A 19th Birthday Celebration in Mexico!

Que Onda!? Esta illuminado!!!! (It’s Lit)

My birthday week started out a little rough lol. Monday night I threw up all night, and then my stomach was wrecked until like Thursday or Friday ha. A huge blessing that I started to feel better before my birthday Sunday!

Anyways, Saturday night after our last appt. we stopped by the grocery store and the way home and I bought a bunch of food so that could make a good birthday breakfast Sunday morning! Then Sunday morning I opened my package that my mom sent for my birthday, I got some socks and a couple of little games and stuff, however, my favorite part was definitely all of the letters from family and friends back home! Thanks so much to everyone that sent me a birthday email or a letter, I loved hearing from each and every one of you. Oh, and shout out to whoever put the picture of Arnold in the envelope my mom sent with letters ha-ha! 

After we ate breakfast, we went to go pick up Izabell for church. However, when we got to her house, her daughter was about to go into labor.... so she wasn’t able to go to church yesterday. It's too bad that she wasn’t able to come to church, however, it’s kind of hype that I share a birthday with the little guy ha! 

Anyways, we went to church and it was the primary program in our ward, so it was cool to see all the kids sing. Especially Yoxan and Genesis whom we baptized this last Sunday! 

After church, we went to a member’s house and ate lunch. After we ate, they pulled out a chocolate tres leches cake and then proceeded to sing the "mañanitas" and then they all started chanting "pastel, pastel, pastel" (cake, cake, cake) and then I got to take a bite out of the cake while they tried to shove my head into the cake ha. I was quick though, so the cake survived lol. On the real though, there is nothing better than a tres leches cake ha idk if we have them in America lol but I’ll definitely bring one back hah.

After we ate some cake, the Elders from Bellavista called us and invited us to the birthday party for the kid of one of their converts! We went over there for a minute, and ate tons of "gringas" which are basically just quesadillas with tons of meat inside! Anyways, they were way good, and we ate a bunch of them and then some cake ha (it wasn’t tres leches though). Then we finished up the chocolate tres leches, cake that we had from lunch, with the elders from Bellavista haha! 

Then Hermana Edid, the mom of Yoxan (the kid that I baptized last week) called us and invited us over to her parent’s house. So even though we were stuffed ha-ha we went over to her grandparent’s house with the other elders, and started talking with her family. Her father had been drinking all day and so he was kind of drunk when we got there.....Anyway, I started talking with him and he asked me what soccer team I like ha so I just said my classic answer "America" (which is basically the classic bandwagon soccer team here in Mexico that basically everyone likes ha).  He turned out to be a huge America fan so he gave me a huge hug and then we became best friends for the rest of the night ha. He told me I looked like Bill Clinton ha and then he started asking me about Hillary lol. Anyway, his last name was Carreon, so he was really excited when he met his "cousin" Elder Carreon. So, I put on Elder Carreon’s other name tag and said I was also his cousin too ha-ha. He was so excited that he had family in America ha-ha. Then he said that since we were family I should ask my parents to send him some dollars ha-ha. Then we ate tons of pizza with Yoxan’s family! After we ate some pizza, they pulled out another tres leches cake!!! Then they all proceed to sing the "mañanitas" and then I took a bite out of the cake, and once again was just quick enough to avoid getting my face smashed into the cake lol. Yoxan’s Grandpa said that if we weren’t cousins/best friends he would have smashed my head into the cake ha-ha, all together, my 19th birthday out here in Mexico was definitely a success! Oh and I’m definitely going to have to get some good workouts in this week to work off all the tres leches cake! 

Feliz naviDAD

much love, 

Elder Ceb 

Karsten.cebollero@myldsmail.net

Birthday gift from the fam and the letters from all my family and friends!

Chocolate très lèches cake after lunch

Yoxan's Family

Dad= Padre

Snow and Baptisms in Mexico this week!

Dec. 11, 2017

What a week!! This week was crazy ha, we had so much stuff going on each and every day. Wednesday, we had our Christmas Conference with both of the zones here in Monclova! Before the conference, Hermana Cahoon prepared a big meal for all thirty or so of us missionaries. With ham and funeral potatoes, and to top it off she gave me a bag of chocolate chip cookies for my birthday! After we ate, we had a brief zone conference and then proceeded to exchange gifts between all of the elders. I gave a Gucci watch hahah and I received Jenga, lol we have three Jenga games in our house hahah. It’s all good though because I’m going to give it to one of our investigators for Christmas! 

After we finished the gift exchange we all went over to the center of Monclova for a huge contacting activity. Each ward from both of the stakes here in Monclova brought two tables to the activity, one with winter clothes, and another with sweets and hot chocolate. While the members gave out treats and clothes, all of the Elders contacted around the park. We talked with the people about the church’s Light the World initiative, which consists of twenty-five different ways to serve others over the first twenty- five days of December leading up to Christmas! As we talked with people, we invited them over to watch the videos that we had projected in the middle of the park. Oh, and we also sang some Christmas hymns, and we sounded pretty good ha! Altogether, the activity went really well besides the fact that it was way cold ha. 

Monday and Tuesday, I was totally fine with my short sleeve shirt and then all of the sudden Wednesday during the Christmas activity it was way cold. I had a sweater on and a suit and I was still freezing ha. Then Thursday it was nice and rainy all day and really cold. Around like six or seven on Thursday night it started to snow for like two seconds but that was about it. After we finished up with our last appointment Thursday night we went back to our apartment, and Elder Carreon went to sleep. I was about to go to sleep, when I looked out the window and there was a couple of inches of snow. I told Elder Carreon, who had never seen snow in his life, and he thought I was just joking around. Then after he looked out the window and saw all the snow he grabbed his camera and ran outside haha. I’m not really sure how to describe the look on his face lol but let’s just say he was somewhat amazed, and really excited. When we woke up Friday there was about a foot of snow, and tons of snowmen in front of all of the houses! Elder Carreon and I went over to the church Friday morning to clean the baptismal font for Sunday. We were supposed to meet the Elders from Bellavista there at the church, because we needed their keys, but they were running late, so we made like one hundred or so snow balls and when they came around the comer towards the church we had a little snow ball fight. I definitely had a huge advantage, considering the fact that none of the other Elders had ever seen snow in their life ha. 

Saturday night Elder Carreon and I bought cakes for the baptisms and then finished preparing everything for the baptisms Sunday. Then Sunday morning we went and picked up one of our investigators Izabell for church. she works Sundays, so we haven’t been able to get her to church, however, we went to the early ward with her and then payed for her taxi so that she could get to work on time! Then we filled up the baptismal font for Yoxan´s and Genesis’ baptisms! After we filled up the font, we went to our ward’s sacrament meeting, and Elder Carreon and I gave talks! I finally used the talk that I wrote a couple of weeks ago ha, and it went pretty good considering that it was my first talk in Spanish ha. Then after church we had the baptismal service for Yoxan and Genesis! Both kids come from less/non-active families, so it was great to help their families start coming to church again over the past couple of weeks. Yoxan asked me to baptize him (my first baptism in the mission) and Genesis asked Elder Carreon to baptize her! After the baptism, we ate some tamales from Yoxan’s Grandma, and then we had some of the cake that Elder Carreon and I bought! If everything works out this week, we should have another baptism this next Sunday on my birthday! 

In the midst of this crazy week, I finished the Book of Mormon again! I remember the first time that I read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, when I was a young kid. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to read the whole Book of Mormon, and before I proceeded to start reading it, for the first time, I remember my mom sitting down with me and reading Moroni 10: 4-5 

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would 

ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

After we read these verses my mom explained that this was a promise for every person that reads the Book of Mormon, and that if I read the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart and real intent, I would know that it was true through the power of the Holy Ghost. I then proceeded to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, and then I prayed and asked if the Book of Mormon was true, and by the power of the holy ghost I knew without any doubt in my mind that the Book of Mormon is true, and because I knew that the Book of Mormon was true, I knew that it was the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the same church, with the same authority/priesthood, that Jesus Christ himself established here on the earth. This experience I had as a young kid has been the foundation of my testimony for as long as I can remember, and over the past couple of months, as I have read the Book of Mormon, my testimony of the truthfulness of this book has grown each and every day. This past Saturday, as I finished the Book of Mormon again, I pondered the words within Moroni 10:4-5 once again. Then I proceeded to pray and humbly ask once again if the Book of Mormon truly is the word of God. As I knelt down and proceeded to pray, I looked back at how I have felt each time I have read the Book of Mormon over the years, more specifically how I have felt each and every day over the past couple of months as I have read the Book of Mormon once again. As I continued to pray, the Spirit was so strong as the Holy Ghost proceeded to strengthen my testimony of the Book of Mormon to the point that I know that I can never deny that the Book of Mormon truly is the word of God. I know that through Joseph Smith, the gospel; the same church that Jesus Christ established, was restored once again on the earth. Today I started reading the Book of Mormon again, and I would challenge all of you to do the same. 

Hope everyone is doing good. Thanks for all the birthday emails!

Much love, 

Elder Ceb

Yoxan and Genesis before their baptism!

Yoxan!

Christmas activity!

Thursday night after it snowed!

Chilling with a snowman!

Christmas is in the air!

Hola ! Hola ! Feliz Navidad ! (almost lol)

Hope everyone is doing good! The work has been coming together here in Frontera! Elder Carreon and I have two Baptisms set for this next Sunday and another baptism set for the following week. However, the investigator that we have set for the following week is ready! So, we might move his baptism to this Saturday. It has been hard to get investigators to come to church, however, this past Sunday we had five investigators come to church!  Elder Carreon and I have been working relentlessly over these past couple of weeks and it is starting to pay off. 

Elder Carreon and I were contacting as usual when we came across a really cool family! We weren’t quite sure if they were going to let us in at first because the boy that opened the door said that he had to ask his Pastor if he could talk to us.... But his older sister invited us in and we started talking with this family. They have a small Christian Church right by their house and one of the kids is the youth minister. We talked with them about their church and about some of their beliefs and all that good stuff. They share a lot of the same beliefs, however, one of the noticeable differences was that their Pastor has taught them that dancing (in general) is a sin. We talked with this family for a little while but then it got kind of late, so we scheduled another appointment for this past Friday. Then, Thursday night we received a phone call from one of the family members... She was with the Pastor of their church and she had a couple of questions. Elder Carreon basically has the Bible memorized… ha so he gave her a couple of scriptures to answer her questions! Then we proceeded to meet with the family again this past Friday. When we got to the house the mother of this family was outside with their Pastor and she wanted to ask a few questions before we taught her kids... Previously, their Pastor had taught that there was only heaven and hell but after we read 1 Corinthians with them the Pastor said that there is three kingdoms of glory. Then we answered some of the questions that the mother had about baptisms for the dead. Then after we read about baptisms for the dead in the Bible, she asked her Pastor what he thought about it. After we talked with them and answered some more questions the daughter asked the Pastor if it was a sin to dance and then he proceeded to say that it actually wasn’t a sin! Then the mother gave us permission to teach her kids. Our lesson went really good and after the lesson we ate dinner with them and when we set up an appt for this next week we asked them if they wanted to meet again Thursday, Friday, or Saturday and they said all three haha so anyways that was a cool night. Oh and speaking of pastors ha…today I sent a reference to some missionaries in Florida so that they can go and contact/baptize my Grandpa Frank who is the pastor of his own church. 

The surgeon slimmed approximately ten or so ties this past week.  One of our investigators Yoxan, who we are going to baptize next week, didn’t have a tie so I, The Surgeon, slimmed a tie and gave it to him this past Sunday at church.  He had the biggest smile on his face.  It was nice to slim a tie for someone who actually needs it instead of the normal surgery for people who just want to look cool…ha. Oh and The Surgeon also thaught Elder Carreon how to properly perform the classic tie slimming procedure and he slimmed like 3-4 of his ties this past week. 

Since it’s officially December, I decided to start celebrating Christmas.  So today I bought a Gucci and Louis Vuitton belts and a Rolex watch…lol.  The guy that sold them to me said they were all original! Ha! So hopefully I didn’t get ripped off… ha ha!

Much Love,

Elder Ceb

As close as I'm getting to America for the next two years!

The surgeon with the tie for Yoxan

Repping my new belts and watches...lol

The Gucci and Louis Vuitton belts and the Rolex watch