July 28th 2014

Okay this will be a quick email but we baptized Samuel on SUNDAY! So awesome!

Our zone was on fire. We had such a great weekend. Our zone had 6 baptisms and 2 of them were unexpected. It was so amazing to see that. We were able to have a baptism as well this weekend for our area of a man named Samuel Salcedo. We were able to teach him one hour before his interview in the chapel of our church. He was a referral from the 2nd counselor in our bishopric and we have been teaching him for about a month now. Throughout this month he NEVER felt ready to pray in front of us so he never did. So in our last lesson with him before his interview we said a prayer before going in and set a goal to have him pray at the end of the lesson. We taught him simply, clearly and plainly and at the end we invited him to pray. We testified and said how much God wanted to hear from him, he began his prayer and it was such an amazing prayer. It really did come from his heart and he cried at the end because he truly felt God's love from him. He passed his interview right after the lesson and he entered the waters of baptism on Sunday. It was truly a miracle.

P.S It was my companion's birthday yesterday!!!!! Elder Kimball is now 21 ladies and gentlemen!!! He also goes home VERY soon :( but I will stay with Elder Casco! He is soooo tight!

Oh and I got J Dawgs sauce sent out to L.A THANK YOU ANGELA :)

Love, Elder Puertas

July 21st 2014

On Monday we got a new 2014 Corolla! It’s so nice and so smooth, I love it. It even has a rear view camera. It had 18 miles on it when we got it so please pray for us not to scratch it or anything.

On Tuesday we had the chance to go in the Temple, it's amazing. It just feels right. Everything we do as missionaries just feels "right". When we share the Gospel, when we go to church. Etc. I love these feelings because it's constantly reminding me that I am in the truth and that I am sharing the truth with others.

We are teaching this family of 7 and they are amazing. 4 of the 7 have dates :) We are working super hard with them, every time we go over they ALWAYS have someone new for us ha. Cousins, neighbors, friends, mailman, it doesn't matter they always have someone new. There's a little kid named Leo in the family, he's 1 and he is so cute! Ha-ha I took the COOLEST picture of Elder Kimball and Leo! Crazy little cute kid.

So the 2nd counseler of our bishopric has a father in law named Samuel. He is about 70 years old and still works like crazy and he has a bad knee, he's always on crutches. Well Hermano Alonzo's (2nd counselor) wife lives in Guatemala. She is there for 6 months and she visits here for 1 month. Crazy huh. Well she got here the first week of July, referred us to Samuel, we went over, taught him and we put a date for him for JULY 27th! And she leaves the 30th! He has came to church all this month and we are baptizing him this Saturday and confirming him on Sunday right before his daughter leaves. Every time we see her she always Thanks us for helping Samuel out. She said she's been waiting for this moment for a long time. God really helped us with this one. It's going be special for them.

Sunday!! Transfer calls! Some amazing missionaries are going home, it's crazy. We have this departing missionary fireside the last Sunday before they go home and SO MANY people came. About 1000 people. Well after we FINALLY got all the people out all the Zone Leaders went to this room and we get a folder that says who leaves or stays in our zone. Well Elder Kimball and I stayed :) but we are adding one more in our companionship. Elder Casco! We will be in a trio because Elder Kimball goes home half way through the transfer for school. Elder Casco is from Mexico. So it will be me and just him in a couple of weeks, 2 Hispanics In HP! The dream. I love it.

I LOVE MY MISSION! :)

July 14th 2014

We hiked HOLLYWOOD again! This was last Monday and I was so sick ha-ha. Not the best idea but hey you gotta do what you gotta do right. It was cool because that same day we were walking in the street and we saw this random guy on the street and he had a shirt that said  "Helaman, stripling warriors" WHAT.. Ha-ha yes we talked to him and he just said he bought that shirt at a random place and YES I took a picture with him. We are teaching this family named the Tamayo family and wow they are so great and progressing so much. It was one of the daughter's BDAY so we went over to celebrate a little. Elder Kimball and I straight up made Pupusas. Ha-ha they turned out great. On Saturday I was on exchanges with this guy named Elder Albert’s and wow we ate so much. People really love us here. Ha-ha. We ate lunch at 1230 with a family. Then we went over to the Tamayos at 4 and they had a carne asada going and you could NOT SAY NO.  Then we had our DINNER appointment at 530 and ate more! Then we went to this young men's activity at 7 because they had an investigator there for us and we got there and sat down and what do you know.... more food! I felt so bad that night ha. We also had a flat that day too so that was fun! Church was awesome we had some people show up and that working for baptism this month. Things here are good! I also heard about Brazil... ouch.. Moment of silence 7-1!!! Wow. Congrats for Germany though! I love you all!

Elder Puertas

P.S.
Angela- Thank you so much for the Wingers sauce!!!

July 7th 2014

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

We had such an amazing week this week! On Tuesday we had dinner with this Peruvian family and they have two sons. One that is 19 and the other that is 14. They don't come to church but the mom and the sister do. Well we went over and we said if we beat them in soccer 2 on 2 then they have to come to church. Long story short, we won 5-0 and THEY CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY! We are doing round 2 tomorrow night.  I love it.

We went on exchanges with these other elders and I was with Elder Cox. Aka Superman. Well we had so many cool experiences that day. We met people that were truly ready for the message. It all came from the power of planning the night before. We just prayed and asked who we should visit the next day and when it came the next day, I saw that we did not find those people who we had planned for but the people around them. We found 4 new investigators that day and set 2 dates. Super cool. We went by this lady named Hermana Zapata and I've never met anyone more excited to see missionaries then this lady. Missionaries taught her a while ago but we had a chance to find her again and she also came to church!

Friday was the 4th of JULY so we had to be in by 6 pm :( IT WAS A WAR ZONE! So many fireworks! And it was just so loud! So we just planned a little bit inside and played mini soccer games inside. Then at Church on Sunday we had 4 people come! It was great! I was also very sick through all this. I still am :( but I love seeing miracles happen. That's why I keep working!

I love you all and no worries I’ll be back for next 4th of July! :)

Pictures! We witnessed a pretty bad car crash! :)

And we caught a cool looking beetle... so yeah :)