Baptism and 4th celebrations....

7-6-15

 We had to clean out the font...

  For the baptism....

Have you ever cut and eaten a mango in public? I have.... 

I love boxes of goodies....

 Making cookie brownies....

Soda stuff.....

so this last week was ok. not a whole lot happened

OTHER THAN OUR BAAAAPTISM!!!!!

YEEEEEEEEEEAH! hahaha

Lenay Ramirez, and her daughter anabella were baptised on june 30th 2015!!

The ward has been helping a TON on keeping them fellowshipped and we are already helping lenay get a vision set for the temple! :) She's already made a few friendds in the ward!

Wherever you are, HELP THE MISSIONARIES and here's why, Missionaries by themselves baptise very few people who are just so amazing that nothing will keep them out of the church. Missionaries WITH MEMBERS baptise a TON of people who are amazing!!!! The members are the ones that are able to make the cool awesome friendships, but mostly they are the wingman. Coming into the church is legitamately scary for new converts. You laugh and think i'm crazy but it's true. Just think, we have a whole "mormon lingo," that we talk with. Completely lost of them. We have a bazillion mormon jokes that they don't understand. there's so many things that make them feel on the outside, and they don't always want to stay. or they do and are just a little scared. kinda like the first day of high school. That's why it is sooo important for the members to get involved. And the prophets and apostles have promised, I don't even know HOW MANY blessings to those who help out. Think of it, the prophet Joseph Smith said, "after all is said and done our greatest duty is to preach the gospel." Think of it, this is the greatest work that the lord has. What kind of blessings are in store for those that help the lord in his greatest work? I promise you, there will be miracles in the most unexpected places. 

Wow, haha a little too preachy for my liking. 

anyways so this last week was really amazing! we were blessed to meet with a bunch of amazing people, and the coolest thing was this new thing that e bedke and i are doing.

We are leaving these little pamphlets, that have "The Family: A proclamation to the world" written in them, Why? because from what i've noticed here, almost EVERYONE loves the idea of the family. And with all of the attacks there are on the family nowadays, the people we meet with love to see a stand for the family. It's a breath of fresh air. And it's such an amazing help and lead up to teaching the restoration. There was this one lady we met with who told us word for word that the family proclamation was Prophetic! i chuckled inside and said to myself now just wait till we tell you about our message. Missionary Work is AMAZING.

Well fourth of july was really fun! we got to make cream soda, it turned out really well! we also got to enjoy a box sent from my amazing mother! ;) it was a ton of fun. we ate cookie brownies, drank home made cream soda, and squished up all four of us on one couch to watch mountain of the lord on a 7 inch dvd screen. THE BEST! haha love you guys!

Elder Wardell

Teaching Lenay.....

6-29-15

 Helping a family move last week.

...lots of hard work....

For Elder Bedke that is.....

So here's the scoop.

so we have this really awesome investigator named lenay and to be short, SHE'S GETTING BAPTISED TOMORROW!!!!!!!

ima just tell you about some of the miracles that we have seen with this woman. 

She was taught by the missionaries 3 years ago. She was amazing, kept her commitments, quit smoking, etc. they had to drop her, because she just dropped off of the face of the planet. they lost contact. We tried contacting some less actives off of the list, and we go by her house, and try to contact a less active, but end up sharing a prayer with our current investigator. She agrees to have us come back, and then when we come back, we discover that she's really cool, and she told us that she had worked with the missionaries before. she also told us that she still had her book of mormon, and had read alot of it. then, we lost contact with her too. she hadn't answered the door, didn't answer the phone, nothin. and dropped her. but then one day as we were biking past her street, elder bedke says, "let's go visit lenay, and just veers off to the left" haha i had no choice but to follow. we go over there, and she basically told us what happened and to make a long story short, SHE'S STILL REALLY COOL. We teach her about baptism, she accepts, she's been reading in the bom, still had been living the word of wisdom, (at least far better than she had ben before.). Then we teach her the word of wisdom, she ditches her coffee instantly. we teach her about sabbath day, and she informs us that even though she just got a brand new job, and they tried scheduleing her for sunday that she doesn't work sundays. we taught her tithing and she instantly accepts. we invited her to have nightly family prayer with her two daughters and they do now. every night. she is hands down THE most elect person i have ever worked with! Elder Bedke and i are super excited to talk with her now about the temple and the rest of it all!

she's super amazing!

Well that'll be just about all for this week love you all!

Elder Wardell.

Btw new mission rule, mail is no longer to be sent to the mission office. now it goes directly to the apartment. so, apartment address is, 

220 NW 48th Ct, front

Miami Florida

33126 

ill post transfer dates, because you shouldn't send a letter very close to tranfers cuz if i transfer, and a letter get's here after me, well, haha missionaries aren't very good at getting lost letters where they should go. ahahaha

Prayers are answered....

6-22-15

Lenay got rid of her coffee.....

 Boy were we excited!!

 Happy elders at church....

Ants at Walmart looked bored...we gave them something to do....

weeeell here's the scoop.

so, something really cool to share.

we've been constantly praying to find those who are LOOKING for the restored gospel, and this last week, we were able to teach a member's sister, who was telling us about how she left her church because of stuff she didn't like there, and then how she was looking at her sister's church, and was telling us about just how wonderful she felt about it, especially about the message of the restoration. It was AMAZING! haha

we also were knocking doors, and we find this one lady, and she asked us, (almost suspiciously)

what the name of the pastor of our church was. So we told her that the church is in the whole world, and that there's a living prophet who leads it. when we said 'prophet' her eyes got as big as dinner plates and about bugged outta her head! haha she bolted past us and was like "Ven conmigo! Ven conmigo!!" (Come with me! come with me!) we followed here around the house to her little side apartment, and gave here a quick rundown of the restoration,(didn't have a ton of time :(  ) but she told us about how much she's excited to learn more about what we said!

To be short, THE LORD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

And as well, we taught our investigator Lenay the word of wisdom, and she let us take her coffe away!!!!!!!!! haha it was awesome!

Love yall!

Elder Wardell

Blessings of the Gospel

6-15-15

Elder Bedke and I at our Melgadon desks

 Learning to make tortillas.....

Learning to make Baleadas....

Dinner at the Rojas's makes for happy missionaries.....

well, here's da scoop!

so this last week, we were really blessed to be able to meet a bunch of people! we also had our investigator lenay, who alsmost came to church. :( sadly she had to take her mom to the air port that day, and a ton of junk happened there that blocked her from coming to church :( but she by herself set herself up for next week. to come to church so we are so excited for that! :)

well we had a really neat experience this last week. So, discouragement in the mission, only comes if you let it. on the same note however, the saddest thing that you face in the mission, is when you knock a door, in the effort to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to someone and it instantly gets rejected. and the worst part is so many times people dont know what they are instantly saying no to. It is one of the worst things. So many have no clue as to what the gospel of Jesus Christ is, nor more importantly what it can do, and before you have to chance to explain, BAM door shut. 

So, we have been praying more and more, to be led to those that the lord has prepared to recieve the gospel. those that are willing to hear, and who aren't spiritually deaf. the other day, we were biking along, and this guy called out to us, and long story short,

he said it's time for a refreshing in his life. We taught him about how god's gospel that we can use to have a fresh start in life has been restored. He LOVED it! we had to pass him to another set of missionaries, but it was still a direct answer to prayer! 

Ok, quick thought and something cool i discovered this week.

So many times, people argue about church. and it's all about this church or that church. And many times people say, well church is what saves us.

WRONG

It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that saves. The GOSPEL not church. So then here's the question, why was a church set up in the first place? the church was set up to administer the gospel.

for example. 

School doesn't make you smart. Education, the knowledge makes you smart.

However, school, is an organization through which we are "administered" (given) the education.

The gospel saves not specifically the church. This is the message that we carry to people is that, christ set up his church once again, with his authority, so that he could adminitster his complete gospel. well, i love yall! 

Elder Wardell

Staying in Blue Lagoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6-9-15

OH  and i forgot to mention,

I"M STAYING IN BLUE LAGOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with elder bedke! totally excited he's a beast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 With maria, throwing away her coffee...

 Us throwing away the coffee....

First purchase if Elder Bedke and I got to stay...

Now we can have a cold soda in our study room...yes I gave up soda, but decided one once in a while was ok

sooooo

here's the scoop.

So, to start off, 

CARLOS GOT BAPTISED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

haha, not here with us but up in north carolina, but the point is, is he is super awesome!

He's already excited about going to the temple, he's started working on family history, 

he's going to be doing a mission to italy or rome, he's going to be teaching for a year in utah,

(he's got a doctorate's degree in like 5 things,) In short, he's AMAZING!!!!!

Also, Maria, is going to be baptised on the 20th of this month! we taught her the word of wisdom, and were able to take out a bunch of coffee! it was awesome!

we were also very blessed this past week to have been able to find a bunch of new people to teach. There's also something i would like to talk about,

There's a very imortant hour here in the mission: the food hour. and i'm not talking about food. 

Every morning we have, beginning at 8 oclock something called personal study, where we are able to give 1 full hour to a study of the scriptures, preach my gospel, church magazines, basically the words of the living prophets. but the reason i call it the food hour is because it's supposed to be a spiritual FEAST!!!!!!

There's a guy named Hyrum Smith, (no not the brother of joseph, a different guy) that was speaking on this subject and he said, (speaking a little on this topic,) "there's a difference between eating and feasting. missionaries know the difference. eating is when they cook for themselves, and feasting is when they have a meal with a member. feasting is stuffing, glutting taking it all in." in (i think)2 nephi, 32: 3, it says, "...FEAST on the words of christ." and why? because the words of christ tell us ALL THINGS which we should do. What brother smith was addressing with that talk, was why so many missionaries come home, go in active, or say things like, "boy i miss the spirit in the mission." and he explained, that this is one of the reasons. he said, "....and instead of feasting on the words of christ every day, it turns into maybe... 20 minutes before preisthood because we have a lesson to prepare." 

Notice how Script, as in, the script for a play, and SCRIPT-ures. have the same basic root. 

just like a script tells what to do in a play, the scriptures(words of christ) are our script for our time here in life. Just tossing them aside, and not giving them any attention, would be like trying to go through a play, without ever looking at the script. 

Well that's my thought for this week

love you!

Elder Wardell