2 Week Catch Up

well good afternoon all my family and friends. it was good to see
some of you yesterday, and to be able to write you today. there is
quite a lot to tell about because i have two weeks to catch up on and
a lot of great experiences that keep building my testimony more and
more every day. im not really organized in my thoughts, so please
forgive me if i starts to get pretty confusing and out of order.

well all is well here in cuernavaca, we just got back from a rigorous
hike to the tepozteco for 3 hours, we ate fabulous tacos of cesina
with itakates, and tlacoyos. haha, i probably wont even be able to
tell you what they are without my pictures, but i left the extension
cord at home. we also had tepoznieves. its pretty much like ice
cream but they have over 130 flavors and it was incredible. we went
with a family in the ward that has been really nice to us, and are so
much fun. they all say high, and also, later, i will send pics of
them. we will eat with them for new years. speaking of that mom,
could you somehow communicate with clarissa or her mom to ask for the
chocolate bunt cake with kissables. she knows the one. if not,
mention to her its the one we ate after getting kicked out of state in
high school soccer. haha. i told them how wonderful the cake was and
they asked if i oculd get the recipie. they are big chocolate fans
too.

these past two weeks have had their ups and downs. we have been
finding a few more than usual, but we werent having the lessons with a
member present that we were hoping for, then the next week, or member
lessons went up and our finding and challenging for baptism were going
down, so i think that after finding the two extremes, we will ahve a
great balanced out week this time around. elder sonntag and i have
gotten in little quarrels that were easily, usually, worked out, and
sometimes they lasted a little longer. i think its because i am too
meticulous(i cant remember how to say it) and i always let the little
things pick at me, and for some of those reasons, we had a few
arguements. nothing that we couldnt work out. we werent able to
baptize these last two weeks, but are hopefully planning one for this
week for miguel. yesenia had a problem, and we havent been able to
see her all week. a few members have talked with her, and they think
that she just isnt ready to leave her party life behind. but we will
keep working with her. in my personal study, i have been reading in
joshua of the old testament, and also in doctrine and covenants, and i
have learned a ton in d&c. maybe not so much about the story, buy i
have learned a lot of very important scriptures that have helped me a
lot. like d&c 42.61 I dont have them all memorized right now to write
their references, but if i remember next week, ill share them. this
week, we also have been working with an ex missionary and his wife.
it is a cool experience to be working with them, moises and stefania.
he got home from his mission, and was a powerhouse, he actually served
in the mexico north mission, and one of his last areas was apasco
hidalgo. he is elder ramirez ramirez. after a while, his non member
father, got to him by peer pressure, and got him to drink a little,
then in the end met stef, and well... they are now living together and
are not married waiting for a baby to come. he has been inactive
since hanging with his dad, and when we got with him, he shared that
he felt that we got there in the right time to make the difference.
stef is also progressing, and they went to church yesterday with us!
it was a huge success, and we are feeling the joy of bringing, not
only investigators, but inactive member back, and they are excited. i
really do love the missionary work, serving others always brings about
such a great joy that really changes who we were, into what god wants
us to be.

it made me laugh when you said that alyssa knew me in jr
high, because i thought about sticking pennies to my forehead in 7th
period english with mrs. jones and calling myself pennyman! haha. so
wow have i changed. also an emeritus seventy of our ward had his son
over and we ate with them. his son asked if i had been a leader in
the mission, because of how well i behaved and mature i acted. he
said that i was a powerful missionary from the scripture i shared.
its not to brag that i say this, but just to show that there really
has occurred a grand change in me, and i love it. i hope to be able
to continue with it all my life, and keep learning more.

so mom, can i be enrolled in uvu and be a partial student at byu for
the spanish class, or is it one or the other? i asked for ideas of
what i could major in, because i think i will need to put goals on
what i hope to achieve in 1 yr, 5 yrs, and 10 yrs. so if its possible
to get any carreer written down to to start with some kind of plan, it
would be nice. i dont need a lot of answers about it yet, but in
about a month, he will ask me to start thinking and setting these
goals.

well i lovce you all, and am thankful for your support, well for the
little you gave me yesterday, haha just kidding. it was fun to see
you, and motivating. ill keep working strong, and i ask that you also
give your best to the lord. i love you all. until next week.
elder facer

Darn that computer...

mom, im sorry, i had a lot of stuff written, and when i went to save
it, it was all erased. i didnt send it, and i dont know what
happened, and i dont have time to write any more...... so just to be
quick, i will be getting on skype at 3:30pm mexico time, which is
2:30 your time. i will also have my msn messenger account open, if
there are any problems, we can talk quick over it, or you can email me
at this account. im sorry it was a good letter, but for some reason
it was erased.... so i guess with this we will have to wait until
sunday to talk. im prayin for you all!
elder facer

Gifts of Service

hey! im really sorry for the last few weeks that it has been hard to write, we are still trying to find the time to do all that we needed to do, and it made it really hard. but this next week, i think we will have the schedule down good to be able to write with plenty of time. this week has been pretty crazy. we have been planning and rehearsing for our zone service project, and for a sunday night choir devotional. monday night, thursday in the morning, and sunday before the concert. thursday we had the service project and we went to a retirement home, a home with older people with problems, and their family just stopped taking care of them, so they are in a pretty rough state, but were very happy and fun to receive us, well those that were able to recieve us. we sang 4 hymns, and they asked for an encore haha, so we sang silent night in the end without any practice and with parts, so it wasnt so good. but they didnt know, they only heard the words hopefully. i sang the tenor part to the songs, and it was fun.
i really miss singing in groups like this. then after singing, we went and painted the two main hallways, and the kitchen, and the cafeteria. with 22 missionaries, and president with his wife, it went by pretty quick. we finished it all in about 3 hours and were out by 2pm. then sunday, we were running around like crazy with the assistants and the secretaries for our food appointment. we ate together, because a member from their ward lives in atzingo,(but goes to palmas) and the ladys daughter goes to our ward, so they scheduled the same day to give us all together, so we had to find the assistants and take them there, because i was the only one that knew where the sister lives, so we got there late, and ate mexican steaks! they have nothing to compare to dad´s, but it was meat and not chicken. so i was pretty happy. they are such a cool and good family too. but that means that we were really late getting to practice because the food was really far away. but the devotional was really fun. it reminded me of what we did in the ward when i was little every year, and it was a good reminder of the experience of the savior. we had a rough day at church, because all of the 12 really good progressing investigators that we were hoping would go to church, didnt go, so we only had yesenia. the good thing is she will be baptized this friday! we will also have a ward dinner on friday after her baptism. this week was pretty nuts with all the parties going on, and the festival of the virgin mary, or guadalupe, the lordes mother of mexico as she is known here. sad... it was pretty hard to sleep all the week because of fireworks and parties, bands playing in the street etc all night long. a lot of drunks and fights, but nothing happened to us. well as you all heard about, the earthquake was bad, but nothing happened to us. we had just sat down to have a fhe with a family, and as we were about to start, we heard it in the distance. it was by far the biggest one of the three i have felt, but it was only like .7 more than the other two, but it made a difference after getting above 6.0. elder sonntag was happy and laughing about it, because it was his first shake, but it took him a while to realize what was going on. but all is well, nothing happened in cuernavaca as far as i have heard, and all is well.
well we are still working with maritza and diana, they didnt go to church, so they will have to wait another week to be baptized, and neither did our usual frequent investigators go. its crazy to see how hard satan works on the people we teach. the husband of a member has gone with her to church for 8 years, not constantly, but the weekend that we teach him for the first time, they get in a big fight and he went with his family instead of going to church. so its hard, but we will hopfully see him tonight. he is luis, please pray for him too. we are really trying to find new ways to teach the members how to do their part in the work, and teach them how to find their friends and neighbors that are ready for the gospel. thats what we are focusing on this week, and the next month is teaching them their responsibilities as disciples of christ. well i thank you all for your letters this week, im sorry that i wasnt able to write back, because it didnt give me time, but next week, i will be on top of it.
and mom, i hope you could read that letter by alfredo, he had a rough experience of leaving the church, but is finally back, and recieved the priesthood this last week, with plans with his girlfriend to go on missions!! its so interesting how God knows when to convince some of his children... i love you all, and i cant wait to hear from you soon, or see you on skype!
elder facer

Reminders from home, except for the First Presidency message

well, im sorry to be writing so late, our new schedule is kinda rough with time. the only thing we need to do is go to costo to buy a lot of food for elder sonntag, and bring it home, so the other missionaries dont ask questions, complain etc. but wow did it eat up our time. it was really fun, because we ate there, and i had a hot dog. it reminded me so much of when we went to costco with mom and ate afterwards. good times. haha. we played a little basketball today, and also practiced singing a few songs for the zone.
we are doing a service project this week, and a part of that will be singing in a retirement home. also we will sing the same songs in a stake mission activity. they are oh come all ye faithfull, away in a manger, and two other songs that i cant remember the names in english.
haha. its funny to see how much im forgetting. some members in atzingo that speak english, said that i speak english with a mexican accent. haha it makes me laugh everytime i think of it. i have a feeling youre all going to make fun of me when i get home.
this week was a little bit harder, because we had lot of appointments fall that were important lessons with members present. but we did get many other lessons in. we had a few fhe lessons, and had a little success, but are hoping for much more in this week. we worked hard and had a lot of good success, but need to work on the other appointments so that they dont fall. we are also working out in the mornings at a near by park, and it has felt really good, but really tiring. after fasting, and working out in the morning, i about threw up, so luckily i didnt. we also made huevos a la mexicana this morning, and that was the best prepared breakfast that i have had in a long time. the stake president talked to me yesterday to plan and accompany us to a fhe this week with a family that he has chosen. its good to hear that he is interested in whats going on with the stake mission plan and wants to help. also yesterday we had a first presidency christmas fireside, and had a few investigators there. i dont know if they have it in utah, because i dont think that i ever saw one of those before, it was really good, but the transmittion is always a little sketchy.
it really is hard to think that it was that long ago when i started the mission, and i dont really remember you crying like you said sister day cried. haha but it has sure gone by quick. well mom, dont worry, after writing you last week, and getting to the district meeting, my package was there waiting for me! with all thirty two wonderful christmas cards in it, and what a suprise it was to find that book by elder oaks. that was a really nice gift, but the only problem is that in the mission we cant read those books, only the missionary library.... but i will keep up well reserved for when i get home. also the great pics of tara in the state championships. i was waiting for those! haha. well, i can actually call you at the time you want. the 25 we have changes, but i know that i am staying with elder sonntag, so if you want i can call at night, like 7 or 8 my time(because i dont know what time it is in utah).
well all is well here, and i just wanted you to please be praying for our invesigators, especially maritza and diana who might be baptized this week. thanks to all of you that wrote me a christmas letter in my package. it was very sweet, and i still need to finish reading the rest of them, but just know that you are thanked. well i have to go now. i love you all, and cant wait to see you on christmas, or hear from you soon!
elder facer

dedication

hey, im sorry about last week, it was crazy and complicated because it
was a national holiday and practically the whole city was shut down.
last week, we went to a group of pyramids called xochicalco
(socheecalco for all you gringos) and it was a blast! we got burnt a
little, but it was worth it. we took a ton of pics, and ill send some
today so you can post them. i feel bad that i havent sent pics in a
long time, i hope you at least had pics of me to see in my blog. last
week, we baptized german! our first week in the area, and we start
baptizing, it feels so good, and it builds the members trust to see us
get right to work. german was very excited and very well prepared.
sadly he didnt get confirmed, because his baptism was after the
services, and the bishop, after telling me that he would be confirmed,
changed his mind, so we will have to wait till next week. also we had
to talk in church, which i felt was very good and spiritual. in the
ward, the first councelor, ex mission president and ex seventy, pres.
gaona, congratulated me on my talk for being very sincere and simple,
and right to the point. that was fun to hear from someone like that.
and i think the ward is going to be great. in the last two weeks, we
have been able to meet a lot of the ward, and who the leaders are to
go work with them. we are starting the fhe thing and have had some
success, as well as more excitement from the leaders. i think this is
whats really going to get this ward going like it should. this week,
we finished the baptisms and confirmations of german and two of his
daughters: gina, and jenny. they are 10 and 8, but adorable! it was
so much fun to watch them giggling and bouncing in their chairs during
the baptismal service waiting to be baptized. everything went well,
and they were all confirmed, and german received the aaronic
priesthood! we are slowly moving along. luckily german has been well
accepted into the ward, and even if he wasnt, he would keep going. he
is very independant, and is dedicated when he wants to be, so he is
doing really good, and happy to give a good example to his daughters.
the ward is pretty good to accept and welcome new people. this last
week, we had 7 in church, and almost all of them saw someone they knew
and felt really happy to be there. we have been receiving a lot of
references this last week of people that are ready to be taught.
sadly they have had to go through many hard times to get there, but
they are finally there! yesenia is one of them. we found her
saturday, because she is the neighbor of a member, and he is way cool,
even went to church. she had a hard marriage, where her husband beat
her, and didnt help at all with the kids, etc. jsut hard, but she is
so excited to start praying and talking to christ for the comfort.
this week we will challenge her for baptism for the 17 of december.
please be praying for her, and also that she can find work. we have
found a lot of dry members(investigators with years of going to
church, but never getting baptized) that we found this week, and seem
like they could top it off. one of my best converts, sonia in
acapulco, was a dry member that felt the spirit and changed
immediatly. they are luis, minerva, and margarita. we also found a
super golden family this week, thanks to the zone leaders, they are
the mom, reyna, and her two daughters that are listening to us,
maritza and diana. so great! reyna also needs your prayers to stop
smoking, and she is working hard. they all went to church twice and
are progressing for baptism of the 10th!
elder sonntag is doing really well, and we havent really had any
arguments or problems, we just need to get better on teaching a little
quicker, which comes with speaking better spanish. he has had some
stomach problems since the time he entered in the mtc, and this last
week we went to the doctors to see what was up, we did a few tests,
and will see probably this week the results. he is really excited,
and very dedicated to working hard. while he was in the doctors
office with hna. spannaus, me and president got to talk about the
area, comps, and future plans. when adam miller goes over, pres tells
him hi. he explained a few concepts of the importance to study and
get a good education first, and then work hard. i have been trying to
prepare myself to study hard, now, so i can go back and be diligent.
i ask for your prayers, in this time as i try to find what i desire,
and what i dont desire. thats what president explained that i have to
do to find out what i want to study. so lets see how it goes! if you
have any suggestions, im completely open. haha.
mom, what you mentioned about grandpa brig mitchell, you know, its not
the first time i have thought about that. i have read helaman 5:6 a
few times, and i always think to when you named me brigham in his
behalf. its touching, as well as being words of caution. i know who
i need to live up to, and what my name is, or who my name is. it
really makes me want to be better, and try so much harder to leave it
all on the field! i have been working so hard to stay focused, and i
actually dont think about home that much. when it comes, i quickly
change my thought, and get focused again. thank goodness for short
memory. haha! just kidding. i really do love the missionary work, and
am so grateful to be here. i hope that i can do all that the lord is
expecting of me in this, my last area, and with elder sonntag, who
might be my last companion. its intersting to be in this position, to
be one of the older guys, or leaders of the mission. all is going
well, and im still working hard, and i will until the very last day of
the mission. thanks for the quote by elder holland. cant wait of the
package!
love you all, and thank you for your support and prayers. thank you
all who have helped be get to where i am, spiritually, emotionally,
physically, and financially. thanks maryjo and sharon and emily for
your help. it really means a ton. i really do love you all, and i
thank you for what you have done to get me here. take good care, and
we will talk next week.

Come What May, and Love It

well, i guess i will start out letting you know about changes. elder solomon stays in atzingo with an elder that has about 15 months in the mission and i got changed to the area on the side of atzingo, one of the biggest in the entire mission, called la pradera. i am with a missionary that has 5 months in the mission, and has just completed his training. he is from holiday utah, and his name is elder sonntag.
he is like 6 foot 4, and likes to rock climb! haha. i barely know him, but he started in acapulco, right when i left, and had a really good trainer. i am really excited to be with him, and during the week, we will take a picture and ill send it to you.
well we finally baptized and CONFIRMED someone. it was mariana, the fiancee of our old ward mission leader luis. she was great, and passed her interview with flying colors. in her baptism, there were only eight people, all that she wanted. her, luis, elder solomon and i, her future in laws, and her close friends, adan and mayela. elder solomon and i sang a song of oh my father, first verse to the original tune, the second, i sang the original and he sang it to the tune of come thou fount of every blessing, and the third was a melody of come thou fount. it was really cool, and we were commented on our song.
later, she was confirmed on sunday and it was really good! yesterday was the first time i had ever blessed the sacrament in spanish, i will admit, i was a little nervous, but tried hard to be slow and emphasize it differently than everyone else. it was nice. the funny thing was i really didnt have to say goodbye to anyone, because we well share the same church building, and i will continue to see them all. the only hard thing was that we had to get to know the area of pradera, because its huge! we are going to open it, and we didnt know anything about it or where we lived etc.....
we tried to work hard this week, but it just didnt work how we hoped it would, to be able to find 25 people . we worked hard and had some success, but we jsut couldnt find some people we wanted, or really get ahold of guillermo again. so im sad to have to leave some things undone, but what else can i do... just keep a smile on and keep working so that i can have the spirit and work hard. appearantly there are a few possible baptisms this week that the sisters left us, so we will see if we can get the members to help us get around and start to know the area.
well i ask for your prayers, to help us be guided by the spirit in this new and huge area. pray for baptisms this week for us, and as well as joseph, he said they could baptize 5!im proud of him. its rough, and he said he might have a tough companion, from guerrero, but im excited for him. baptizing is what keeps a companionship happy and funcional. love you all, and thanks for writing. take good care.
elder facer

Fasting brings miracles

wow, well i dont know where to start. i have had an incredible week,
and as i can hear, so have all of you! alyssa is having good progress
on her finger, all of my nieces and nephews are wonderful and growing
super quickly, and everyone else is working hard to complete with
their family responsibilities and the lords. that makes me so happy
and proud to have been born into this family that has been growing and
learning for over 5 generations in the church! its humbling and so
spiritual to see how the lord has decided to bless me with my
situations and trials. congratulations to tara for being nominated to
be a leader for your team! its a big responsability, but as you pray
for love for your team, and how best to guide them, they will all
follow you and respect you. its cool to see you recognizing your
attributes and trying to apply them. also it was good to hear from
joseph this week. he is doing good, and is happy to be in the work.
thanks scott for your letter, and emily, alyssa, betsy, and shauna.
it really does my heart so good to see all the support that i have, in
the hard and good times of the work. thanks also to bishop williams
for his letter and inspiring words.
well, this week, we worked hard, and really tried to stay focused on
working and having a lot of appointments. we did! and because of
that, we had a huge blessing which i am going to talk about later in
the letter. haha so you will have to wait.
elder solomon and i have been working on our teaching style to learn
how to be better united. chapter ten of pmg is amazing for our
teaching abilities and has changed the way i teach. elder snyder was
very smart to start me off with that and i have tried to finish it off
with elder solomon. we also had a wonderful zone conference that
talked about it. i cant remember if i told you that we are having
zone conference this week, its wierd not being zone leader and hearing
about all this stuff a month before, now i only hear about it a week
or two before. i was incredibly impacted by the conference this time.
usually president repeated the conferences from last year, so i went
thinking i knew what he was going to talk about, but i was made
humble, and was taught a ton! the spirit was definately there, and
taught us what we needed to change, and how to better ourselves in the
lords work. president asked us three questions at the end that really
impacted me they were: how will i know if i love the lord? how will i
know if i am his true disciple? how will i know if i know the lord? we
had to answer them with straight scriptures and were taught a lot. we
need to keep the commandments and serve our fellow man to really
answer those questions. it taught me what i need to do and how i am
doing in my spiritual progress. then hermana spannaus talked about our
desires from elder oaks talk in conference of may. she brought out a
lot of good quotes and points, and taught me how to have righteous
desires that will make me a better servant of the lord, and help those
around me. she gave examples in the book of mormon of missionaries
and captain moroni. it was cool the planning and preparation that
each of them had to receive the help of the lord, as well as their
faith that the lord would work miracles in their lives.
now i will talk about our miracle. saturday we started our fast and
decided to fast that the investigators we had would go to church,
because that is a stastistic that we are really lacking right now in
all the mission, i imagine in all the world. so we worked really hard
for them to teach them the importance of church and the sacrament, and
had to respect the agency of a few people, but as sunday morning
approached, we started working even harder and had a prayer in our
hearts for the investigators. we went looking for them for about
1-1/2 hours and a lot of people told us that they were going to go,
and most of them went. saturday night we taught a family that some
inactive members had given us, and the inactives and their referral
went, and three families we went to also went! in the end we had 13
investigators in church! a super miracle, i think its the most in
sacrament meeting ive ever had. so we knelt down and thanked the lord
for his merciful hand and for allowing these, his children, to
progress at this time. i know the hardest sacrifices we give to the
lord, results in wonderful blessings, but when he gives them. i was
very humbled and touched to see how the lord is still working in such
a hard area for us. there are no bad areas in the mission, they all
have been blessed by the lord to be ready to be harvested! i know
its true, and now i dont really want to leave the area! there is so
much work to be done here. the members were really excited to see
our work, and alot wanted to help and offered it in this next week!
this is the lords work. i feel it so deep within my heart, and i know
he is the good shepard. he directs this work, and knows us personally
and what we need to keep going. i love him, and am now working to get
to know him better.
by the way rosy, from acapulco says hi, and as well as emmanuel, elder
snyders convert who went for his endowments last weekend! so great.
by the way, by the way, we usually dont do much in church, its a
ward, and we teach gospel principles class and help in priesthood. we
have two decent organists from the ward, so neither of us play, but
maybe in a baptism. speaking of baptisms, mariana will be baptized
this week, she is the future wife of or ex ward mission leader and is
super prepared. she is way excited, and we made her program last
night
love you all! thanks for your prayers and love. its great to hear
from you all, and that all is well, i cant wait to see you in 7 weeks
for christmas, but im not waiting too much on it, because there are
more details during with our investigators. have a wonderful week! i
love you all
elder facer