Anyways, a super cool thing happened while I was over by the offices.

This week was a pretty great and excellent week, and it was probably my best week on the mission to be honest. It was so incredibly fun, and just really, really different. So we started off the week having to go back to the mission offices to go to a Leader's Council (or however you say it in English), and then we just worked in the area of the Assistants for the rest of the week. We then slept at the offices that night, and the next day we all had to go and take out another visa for our second year on the mission. Man it was so, so, so fun. We all got together-- everybody that came here with me--and we just had a great night in the offices with the Assistants and the Secretaries of the mission. It was a nice little half mission present that got.

Anyways, a super cool thing happened while I was over by the offices. So I was talking to the Bishop of one of my past areas (because he works in the offices), and I was just asking about all the people that I had baptized in his ward. He told me that a few of them had gone inactive. So I was just super, super down, and it was really sad to hear that the family that I helped had gone inactive (they are like my Mexican family). 

So that night I just prayed really hard and intensely and just trying to figure out how I could help. Praying that God would just do something to help them return to the Church. So anyways, I felt like I should write a letter to them. So I did and I put it on the Bishop's desk for when he goes home. And then I was with President and he had to take us to the hospital. We were suppose to return to our area, so he starts to drive us to the bus station.  But then just says, "No, you guys aren't going home.  You'll just wait until tomorrow to go and I'll take you." So I asked him, 'Well, what do we do for the rest of the night, cuz we kinda wanna work.'  

And he tells us, "You guys decide.  Here's 150 pesos for food and buses.  Just get to the offices at a reasonable hour."   So me and my companion look at each other and without thinking just go "sotavento"--so we jump out of President's car and start sprinting to where the buses are to go to our old area. 

When we finally got there we got off the bus and just started sprinting from one house to another house. It was so incredibly amazing--I used to have that feeling before football games--like an amazing adrenaline rush. 

So we go and visit the Famly of Lucero, and only the mom Lucero and Jackie are home, but it was so funny. Jackie starts yelling, "Mom, Mom Mom, its Hermano Hall; its Hermano Hall." 

And her mom just goes and says, 'No its not.  Its just Elder Rodriguez and the his white companion'. 

But Jackie just kept going and going, so when she looks out the window she gets a huge smile and just starts booking it down the stairs with jackie and Genesis. Everybody was crying just with tears of joy, and then we just testified and said, 'Go to the church. You know you need to.'

They told us that they'd been praying for a sign--and 'Boom' here it was. 

Then we go sprinting all the way down to Andres´ house. However he wasn't home, but we did get to see his family and wife which was a great time. 

Then we went to go say 'Hi' to the Family Leon, and we told them to just put their faith in God and go to church.  They committed to go to church and ALL THAT GOOD STUFF. 

Then we went sprinting all the way the Ana Claudias' house to go say 'Hi'.  Man Ana is freaking awesome! She hasn't missed a single day of church or seminary since she's been baptized, and she's only got 14 years. And she's the only one in her family--it was awesome to see her, and she got after me for not saying goodbye when I left. I told her, 'Hey, you weren't home when I tried to say goodbye, so that's not my fault li'l lady'. 

So then we talked with her sister and told her to get her act together and she committed to be baptized! haha It was great. 

Then we go sprinting to Armando and Rita's house. And wow was that amazing! Rita opens the door and just starts crying (more like sobbing) because she's seeing the two guys that helped change her life, and she said some great things. And then we bore our testimony and tell her that she needs to go back to church, and its not because we are missionaries.  Its because we love her and her family and want them to be happy and have the chance to live forever together, and we know we can only do that if we are renovando our convenios during the sacrament. 

Then we go to Pedro and Amilia's house and that was just great to see because he was just super happy to see us and also he needed help getting through to his wife and getting her back to church. So we just told her that she knew what she needed to do to feel God in her life again, and then bore our testimony and she too promised to get back to church. 

Then to finish it off I just got the feeling that we need to go back to Lucero's house.  So we go back and the other two daughters aren't home yet, but her husband was on the phone so I talked to him. When I was just leaving the two girls got home and it was an awesome reunion. 

It was something that I will never forget.  I think it might go down as the best mission night that I will have on the mission. There was just something so special about every single one of those moments. We honestly just could see the hand of God really working all through that night, and we felt like He was guiding us along the way as well. 

I won't ever forget the smile or look on the people's faces when they saw us standing on their doorstep--I honestly felt like felt it was seeing two angels standing right on your step type of stuff (with all humility I say that). Lots of missionaries will never get this opportunity to do this, but it was something that was well-needed. And I just loved it. I got to see the impact that I had on their lives while still on the mission, which was an eye opener. Its an experience that money could never buy, and feeling that I didn't know I could ever feel. Their faces were priceless--in a good way. 

So that helped me gain a pretty strong testimony of the fact that everything happens for a reason, and we hardly understand it all. But God has a plan and we need to be humble enough to follow it and accept it. He might cut us down to try to help and put people in our paths that need our help. And we might not ever have seen them if we weren't cut down. So yeah--that was a great week that i just had. 

Also funny story--made my star football team out of the sister missionaries in the mission, and then we found a wheelchair and started using it in the offices. So President walks in and tells us to get up, and he goes and sits in it, and I go, "Do a wheeley President".  And without thinking, he just pops a wheely and holds it for like five minutes and breaks the wheelchair. Man that was so incredibly funny--and I just found that maybe he is like perfect. 

That's all I got--have a great week and love you all. 

"Church is true go be awesome"-Anne Bagley

I started the week out with a pretty nasty cold

10/23/2017 Post

This week was a pretty good week as always. However, it was a pretty hard week here. All this week my comp. and I were pretty darn sick. It was really funny but it really, really sucked. 

I started the week out with a pretty nasty cold and my companion had a pretty nasty stomach ache. The week went on and we both gave each other what we had, so by the end of the week we were both battling a terrible cold and then on top of all of that we had a really, really bad stomach problems.  So anyways, we just kept going out and working because we couldn't just stay inside cuz we needed to work and we can't spare a single day in this work. Haha 

So anyways, we went to the doctor's office Thursday cuz it was terrible and my companion just goes, "Dude let's just buy some laxante (thats spanish)."  So anyways, I go, 'Oh yeah--great idea. That'll just get everything out of us dude." So we take three of them and that night we were in and out of the bathroom. The next day we aren't getting any better and we can't stop and its just terrible. But we still go out and we work and its just terrible and we can barely walk around without almost ..... ourselves.   We just went bouncing from one house to another using the bathroom. 

So that night we call Hermana Palmer and we ask her for some advice of things we should do to get better. She asks us what we have done and we tell her, 'Well nothing--we are just trying to work hard and forget about it.' haha 

She gets mad at us and tells us that's kinda dumb. Then she asks if we have taken anything to help and we tell her, "Well the doctor told us that we should take laxantes to help us poop and clean out the system." She then responds with, 'How old was the doctor--like 12? That's the dumbest thing I've heard in Mexico. You guys have really bad diarrhea--you should not have taken that. C'mon guys--you should've known better.' jaja   It was just really, really funny, and it was just a 'crappy' week--but really funny at the same. 

So anyways, what else happened this week to us? We just talked a lot about life and just a bunch of stuff like that. We were talking about how we are kinda a little scared to return home. Its like the mission is really really hard, and the people hate us for the reason of we have different colored skin. We love that its hard and we wouldn't ever want to change the mission because we just feel like it should be this way. We talked about how when we get back the life is real and we gotta start living life. And we got thinking like yeah we can't wait for all of that, but we won't ever have the opportunity to serve the mission ever again. And we won't ever have the chance to serve the people like we are right now in Mexico. We also feel the Spirit like no other, and we just kinda love it and we don't wanna stop having these experiences in the mission. We also know we are gonna miss the little things of the mission. Like contacting, we are gonna miss getting a door slammed in the face or really racial things said to us. Like I'm gonna miss that. But the thing I'm gonna miss the most is just doing the Lord's work. Like knowing that I'm doing exactly what the Lord wants me to be doing. Also just the fact that I know I'm doing what Jesus would do if He was here right now, and I love it. I feel like I'm doing my part to help Him, and I'm in some way paying Him back for all the things that He did and is doing for me. 

That's all I got this week. I hope all is good and everyone is doing well. 

Love you all. 

Church is true go be awesome-Anne Bagley

Best Transfer Ever

This week was a pretty dope week to be honest. 

We started off with transfers early in the morning Monday, which was really unexpected, and also an emergency emergency transfer. The President put me in the area as far away from the offices as possible and said 'You guys are on an island--just work hard and enjoy yourselves.' 

He put me in the area Reforma, and because we are really short on missionaries here, so he gave us a second area as well--Jalapilla. So yeah my area is just 'lit' guys. My area is the area that all the missionaries want to serve in and if they don't then they all want to go there on Pday just to walk around. Just to put it in perspective like how awesome my area is--I'll describe a little bit of it. 

In the middle of my area is a zoo that we walk through because its the fastest way across town and when we walk we just contact the people (and also the animals). (the animals are a little more receptive.) Every other day we walk up a giant hill to a place that is just awesome-it looks over all of our area and a bunch of the stake we are in. Its just an awesome area. 

We then have a giant dino park that we also contact in and its all free here. And then we are in the city the invented Cri Cri, he's like the Spanish Jiminy Cricket. Its just absolutely awesome and beautiful here in my area. 
However, I'm absolutely dying hear in this area. I spent a year in the port where it averaged like 35-45 degrees celsius every single day. I rarely saw any rain, and I was sweating every single day there. SO I come here and its no hotter than like 22--and a lot less--and where it rains like every single day and really hard. So I am so incredibly cold all the time and wet all the time.

So anyways, I come to this area and my comp tells me, 'Hey, we literally have nobody to teach right now in these two areas because my other comp was always sick and never wanted to leave the house and wanted to go home'.   So we are pretty much just opening up these two areas. 

So I said, 'That's great let's go to work then'. 

So we didn't have a great week in the numbers factor of it, but I felt like it was a pretty good week, and we really set a base and a foundation for the work to come. Its feels great to just be with an awesome companion. And its really cool to see how well we teach together because we work off each other really well, and we just got a bunch of chemistry. Its amazing the Spirit that comes when we start to testify, to the point where the person we are teaching cant neglect the things we are saying because they to can feel it just as strong. We are also teaching in the way that its just really simple and everybody can understand the things we teach. And when people start to try to fight with us or anything we literally are never twisted or taken advantage of and we just disprove the things they say in a great manner and then teach the real doctrine. And I love that when we are teaching things that are part of their church that are actually wrong, they just don't get mad cuz we are teaching with the Spirit and explaining why its wrong, and we are teaching with all of the love that we possibly can. Its great to be honest.

The really fun thing about this whole thing is that my comp and I are actually from the same generation, and we are going to complete our first year on the mission together here in this rocking area hahaha. The only thing that President told us when he told him is, "Have some fun guys, but just keep the rules and don't be to stupid." haha 

And then if we stick together for another transfer then we will be celebrating Christmas together here in the mountains haha. Its just great with this kid to be honest. 

Its been the best week on my mission by far, and I know without a doubt in my heart that this will be one of the most successful times in all of my mission. Why? Because we have the Spirit with us and we aren't thinking that one is better than the other or that the other sucks in these aspects. We are always thinking about how we can get better and also about how we know each others weaknesses and my strengths helps his weaknesses and the other way around.

That's all i got for this week. 

Church is true go be awesome-Anne Bagley

This week was a pretty good week--but not--at the same time. As a whole the district that I am in charge of worked a lot harder than they had previously, and they really picked up the teaching and lessons. However, when Sunday came around we were the only people to have anybody in the church with a baptismal date.  I wasn't  upset about this because I knew that the other areas had worked really, really hard and were working 100%. They were all really sad and just down on themselves that night, so I just explained to them to pick themselves up. I told them that as a missionary we pass through things like this in the mission. And the cool thing about this is that if they kept up working like this then they are destined to have one of the best transfers of their entire mission. I also explained that good things come to people that wait. And its not just the people that wait without doing anything, but its the people that work through this time of trial. And I said that God doesn't just give us these things to give them to us, but He gives them to us to grow--and also because He has prepared great blessings for the people that persevere and finish the things all the way through. 

I have seen this happen a lot on the mission. For example, one time in the ward Aeropuerto, we were having a bunch of success and then one or two weeks everything just crashed and burned and we had straight '0's. We started searching for the answers to the problems that we had. The thing was we were having exact obedience-- we were teaching like 6-7 lessons every day, and we were contacting for at least 2 hours every day. So the question was hard to solve and the only thing we could think of is that we will just keep working like this--but even harder and with more energy. Well time went by and the area picked up really quickly. By the end of the transfer we had 7 baptisms, another 7 with baptismal dates, and another 4-6 in the church working on getting married to get baptized. So what I learned is that it just takes patience and diligence. With these things comes great blessings and a great life.

Another thing that I learned is that we don't know when our day will come, so we just gotta be prepared. In these past 11 months I have seen and been through a lot of things, and the cool thing about it all is that I was at peace with it all. I know with a certainty in my heart that no matter what happens, if we live by our faith, all will be alright. I also know that if we keep strong to the faith we will return home to our Heavenly Father and He will tell us 'Well done my good and faithful servant', and we will live with Him for eternity. This has helped me a ton on the mission and I know it to be true. It has helped me calm some nerves and has helped me forget myself and go to work. I have a great mentality, well I think, its that I couldn't care less what happens to me as long as I'm serving the Lord and helping better the lives of his sons and daughter her on this earth--here in Veracruz. 

Oh yeah, in other news--I had transfers this week to the middle of the mountains with one of the elders in the same generation as me. We are in charge of reviving two wards right now and I am going to be enjoying this time that I have here. There is not a lot of heat here which is a #blessing and it is a beautiful climate and I'm with a great companion. We's about to have a great, great, great transfer. 

Love you all!

Know the Church is true; go be awesome-Anne Bagley