Shout out to H-Town

This week I ate african food, found out a Five Guys is going to open soon in West Des Moines, and saw 4 baptisms!

One guy was from Houston, grew up in 5th ward. He bore his testimony after of how he worked at Wells Fargo with a member and he would always ask the member life questions and saw the Spirit in him. Then the member gave him a Book of Mormon and he knew it was true when he prayed. He felt the Spirit super strong! He had grown up baptist and already loved Jesus and the Bible and when he received the 2nd witness his faith grew even more! At the end of his testimony he gave a shout-out to H-town! also right after the baptism he was snapchatting soaking wet, and snapping the whole baptismal service haha super awesome!!! The church is true and the spirit testifies of truth!!!

Miracle of the week

This week I petted a St. Bernard, rode on one of those new hoverboard things, was given fresh eggs right from a chicken and fresh peppers from a garden, and almost subscribed to Dish Latino.

We saw a miracle this week! So a couple months ago, we met a spanish-speaking member of a different ward one day when he was fixing the dish satellite of someone while we were finding people to teach, and exchanged numbers. Then this week he called us up and said that at the dish office where he works he heard someone singing "Soy un Hijo de Dios" or I am a Child of God. He went up to the lady that was singing it and asked her where she had heard that song before. She said that back in Guatemala she had attended a certain church, and that was a song they sang there, and it had always stuck with her. He told her that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! So he asked her if she would like to learn more from the missionaries, and she said yes, so we went over the the Dish place and she wants to be baptized in November. Super cool.

Alma 13:24 For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.

The church is true, have an awesome week!

Iowa

Catching up on the past few weeks here's some cool things that have happened:

-Been playing the piano at church

-Played the drums in a baptist church

-Asked a 12-year-old what his name is and he asked us why we wanted his personal information -_-...good for him. stranger danger

-Met a family that kills cows on saturday and sells the barbacoa meat on sunday

-Accidentally broke the door handle off of the house of someone we're teaching.

-Found out our mission president ran a 2:32 marathon. 

-Saw a homeless guy and gave him a bag of pistachios that were in our car, I didn't realize it was the bag of pistachios my companion's mom had sent him lol

-Someone gave us a mexican candy which consisted mainly of sesame seeds. I innocently asked him why he was handing us bird food. lol he got offended and said he would never feed us again.

-Taught some cool people and felt the Holy Spirit.

Well, the church is true, the scriptures are awesome, and missions are fun.

Photos: elder rocha and I throwing up east side. 515 is the area code for Des Moines

Temple Trip

This week we made it onto the snapchat story of some drunk Laotians who owned some super nice cars, met someone that had surgery done by the same guy that did surgery on JFK, and while helping someone move accidentally spilled a can of paint on someone's new truck. Cosas que pasan.

We're teaching this family and in the closing prayer, the 6-year-old girl prays for God to give her dad strength to stop smoking and stop drinking. So cute and touching.

This week there was a baptism!! The hermanas were teaching him, he's awesome and I got to baptize him! He was an atheist a couple months ago and slowly his faith grew and grew and now he is a Latter-day Saint of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We also went to Nauvoo Illinois to the temple this week! We saw a family in the branch get sealed together for time and for all eternity! It was so nice to be there, what an amazing spiritual experience!! I love the temple and can feel la presencia del Señor.

Overall an amazing week the church is true love y'all!

Iowa Fair

This past week we went to the fair. Cool to experience the "Iowa State Fair" but kind of a lamer version of the Houston Rodeo. Don't tell that to anyone from Iowa though. lol 

This week ate some papusas, held a bearded dragon, and ran into someone from Klein Stake. Shoutout to Brother Schmutz.

So we met with this lady only twice and on the second time she had already read a lot of the Book of Mormon and loved how Lehi received direction from the Lord to leave Jerusalem, and said how we all receive personal revelation on how to direct ourselves and our families and it was so amazing she made that connection! What great spiritual insight!

Also, it was storming pretty hard one night and we decided to leave the safe apartment complex we were knocking, and knock in a neighborhood just for fun because it was pouring lol. And we found an awesome family to teach!! Pretty much let us in because they felt sorry for us but they let us come back because they felt the Spirit of our message!

D&C 62:3 Nevertheless, ye are blessed, for the testimony which ye have borne is recorded in heaven for the angels to look upon; and they rejoice over you, and your sins are forgiven you.

Teach and testify there is no better combination ;)

It never gets old

This week while finding:

Someone practiced karaoke in front of us for a competition later that night, my companion had a goal to introduce himself as "Hi, I'm Elder Rocha from New York" and I think we had more success because it impressed everybody lol, saw someone chasing someone because he stole $3,000, we heard someone say "it's just a black dude" from the other side of the door (my companion is from the dominican republic and has dark skin lol), and talked english to someone who started talking bad about us in spanish to his friends then we talked to him in spanish lol he was so embarrassed, it never gets old.

So Robert got baptized this week! We knocked on his door a couple months ago, and he teared up and said "This is my church, this is my church". I was able to go back to Marshalltown to see the baptism! Turns out he was the number 1 hunter in Liberia, and listed off all of the hogs, crocodiles, hippos, and elephants he killed! He's so cool and he's ripped, looked like he's 40 and he's actually 61. 

D&C 31:3 "Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation."

REJOICE!!!! :D

p.s. yes, the other 3 letters on this license plate are "RCH" jk but i wish

Des Moines

When we invited someone this week to come to church she declined, and said that the doctor has put her on so many meds that she can't come to church. She commenced listing off benadryl, baby aspirin, and multi-vitamins. She's a good lady though.

Anyways in the words of Coach John Banas, "You can find a million reasons not to do something, but you just need to find one reason to do it"

The one reason we come to church should be for our love for the Savior and for Heavenly Father. John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments". And keeping the sabbath day holy by coming to church is a commandment. Love you guys have a good week.