What a week. This past Sunday I hit 10 months in the mission. Like WHAT? I swear I just got here. However I'm really happy that I haven't hit the halfway mark because I don't wanna go home hahaha. I love it here. In fact I'm probably going to come here to live (; hahaha maybe.
This week we had an awesome, awesome lesson with some new people we found. It's a family of four and we had talked with the mom before but never the family. When the member of the Seventy came to visit he told us to focus in the fathers, and doing so we would find more success. We went to visit the hermana one day and share a small message with her. After about ten or so minutes her husband came in, and from that time we focused completely on him and his needs and problems. It ended up being a very spiritual lesson leaving all in tears... yeah my companion made me cry with his crazy personal story of the priesthood. And in fact it made me think of how blessed I was growing up to have such amazing friends and family members who actively and worthily administered their priesthood authority. I absolutely admire my dad and my brother and thank them for that.
But yeah this week was great! Today we went to the Christ statue. It was super fun and we went as a zone. A good two hours of climbing and we made it there! The sight was beautiful and the statue was huge! Except that part of his beard fell off. Oops. hahaha anyway I love you and miss you but the time will go by faster than you know it! To those of you that have the priesthood in any shape or form I would encourage you to use it worthily and actively. It'll bless the lives of others as well as yours!!
Love,
Elder Babcock
Monday, May 23, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
Leadership and stake conferences
We had changes this past Sunday and lots of stuff happened during the week. Overall it was awesome! One of the first things we had this past week was a conference with a member of the Seventy, Elder Falabella. All I have to say about that was it was amazing. The spirit was so strong and I know he is a man called of God. He had nothing but love and the spirit radiating from him the entire time. Our mission is now focusing on teaching fathers of the family. Our goal is to have between 5 and 7 families progressing at any given time. That's a really tough goal, but we know that a Seventy wouldn't give us a goal if it wasn't possible.
After this conference we had our stake conference this Sunday. Yet another member of the Seventy showed up to the stake conference (how lucky are we right?) and gave some really powerful talks. But this is were everything got super cool for me. Right before we started the conference my mission president came up to me and asked me to translate the talks for a brother who doesn't speak Spanish. I got to spend the two hours translating and sharing conversation with a really amazing man. I feel bad as I never got his name. He's a recent convert of just about a year. He was going to receive the priesthood that day and is the coolest guy you'll ever meet. He's 85 and has lived in Mexico for the past year and a half. A lot of the talks were about genealogy and temples, he told me that he has gone to the temple once and never tried family history, but he said he's going to talk with his sister about starting it up and go to the temple more often. What a blessing it was for me to not only listen to the conference, but get to translate what was being said. Afterwards he gave me a huge hug and asked me to go with him to be set apart as elder. The experience was amazing. I love being a missionary.
Here comes the other awesome thing about the week was that we had changes!! Sadly it's time for Elder Rangel to leave...I'm gonna miss my buddy from Monterrey, but he's going to do awesome in Xalapa. My new comp is named Elder Guzman (I think that's how you spell it... hahaha) he's chilango (from Mexico City) and we are going to have an awesome change. In these 6 weeks I'm going to complete 11 months in the mission. Time flies, no? They closed an area in Tezuitlan that was of another district leader so my district is going to be growing by two! With another set of elders and also hermanas. Expect to see pics of some activities as a district cause we are finally big enough to do stuff! hahaha.
I love you all so much and I love this church. This mission is amazing and I love every second. I don't ever want it to end! I want to end with a quick thought that Elder Falabela gave us. He said as missionaries we have lots of rules. More that him in fact! (he can kiss his wife is what he said is different hahaha) but he asked us to think about why we have so many rules. And he said well it's so that we can be blessed, we know that with more obedience we are more blessed. But then he said being obedient is the way we show our faith. We know that faith without works is dead. He encouraged us to be more obedient in everything so that our faith will grow and with that faith we will find more miracles in our missions.
I love love love a scripture about faith. It's in the Bible in Matthew 21:21. (be ready for rough translation hahaha) basically with our faith we can move mountains. Now I'm pretty sure not really move mountains but we will have more miracles in our lives when he have more faith. And that all comes from our obedience to our Heavenly Father.
Love,
Elder Babcock
After this conference we had our stake conference this Sunday. Yet another member of the Seventy showed up to the stake conference (how lucky are we right?) and gave some really powerful talks. But this is were everything got super cool for me. Right before we started the conference my mission president came up to me and asked me to translate the talks for a brother who doesn't speak Spanish. I got to spend the two hours translating and sharing conversation with a really amazing man. I feel bad as I never got his name. He's a recent convert of just about a year. He was going to receive the priesthood that day and is the coolest guy you'll ever meet. He's 85 and has lived in Mexico for the past year and a half. A lot of the talks were about genealogy and temples, he told me that he has gone to the temple once and never tried family history, but he said he's going to talk with his sister about starting it up and go to the temple more often. What a blessing it was for me to not only listen to the conference, but get to translate what was being said. Afterwards he gave me a huge hug and asked me to go with him to be set apart as elder. The experience was amazing. I love being a missionary.
Here comes the other awesome thing about the week was that we had changes!! Sadly it's time for Elder Rangel to leave...I'm gonna miss my buddy from Monterrey, but he's going to do awesome in Xalapa. My new comp is named Elder Guzman (I think that's how you spell it... hahaha) he's chilango (from Mexico City) and we are going to have an awesome change. In these 6 weeks I'm going to complete 11 months in the mission. Time flies, no? They closed an area in Tezuitlan that was of another district leader so my district is going to be growing by two! With another set of elders and also hermanas. Expect to see pics of some activities as a district cause we are finally big enough to do stuff! hahaha.
I love you all so much and I love this church. This mission is amazing and I love every second. I don't ever want it to end! I want to end with a quick thought that Elder Falabela gave us. He said as missionaries we have lots of rules. More that him in fact! (he can kiss his wife is what he said is different hahaha) but he asked us to think about why we have so many rules. And he said well it's so that we can be blessed, we know that with more obedience we are more blessed. But then he said being obedient is the way we show our faith. We know that faith without works is dead. He encouraged us to be more obedient in everything so that our faith will grow and with that faith we will find more miracles in our missions.
I love love love a scripture about faith. It's in the Bible in Matthew 21:21. (be ready for rough translation hahaha) basically with our faith we can move mountains. Now I'm pretty sure not really move mountains but we will have more miracles in our lives when he have more faith. And that all comes from our obedience to our Heavenly Father.
Love,
Elder Babcock
Monday, May 9, 2016
Mother's Day
I feel bad to do this but I don't really have a letter for this week. Had an amazing time talking with the family and although it was sad to say bye I know what I'm doing is right and in the end I'll be blessed. I love this place, EVERYTHING is perfect and I couldn't be more happy. Huge props to the bro for getting married and welcome Jenna to the family! This next week I'll have more to write as a member of the Seventy is coming to visit this Friday!!! It'll be a blast and I'm super excited!! I love you all and hope you passed your Mothers Day well. #staysweet Mosiah 4:8-9
Love,
Elder Babcock
Love,
Elder Babcock
P.S. We have had tons of fog lately so its like really creepy outside. hahahah
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Normas de excelencia
It feels cliche to say that the weeks keep going by faster but it's true hahaha. This week was amazing and filled with some pretty awesome things. One of the first things is that our neighbor (who is a member of the church) turned 14 and my companion and I made he and his family an American breakfast of french toast and bacon. We also started this week with the goal to complete these things we have called "normas de excelencia". Basically they are the [norms or goals] that we should strive to complete every week. Some are more difficult than others and so we thought it would be a good goal to complete the new investigators number which is 12 new people. This was a real challenge for us. We normally ranged from 7 to 9 a week but we were firm with this goal. We ended up talking to EVERYBODY in the streets during the day and visiting every member for references. And who would've thunk that we were able to reach 16 new investigators this week?
Last letter I talked a lot about my awesome companion Elder Rangel and well he continues to be awesome. I give the majority of the credit to the news to him as he works like a machine (here in our mission all the locals call the missionaries who work really hard "toros"... i guess you could say my comp is a toro). I want to share a cool experience we had with contacting in the street the other day. We were looking for a family and were asking all the houses on the street if they knew where we could find them. One of the houses we knocked at a girl answered and said she had no idea. We started to talk about the restoration and about how important a living prophet is. She got super excited and actually asked us to talk more inside. We talked about church with her and she said she would love to go. Fast forward to Sunday morning and we called asking if she was going to come. She told us yes but not alone. Her mom is best friends with some members. The family brought her and her family to church this week. It was amazing to see that the family that never went when we invited them was willing not just to go but bring their friends to come learn about the church.
I love what this gospel does to people and how it changes their lives. I've seen it first hand bless and change lives, together with the Book of Mormon. We had a busy Monday so we weren't able to go to these really cool waterfalls in Altotonga a little town close by. But maybe in the coming weeks!!! I love you all and you'll probably see my face on the social media of my family this coming Sunday and we get to chat. Last but not least super props to my bro for being "almost" married. Only like 5 more days. It feels like yesterday I chucked the butterknife in his forehead and now he's getting married! Alma 38:5.
Love,
Elder Babcock
Last letter I talked a lot about my awesome companion Elder Rangel and well he continues to be awesome. I give the majority of the credit to the news to him as he works like a machine (here in our mission all the locals call the missionaries who work really hard "toros"... i guess you could say my comp is a toro). I want to share a cool experience we had with contacting in the street the other day. We were looking for a family and were asking all the houses on the street if they knew where we could find them. One of the houses we knocked at a girl answered and said she had no idea. We started to talk about the restoration and about how important a living prophet is. She got super excited and actually asked us to talk more inside. We talked about church with her and she said she would love to go. Fast forward to Sunday morning and we called asking if she was going to come. She told us yes but not alone. Her mom is best friends with some members. The family brought her and her family to church this week. It was amazing to see that the family that never went when we invited them was willing not just to go but bring their friends to come learn about the church.
I love what this gospel does to people and how it changes their lives. I've seen it first hand bless and change lives, together with the Book of Mormon. We had a busy Monday so we weren't able to go to these really cool waterfalls in Altotonga a little town close by. But maybe in the coming weeks!!! I love you all and you'll probably see my face on the social media of my family this coming Sunday and we get to chat. Last but not least super props to my bro for being "almost" married. Only like 5 more days. It feels like yesterday I chucked the butterknife in his forehead and now he's getting married! Alma 38:5.
Love,
Elder Babcock
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