Una semana mas [ One more week ]

Well, I just feel like every week all I do is tell you all about how much I love Mexico. Like, I love Mexico so much.

Something I have really learned is that God really knows and loves all His children, and He knows exactly where there are and what they need. This past week, we found people, members, less actives, and investigators, who just really needed us in that moment in particular. La verdad [The truth], I never really felt particularly inspired to go to any of these people, I was just trying to be obedient not just to the mission rules, but to Preach My Gospel and the scriptures and everything. Obedience really does bring miracles.

Oh and so awesome story here:

We asked this one member the other day, so how did you find the gospel? (AMAZING QUESTION TO ASK PEOPLE) and she said that when she was little, she never understood why Jesus didn´t come to the Americas, like why did He only go to Asia? its so far away. Then one day someone gave her a Book of Mormon and she loved it but it didn´t have the name of the church on it, solo Libro de Mormon [only "Book of Mormon"], and so for 17 years she looked for the church, but never found it because she thought it was called "Mormon Church" not "La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de los Ultimos Dias" ["The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"], and during these 17 years she lived 2 blocks away from one of our churches. And she said that during that 17 years, people would siempre [always] come by her house from all sorts of religions and she always would say to them, "Before you say anything, did you know that Jesus came to the Americas?" and every time "No, we didn´t" and she would say, "Alright, I´m not going to listen to a word you say"

Then one day she was at her sisters house and some elders came by.

Elders: Hola [Hello], we´re missionaries and we´d like to share a message about Jesucristo [Jesus Christ]

Ella: Well I can´t let you in because its not my house and also I don´t want to listen to you

Elders: But it´s an amazing message about Jesus!

Ella: Well, I have one question for you

Elders: Si, sister, ask away!

Ella: Did you know that Jesus came to the Americas?

Elders: Yes

It was like she had just been punched with the Spirit.

Ella: what do you call yourselves?

Elders: Elder

Ella: That's the name of your church?

Elders:  La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de los Ultimos Dias [ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]

Ella: Ok, but if I were to call out to you on the street, what would I call you?

Elders: Elder

Ella: Yeah but a member of your church, Like I´m from the catholic church so they call me catholic, for you guys i can´t say,"oh look it´s a member of the La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de los Ultimos Dias!" [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!]  That´s just super long!

Elders: Ohhhhh we´re known as Mormons.

Again, punched by the Spirit. Her search for 17 years had ended! She was baptized 3 months later, 2 of her 3 kids served missions and the third is on the mission. They are all sealed in the temple and she and her husband are leaving on a mission later this year.

I love mexico.

LOVE YOU ALL

Julie

More photos from Julie's mission

La verdad [The truth], Mexico is just super awesome. We had a new investigator at church, he´s seventeen and he already goes to all the youth activities and it was so awesome to see him at church. His best friend wants to baptize him, which will be in one month, yay!

I love mexico. Like seriously, I can´t get over how much I love this place and the paople here are my favorite ever.

Since I´m training, and I´m still new to the mission, I end up calling my district lider[leader] like crazy, como[like], and how do i do this or how do i do that? 

Oh something else cool, we got a menos activo [less active] to listen to us, which was pretty great. His wife isn´t a member, and we´re going to start teaching her the gospel. He was telling us how he wants to get sealed to her and his daughter in the temple and all this stuff and I´m so excited!

 

Love you all! Hasten the work!

Hermana Brooks

p.s. this is me drinking a coke for the first time in mexico. IT TASTES SO MUCH BETTER HERE

Hermana Brooks - Senior Companion and Trainer

This past week has been CRAZY!

First, we went to Cerro de la Silla. I thought we were only going around the mountain, but no we went straight up to the top, and it was AMAZING!  So Cool!  And to think that we hiked that, wow.

Then that night, we had transfers. Being the end of my 12 week missionary training, it was pretty sure that I´d get a new companion, and when my district leader said, "Hermana Brooks, you're training", I literally screamed. 

The next day I went to the offices to learn a bit about my overwhelming responsibility and pick up my new "hija," [daugher - mission slang for a sister missionary who you have trained. ] Hermana Pérez. She´s from Oaxaca and has about 3 weeks total in her mission, I love her to shreads and we're already planning on rooming together at BYU after our missions, she just needs to learn to speak English first (she speaks less than my last companion, who didn´t speak English either).

We also got Elderes in our ward, which means we had to split the area and now our area is a whole lot smaller, which is nice because it means not as much walking. I love having elders! The one thing that´s annoying is that we can´t call each other to pass references or other things like that so we have to go through our district leader almost every day. Pobrecito. [Poor guy.]

I love the work here! Everyone needs to just do everything they can to share the Gospel, it´s the greatest thing ever.

Love you all! Les amo!

Hermana Julie Brooks

Hiking "Cerro De La Silla"

Okay, hoy fuimos a [Today we went to]  Cerro de la Silla. [Cerro de la Silla is mountain peak that is very recognizable and associated with Monterrey.  You can see this mountain peak from anywhere in the valley where Monterrey is situated.]

and by that I mean my whole zone and I went to CERRO DE LA SILLA!!!!!!!!!!! And we literally hiked to the very top, like the very very top, to get any higher we´d have to climb the antenna.

This week has been hard, but we´re really doing all we can to find people prepared for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our goal is to have baptisms every week, and we know it´s possible, so we´re kicking our butts trying to do the Lord´s work. Seriously, hiking Cerro de la Silla is way easier than the Lord´s work, because the reality is to do the Lord´s work you just need to swallow your pride and leave it to the Lord to do.

This is really wierd trying to think only en english.

No photos just because I don´t have time! Next week!  [ translation: The hike took up most of my P-day time. ]

Love you all! Go and do! (Nephi 3:7)

Hermana Brooks

Baptisms!

We had 2 baptisms this past week! Super amazingly fabulous! Our mission president and his wife came to the first one, which was pretty cool to see them.

The thing about missionary work is that we really do nothing. Seriously, this is the work of the Lord, and there is no one else who can do this work. Yesterday, we visited a less active and he was like, "When your eight year old daughter dies, then you can come and talk to me." and the truth is that we will never know how he feels, we will never know the pain that he went through, but Jesus Christ does. All we can do as missionaries is invite people to come unto Christ.

We were praying a lot this week to find families prepared for the gospel. We went to visit someone we contacted on the street the other day and this was our first lesson with her and her family. My companion says, "Okay, we´re going to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon" and they say "Hang on a second" and they go into another room and a minute later they come out with 2 books of mormon and a GIANT triplet. I was like, okay, the Spirit is right, they´re getting baptised.

We also found someone else who practically begged us to get baptised. 

Something I´ve really learned is that the Lord knows his sheep, He knows where they are, and He works harder than we do to bring them back into the fold.

By the way, you may have noticed the same person baptizing almost all of my converts. He isn´t a ward missionary or ward mission leader, he´s just a super amazing member missionary. When my companion and I visit the less actives, they´re always, "Oh yeah, we know him, he came and visited us" and literally investigator after investigator is like "I want him to baptize me". I encourage you all to be just like him!

By the way, it´s super common for mexicans to name their children after people in the book of mormon. There´s Nefi, Lehi, a lot of Mosiah,Jarom, Abish, Zarahemla, I´ve even seen a Moriancumor. I love mexico.

LOVE YOU ALL! PRESS FORWARD (2 Nefi 31)

Julie's House