HOLA BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Elder Oliver and I are doing better and better every week. Our goals keep going up and we are seeing solid progress. One lady is super prepared because we weren't able to see her at all last week, but we just stopped by to invite her to church and she went by herself and was asking tons of questions. We are also teaching lots of part member families which means trying to get kids to understand simple doctrine. A lot of times kids don't even know why the Gospel is important. We need to always apply it to their life so that they know it for themselves.

 

A couple days ago we had our semi-annual interviews with President. First we taught him as a companionship the first point of the first lesson which is God is our Loving Heavenly Father. He was amazed of how good we taught him especially because of Elder Oliver. He says that you can see it in his eyes haha. Then President talked to me about the ward and something I didn't really want to talk about, SCHOOL. I gotta figure out when I'm going home either to catch the fall semester and go home a month early or extend a month in which case I wouldn't be able to make it anyways. To be continued...

Love,

        Elder Shurtliff

HAPPY BELATED EASTER!

I don't remember what I told everybody last year but here in Mexico I have no idea why, but in church they literally haven't mentioned Easter. I think it was a Easter miracle though that the lesson we just happened to be on in our Gospel Principles class was the Atonement ha. The only traditions for Easter here is what the Catholic church does to recreate the walk Christ made holding his cross. It's like a parade they do in the street I think, but I have never seen it. So to celebrate I just talked about the Atonement everywhere I went this week and yesterday night I finished off my last Starburst jellybeans NO!!! I also had some luck and had a nice bowl of fish soup for my Easter feast haha...yum. At least it was spicy!

Of course the best part about this week was testifying simply to every single person the miracle of the Atonement and how awesome and perfect it is that Christ broke the bands of death so that we can live forever with our Heavenly Father again. He did it for EVERYONE.

Octopus spaghetti - At least I can say I tried it!

SHOUT OUT for my comp because he's sick. If everyone could pray for Elder Oliver that would be awesome. THANK YOU!!

Just a sample of Mexican rebellion ha
(Don't Throw Trash)

I hope everyone enjoys the cool Spring weather and recognizes the wonderful world our Heavenly Father gave us. Count your blessings!

Love,

       Elder Shurtliff

THERE'S SPRINGTIME IN MY SOUL TODAY!

Howdy partners! This week we got a bunch of tender mercies thanks to our Merciful Heavenly Father. I dont know why I have to learn over and over again that He knows exactly what He's doing. I love Spring and Easter time! Not just for the JELLYBEANS but also because I get reminded that it's soooo important to focus on our Living Christ! I'm so grateful for God's perfect plan and that He loves us enough to send his only perfect son to overcome physical death for every one of us. Read the Bible and you will know what I'm talking about ha.

I love you all!!

HAVE A HAPPY PASCUA!!!

LOVE,

         Elder Shurtliff

HAPPY CONFERENCE!!!

I hope everyone had as great of a spirtual vacation as I did! I loved it all, but even more on Saturday, because by the end of the first session I have already found answers for all of my questions! I have no doubt in my heart that these are inspired men and women called of God. I really loved Richard G. Scott's talk because it really helped me see how much more important it is to help people convert themselves to Christ instead of having someone else drag them to Christ. And then the Seventy who talked right after about communication was hitting me so strong. I thought the whole conference was a huge message that God that it doesn't matter how much we are if we aren't personally converted. We can't help anyone else be converted until we are! It all comes from faith, love, and obedience. Its so simple it just might work! Ha I loved it all.

My District

@ GC

Cleaning up the new house

Elder Oliver and I are doing awesome after finally settling into our house. We started to look for former investigators this week from a couple years ago and we found a few families! One freaks my companion out, but he went to two sessions this weekend so that's awesome. The new sister missionaries in our ward and district are brand new! One only has two months and the other is getting trained. This is the closest I have been to being a dad because they call me ten times a day asking me things haha. They are really awesome though. One is from California and looks Mexican and the other is from Costa Rica. They both speak perfect English! 

Shout out! For my last Christmas gift! THANK YOU SISTER SARAH FOR THE AWESOME TIES!!! AND JELLYBEANS!!!!!!!

THE GOSPEL IS TRUE! LIVE IT AND SHARE IT!

Love,

       Elder Shurtliff

Feliz Tanto de Abril! Thats April Fool's Day if it even existed here.

We are getting special training so that we can share family history more. It really is just as, or even more, important than missionary work!

Elder Oliver and I are doing really good. I like speaking English with my comps, but at the same time I feel like it makes it easier to talk about worldly things. I'm so programmed that Spanish is for the mission and English is for home haha. I'll put it all in line. 

So we moved out of our house today because we are giving it to the sister missionaries that are coming to our ward. That means an even smaller area! It's going to be really good to have more than just us in the ward. I'm stoked! We were looking for our new house this week and we found a really nice one, but it was a little over the mission budget. The secretaries told us that they were going to go for a cheaper and smaller house, but I was so excited for the nice house I didn't see why the cheaper house would be better. Finally we met the sister from another ward who was going to rent us the house. She explained to us how big of a blessing it is for her to be able to help the missionaries. She's a single mom and needs help with rent to provide for her family. After she showed us her gratitude I couldn't think of a better house to move into.

I love you all!

Have the best Conference weekend ever!

Love,

       Elder Shurtliff