The Wedding and Baptism (in that order) of Lenny and Brenda

this is lenny and brendas baptism and wedding with two of our other witnesses. the two girls are the cedomio family, we live with them. they are great!

good morning from a rainy acapulco! well actually last week after i got done writing, we went and got our hair cut real quick, then rushed back home to get cleaned up and go to our lunch appointment. we saw the clouds getting really dark, but we thought we could beat them. as i was showering second, elder miller told me it started to rain, and then that it was coming down even harder, then even harder!! yup so hurricane beatrice hit, but it never formed a funnel or anything, but man did it rain hard, and blow a strong wind. im so sorry i forgot the picture we took. we live right at the bottom of the city, 3 small blocks away from the beach, and all the city is on a hill. so everything that hit above us(the entire city) came down and sat on our street(because it was the same level as the ocean)!!!! it actually took three cars in the ocean, one being a suburban, and killed four teenagers playing around the ocean. so as we were trapped in our house area, we went out into the street and cleaned out the flooded street, because trees, tires, etc were being thrown at cars coming, so we got in the street and pulled the stuff out when the cars werent there. it was seriously 2 feet of water, up to our knees!!! but it was fun and exciting. that night i put on sweats and my hoodie, and we just read scriptures all afternoon. what a day.. sadly everything exciting always happens monday night, or tuesday, and i have to wait a whole week to tell you about it...
well this week has been good. we worked hard, and completed our goal for the month of 50 new investigators, and it was a real excitement, because almost no one completes their goals. sadly the zone is still struggling, and hasnt improved yet. we have been waiting for a time to sit down and talk with the districts, but we just havent had a district meeting. last district meeting was flooded out, today, half the zone will be gone, so we wont have it, and next week is the last week of the month, and probably not many missionaries will be too focusd on learning, but just being changed like always.... so i hope we can make some kind of impact on the zone... well back to our area.
our two baptisms went really well this week, but only after a whole lot of stress. as we went to their house thursday morning, to teach about tithing, chastity, and review the baptismal questions with them, when we reveiwed the chastity question, elder miller asked where they had been married, and they said they were only living together, and that they had explained it to us, but neither of us caught that expression...so we had one day befor their baptismal interviews, and two days before their baptisms, so we didnt have much time to get them married. we went back home, and started looking what we could do, and found that some old missionaries had left us a form on how to marry someone in less than a day, and for only 400 pesos(less than 40 dollars). so we went the next morning and looked into it, but the lady in the registro civil didnt show up on time, but two hours late, so we were wigging out!!! haha we actually got it all done in less than an hour and a half, because we went with everything prepared, and elder miller and i split the pay, and will get reimbursed for it. so we got that all finished up, and they got married, and baptized without a problem. they are so great. and after the baptism, for some reason, the bishop wanted to talk with lenny, and it turns out that he wanted to ordain him to the aaronic preisthood. lenny accepted wholeheartedly, and was thrilled afterwards. more than one person has told us that he will be a leader someday, and i fully believe it. well thats all the great news that happened this week, even though its only two stories with a lot of detail. haha
well thanks everyone for your letters and prayers, and for staying in touch. i am trying to keep in touch with all of you, but please forgive me if im not doing so great at it. i do love you all, and im very touched by all you say and do for me. well my time is up.... thanks for everything, and for listening to my letters. love you all ,and hope yo have a wonderful week! especially joseph!!! love you bro.
elder brigham facer

Joseph's Blog

Check out my brother Joseph's blog! You can click on this link, or the link on the side of the page to get there directly:

www.elderjosephfacer.blogspot.com

Being grateful in all things, for all things

well i have very little time right now, but i am a very happy man. first of all, because my little brother is going to be a missionary, and complete with what the lord god has called him to do, secondly for fathers day and my wonderful father figures that have helped me get to where i am, and thirdly, for alyssas birthday. so congratulations to everyone!
well here in acapulco, it started raining monday night around 2am and we went out to play in the rain a little bit. but then it went away and didnt come back till thursday, so it really heated up the ground and made it miserable. even while you are sweating, you feel like you are being poked by little needles all over your body, and it practically never left.... when the rains came thursday, we were ready, and we got drenched immediately. the day stayed cool, and was very refreshing. but sadly still not many people let us in. friday was super super hot as well as saturday, but now sunday afternoon is when everything got good! it started to get cloudy after church at 1130am, and then stayed that way until 4pm. then it started to rain so hard that if felt like hail, and you could barely see out of the front windshield of the car!(we got a ride home from lunch) it stayed rainy all the rest of the day, all night, and just right now it is cooling down and not raining as hard. they say that at times it starts raining for days continually and thats when flooding starts happening. by the way mom, about the scripture you sent me, after sending the letter last week and ``murmured´´ we read a talk by elder bednar in the conference of november 2008 about pray with faith. we learned that it is more important to give thanks in prayer than to ask for things, because god already knows our needs, desires, etc so there is no reason to ask. so elder miller and i started only saying prayers of gratitude, and asking for very very few things. we have really noticed a change in our attitude, and our blessings that we are receiving. so now i have repented for my murmurings and have started to give thanks in all things(1 nefi 18:16)
we had some really good success with finding new investigators this week, and ended the week with 15. almost no one went to church, except for the golden couple i told you about last week, lenny and brenda. they are so excited, and progressing so well. they have their baptismal date for this saturday, so ask that everyone pray for them, and that they will complete with their baptismal covenant. i just know they will, they are doing so great. brenda is having a few problems letting go of the virgin guadalupe(worshiping idols) but we are helping her get better at it, lenny is the bigger help, and really makes her pray to god at night in their family prayer.
im really sorry that all my time ran out, i had to read a lot from president spannaus, and write a few letters to family, but i did fill you all in on the most important things going on. next week, we have the leadership training for four days, so we wont have much to talk about next week, but ill give good details. thank you all for your letters, and your support and love. it really does my heart well to know that everyone is strong, and willing to serve the lord in all things.
just one last shout out for dad, happy fathers day! love you
love you all.
elder ``brigham´´ facer

never ending torment, partially

Me and Elder Miller opening a really hard coconut. haha this is not the way to do it!
the baptism of josefina! me, jose luis (ward mission leader), josefina, elder miller, and jose lozano. he baptized her.
i have a very good guess of what the scriptures say about never ending fire and torment, or a lake of fire and brimstone, as being hell. i think its talking about acapulco. the heat is so intense right now, we are just getting no relief. luckily, god is there to help us, and give us strength to keep going on. elder miller and i have thought about the poor missionaries about 50 years ago that started working here in acapulco, when there werent fans to help a little with the heat. poor poor missionaries. well we are doing really good if youre not talking about the heat. we are finding a whole lot more new people that are listening, and accepting baptismal dates to work with in the next month also. we found 15 in this week, and that is just what we need to stay on track to complete our monthly goal. well we only had two that went to church, but that is a good start, because they should be baptized before the end this month. they are lenny and brenda. just a young couple who are really interested and really enjoying everything. we found them on tuesday, and they have kept all their commitments, and are feeling really good. they are a reference from a quiet lady that works in a laundromat right in front of their house, and she told them a little about the church and invited us to talk to them. the lady is really excited that her neighbors are getting into it, and she is really getting excited to help in the missionary work.
well we had a very cool experience to help out some other missionaries this last saturday. president spannaus called us in the morning and said that some elders out in a little city in our zone were going to baptize, but there werent any priesthood holders that could be there to be witnesses of the baptism. it is a very farmy town, and everyone leaves town to work. their branch president is a teacher, and couldnt be there either, so he asked us to find a way that two missionaries could go. first of all we both wanted to go visit atoyac, because it is super beautiful, and we realized the other missionaries of the zone, also couldnt go... so we finished up our studies for the morning and left around 11am. its a two hour bus drive, and its horrible. i will try to send you a video of us suffering on there, but im not sure if it will fit in the email. there isnt air conditioning, and every stop in every pueblo a guy got on to play music and beg for money. i was hoping the trip would be nice to read the book of mormon, but i barely got to read.... atoyac is super beautiful, and the guy got baptized in a river, because in their house of prayer, there isnt a font. really cool, and the guy was super excited. he had already had a special interview with president spannaus, and was justy waiting his forgivness of sins! really cool. we got back, two hours later, and did another interview for the elders of centro, and had to go say we were sorry to our investigators, because we didnt have time to tell them we werent going to make it to the appointments... but everything worked out good. it was a good experience to go out to atoyac, because we really had to drop our own concerns and serve others, even though it was hard. very cool. well sadly my time is up, but thank you to all those who have written me, it has been especially nice to hear from shauna and her family. i encourage you to keep helping out with the lady in your ward, help her to stay active and regain her testimony of the atonement of the savior. the both of you will receive the greatest blessings. im not sure where the scripture is , but it says like the reaper and sower receive the same reward. the mission is great, there is nothing better i could be doing with my time, than serving the people in acapulco, and serving my master. i love you all, and pray for you continually.

Just Teach the Simple Stuff...

my dear family. we had a wonderful week, and i sure hope you all did too. i was happy to hear that the rains are leaving your town, but sadly still havent made it here. well im going to try to remember all the events that happened this week, because it was a pretty decent week.
well thats odd, looking back through my planner, not much happened this week, in fact, it wasnt that great of a week, but for some reason i feel good about what we did, and that it was enjoyable. well wednesday afternoon, we went with josefina that was going to be baptized this week, and decided she should wait another week to do it, first of all, because the ward is going to the temple, and we wanted more people to be there for her baptism, and also she wanted one more week. she went to church on sunday, and is super excited for her baptism this coming thursday. also during our appointment, we had a member go with us, and we got really scared towards the end of the lesson. we taught the plan of salvation, and at the end, josefina asked who is our heavenly father? the member immediately burst out, before we responded, or asked her to respond, and said he is jehova. there is a problem here, because another religion goes around preaching apostasy saying that god the eternal father is jehova, and so we were nervous that we would ahve to put the member in her place, and it almost turned into an arguement getting that conversation fixed.....wonderful members in mexico.... haha what she was trying to explain, is that jesus christ is jehova, but that jesus is also our heavenly father, because they are all one... so we had to {politely} ask the member to leave the simple teaching to us, and we clarified it with the bible dictionary. the sad thing is that the member is one of our sister missionaries from the ward under the ward mission leader. so we are trying to teach them all again how to teach simple doctrine, and not confuse people. later on in the week, thursday afternoon, we had to leave for cuernavaca for zone leader council, and got there early so we went to see some of the converts of elder miller. we also got permission from the assistants to president to stay with some other missionaries in cuernavaca(elder millers old area) so we could actaully get to sleep. they had a sweet new street soccer court that was built right outside of their window, so we went up on their roof and watched for a little while, and talked. it was a really great experience to go to zl council this time, because president really had to get after us. i remember elder zazueta telling me that his first za council that president attacked him, just to make sure he learned and could teach his zone, but he felt attacked. this time, i felt like it was much more of a learning experience, and that he wants us to help our zones out, and learn the necessary principles to keep going. so i felt like it was a wonderful time to learn and be corrected. on our way home, i contacted a lady that was sitting next to me, and i taught her about the book of mormon, she was very open, and accepted that the missionaries in her area went to her house. it was cool to have a really good contact, instead of getting a lot of doors shut in your face. i learned that it changed because we had a normal, friendly conversation at the beginning.
saturday night, after starting our fast, elder miller got a super bad migrane, and we had to go home around 6, because he jsut couldnt keep going. after a few hours he started throwing up, and i have him a blessing, and he was able to sleep, and sunday morning it was gone. we also had a miracle of a new family we found that went to church yesterday, and are progressing very nicely. i love the times when the lord humbles the poeple for us, and we just come in and baptize them. those are some of the chosen children of god. well im sorry i dont have more time, but a sister in the ward is wainting for us to go to her house to eat lunch, i wish i had more time to put some more details in, beause you know how much i love details hahaha. i love you all though, and am grateful for your support and help. may god bless you all in all your daily activities. much love,
elder facer