1/29/2018
Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well! Last Saturday we recieved
transfers, and I'm out of Leon! It was a shock since I was planning on
finishing Elder Martinez's training. I was really sad about leaving
since we had been having a lot of success recently. But they called me
as zone leader in Querétaro, so I guess the Lord needs me here. I'm
excited to start working here. My companion is Elder Rubio, and
everyone says he's one of the best missionaries in the mission. He's
fantastic, and we've been getting along great! Anyways, I hope everyone
has a great week! Love you all!
2/5/2018
It was definitely a surprise getting transferred, but I couldn't have
asked for a better situation to be in. The area here in Querétaro is
called Colinas, and it's the best area I've had as far as missionary
work goes. It's so much more relaxed in this area. My area in Leon was
the downtown kind of and it was always super busy. It's a nice change.
This week we found 9 new investigators, and we have a baptism coming up
on the 17th. The members here are fantastic, and we recieve a lot of
support from them. My companion is Elder Rubio. He's from Puebla, and
has about 16 months in the mission. He's experienced, and I've been
learning a lot from him. Especially about being a leader. I've been
learning when to be strict, and when to let people do things on their
own. It's been really interesting. I helped make tamales this week
with some members, and it was pretty fun. They taste pretty amazing.
I've been praying for Grandma, and included her in my fast this week. I
will continue to do so, and I'm glad her first surgery went well. I
went and played basketball this morning, and holy smokes, I'm out of
shape haha. I can walk all day no problem, but the moment I start
running it's rough haha. Things here are going well, except that they
cut our power Friday, and we won't be able to pay it until Wednesday
haha. But it's all good!
Elder Cherpeski
2/12/2018
I'm sad I'm missing out on the olympics, but I'm too busy to worry about
that right now haha. We have six investigadores with baptismal date,
and all of them showed up to church! Looks like we're gonna be having a
few baptisms here soon! I'm glad everything is going well in Seminary
and that Connor is doing better. I can't believe that Danielle is
turning 8 here soon. Time is flying by! Thank you guys so much for the
package! It was a great surprise, and it'll help my grocery budget a
ton! My companion and I are both zone leaders. I'm zone leader 2, so
my duties are keeping on top of the numbers for the zone, and see if
anyone is having difficulty having lessons or contacting them and then
helping them. Those are my main priorities, but there's lot of little
stuff we have to do to help the zone. I've been learning a ton!
2/19/2018
Hey everyone, we had a fantastic week here! We had the baptism of Luis
Ernesto. He's super energetic, and enthusiastic and loves to learn.
After the baptism he came up out of the water crying. He says his life
has changed, and that it's all thanks to the Gospel. It was a beautiful
experience!
I'm writing you all at once today. It was a pretty eventful week. It
was also extremely fast. We're already on week 4 of the transfer. By
far it's been the fastest I've had yet.
We worked really hard this week. It was unbearably sunny on Thursday and Friday. I didn't really mind the heat, the sun was the
killer part. We're starting to narrow down the investigadores that we
have right now, but at the same time we're searching for more. We think
we'll have 3-5 more baptisms this transfer. I feel like we have our
really long days of everything falling to receive a blessing a few weeks
later. We didn't have any standout spiritual moments this week, just a
lot of little ones. My comp and I get along great. I haven't had a
boring moment yet this transfer.
We had divisiones with the assistants, and I went with my dad Elder
Molina to his area. It was fun hanging out and working with him
again. Luis Ernesto got baptized this week. He had a couple weeks in
teaching when I got here, so I'm definitely grateful that the other
elders kept working hard before I got here. He's a fantastic
investigator, and is really enthusiastic about everything! He's very
excited to get the priesthood, and the plan right now is that he'll
receive the Aaronic Priesthood next week!
I've had so many missionary dreams lately. They're in Spanglish,
and super weird. Sometimes I'll be chilling at home, but with my
companion. Or dreams of contacting and lessons. It's strange. Oh, and
yesterday I hit 10 months! Time is flying by. Sometimes I still feel
new, but then I realize I'm almost halfway there...
Anyways, things are going great, and I pray that all of you are doing well.
Love you guys!
Elder Cherpeski
2/26/2018
First I want to say Feliz Cumpleaños to Danielle! It's awesome that
you're gonna get baptized here soon! Make sure to take lots of
picture! We should have a baptism this Saturday as well, so we're
excited about that.
This week absolutely flew by! Again. I think time in general is
picking up. We stayed really busy this week, and ended up having like
15 lessons this week, which is a record for me I think. And we have a
lot of investigadores progresando. The sun wasn't as bad this week, and
with all the lessons, we weren't outside all day thankfully. Tomorrow
is our zone conference, so we had to get all that organized this week.
Elder Rubio and I have been getting along super well, and I'm sad that
we're just going to have this one transfer together. This is his 5th
change here, so he's out of here soon haha!
We started teaching a bishop of a christian church here, and it's
been really interesting. He knows the bible really well, and we had an
hour and a half discussion on the fall of Adam, and the origional sin.
We had been studying all week for the lesson, and we explained
everything to him really well I thought. It was the most intense lesson
I think I have been in as far as the bible goes. We held our own
though, and didn't bible bash either. I actually learned a lot from the
Bishop, and we're going to keep visiting him and discussing the bible.
I really don't remember a whole lot more from this week to be honest.
We had a cool missionary ward activity on Friday, and we had about 7
investigators show up. Anyways, that was this week haha. Love you
guys!
Elder Cherpeski
3/5/2018
Hey everyone! Things here in Querétaro are going fantastic! My comp
and I have been working super hard, and fortunately we had a baptism
this week! Her name is Jessica, and her husband got baptized a few
weeks ago, and she took the decision to get baptized as well! They're an
awesome family, and it's amazing to see how much happier they've been
since they began applying the gospel into their lives. I love all of
you guys, and hope everything is going well!
It made me really happy to see the pictures of Danielle's baptism!
Everyone is growing up! This was a great week. We had zone conference,
and I felt super refreshed afterwards. I had my interview with
Presidente, and it was great talking with him and learning from his
wisdom and experience. Right after the zone conference my companion and
I experienced a miracle. We had to stay in the church until all the
interviews were done, so we weren't able to leave until 7:30. We got
back to the house and had 2 people in mind to visit. The first was
Jessica, the one who got baptized last Saturday. But at this point she
still needed to be taught a few things before her baptism. And the
other option was an old couple whose names are Dolores and Andrea. I
suggested we say a prayer since we didn't have enough time to visit both
of them. We offered a prayer and sat there meditating for a minute.
Repeatedly the name Andrea came to my mind. Which was weird since I
always thing of Dolores and Andrea together. My comp also said that he
had the name Andrea come to his mind. We set out to visit Andrea and
Dolores. When we were about to get to their house, a lady walked up to
us and said she was looking for us. She had just stepped out of the
house of her friend, who's daughter has cancer. She said that she had
told her friend she was going to get in contact with us and send us to
her house another day. She only had to look for 3 minutes since the
Lord had sent us there. I asked the lady what her friend's daughters
name is and she replied, "Andrea." My companion and I looked at each
other, and I seriously almost started crying. I felt shockwaves all
through my body. It was an intense and sacred experience. We have
since taught the Plan of Salvation, and are going with them tomorrow. I
know the Lord directs His work upon the earth. I love you all and hope
you have a good week.
3/12/2018
As you can see, this is the last week of the transfer. We had a special
7 week transfer so that the newbies get here at the beginning of the
transfer instead of a week late. Oh and now I wont be going home until
April 2nd. Oh well haha. I'm really bummed that my comp is leaving
though. He's been my favorite comp so far. We get along really great,
and it's made this transfer absolutely fly by! Next week I hit 11
months. It doesn't really feel real. I'm honestly starting to forget
what life was like before the mission. I'm dreaming a ton in spanish
these days haha. I was hanging out with a bunch of my highschool
buddies last night in my dream but we were speaking in Spanish jaja!
The ward here is definitely helps the most of all the wards I've had,
but that's not saying much. I'm glad everyone is doing well at home.
It's exciting Andrew made it into BYU. It's crazy to think that he'll
have his mission call here pretty soon! For P-day today we just cleaned
the house, washed laundry, and napped. On saturday we had a baptism of
Dolores and Andrea. They're both in their early 70s and were raised
catholic. Everything has been a big change for them. They would have
us visit them everyday if it were their decision haha. We need to focus
on finding new investigators now since we baptized most of our good
ones haha! Not too much more happened this week. Love you guys and
talk to you next week!
Elder Cherpeski
