried. They are all girls and so we think it’s just a little shy doubt kind of thing. We are hopefully going to clear that up so we can help them come unto Christ. It was cool to have them all at church again and sitting by all them. As well we found this guy, who is super cool and progressing a ton. He was a blessing from the Lord because he is just super ready for the gospel. The second lesson we had with him we brought a member and ever since then he's been great. The member went by his house without us and got his number and picked him up for church and everything! That’s how we need every member to be! It’s awesome. Hel loves everything we teach and share and can’t wait for his baptism. He used to be a luchador (mexican wrestler) so thats cool too. We are also teaching this member’s little sisters who are 11 and 9. They have bds for the 24 of July. It’s so great to see the success and feel the Lord's trust and love. Most of the people we teach and talk to are in spanish. Out of the 12 people at church, 9 of them were in Spanish, so that’s really cool, too.

As well, we have a baptism coming up next week. Another miracle that the Lord gave us. It’s this boy. His parents were baptized about a year ago and he was eight. His mom didn't feel he was ready then. But he just turned nine on Saturday and we are going to help him get baptized next Sunday. Super excited for that!

Edinburg is great. The zone is getting better and we are super excited. But oh, we get fed a lot now. My comp is awesome. And I Miss you all and I love you all.

-Elder Stone