Miracles in McAllen, TX

Teaching and Baptizing in McAllen, TX


Hello everyone!

Greetings from the great state of Texas. The weather is cooling down, poco a poquito! But it’s still a little warm. It’s only supposed to be 85 the next few days, I think. We don’t get too much update for the weather, just what we hear on the radio in the gym. We go to the gym every morning.

So this past week was a quiet week. It was nice to feel as if it was a relaxing week. We never had to go to the airport or anything, except one day we got bombarded with cosas. But Monday we saw an awesome miracle with this lady we are teaching, RITA. We found her a few weeks back because her son wanted to use our phone and then we talked with her and she gave us homemade empanadas dulces. It was cool and we set up a time to stop by, but never had the chance to go by. We tried going back one time and knocked on her neighbor’s door on accident, and then started teaching the neighbor, and now she is getting baptized tomorrow, haha that’s a cool story. But with RITA, she came to church last week and loved it and the week before we set a BD with her, but it was pretty soft. Well, Monday we stopped by her house so we could walk to the member’s house nearby and have a lesson with them. As we were walking up to the door, she explained how much she liked church and how much her daughter did too. She explained how she talked with her kids about church and stuff, and then said how much she can’t wait for her baptism on Dec 11! Wow! It was so awesome to hear that because she wasn’t super solid before, but now she’s great. She talks as if she’s already a member. And she even talked about how she can’t wait to get a calling in the church and stuff. Super cool! And she has two children that we are working with as well. Super excited!

Monday we also taught BLANCA who is getting baptized tomorrow! She is super excited and super ready to change her life. She has been through a lot and wants this change very much. We had some great lessons with her and she was interviewed and passed and is ready for everything. We planned the program with her and printed it off and now it’s the home push for her. She’s getting baptized on Saturday because Sunday we are going to busy all day! There is a memorial service for Elders Walker and Strong, so we are going to be at church till 4:00, then at the memorial service till 7:30. It’s going to be interesting the memorial service. The missionaries are all going to sing “Called to Serve” in both English and Spanish and then President and Sister Trayner are going to speak. It’ll be good.

So me personally with all of this… Well I’m doing well. It’s hard sometimes when I think about things that Elder Walker and I did together, but I know he’s in a better place. Elder Vazquez struggled a little, but we are working through it. We’ve been through a lot, but things that obviously the Lord needed us to go through. It’s interesting how much the church is growing down here from this accident. People are coming up to the missionaries saying sorry about what happened and becoming interested in the church. Cool story, this lady came in the office after the accident and was all “I was taught by Elder Strong, and when he taught me I knew it was true, but never got baptized. But I want to get baptized now, can you send the missionaries over?” Super cool! Our area is a lot poorer so we haven’t gotten too many experiences like that, but last night we had a cool one. We were walking back to our car when this family was walking by and they were walking pretty fast, but we called out to them and talked to them. At first the lady was talking and still walking away a little but I said ”can we just leave you a card” and she accepted. Then she said “I heard about the accident and I’m really sorry for you all” And we said thanks and then quickly explained how the things we share have brought us comfort in this time and we understand why we are here on this earth and where we go. And we saw a change in her and she gave us her address and we are going by tomorrow to teach her and her family. So we are excited for her family! We also found this other great family who we are going by on Monday. So things are getting rolling. It’s been a little tough working wise, but things are calming down, but starting next week things are going to pick up again and the month of Diciembre will be really busy!
But, Wednesday was an interesting day. We got to the office and President asked if we could take Elder Harris down to Brownsville to see the doctor. So we waited around until he finished his interviews and went to Brownsville. It was weird because that’s where all my memories with Elder Walker are. We went to the same doctor’s office that we took Elder Walker to one time. But Elder Harris got his staples and stitches out and is doing great; he came out and worked with us that day.

Yesterday was a busy day, kind of. It was cold - it only got up to about 69. Haha, cold for here. We went out and helped some members with their car troubles, but couldn’t do much. We had a great day planned, but for some reason our whole night fell through, even the member lesson. But that happens and it's all good! And today we have a good day planned. We are going by our favorite people we are teaching. I feel like I kind of ramble in these letters, but that’s ok. Something interesting I realized is how I still learned things from Elder Strong, even after he passed away. We had to go last week and clean out the apartment and I found his journal and just opened up, I didn’t read anything, but he had written almost every day in it. And it was just an example to me and since then I’ve tried hard to write in my journal, still tough some nights because we come home exhausted, but I know I need to.

Well that’s about it for this week. I love you all! I miss you all!

-Elder Stone

Preaching the Gospel in McAllen

We've experienced some interesting things and this is going to be a sad email so fair warning.

This week we've experienced some things that only happen once in life. We were able to meet with a general authority and do some other interesting things. I’ll go through day by day on what went down and how it happened. Well last Sunday we struggled a little in church. I think we had three people come. One of the girls we are teaching is progressing very well and should be getting baptized in about two weeks, on the 20th, so a little less than two weeks. We are super excited and had a great lesson with her last night as well. But Monday came around and we were excited to pick up elder Zivic.

Monday we picked up our fresh suits right from the dry cleaners and changed and around 2:50 went to the airport and picked up Elder Zivic and his wife. It was a cool feeling seeing them walk up. He hugged President Trayner right away and then shook our hands and hugged us. It was cool. We talked all about who we are where we are from and todo. Then we split ways again for a while and finished things up in the office. Then we went back to president's house around six and had a private meeting with Elder Zivic. We sat down together and he asked a bunch of questions about the mission and the missionaries and things we are doing. It was cool to have close interaction with him. Then we went after and had a lesson with Blanca, our investigator who is getting baptized the 20th. Then Tuesday we had a zone conference with all the missionaries in the valley. About 1:30, so it was cool to be able to see everyone, including Elder Walker and Elder Strong. I remember saying hi to Elder Walker and giving him a hug before the conference started. Then we had the conference and it went super great! I was nervous at first but we gave our training in front of everyone. We talked about the mission goals for 2011 and the goals for 2012, everyone seemed super excited! And I felt we did really well. Then we went back on the stand until Elder Zivic gave his talk and training. He talked about the purpose of missionary work, and how to be the most successful we can be. In all! It was super cool. And then his second training after lunch he talk more about that and how to effectively teach. He called on a volunteer and gave a demonstration, sure enough that volunteer was Elder Walker. After the training ended we all said our goodbyes and packed up and went up to Laredo following President and Sister Trayner and the Zivics. We finally made it up to Laredo in about three hours. And Elder Zivic began to give a devotional for the members over there.

Towards the end of his talk, we got two missed calls and a text message saying that "the elders in Weslaco have been in an accident". Elder Vasquez and I got up right away and walked out to find Sister Trayner. She had stepped out too and we were talking to her about what happened and trying to find out details. All we knew is that three elders had been hit on bikes and were in the hospital now. We didn't know who or any details. We were calling around trying to find details but nothing was coming and Elder Zivic was still talking so we couldn't interrupt the meeting. Then we got a call from Elder Rios, a senior couple elder who works with the cars. He was on his way up to Laredo to do car inspections the next day. Elder Rios was freaking out on the phone saying he had to talk to president, now. We explained he was in the meeting and couldn't talk but he kept saying how two elders had died in the accident. We didn't believe it. He gave names and everything, but we still didn't believe it. President Trayner was walking in and out of the meeting and I saw him lean over to Elder and Sister Zivic and tell them something and it looked like Sister Zivic was crying, but still didn't believe it. The meeting ended and I walked up to president and asked if he knew that.. and he stopped me and said I know what happened let’s not talk about it now. And it became a reality. I walked out of the room starting to cry and Elder Vasquez came up to me and asked what happened and I couldn't talk and as I started to tell him i couldn't hold back and we both just started crying. It was tough cuz no other missionaries knew and we couldn't tell them. It took time but we collected ourselves as missionaries came up to us. And then we saw Sister Trayner running down the hall toward us where president was meeting with the Zivics. She was crying and ran into the room and shut the door and just broke down. We could hear her through the walls and it was heart breaking. We started crying more. We eventually pulled everything together, the night went on and arrangements were being made and President and Sister Trayner had to leave that night to go back to McAllen. He told us he wanted us to tell everyone the next day in the conference. We all ate dinner together and Elder Zivic hugged us and then the Trayners took us all to the hotel and then they left. We stayed in their room which was different, but cool.

The next day, Wednesday, we went and had breakfast at the hotel and then packed everything up and drove the Zivics to the chapel, we still needed to put on the conference. At that point lots of missionaries knew cuz news got out quick on television and members called. It was hard to have to deal with it and hold up strong in front of all the missionaries. Wednesday at the beginning of conference Edler Vasquez got up and explained why President and Sister Tryaner weren't there and what had happened the night before. I couldn't hold back and just started to cry again and so did everyone there. It was hard. But then Elder Zivic gave some remarks and brought the spirit really strong. He said that it is an interesting time because they just received training on how to be the best missionaries they could be and now they are preaching the gospel up there. The conference was tough, but it went well. We had all the missionaries at the end write notes for the families and Elder and Sister Zivic left to the airport. Elder Zivic gave us hugs and told us he loved us. It was cool. Then we traveled back to McAllen. We got home late, planned and went to bed.

The next day, yesterday, was super busy. We came into the office and saw Elder Harris, the other missionary. He left the hospital Tuesday nigh with some stitches. It was interesting cuz we finally found his name tag in the stuff and it had been punctured by something and had a hole in it and was all dented in almost all the way through. The name tags sit right over our hearts, so it saved his life. But we went to their apartment and collected everything to send home to the parents, it was tough.

Last night we did have a great lesson with Blanca. She was struggling on understanding the answer to her prayers. We helped her realize the importance of the BOM and how her answer was going to come. Then we all knelt and prayed and she asked if these things were true and all that. Then we sat in silence and waited. She explained that she received her answer. It was super cooool!!!!

I love you all. It’s weird because through all of this, I haven't been too upset cuz of the understanding we have from the gospel. It’s crazy how much comfort it brings, I don’t know how people do it without the knowledge we know. I miss you all and I love you all.

-Elder Stone