What a week!!

Dear family and friends-

This last week was super good! It felt like everyone that we were talking to was accepting us! We found 6 new investigators! One family of 6 (2 kids aren't baptismal age) and 2 individuals. Everyone came back from vacations so it was a much more productive week.

We had this really cool mission conference with Brother Donaldson. He was a Mission President in San Diego, California and works in the missionary department now. He taught us more about how our new style of teaching with the i-pads that the mission will get and a new contacting method. It is going to be really cool! The Lord is really hastening His work!! :-)

I got sick yesterday. I think I got food poisoning so I was not feeling good. I am definitely feeling a lot better today!

Alfredo came to church with us yesterday but not his friend. Alfredo has been sick and so that's why we didn't have a chance to meet with him last week. He is still scheduled to be baptized this Sunday so we will see what happens.

This week is looking really busy with lots of appointments so that's really good. I am excited to teach a lot this week!

I can't wrap my mind around going home. It is so weird because I love the mission! I love you guys as well but I feel like this is what I am good at and what I know. I am just really weirded out right now. Like I am just having a hard time thinking about going home. Like its really surreal for me. I hope that dad will be ready to do companionship study with me :-) ha ha

I know that I have come to love my Heavenly Father and our Savior even more. I know that this church is true and I know that when we live the gospel we can have more blessings. I love this church. I love this gospel. I love the changes that the gospel brings to us and those whom we serve.

Love You!

Elder Reisner

Let the New Year begin!

Hola to all my family and friends!

 

So this week was ok. It seems like nobody is still around but we did teach some lessons though and found some more people.  

 

Our investigator that came to church with us last week didn't come with us this week unfortunately. He also  wasn't there for his lessons :-(. He is single, he invited his friend who is actually homeless so I hope he didn't go just to get the help of the church but he is trying to get a job and stuff so we'll see what happens.  

 

We actually saw that lady again this week who was talking about my babies and gave us the suckers. This time she called us pretty babies. I actually did eat the suckers but nothing bad happened so it was ok. We get fed by random people all the time. In the Latino culture you can get things from strangers all the time! We got sandwiches from random people we helped cut down their palm tree. haha 

 

That was pretty much our week. We didn't have too many weird things happen but that's ok by me!

 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Reisner

Blessed for Christmas

Dear family and friends, 
 

It was great to Skype with my family on Christmas Day! The rest of our week was ok. We taught people on Friday but all the other days we didn't teach. It was like literally everyone wasn't home but it's all good this week should be better hopefully.  

 

We are working with 7 investigators right now! One of our investigators is really progressing! He has a baptismal date for the 19th of January and he brought a friend to church it was pretty cool! 

 

I did finally get your Birthday Card and gift card and the letter from Aunt Annette's family. Thank you to everyone for thinking of me. I received many Christmas cards and letters some with treats as well and they were all definitely appreciated!

 

So I have a weird story for you. We had this lady walk up to us and she gave us these suckers that were like kind of caramel. But anyway she yells out mis bebitos mis bebitos my babies she did say that in English and then she walks off it was really funny.  

 

Well that's it for this week. Thank you again to everyone for all your support!

 

Love,

Elder Reisner

Missionary Christmas

Hola-

I got your Christmas package and I opened it, thank you for the giant Reeses and candy! I really loved all of the personal letters that you sent as well. We had our mission party on Friday and it was cool. We had good talents and we participated by doing a skit. It was a missionary parody of The District, John Tanner and Only a Stonecutter. We didn't really have time to practice but people said we did good!

This week was pretty good. My companion is doing good and we are getting along well. This week we found a lot but didn't teach much. None of our investigators came to church and we almost had to drop one of our investigators.

Anyways, I love all of you!

Elder Reisner

Last transfer!

Dear family and friends-

 

I didn't get transferred!  I'm staying right here yay! My companion did get transferred he went to Pomona. My new companions name is Elder Giddens. He is the new District Leader they called for this area. They want me to train him to be a District Leader. He has been on the mission for 9 months.

 

If you have a letter or card that you want to send for my birthday or Christmas just sent it to the mission office. I actually forgot that my birthday is this month! HA HA!! I think the Mission President sent the new address to dad.

 

I heard that the Mission President e-mailed all the missionary parents about Christmas. I bet that lots of Elders got a bunch of inappropriate items last year which is pretty sad. I will definitely pray for dad's speedy recovery.

 

Let's see this last week we found 3 new investigators like in 2 days! But then the rest of the week we didn't really find or teach. We were able to get all our recent converts ready to receive the Priesthood so that was pretty cool!! We also are having a lot of member present lessons. We have an awesome Ward Mission Leader and an awesome ward and well that's really it! The new investigators we found look good. They are a few brothers and a lady who has cancer. She has a fear of churches though so we'll see what we can do there.

 

How's the Christmas Season at home? It's like 50's and 40's over here and I'm FREEZING!!! I think I'm really sensitive to the cold now!

 

Love, Elder Reisner

What a Thanksgiving!

Dear Mom-

All is well in Zion. Love, Elder Reisner :-)  (Imagine my surprise when this was the only e-mail I thought I was getting this week!)

HAHA just kidding! I am really tired so this e-mail may not be so long but to answer your questions;  Our investigators are doing good except we had to drop some people. The lost dog people have fell off the radar. Yes, both hermanos got baptized last week and we confirmed them on Sunday! My favorite family that we baptized last month are still good. I can't ever leave them! When I do I will cry for reals! I don't want to Skype you for Christmas because you'll see me a month after. (That has been changed and he will be Skyping us for Christmas!)  Transfers are this week so we will see what happens. This will be my last transfer.

This last week we found some cool people. We found a family that actually speak Spanish! The missionaries were teaching them a year and a half ago and they are basically members. We just need to help them follow through with the important ordinances! We also found a single guy and he is really cool! He said he would go to church with us on Sunday but unfortunately he didn't show up.

So the family that we baptized we get to still work with them once a week. Our single brother that was just baptized we are working with twice a week. I am glad that we still have the opportunity to have contact with them and help nurture their testimonies.

I ate three Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday! Unfortunately after the second dinner I threw up so the third one was really hard to go down! It wasn't too fun. Now we are entering the tamale season which I love!

In the area that we are in now we are just walking instead of biking or busing because our area is small. It's fun to talk to all the weird people and we found a house that had a guard goose! It was funny!! We just are doing really good. We have a new ward mission leader and ward missionaries so that's pretty cool.

That's pretty much it for this week.

Love, Elder Reisner

Baptizing monthly

Hola to my family and friends!

I am well as we say in Spanish mas o menos but don't worry I will get better it's been a good and bad week.  Our single brother got baptized!!  It was a really great service!! We also remembered to take some pictures so don't worry. There was another hermano that wanted to be baptized that night as well and asked me if I would baptize him. I was really excited to do it for him but then he didn't show up. I found out later there was a big miscommunication so he will have to get baptized later.

The Zone Conference was awesome and I learned so many good things, like talking to everyone and just believe in baptizing monthly. Also that we need to teach shorter lessons and not overwhelm people with too much information too soon! It was just an exciting conference! It was my last one though so I was really sad about that. 

So this week we spent most of it just talking to a bunch of people, finding new people to teach and getting our brother ready for baptism. It was funny though I role played with him how to do the baptism. I told him that I needed to say a prayer before he went under the water and then he said a prayer it was funny!

How's everyone doing over there? What did you learn this week? For Christmas or my birthday I would love to get a hand written letter from anybody who would like to send one to me. If you need my address just ask my mom!!

Love,

Elder Reisner