Elder Kameron Lightheart, Mexico, Monterrey East Mission: Week 18

My old District (and random member) I'll miss this grouping ;'(

Well, my third transfer in the mission field started this week! Turns out I am going to be in the same area with Elder Toledano once again! The difference is that he is now our District Leader, and also we lost two Elders in our Ward, but gained one Hermana in a Trio!! So that makes 7 missionaries instead of 8, but one Hermana is leaving in 4 weeks, partway through the transfer. Overall, our Mission is losing missionaries gradually because of the huge surge of two generations of missionaries that left when the announcement was made of the age change. That surge opened up new areas and placed more missionaries in areas as well, but now we are going to be experiencing shortcomings of missionaries for a while. The lack of missionaries shocked some people because they thought the church was surging in growth still, but Presidente and Hermana Bird explained how the number of missionaries may be lowering, but the growth in the church continues. We aren't closing the areas that were opened up because of the new missionaries, just simply reassigning them. That means we just need to work harder as a whole to help keep the growth of the church going:)

A new tie for stake conference.

This week we had stake conference which was amazing! First we went to the priesthood session on Saturday which was almost entirely about missionary work and how members and missionaries need to work together to bring forth the work. It was really cool to see how motivated the stake is with missionary work and I'm excited to see the miracles their efforts will bring! Also we watched the same video that literally changed my whole mission that I think is called, "The Atonement and Missionary Work" if anyone wants to try and find it. It's excerpts from talks by President Eyring and Elder Holland, along with clips of the atonement. When I first saw this video during a training of new missionaries, it struck me hard and honestly changed my mindset and motivation. Then on Sunday we attended the general meeting where our Mission President Bird, the Temple President and the Stake President all spoke. It was a super powerful meeting and the thing I remember most about it was when the Monterrey Temple President challenged us to "piensen en Cristo en cada momento" or "think of Christ at all times." I realized that even though I think of my savior more often in the mission field than ever before in my life, there is still room for improvement. I want to try to focus more on Him and his atonement day to day because I know that it will improve the quality of the work I do. Also one of our investigators, Keren, was able to come to the conference! She is really special and I believe is coming close to being ready for baptism in the coming weeks, which is super exciting! Finally the man I baptized in the family of 6 a while ago was brought before the stake to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood!!! I love seeing their progress and how the gospel is affecting their lives. It gives me courage to continue working hard to find other families that I know can be so blessed with the gospel in their lives!!! There's a lot more exciting things going on, and I wish I could share it all, needless to say, I'm super happy to be able to have these experiences and to have the opportunity to serve:D

Oh and the weather has been normally hot, but with rainstorms every so often, the worst is to come in July and August!!!