Making lots of friends in Palau!

Esta Illuminado!!! (It's Lit) Another good one out here in Palau! 

My second week out here in Palau went pretty solid! Last week we found 23 new investigators, so we had so many appointments this week, so it's been crazy busy out here ha. The cool thing is that we have a bunch of people progressing! We set two more baptismal dates and had six people come to church. We still have a long ways to go; however, our goal is to have a steady 10 investigators coming to church every week and at least one baptism every week! We have also been helping a lot with the branch. A couple weeks ago we only had an attendance of like 20 but this week we had just over 50 people. The other day we were actually talking with one of the less active members we have been working with and they want to do like a spiritual carne asada or something like that we can invite all our investigators to. 

Last Monday we ate lunch with this Christian family and then we emailed at their house! They are a way good family and they always invite us over to eat… haha. After we emailed we went to an appointment., but the person wasn’t there, so we contacted the house next door. Anyways, we went into this guy’s house and started taking to him and after like five minutes we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!! We had two other really good lessons with him this past week, however, he wasn’t able to make it to church this week. Hopefully we can get him to church next week so he can be baptized on the 10th! When we were teaching him on Thursday the Spirit was really strong and I remembered this part of the *Ricciardi Letter* where it says we should always acknowledge when the Spirit is present during a lesson. I told him that the Spirit was really strong in his house and he said he felt it too, and he was so happy that we were able to feel that in his house! 

Wednesday, we went to Barotaron which is another little city that we have in our area but it’s like an hour away from Palau in a bus…rip.  All of our cities are small, but we have like 6 of them and they are all spread out, so I actually have one of the biggest areas in the mission! Anyways, there are a lot of less active families in Barotaron with kids that need to get baptized so we should have some success out there, it will also help the branch as these families start coming back to church! 

We have a way cool family here, they have been coming to church for the past two months and all five of them want to get baptized! However, both of the parents need to get divorced, so they can get married. They all want to be baptized together so we can’t just baptize the kids... Anyways, I called a bunch of people, so I could get a hold of a lawyer that I met in Monclova. I talked with him and he is a really great guy, he was a former missionary and he said he would divorce both of them for free!! However, they still have to pay like the mandatory acts to like the government which is going to cost 8,000 pesos for each so 16,000 pesos (800 dollars) They were really sad on Sunday because we were hoping the guy would be able to make it cheaper, but it doesn’t really look like it. They still want to continue coming to church and everything as they gradually save the money to get divorced. 

My comp Elder Villarauz had his birthday this week! So, the Christian family invited us over for a carne asada and we ate some tres leches cake! 

Yesterday I gave another talk! It went really good haha I was looking at the talk I wrote my first week and my Spanish was horrible hahah. It like didn’t even make sense now that I’m fluent... Anyways, my talk went really good I didn’t really plan anything I just went up there with my Book of Mormon in my hand and it all worked out! 

This week I hit leg day really hard with 30 min straight doing lunges on Friday... and I still can’t walk hahah rip... Shout out to Cory G for the motivation! 

Today for p-day we played some volleyball with Elder Smith and Elder Sabey and the Christian family and then we went and got some free haircuts hahah! 

Hope everything is going good at home! Thanks for all the love and support / Much love 

Elder Ceb

*The Ricciardi Letter is the letter of the experiences an Elder had with his Italian Trainer (Elder Ricciardi) serving in my older sister's mission (England Birmingham). This has now become a famous missionary letter and has been shared in conference talks, etc. When I left on my mission my sister gave me a copy because she had learned a lot from studying it throughout her mission.*

1. Elder Villaruz's birthday party 

2. Some of the best chicken I've ever had (protein)

3. The Christian family dropped off this corn at our apartment the other night!

4. Some members gave us this other cake at lunch!

5. Elder Villaruz birthday party with the Christian family (by the way their mom wants to be a pastor...haha she is a great lady!)

6. We ran into her Sunday night and she said she always cuts the missionaries hair for free.. so we stopped by today after playing some volleyball 

7. Another from last week:) 

Vive Palau!

Que onda? Esta ilummunado! Vive Palau! 

I’m just going to start out and say RIP to my 45lb dumbbells. As I was packing up all of my stuff in Frontera I quickly realized it would not be possible to bring them. So, I bought this little wood crate to put them in, however, it weighed like 200 pounds with those dumbbells and my 25lb dumbbells... At first, I had the 25lb dumbbells in my suitcase but then I didn’t have space for my other stuff (because I have like 8 pairs of shoes here lol). Plus, the dumbbells made my suitcases weigh like 100 pounds each haha. So anyways, I ended up filling up all three of my suitcase my duffel bag and a wood crate with my 25lb dumbbells and two pairs of shoes haha and luckily, they let me put it all under the bus! Which by the way I almost missed hahah but I got there like 30 seconds before it left haha. Trust me I was planning on getting there early but my zone leaders Said they were going to come to our house to catch a ride with us over to the bus station in Monclova. However, they were way late so we ended up just ditching them and grabbing a taxi just in time. 

Then like 2 or 3 hours later I got off the bus in a little town in the middle of nowhere hahah named Palau lol. Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked to be out here hahha but it's really small. My comp is Elder Villaraus and he is from the country named Mexico. He is a way cool dude. He got here the change before me but since he is Latino he was only in the CCM for 3 weeks, so we will end up going home on the same day! That also means we both only have 6 months in the mission! We work really good together though; this week we found 23 new investigators and we set two baptismal dates! We are going to keep grinding this next week to get them ready for baptism and to set some more baptism dates with some of our other investigators! 

Today for P-day Elder Villarauz and I met up with one of my Day One Saltillo boys Elder Sabey and his son Elder Smith for some free breakfast from a member in Muskquiz!!! It's been hype to have my boys Elder Reed and Elder Sabey out here!

Thanks for all the love and support / Much love

-Elder Ceb

1 & 2. Saying Goodbye to Yoxan and Eden

3. Shoutout to Arnold

4. Eating some gringas with Elder Villarauz (my new companion) 

Adios to Frontera Monclova!

4 1/2 months out here in Frontera Mexico and it looks like everything is going to change tomorrow! It's going to be kind of hard to say bye to some of the great members and converts that I have worked with over the past couple of months, however, I’m excited to start working in Palau, Mexico.  It is like this really small town a little bit farther north from Monclova in the middle of nowhere haha. Two of my boys from the CCM Elder Reed and Elder Sabey are going to be there too though so it will be sweet to catch up with them. 

Yesterday we had the privilege to baptize my main man Jose. He was the guy I talked about last week that contacted us in the street one day. Anyways, he can’t move the left side of his body so Elder Carreon and I baptized him together with all three of us in the font. I carried him down there in the font, so it was a great workout! I’m not going to go into detail about this part hahah, but Elder Carreon and I helped him change.... We set up a really good program and had some members share some short talks, he was so grateful to see all of his friends from church come because his family wouldn’t. The Spirit was so strong during the baptismal service! It has been so great to work with him over the past three weeks, he has already changed so much. We are preparing him at the moment to get the priesthood next week and he is so excited to continue to progress with his ward family! (It was so hard to say goodbye to him today, he is like my best friend out here in Frontera.)

We were going to baptize Alondra yesterday too, however, her mom couldn´t come so we changed it to the next week. It's too bad I won’t be here for it; however, the important part is that she is going to be baptized. We went and visited her last night and she taught me how to make tortillas de harina (flour tortillas) so that was hype. 

Tonight, I’m going to go say bye to a couple of more people and then I need to figure out how to transfer my dumbbells hahhah. I’m sure I’ll have some great stories next week lol! 

Much love - Elder Ceb

1. Jose's Baptism Day!

2. Gotta love getting ready for baptisms!

3. Helping my boy Jose out in the shop the other day

4. We had a little Carne Asada for Elder Smith's birthday! 

5. Bought my boy Elder Smith a cake for his birthday!

6 & 7. Tortillas de harina (def way hype but they high key kill gainzzzz)

8. Saying goodbye to the Baronco Fam

9. Gonna miss my boy Jose

10. Alondra was way sad that I'm leaving haha she keeps saying she wants to come to the bus station tomorrow

Time Flies in Frontera!

Wow! Just about to finish up my third change here in Frontera and this month I’m going to hit my 6th month mark! It's crazy how fast time goes by out here grinding in Mexico. 

These past couple of weeks have been great, the work is really coming along here in Frontera. Elder Carreon and I have been working hard and we have had the privilege to see a couple of miracles here in Frontera over the past couple of weeks! 

About two weeks ago we were walking from one apt. to another when older gentlemen in a wheelchair yelled "aye Mormons" haha. So, we went into his store and started talking with him. He was interested in our church; however, he talked a lot about his pastor and what not, so we didn’t really think he was going to be able to progress. However, a couple of days later we were close to his house and I had a feeling that we should just stop by and talk with him for a second. He had been reading the Book of Mormon, so we answered some questions for him and then he asked us about the holy ghost; because his pastor always like runs around the church doing crazy stuff saying he is full of the holy ghost and what not. So, then we ended up teaching him about the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. We taught him about the proper way to confirm the gift of the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands and about the priesthood authority that is necessary to perform these covenants. Then we committed him to be baptized and he came to church with us last week! Then during the week Elder Carreon and I went over to his house and cleaned for a little bit on Wednesday morning! We visited him again on Saturday and he was way excited for church on Sunday! 

Sunday morning Elder Wells and I went to go pick him up while Elder Carreon and Elder Smith went to pick up another investigator. He can’t really move his left side of his body so when we got to his house he asked us to help him change his clothes, so he could look fresh for church. So, we helped him take his shirt off and what not and then he told me to put some deodorant on his armpits hahah and he kept telling me to put more and more on and Wells was just laughing at me the whole time hahah. Anyways, we got him ready and then got him to church! After sacrament meeting elder Carreon and I made some pancakes for our investigators so that was way hype. My boy Jose was loving him some hot cakes! After Sunday school we decided to take Jose into a different room instead of going to the priesthood class. So that we could explain some stuff about the priesthood first. After we explained some stuff we started talking about the other three times that he has been baptized before with other churches. However, they didn’t have this authority, so his baptisms weren’t valid and then we talked a little bit more about baptism and we asked him when he thinks he would be ready to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he said that he wants to be baptized this next Sunday! The Spirit filled the room, honestly it was so strong I lowkey thought about crying haha. 

The other miracle took place this past week, we were out contacting, and we knocked this door and before we said anything this lady invited us in and said she would go get her daughter from the other room. So, then we started talking with her daughter Aondra (who is 22 and had 2 kids) and it turns out she had been listing to the lessons with other missionaries, however, she moved and lost contact. We started teaching lesson three and then near the end of the lesson I proceeded to recite the baptismal invitation and like three words in to the invitation she said yes so that was way hype! We went and visited her again on Saturday and we were talking about her kids and what not and then she proceeds to say that she bought a suit for her son who is about 10 months old; so he could look fresh for his baptism. We had already explained in the last lesson that baptism needs to be performed at an age of accountability when the person understands good and evil and actually has sins. Then she was like yah I know that’s why I need to get baptized again and everything, However, we already bought the suit, so we might as well use it... Anyways, she came to church with us on Sunday and there was a baby blessing. So, I explained a little bit about the blessing and then told her that sometimes parents buy little suits or dresses just like the one she bought her son and then I told her that her son could use that suit here and even receive a blessing and everything and she was like "that’s a great idea". Then we all ate some Pancakes and we set up a family home evening for tonight with Alondra and a family from the ward. The baptismal date we set during the first lesson was for this week on the 11th so we are going to work with her this week to help her prepare. We are going to make sure she doesn’t feel pressured though so it's possible that we might end up putting it back another week or two. 

I have such a strong testimony that everything happens for a reason and that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each and every one of his children which is why he had led us to find his children that are ready to hear, accept, and live the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember back in the CCM when Elder Atkin and I (who didn’t know any Spanish) went and bore testimony to two construction workers about the Book of Mormon in the CCM and then next time we saw them he was already reading in Mosiah. All I gotta say is that THE CHURCH IS TRUE. 

The gainz are still food and the surgeon is still grinding haha. Oh, and this world is way too small hahah. Yesterday we went to eat dinner with a family and I was like who is this white guy hanging up on your wall. Then the lady said that he was her son in law. So, I was like there is a 99% chance this guy is from Utah and he probably served his mission here or something. Turns out he served his mission here, he is from Morgan, Utah, oh and him and his wife (who is from Frontera) have been living in Layton, Utah (my home town... Shout out to the 801) for the past 10 years or so. Hahah I didn’t really recognize them but I’m definitely going to chill with them when I get home haha.

Oh, and quick shout out to the family for sending the package this week! 

Much love/ Elder Ceb

1. Package from my family!

2. Pancakes at the church

3. She has some family in Layton so that's hype