Alejandro was baptized last Saturday

Well Hello again,

Sorry I couldn't/didn't write an email last week, but I'm glad I was able to share something via my mom. 

So, following up from that, Alejandro was baptized last Saturday, and it was absolutely wonderful.



 He'd been taught basically the whole time I've been here in my mission, then he he went and saw the temple up in Santa Monica, and then he got baptized. The service was amazing, all the talks from everyone were great, the support everyone gave there was amazing. The one thing that went wrong is that well, turns out water takes a while to cool down. And we used a lot of hot water. So, it was pretty hot in the baptismal font. So much so that Élder González misspoke the ordnance for baptism and had to redo it later, but that didn't really cause any issues. I'm so happy for Alejandro and his wife Michelle, they're great people and I'm grateful to be a part of having the gospel in their lives.


Other than that, not much happened that week, well transfers last Monday, but nothing changed here in Hermosa Liahona. We did have a ward Trunk or Treat (actually right before Alejandro's baptism. For those of you who might be confused on what "Trunk or Treat" is, basically it's just mini-Halloween, but instead of houses, people open up and decorate the trunks of their cars and give out candy to kids in the ward. We actually did something pretty fun for that, we had a kind of fishing game where kids would throw a line on a stick (we work with what we have) and it goes over this chalkboard, on the other side one of us missionaries would put a piece of candy on the clip on the end of the line, and then the kids would yank the pole and get the candy. It was great fun, also the main thing kids enjoyed. Always great time helping out with activities like that.

 

One other thing, we have a member in our ward who's a chef and also from Brazil. So today we got a chance to learn how to make some Brazilian cuisine. It was a great time and I learned a good bit of cooking skills. I have progressed from no cooking skills to some cooking skills.

 


Something that I've thought about this week is that when we give God our time, he repays it tenfold. Just acknowledging His presence in our lives and how much He loves us, just showing that gratitude does wonders for the soul. Because God freely gives us our lives and blessings, when we freely give our time to Him, even in prayer, He will help us in every aspect of our lives. So with the end of spooky season and Thanksgiving around the corner, I'd like to ask you all to reflect on one thing your grateful about your day, every day. It’s a lot easier to be happier when you see all the good going on, even those little things, especially those little things.

Hope you all have a great week!

Best,
Elder Madsen

 

Pictures

Baptism

Game of Fish

Making Food

Zone Pday



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First few weeks in LA

Image
¡Hola Todos! Getting into the mission was a unique experience for me. Going from speaking English all my life to speaking only Spanish for like 3 days was really hard. My companion and the other companionship in the apartment I think noticed and it's been more 50/50 lately. Spanish has been a challenge for me. I understand maybe 50% of most conversations I'm in, and everything I say is probably understood less than 50% of the time. It's a long learning process, but less than half understanding now is better than almost none 3 weeks ago.  Along with that, teaching has been a different experience. I don't understand a lot so the amount I can contribute is limited, but I've felt nearly all the time it's been to a great benefit from each lesson I've been able to involve myself in. Most of the people I have been teaching have also been a new experience, disregarding the language barrier. A decent portion of them read a lot or at least understand a lot about t...
Read more

Weekly Email 3

Image
  ¡Hola amigos!   This week has been an interesting ride for me. My district finally transitioned into all Spanish, so I've only been speaking Spanish in classes for the past few days. Definitely as hard as I expected it to be, but a great joy as well.  On another note, my older brother Fletcher came home from his mission and we were able to be companions for around 3 hours. It was a very fun reunion. (see pictures below.)   Something that stood out to me from my studies this week was that we as missionaries are taught to teach in the way that Jesus taught by asking questions, sharing stories, and expounding upon doctrines. An example of this is found in The Book of Mormon by a missionary named Ammon , he went to live among his enemies and asked to be a servant unto them. Because of his great Christlike service, the hearts of both the king and the people were softened and they desired to know how Ammon was and why he was...
Read more

Last weeks email

  ¡Mi compañero se fue! This week has been pretty good to me. Honestly not to much to say. I got to be with another Elder for a day in the area I teach in, so somewhat running things for a day was kinda interesting. Also the missionary I was with 1. Is named Elder Maus, super cool dude, 2. Is learning Portuguese, 3. Is going to Brazil in a week!(more or less). Anyway, I hada lot of fun with him because we just went trying to talk to people for a while and he also got to practice some of his Portuguese with a member friend that we had a quick lesson with. But uh, the real big news is that my companion/trainer is leaving today. He got reassigned to a new area, so I'm just going to be with the other elders in my apartment for this week. Our areas are just going to be merged for the week, what happens next week? I have no idea. I'll probably end up having to run my teaching area next transfer. A little bit nervous about that, but I'm hopeful for whatever comes next.  Something ...
Read more