October 28th 2013

Familia y Amigos!

Pues, esta semana fue fantastico!

Last Monday we had an appointment at this less active’s house and there were kids playing soccer outside. So we decided to ask them if we could play for like 5 min. They said yes and it was 3 vs. 3 and long story short, we won 10-1. Anyways they want to have a rematch today so we are going over. Hopefully new investigators??? Why not. But anyways the area is doing well! I love it! We went to a wedding this week (bishop's daughter) and ate some goooooooood food! I love Mexican food! Like a lot. Mom, sorry but you’ve got to learn how to cook Mexican food for me when I get back!  We are in charge of this FHE next week and we are doing this tree of life thing and we are buying all this PVC pipe and we have fog machines! It’s going to be EPIC! Well that’s all for today! I love you all!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER! I LOVE YOU MOM! I MISS YOU SO MUCH! I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD ONE!

CON MUCHO AMOR, ELDER PUERTAS

October 21st 2013

Family! Friends!

         This week was awesome! Elder Maughan and I worked so hard! We taught so many people and found a lot of new investigators. Just one quick amazing experience I want to share with you. Well some sister missionaries gave us an address to go check out. They said the guy’s name was Jose. Well the address they gave us was 5825 and when we got there it was a trailer complex, so it had A B C D E F G H I J K L. and we are just like oh nooooo. We decided to just start knocking on doors to find Jose, you’ve also got to realize that 99% of the people here are named Jose haha so we knocked on D, and this lady named Victoria (an older lady) opened the door and asked what we wanted. We introduced ourselves and asked for Jose and we said that we heard Jose had talked to the missionaries before and that we just wanted to see how he was doing. She was so happy and was like, “Oh yes, come in.” (all in Spanish BTW) so we walked in and Jose is laying on a bed. He had a stroke 9 years ago and has been in bed since, sad I know. Well long story short, the Jose we found was a different Jose then the sisters told us to visit. We have been visiting him every other day and now he wants to be baptized. About him getting to church and being baptized we don’t know yet what’s going to happen but just pray for Jose and Victoria that it will turn out ok!

         Erika, Jairo and Brandon have a date for the 10th of Nov. Jenny and her son Joshua have a date for the 10th and this girl named Jasmine also has a date for the 10th. PRAY for them that it can go through. I want to help them soooooo much and I know through baptism they will help themselves out more than they can imagine!

         Last thing before I end this letter on Friday we had this Halloween contest at our church and this member dared me to wear this suit and then he'd buy me dinner. Well I took him up on the bet! Long story short the primary was hosting it so there was A LOT of little kids there and they were all taking pictures with the "Yo Gabba Gabba missionary" it was fun. Well they announced that I won the costume contest and everyone was just cheering and I got my prize (lotion?) I know weird; I got a lot of candy so that’s always a good thing! Well that’s all for the week!

I love you all and keep me updated with things!

ITS ALMOST HALLOWEEN!!!!!

SHOUT OUT TO MY LITTLE SISTER SOPHIA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND I MISS YOU SO MUCH!!! :)

ONE MORE TO MALENA!!! SORRY I DIDNT DO IT LAST WEEK BUT I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD ONE TOO! MISS YOU! :)

LOVE, Elder Doors!!!

October 14th 2013

Hello Family!!                 

Well it’s Columbus day and everything is closed soooooo there’s only 3 computers here and 28 people in line, so I can't write much today.

Everything is going amazing! We are meeting a lot more people and Elder Maughan and I are doing great together. His Spanish isn’t that great yet, but hey it’s all-good.

I love you all and just a small but awesome way the Lord works is that we got a referral of someone to go visit, well it turned out to be a fake address but we did meet someone new at that fake address because of it. His name is Israel, and he is way cool. He is from Mexico, as are most of the people we meet, has a 4-year-old son and a wife and they love to listen to us. Pray for them! Also I’m on bike and it poured on Wednesday! It was sweet!!! Ha-ha I love you all and I miss every single one of you!

Love, Elder Puertas

October 7th 2013

Familia!                                                                                           

Otra Gran semana!

Today I would like to acknowledge that it is my Grandma DeDe’s 65^th birthday and I want her to know that I love and miss her.

 Well it's official I had my first son!!! His name is Elder Maughan (Mon) He's from New York. He's tall and white... of coarse. But he's way cool his Spanish sucks but hey that's what trainers are for right. It’s been an AMAZING WEEK. Long but amazing. So we had a bunch of meeting for the new missionaries that came in and then I had some more meetings for leadership and it was just getting stressful honestly. I literally had no time to do anything. But the reason it’s been good is because my companion loves to work hard. We teach so much and I know good things are going to happen in this area. We are going for 5 Baptisms this transfer so pray for us on that. We will get it if we honestly put in our best. There’s a quote from Conference that said "YOU CAN NEVER FAIL IF YOU TRY YOUR BEST" ahhh love it. It’s true too. Just give it your all and that’s all God can ask for. Another quote that I read that was great by Ukdorf was "Doubt your doubt before you doubt your faith" -amen. nuff said. I love missionary work and I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Sorry I’m not going to write a lot because I’m short in time but just know I’m doing amazing!!

Funny thing of the week: We were at this little girls B-DAY party and this lady had her baby there and Elder Maughan was looking at the baby and said "Que Monoito" hahaha I guess mono translates to "cute" but it was just so funny. The lady was like "did you just call my baby a monkey?" everyone was cracking up.

One more thing.. We forgot our keys and there’s a way to break in to our house but this window and it was my first time breaking in and I almost destroyed the window. The blinds flew off. The window completely came off and it just knocked everything over ha-ha. It was funny!

I love you all!

Elder Puertas

October 1st 2013

Hola todos!                                                                                    

            Well this week has been really good and just exciting! I loved it!

Well I'm not going to write much but ill just let you know some

things! Well a really cool thing that happened this week was Zone

Conference. We had Elder Richards (From the 70) speak to us that day.

He is a very inspired person and I learned a lot from him. He really

Taught us how to teach people. He was very bold with us and I know it

has helped me so far with my teaching.

            Well on with the week. Andre, Jacob and Andy moved to South Gate (20min away) but we won't see them anymore really! I just feel bad because of they way they are growing up! I really wish the best for them though. Well on Sunday! We had 0 investigators show up, but we had 6 Less Actives come and I was so happy to see them! This lady that came hadn't been in 2 years so I was so proud of her for coming. I just love the people here in B.G and I love serving them. Also it was Missionary Sunday so for sacrament it was all for the missionaries. I didn't talk but I did sing! We sang Joseph Smith's first prayer and I recited the first vision for

everyone. It was way cool and the spirit was super strong!

            Also some other big news, I got a call on Sunday night and Pres. Asked me to be a trainer and a District leader! Ahhhh so crazy! I AM GOING TO HAVE MY FIRST SON! haha also I am staying in Bell Gardens again so I’m happy about that. I love this area. I don't know who my new

companion is but I will know on Thursday! Wish me luck! :)

            That's all for this week! The start of the week was slow but it ended

amazingly! I love you all!

I can't wait for Conference..... I've never said that before...

Love, Elder Puertas!