October 13th 2014

Wow this weekend was kind of crazy/awesome.

All right so throughout the week we found some people that are ready for this message. I love talking to people on the street that give us their address and when we go over, they don't live there but it brings us to people that are ready and then we start teaching them. It happened 2x this week. On Saturday I was able to go back to my first area, Bell Gardens, for a baptism. There was this guy named Juan we baptized in January and just on Saturday his daughter, Raquel,  turned 8 and Juan baptized her! It was  cool to see that. He looked so happy. We were also able to confirm her right after. Well that Saturday when we got home there was a party that was barely starting at 10 pm in our apartment complex. They always throw parties but this one was out of control. Our window is right there was well. It was a very long night, didn't sleep until 3am.  It was bad.

Well the next day we had church and as a ward we had 5 baptisms! A family of 4 got baptized and they are sooooooo cool. They are from a different area in our ward but I've been over on exchanges a couple of time to teach them and the youngest one named Jackie asked me to baptize her. She is so cool! She is 12 and has an older brother name Carlos that is 14 and they remind me a lot of my sister Noni and Me. It's way cool. Jackie's real name is Jaqueline actually too. But they are way cool. An awesome Awesome family!

Sunday night we went to the Departing Missionary Fireside and it was really good. There are a lot of great missionaries that are going home. Time goes by way to fast! After the fireside we all met up and got our transfers folder and............... It happened! I GOT TRANSFERRED! After 7.5 months of being in Huntington Park I am now leaving. I am going to Torrance with Elder Okerlund.  I am super excited actually! I love meeting new people and kind of starting over. Wish me luck!

Love you all! :)

Pictures:

1. The Matoes' Family Baptism. (Jackie is the one in the middle)

2. Raquel's baptism. (She's the one in the blue in the middle) Juan is next to me.

Love, Elder Puertas

October 6th 2014

This week in our area, we had a great experience. Last night we were with one of our new investigators named Reyna and her husband named Rafael. Reyna really wanted to listen but her husband is a little loud (like he's crazy ha). He talks A LOT too so it was really hard to teach, but finally Rafael said "I know everything already, you can't teach me anything so teach my wife". We said..... okay and started teaching her, she was so happy throughout the lesson and Rafael was paying attention too. At the end we invited Reyna to pray and she was too shy to do so at first and then finally she said okay. Right before we asked her to pray about the BOM and she did and it was awesome, she kept saying "I know God will answer my prayer, I know it". Well she prayed, and when she finished she just looked at us and started to cry. The spirit was there and so much love and peace came over that room. It was a really great experience to have. She's one of those people that are just ready for this message.

Our ward is blowing up. We are at 25 baptisms right now and we are working super close with 6 of them to be baptized this weekend and we will work super hard and expect to have 5 more for the ward this next weekend. With that we should be at about 36 baptisms for the year and we want 40. I believe that by the end of the month we could be between 37-40 baptisms. The ward is so good and they TRUST us so much. The bishop is really on board. It's going really great right now.

The conference was also very inspiring to watch and I was able to learn a lot and will apply much of it in my daily life. One thing that stood out to me were the talks by Elder Ballard and Elder Bednar. Stay on the boat, get your life jacket on and HOLD ON. I loved Elder Bednar's story about the little boy and it's just a reminder really on WHY we share the Gospel. It reminding me WHY I am here and do the things I do. I love watching conference now because NOW I know the importance of it.

We have a Prophet in these days and he loves and guides us.

Super grateful for that.

Love you all,

Elder Puertas

September 22nd, 2014

This last week we had a Baptism! It was for Claudia Romero, the mother of Gisselle and Leo, who were baptized 2 weeks ago. I think I might have already shared this story about Claudia but about a year ago I was serving in Bell Gardens where a member there gave us a referral of our sister in law who lived right in front of her, so we tried and met her the first time and ever since she never opened the door again, even though she was home. (happens a lot) Well.. 1 year later I'm in HP and we get a referral from some Elders and we go over and we met Claudia and her family. I knew she looked familiar when I met her and we began to get to know her and stuff and she explained to us that she used to live in Bell Gardens right in front of her Sister and law's house and that she wasn't ready back then but that now she is. THEN it clicked! I met her a year ago in Bell Gardens and now I’m in HP (a city next to Bell Gardens) and she also moved over here as well.  Well now Claudia and her two kids are baptized! She's way cool though! Way cool. HP is GREAT!

Elder Puertas!

September 15th 2014

Ok we saw a cool miracle in our area the other day, our appointment fell through and so we tried a potential that was on the potential sheet. This person was contacted in 2010. We went over and the Mom answered the door, she wasn't really receptive and the Dad in the back was this big guy and he yells out, "let them in" So we went in, introduced ourselves, the whole family sat down and there were 7 of them. 6 of which are old enough to get baptized. They were really nice and accepted a return appointment for later on this week. I was so happy to see that.

Also this week our investigator Claudia got married!!! Now she can get baptized on the 21st! Super excited for that. She is doing great! She is the mom of Gisselle and Leo that just got baptized last week. We had Stake Conference yesterday so I was able to see a lot of the members from Bell Gardens. Man it was so good to see them. I miss that ward a lot, they are truly super cool! That's about it! I love you all! :)

Elder Puertas

September 1st 2014

Wow Crazy weekend! Okay so first off we had Transfer calls last night! and.......... I am staying again with Elder Casco! He's so amazing, we just work hard together! I am going on Transfer #5 here in Huntington Park. That will be 7 1/2 months in one area! I am so excited to stay here in HP again. There is so much work here and I am really excited for this transfer with all these NEW missionaries coming into the Zone. Almost everyone in our Zone is training, like 8 out of 10 are. So this will literally probably be the FRESHEST Zone in the Mission! I trust all of the trainers here so much though. They really are hard workers.

We saw an awesome miracle as a zone to be able to pass our goal of 8 baptisms for this month and have 10. They are all super solid as well. The Zone is growing.

I am doing well, still trying to get really organized though and figuring some things out. Lately I have really focused on the power of pondering (advice from Elder Kimball). As I read the Book Of Mormon, I have learned so much about what it says the more I ponder about it. Just yesterday reading chapter 9 of 2 Nephi was so good. I almost stopped and pondered about what I was reading at every other verse. There is so much to learn. I love the Book of Mormon.

We had 2 baptisms yesterday for our area and they were beautiful. I was able to see our power of the Priesthood yesterday. Our investigator came to church and after Gospel Principles she came up to us and said "I think I want to go home, I’m not prepared to be baptized" She started walking out of the church and we followed her, We stopped by her car and she just cried and kept telling herself that she can't do it. She felt as something was telling her not to get baptized. We said everything we could say to comfort her and then my companion had an amazing idea and offered a blessing! She said yes, We gave her one and after we were done, she just sat there, tears rolling down, she looked up and said smiling "I want to be baptized" 15 minutes later we took her to get ready, took some pictures, she got baptized with her grandson and it was amazing. She bore her testimony after, also sharing with everyone what happened right before. How the "Enemy" was trying to make her not get baptized but she said it was all because of the blessing. She felt peace after it and she really felt God's love. We went over that night and she just looked SO HAPPY. She will be faithful in the church. I can feel it. I really thank God for helping us with her because it wasn't us. It was just through us.

Everything else is good here in HP. I love you all!

Thanks for all the support.

Love, Elder Puertas

 picture of Mango~adas
and of Some Doritos mixed with chifles, lime, tajin and valentina :) haha to celebrate! :)