My Life in the Mission Field

12/6/2010

2010-12-12T14:49:00.001-08:00

12/6/10

Hey everyone!

So we went really far just to try and use good computers this week and it didn't really work out and once again it is really hard to type fast because the keys do not work very well.... sorry!

But we had another good week. It was not as good as last week to be honest because last week was just amazingly awesome. But Felix, the 24 year old guy, and the other lady we met last week Lidia Quintana seem to be doing really well. We had another family, the Garcia Robles family that we were going to baptize this week but in the end they have not read or prayed much and so obviously they still doubt a little bit. They still come to church each week, but they will be baptized the next week hopefully. Also Hector, the old guy that is like 55, will get baptized the next week and not this week so that is a little sad because he is a cool guy. But at the same time they are not going to get baptized for me and it’s better that they do it right.

Lidia is 30 and has no kids; I think I told you last week. But she has a friend who has taught her a lot and by the time we got there she was way ready to embrace the gospel. She went to church yesterday and has progressed SO much. She has changed so much in such a short period of time it is kind of crazy. She even came with us yesterday to the Christmas devotional and was able to see the prophet speak for the first time and she really liked it. She was trying to get me to sing in English and all.... ha-ha! She is a lot of fun and will be a great convert and has SO much potential in the church. I feel like I will be going to her temple sealing in the future. The sad part is that she kind of figured out yesterday that I go home soon.... she got real sad and started asking me questions about it and all, but I didn't really tell her much. I don’t want her to know that I leave next week yet. It is just better this way. Oh and I had not really told anyone in the ward when I go home and yesterday the bishop told people and it was kind of funny.... Everyone was so surprised and all happy for me. They are all happy and excited about the two baptisms we have this week too. I really have come to love the ward the members, it will be sad to leave.

We had a super power lesson with Felix this week and he is just pumped for his baptism. He understands really well and we taught him some cool stuff from 2 Nephi 31 that he really liked. He got a new iPod and put the scriptures on it along with all of the hymns... It was funny because he was so excited to show me it. I feel like he will reach amazing heights in the church. He is going to be an amazing leader. I am sure everyone says that about their converts, but he really is amazing!

I have felt really good this past week and I have been working hard. I have also seen a lot of progress on my comps side and he has improved so much. I am really happy for him and he says he finally feels like a real missionary so that is good. On Thursday when we planned for the week I was a little sad because we planned for my last 10 days here. It made me want to cry.... But I know I am working hard and that the Lord needs the very best of me this week.

The only down side is that we have a lot of mission conferences this week. I think they will be good and all, but I really just want to work in the field this week. That is what I really like doing. I LOVE teaching and sharing the gospel. It is the best part about all of this. I have learned to just testify of what I know to be true and invite them to know it too through the Book of Mormon and prayer.

In the mission I have come to learn of and LIVE a kind of happiness that I didn't even know existed. It has been the best decision of my life and I would not trade it for anything. I know the gospel is real. It is sad to realize that next week I come home. I am excited to see everyone, but I am also sad to leave the mission. It will be bitter-sweet.

Thank you for all of your love and support. Thanks for your prayers! I have felt them SO much during these past two years and it has made all the difference.

Love you!

Elder Andrew Davidson

11/29/2010

2010-12-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

So I am pretty sure that this past week was one my best weeks in ALL of my mission!!! The Lord has really blessed us and I know that He really has helped us so much this past week!

I don't have much time this week to write, but the Garcia Robles family from last week continues to progress and they are going to get baptized December 11th along with Felix and a new girl named Lidia Quintana.

She is 30 year old divorced lady with no kids who we met on Saturday. She is amazing and has progressed so fast! She had friend who is a member and through her she started to become familiar with the church. She is already stopping smoking and drinking coffee and has already accepted the invitation to be baptised! I feel like she will progress a lot this week and I will write you more about her the next week.

We have also started teaching SO many new families this week that were finding on our own and they are doing well. Also the ward is so excited that there have been so many investigators at church and that man of them are complete families. We have lots of appointments to work with them this week!

My companion and I am doing well and he has improved so much! He has been lot more willing to learn and teaches a lot more!

I am doing great and I love you all so much!

Thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Andrew Davidson

11/22/2010

2010-12-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

11/22/10

Hey everyone!

This week went really well! I am thrilled with how things have been going and I have felt really good here in the mission. Things have still been tough helping out my companion to get excited to be here on the mission but he has improved a lot and has allowed me to try and put into play everything I have learned on the mission. It has been good for the both of us and I have come to love him a lot and it has allowed me to serve him and try to help him to the best of my ability.

On Friday we had a zone conference and it went really well! We talked a lot about gratitude and the talk that the prophet gave us this last general conference. It was a great talk and a much needed one as well. It has changed my perspective a lot in these past few days and I have really tried to put it into play and be more grateful. The best part of it was learning to always look at what we have and not what we don't have. As people we always seem to look at what we don't have in life. What we are missing. Or what someone else has that we don't. Or what talents others have and we don't. There are endless examples, but it is something that really applies to the mission and the area we are in and the companions we have. We need to just learn to be grateful for what we have and thank the Lord for that and not just ask a million times for the things we don't have. That is how are prayers always seems to be.... a whole lot of asking and very little gratitude. The Lord knows what we need in the end, we need to thank Him more for all He HAS given us, and the blessings will come.

I tried to use apply this in the past weekend and I feel like we really saw results. We have a new family we are teaching and they all came to church. The ward did a great job befriending them and all. Plus our other good investigator Hector Uribe came and is all excited for his baptism this week! :) He loved church and all the members and he is just so happy to become a member of the church. Plus Felix came for the first time in a white shirt and all! :) I was thrilled and he also has a baptismal date! He is going to be baptized the 11th of December! 2 days before I have to leave! And now worries he is NOT getting baptised for me or because I am leaving. He went to visit his family last weekend and had made the decision to get baptized a couple of days ago now that his family is starting to support him more. But because his family won’t be able to be here the 5th of December he has to do it the 11th. I am really happy to be honest. We also has the principles of the gospel class about the gathering of the house of Israel and he really understood it and got really excited to be able to help his family accept the truth as well. The ward mission leader was out of town and I had to teach the principles of the gospel class, and it went a lot better than I had expected and there were like 15 people there and they all seemed to like it. :)

Oh and we also have found a good number of new families to teach. We found this one couple, Jesus and Marina that are recently married and SUPER receptive. They accepted our message perfectly and are way excited to learn more. There were the one that asked us when we can come back! ha-ha! It was funny. We also found a few other new families as well, but we need to teach them a little more still to see if they are really going to keep their commitments or not. We have been good about looking for a lot of new people to teach and letting go of the families that really are not that interested. One of the families is super rich and have a huge house and all and are so happy to have American friends.... It is kind of funny. They are really receptive as well so we will see if they keep progressing this week. Also yesterday afternoon we had the big stake activity we have been planning for a while. I actually am the one who planned it and organized it.... but now that I am not the Zone Leader, I did not have to speak or be in charge of it yesterday and just sang in the Choir we had. I was pretty happy about it. I got to plan it and all, but I didn't have to stress about it much :) It turned out well and a few recent convert gave their testimonies and we sang a number of songs and it went great. There was a good number of people there and a strong spirit more than anything. I really have come to like our stake president and his wife, President and Sister Gabaldon. Sister Gabaldon led our choir for the activity and I worked with the stake president to plan it all. They are a nice family and I feel like I will keep in touch with them even after the mission.

Well, all goes well here in Chihuahua and it has not gotten too cold yet so that is great. I continue to work as hard as I can and I promise I really am giving the best I have. I was a little sad the other morning because I felt like I had not achieved all that I had hoped to in the mission and I was sad my time is running out, but then the spirit made me KNOW that I had worked hard that I have changed more that I understand right now. That I have struggled at times but that is has helped me to grown and repent and prepare myself for all I will come to face in life. It was a nice feeling and I am determined to not let the Lord down during these 3 weeks that I have left. I know that He is counting on me.

Thank you for all of you love and support! It really means more than you know!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

11/15/2010

2010-12-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

11/15/10

Hey everyone!

So this went really well and I have felt a lot more pressure to work hard and accomplish a lot in a little bit of time. My companion is doing well and is learning a lot. It is funny because it reminds me of being new and all the many things that we learn in the mission. The coolest part of this week is that we sang in a missionary choir at the stake conference. yeah.... I was in a choir..... haha Its a little funny to me because I have never really liked singing too much. We also have a big stake activity planned for this week end and we are going to sing again there as well so that should be pretty exciting. I have come to like music a lot more than I did before and I have come
to realize that it is a lot harder than I thought it was to be hoenst. haha But I have it as one of my goals now, I want to learn how to at least know how to sing and read a bit of music even if my vioce is not too great, and I want to learn how to play a little bit more of the piano. I know it would be hard, but its now a goal of mine... haha

The other good part about conference is that we had a number of investigators there and we have found a LOT of new people to teach this week and really have a lot to do each day and we have like half the week full of appointments already! :) Today I got to teach in my district about helping our investigators get to church and so that was fun. I have not taught like a normal member of the district in a long time and I really enjoyed it. I love having a normal district again; it is a lot of fun to be honest.

So we have been contacting a lot of people and we have these new investigators that are SUPER rich.... They are So cool and are excited to have American friends.... It is kind of funny to me. They are really receptive and we have only taught them once and they
invited us over to dinner and the guy is going to fix our heater in our house and pay for it to be done because they live really close to us. This week we are going to invite them to be baptized when we see them on Wednesday. :) Something that I have learned in the mission that I am applying right now is the power of testifying about the things we teach. We basically just testify to people and the spirit does all the work. When they are the Lord’s prepared future members of the church, they are able to feel that spirit and recognize us as servants of the Lord and accept our message. That is all we basically do in all of our contacts and lessons. It works out well because even though my comp cannot talk yet he is able to participate a lot. It is something I wish I knew in the beginning of my mission. To not try convincing everyone we teach and not to worry if they don’t accept the gospel and to just keep looking for new people to teach. I don’t know how many we will be able to baptize in the month I have left, but I am going to leave the area full of a lot of future members so that is good. I have just come to love teaching in general. It is something I did not like too much before, but now I love teaching people.

Well all goes well here and I am loving the mission and Mexico. I love the people here and love the work!

Thanks for all of your love and support!

11/8/2010

2010-11-16T13:08:00.001-08:00

11/8/10

Hey everyone!

So this past week has been a bit eventful to say the least.... But at the same time it is crazy how fast time goes by.

So since President Ángulo became the mission president in July, he has talked a lot about how he likes to have missionaries who serve a long time as zone leaders or assistants to end as senior companions. He always tells us the story about when he was a missionary and had served as a long time as a leader he ended the mission as a senior companion and had the best experience of his mission. He felt this was when he learned the most in his mission and how he was able to apply all he had learned and finish strong. Since I have been a zone leader since the start of the year, I knew that when the time came I was going to end the mission as a senior companion. So about a month ago he told me that I was going to be a senior companion and all but that I needed to train my last companion Elder Lopez to be a good zone leader first because in the mission there are not too many leaders. I told him okay and that I was glad to do it and now the time has come that I am senior companion! :) I am stoked and really excited! He told me that I was going to train a new missionary and I am with a new AMERICAN! Crazy huh? It is my first American companion in the mission and I am excited to help him learn a lot. He was in Utah as a missionary waiting for his visa for 2 months and has 2 months here in Mexico so he is not all that new, but he has struggled a lot in the mission and still has to learn a lot of Spanish so I am helping him out with that. His name is Elder Johansen and is from Idaho. He is cool and we get along. He is a bit timid and quiet and not too sure here in the mission, which is about the opposite of me so I am glad to be able to help him. But to be honest I am the most excited about being about to focus ALL my time and attention on my own area and baptizing and really applying all I have learned in the mission to what I am doing. The only sad part is that I really I have reached the last stage of my mission which is a hard realization. But I know I will be able to achieve success these last 5 weeks and I feel such a strong desire to give me ALL. And not waste a second here. I feel like it is all or nothing and if I have had a good and successful mission it is time to show it NOW and do everything the Lord expects from me.

I have seen a lot of missionaries end the mission and I feel like I have seen what helps and what doesn't. So I am ready to work my heart out and give it my all. I know this opportunity will never come again and I am glad that President Ángulo has seen me as a good missionary and has allowed me to have this opportunity here in my area.

President Ángulo has also taught us a lot about repentance and has really helped me to better understand the true process of repentance and the happiness that comes by living and feeling the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was something that has changed my life and I feel like I have the opportunity to apply ALL I have learn. I am going to teach my comp Spanish and all the things that have helped me to have success here in the mission.

I know the Savior lives and I know the atonement is real. These last few weeks I have felt this more than any other time in the mission and in the end I have come to realize that my best convert is myself. I have changed a lot in the mission and I owe a lot of that to all the great leaders I have had and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Thanks for all your love and support!

Oh and thank you gma Davidson for the letters! I got both of the last two you have sent.

Oh and side note, the El Paso address is now closed again.... ha-ha. I imagine no one will be sending anything to me anymore, but just in case don't send it to El Paso, you have to send it right to Mexico

Love you all!

Elder Andrew Davidson

11/1/2010

2010-11-16T13:07:00.002-08:00

11/1/10

Hey everyone!

This week was a good and short week to say the least! Every 3 months we have been having these trainings were the whole mission comes here to Chihuahua for 4 days and everyday all day we are in these trainings and we learn a lot of the new ways we are to teach the gospel. They are amazing because we were isolated from the things that normally distract us during the week and it makes us really focus in on the mission and gospel. Plus we had TONS of great spiritual experiences this week with the conferences and all and on top of that I got to see all of my buddies in the mission! All of the zone leaders, district leaders, and missionaries that are trainers got to come and so we were like 60 missionaries :) I have had a lot of really special experiences associated with music and singing hymns. I have come too really like them and singing..... I still horrible at singing and all, but now the difference is that I like it and would love to learn how to sing at least okay and to play a little bit of piano. Maybe it will be hard to do and all, but it would be cool!

Oh and also we had a meeting with all of the district leaders and zone leaders in one of the afternoons of these conferences and at the end of all the conference we had a meeting with only the zone leaders. During the meeting with all of the zone leaders and district leaders of the whole mission we talked a lot about doing baptismal interviews with President Angulo and the assistants and then they wanted an example.... The assistant that was there was one of my district leaders before and is named Elder Cook, and I taught him how to interview a while ago when I was a zone leader with him and I knew he was going to call on me to give the example..... sure enough that is how it was and I interviewed my buddy Elder Cook in front of everyone. I was a little nervous but in the end it went well so that was good. It was also weird to see all the missionaries that I saw arrive in the mission are now leaders and trainers! They have all spent a lot of time in the mission and speak Spanish well! It was a lot of fun to see everyone and talk with them again.

The conference went amazingly well and the mission president was very happy and so after our zone leader meeting on the last day of the conference, the mission president took all of us to a Steak Buffet here in Chihuahua! It was cool and it was the best food I have ate in the whole mission! Ha-ha! There was a lot of American Food and so we all ate a ton. I have come to love the missionaries I am serving with and so it was a lot of fun to go out to eat. :)

The area and zone are going well and we are excited to see all we can achieve in November.... I can’t believe its November already! Time flies! But I am very happy here and working hard! I saw so many missionaries waste the last part of their missions and so I promised myself that I would NEVER do the same and I am doing all I can to stay focused and LIVE every second I am here in the mission! It is a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

Oh and this week a dog attacked me and I had to defend myself and it was exciting.... ha-ha! It was the first time it had happen the my mission and so it was fun.... A lot of dogs bark and all, but this one tried several times to bit me and such so it was different....

Oh and Halloween came and went here.... we didn't do much and neither do the people here. The teenage kids have a party and all, but they don’t do too much. Plus the government banned trick or treating because they say that it is not a Mexican tradition and don't want the people to forget about their Mexican heritage. It’s dangerous here in the end so I feel like it is a good thing that they did it.

I love you all so much and thanks for all of the love and support!

Elder Andrew Davidson

10/26/2010

2010-11-16T13:07:00.001-08:00

10/26/10

Hey everyone!

SO this week has been a much better one and today has been a better day.Last week was a bit tough to be honest. We have had a lot more success finding new people to teach and we have met a lot of people that tell us they want to know why there are so many Churches and confusion in the world about religion or we meet people that want to know what happens after this life and where we go. Cool huh! We always tell them that we have exactly what they need and have answers to their questions :)

We have a lot of new investigators now, but none of them have progressed too much yet to mention them too specifically. A couple of them have come to church, but this week we will see if they keep progressing towards baptism or not.

Things have gone okay with my companion. He is a little bit difficult, but I feel like I am able to use all I have learned in the mission about how to get along well and work together and so things go okay. It is because he gets frustrated that he doesn't know the area or the members and he "turns off" and does not want to do anything.... But we get along well and the power of heart felt service is amazing and he seems to be doing okay. I feel like he will be my comp for the rest of the mission so I really got to work to make everything go well. In the end we both need to be more humble like Elder Utchdorf said and be willing to learn lots of new things. It is going well so far and I will update you later on how things are going.

This week we have another 4 day conference and so I will be there tomorrow til Friday and I know I am going to learn a LOT and I am excited to learn about new ways to help the zone. We have tried to really talk to all of the missionaries in the zone and get to know them and be their friends so they have the confidence to talk to us when they need help. It has gone well and the zone is doing great. The cool part about the conference is that I am going to be able to see all of my buddies in the mission and be with them for a few days or so :)

Life goes well and I keep working hard! It is tough to think about the mission ending and so I just tell everyone I still have 6 months more and don’t think about it.... IT makes it all so much easier. But at the same time it has helped me to really give my all and apply EVERYTHING I feel like I have learned in the mission every day we have here. I love the mission and I thank you for all of your love and support!

Elder Andrew Davidson

10/18/2010

2010-11-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

10/18/10

Hey!

So today has been a tough day and things don’t seem to get any easier as the days goes on and I don’t have anymore time to use the computer to be honest....

This week was very eventful and now I am with Elder Lopez here in Revolution. He has like a year and half in the mission and is a good missionary. He is a good guy and we have been together a lot and so we get along well. Plus I have almost always been his leader, he was made a district leader when I was zone leader and has moved with me ever since and now he is my comp... The cool part is that we are zone leaders together and we get to travel to all the districts and we are not in charge of a district, so we can focus a lot more on the zone and helping everything go well.

Oh and Elder Johnson, the general authority came this week and taught us a lot of thing that are really going to help them mission grow a lot! I am sorry I don’t have much time to write you about it, but it was very special.

Oh and we had a ward activity that did not go as planned... but in the end it was very spiritual, which is what counts, and the members seemed to like it. Right now we are struggling a bit, but trials allow us to grow and to apply ourselves and learn to rely on the Lord. I am having great experiences that I know will help me all my life.

Today we had a meeting with all the zone together and the mission president came to talk to us and we talked about what we can do to apply what Elder Johnson taught us during the conference.

Well all goes well, sorry for the short email, know I love you and that I love the missionary work!

Elder Andrew Davidson

10/11/2010

2010-11-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

10/11/10

Hey family and friends!
So this week has gone by fast and I cant believe that I have already been with my new companion Elder Soliz for 3 weeks. Things continue to improve and Elder Soliz and I have progressed a lot together. The mission has been very difficult for him sense he has had his mom do everything for him his whole life and now is on his own. But its fun to teach him and we get along really well so he is always willing to listen. But at the same time it reminded of all the times my mom tried to teach me how to clean well and to iron my shirts and such and to cook and stay organized and all the little things that have helped me out a lot. (ha-ha)
The sad part is.... that I will no longer be with him anymore.... he does not know that yet, but last week during the zone leader conference the mission president told me that he is now going to put all of the senior and junior zone leaders together and so now I will no longer be with him.... unless they make me not a zone leader and I stayed training him, which would be cool by the way. But in the end I am here to serve the Lord, HOW and WHERE he needs me to. I feel like they are going to give me the change for the zone tonight. I will let you know next week how it goes.

Felix our investigator keeps progressing a lot and although him family was really hard on him he still is reading the BoM and has a strong testimony. I know he will get baptized soon, but at this point he just has to decide to do it. We taught him about the priesthood and he is SUPER smart and so he understood it all very well and is excited to receive it when he is baptized.
This week on Thursday Elder Johnson, the general Authority of the area is going to come and we have a conference with him on Thursday morning. We have a meeting with him in the morning for all of the leaders, and then after with all of the zones from Chihuahua. Then at 4:30 he is going to go work with a few missionaries in their areas, I am praying that he remembers me form before and decides to come with us, and then after there is a special meeting for all of the ward mission leaders and investigators. I am really excited and plan to learn a whole lot! :)
All goes well here and I am LOVING every second of the mission life! I love serving and have never been so happy in my life. Thank you all of for all of your love and support!

Love Elder Andrew Davidson

10/3/2010

2010-10-10T21:33:00.001-07:00

10/3/10

HEY everyone!

So another fast week has gone by and I feel like time continues to speed up with each weeks that goes by. This week like all of you already know we had general conference. In the stake center where we had conference they always put a room in English for the American missionaries and a few others who speak English as well. I had to listen to parts of conference in Spanish during a couple of times during my mission and to be honest it is not the same by any means. I guess it is because I have come to know the prophets by their voices and its weird when it is in the voice of someone else.

Felix our great investigator had a tough week. He went to Camargo, where his family lives to tell them about the baptism and they attacked him more than he ever expected. His mom and sisters cried and were all upset as if he had committed some kind of deadly sin and his dad told him to wait like 6 months to be able to do it. They also took him to a catholic church and had him talk with a priest and all.... Yeah, he had a rough time. But he has a strong testimony and stayed strong to what GOD has revealed to him and says he wants to be baptized in the true church, but needs to wait for his family to cool down a bit. He is 24 all lives alone and all, but he loves and respects his family and all so it is tough. But the whole situation is tough because the point of the church is to bring family together and not pull them apart. The down side is that his family remains in ignorance because they do not want to listen to him and what he says about the church. We have a lesson with him right now so we will see how things are going. I know his family will open their heart soon and listen to Felix and be able to support him.

All goes well with my comp from BOLIVIA! He tells me all about it all the time and I really want to go to South America some day. I also want to study outside the US for a semester or so after I get back. Who knows yet, but I have a lot a new plans and ideas now that I have learned a lot more about the world outside of the US. I feel like BYU has a number of international programs so I will try and be apart of that for a year or two after I get back. What do you think? :)

Today we had another zone leader conference and it went well and the zone goes well. The mission was a bit down during the month of September but we are going well so far in October.

The ward is doing well as well and we have really gained the confidence of the bishop and he seems to be really happy with us right now. I love this ward already and I really look forward to staying here for a couple of changes.

I love you all so very much and thanks for all the love and support

Elder Andrew Davidson

9/27/2010

2010-10-10T21:32:00.001-07:00

9/27/10

Hey everyone!

So ALL goes well here and I am doing well and very happy to be honest. I think I have never been so happy in my life and have never felt so good here in the mission. I have come to really love the mission life and I will be very sad when it is over. But in this area things are going so well and we had a baptism this past week. Adilene was baptised and it was a bit tough because her family was not too happy and did not support her too much, but she was very strong and has a strong testimony. Her husband seems to be coming around and I know he will get baptised soon. :)

Felix Flores, the investigator I told you about last week is still doing great!! He is now reading in the middle of second Nephi and is so smart and comments all the time about stuff he has learned and understands everything so well. He even comes with us to teach another investigator who is a friend of his girlfriend. He is going to visit his family who lives like 2 hours away to tell them about his decision to get baptised and it is the only big trial he has right now. He can't get baptised this week because of conference, but he will get baptised the 9th of October. I am pumped and he is going to be one of my best converts in the mission!! He is going to be a future leader of the church some day :) Plus it is a lot of fun to be with him and the family of his girlfriend. They are all students and it reminds me a lot of school and I feel like we have a lot in common. AND we always have really good and powerful lessons because Jared, the ex missionary is powerful as well and so when his girlfriend, Lizzy participates as well it makes for powerful lessons with Felix. I feel like I will be Friends with them for a long time, well most of my life.

All goes well with my new Bolivian companion. He continues to learn and we get along well. He also teaches me a lot about his country and we have become good friends. He is also a good teacher and so our teaching has gone really well. Life is great and there is a LOT to do.

We are also finally gaining the confidence of the members here and especially of the Bishop. the ward has a bad story with a lot of missionaries in their ward and so they are slow to trust the missionaries. But they have seen that we are different and we have started to work with them a lot so they can have spiritual experiences with us as well. The bishop is thrilled and I really like him.

We spoke in church on Sunday and it went really well as well, I think it is one of the things that helped us to gain so much of the confidence of the members. I talked a lot about 1 Nephi 8 and missionary work and the spirit was strong there.

We are planning a ward activity to do with the members for the 8th of October and we have planned a stake activity for the 17th of October. I will let you know how they go :)

I Love you all and thank you so much for all of your support and love

Elder Andrew Davidson

9/20/2010

2010-10-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I got a kid in the mission!!! How cool huh? and the BEST part is.... that my comp is from Bolivia!!! ha-ha! I am stoked and very happy. He is such a funny guy and I Love that we are both foreigners here in Mexico and we get along great. He served in Boliviafor a month or so because his Visa did not come through so he is not completely new to the mission stuff, but Mexico is a lot different for him. It is fun because he makes me remember a lot of the things I thought and said when I got to the mission. He is from the city La Paz and has been a member all his life and is cool. I wanted to send a picture, but I forgot my camera sorry.

On Wednesday night they called me to tell me that I was going to get a new comp and I was really sad to be honest because in my three weeks with Elder Avendaño I came to really love him like a brother. But after a day or so with my son in the mission I felt great and I understand a lot of the things that Lord wants me to learn in the mission right now. I was worried I was not going to have a kid in the mission so that is exciting for me. Plus I don't feel to old in the mission and it keeps me working super hard so its all good.

The area is also starting to improve so that also makes life a lot better. When I got here there was nothing at all! Serious they did not even have one investigator for more than a month. This week a number of our investigators didn't show much, but 5 of them came to church.

Adilene is going to be baptised this week on Friday and is progressing a lot. But our coolest investigator is names Felix. He is studying his masters degree here and his girlfriend is a member. I am not sure how much I told all of you about him last week so sorry if I am repeating myself.... His girlfriend, Lizzly, live with her brother who just got back from the mission and her younger sister as well. It reminds me a lot of BYU and college because they are a group of teenagers living together. They are great and I love teaching Felix because he is So smart. He is already ending the first book of Nephi and LOVES it. This week was his second week at church and he has started to progress a lot. The ward also had an activity this week on Sunday night where they gave tours of the church and each organization explained what they teach to the family. He loved it and loves the church and his testimony is growing a ton. I feel like by the next time I write you all, he will have a baptismal date :) I am exited because he has so much potential in the church and feel be a future leader! :)

Also another friend of the family of teenagers started to learn about the church and we had a great lesson with her and ALL the members participated and the spirit was so strong there! She also came to church and she is a lawyer and just graduated from school, she is 24. Oh and Lizzle is 25, her brother who just got back from the mission, Jared, is 22 and their little sister, Jazmin, is 18. It is a fun group and they are from Casas Grandes, The Mormon colonies, so they are really strong members, speak perfect English, and help us out a lot! The drive us to where we need to go and always make us brownies and cookies and such. Felix is the coolest out of all of them and I know he will be a lifelong friend!

As you can tell life goes well. I love the mission and LOVE what I am doing. I Love the Lord and that is what motivates me each day to get up and work strong. The mission is the best experience I have ever had and it has FOREVER changed my life. I have had too many spiritual experiences to ever be the same person again.

Thank you for all your love and support and I will keep you all posted on how things go and all we accomplish this week!

Love you!

Elder Andrew Davidson

9/14/2010

2010-09-19T21:05:00.001-07:00

Hey family and friends!

Well life continues to go well here in Chihuahua with my companion Elder Avendaño. We get along very very well and so it makes everything so much more easy. He is relatively new in the mission and so I have been trying to teach him all of the good things I have learned in the mission. He is very willing to learn all he can and is a great missionary. It is funny because he thinks I am the best missionary in the world and is always really grateful. But, the truth is that he teaches me SO SO very much. He is a great example of some humble and diligent and a hard worker. He is also very patient at times as I am sure he needs it to be my companion...! I was meaning to send a picture this week, but once again we forgot... sorry. I will send one next week.

The area is okay, there are a lot of new homes, the little same cement houses the government builds, and so there always seems to be young new families to teach. ´We have a few people ready to be baptized in the next two weeks so we are excited to see how that goes. The ward is very excited about missionary work right now and I seem to get along with them very well. We are trying to gain their confidence because the ward has a not so good reputation on missionaries here to be honest. President Flores used to put all of the problematic missionaries here to try and keep an eye on them so a lot of the ward members did not have too much confidence in us at first, but now that we have been working hard and getting to know them things are changing. We also asked of a sacrament meeting to speak in and not this Sunday but the next we are going to speak and we also have October 1st set aside for an activity we are going to do with the ward. I also really seem to get along well with the bishop, which is the key to success! We have been gaining his confidence and he has gotten excited about all that we are going to be able to accomplish.

I never tell anyone how much time I have in the mission or when I come home because all they do is mention it all the time... After being with 5 of my companions as they ended the mission, I have learned that it is best to tell them that I have a little over a year in the mission...! That way they know we are ready to go all out. :)

The Zone is doing well and we have a number of baptisms for the next coming weeks as a zone so we will see how it goes for this month. I really like the district leaders that we have in the zone so that makes things a lot easier. Oh and this past week we had divisions with the district leader Elder Weiss, he has like 13 months in the mission and so I went to train him how to be a district leader and such. It went well and his area I where the big university is in Chihuahua and it was cool to see it. Plus I have always taught mainly young adults in the mission so it was cool to teach them again because a lot of their investigators are young adult guys.

We also had a meeting with the stake president this week and it went really well. He is named President Gabaldon and is really willing to work with us and plan activities and such. We planned an activity for October that we had in mind and he is willing to give us the support of the stake. We are going to have a Sunday night devotional and invite the mission president to speak along with the stake president and we are going to sing as a choir, well all of the missionaries in the zone. It should be really good and I will write you more about it as well learn more plans and start to practice for the devotional.

Oh and on Sunday a group of young adults came to church and one of the girls brought her boyfriend who is not a member. He 24 and studying a master’s degree, so that is cool and he are excited to learn more and really like the classes at church. The family that brought him is a family of 3 kids who are studying here but they are from Casas Grandes, the Mormon colonies, so they are speaking perfect English! Ha-ha! One of the brothers just got back from the mission in may and he lives with his two sisters here while he is studying. Í am excited because like I said I like teaching young adult guys, between the age of 19 and 26. I am not sure why, but I seem to get along with them best and the gospel changes the whole future of their lives at that age.

All goes well and I love the mission and have never been so dedicated. I am giving my all and thanks for all of the love and support!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

9/6/2010

2010-09-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

So there are SO many things to tell all of you, but like always there is little time.... but here it goes

On Tuesday I changed areas..... I am now in the city of Chihuahua! I realize now how much I missed the city to be honest now that I am here again! I am here in an area called Revolution in the Technology Stake, that is the name... ha-ha! It doesn’t sound so weird in Spanish....!

My companions name is Elder Avendaño, he is so cool! I Love him already! He is so excited to be with me as he had a really bad last comp. He only has 6 months in the mission and so he is really excited to learn and work hard! He has taught me so much and is a great worker! He calls me his "dad" He tells me in English that "you are my dad" We have worked very hard together have had so many great spiritual experiences together. It feels cool to be with a comp that is really glad to be with me and he makes me want to be so much better and try so much harder here in the mission. It makes me want to be everything he thinks I am. :) We are going to make a great team and he is going to be an amazing elder here in the mission! To say it all in few words, we help each other to maintain the constant companion of the Holy Ghost, which is the source of ALL good and happiness in the mission life! :)

The ward is bigger and MUCH more active. I am a very active missionary and so the members all seem to be real happy to have me here, plus the zone leader of Chihuahua has never been in this ward before either so the house is not so great. Well it s a nice house and all but we don’t have plates of cups or bowls or pillows..... ha-ha! In the zone leader’s houses there always seems to be more stuff because that is where a lot of missionaries seem to end their mission.

t was sad to leave Cuauhtémoc and my ex comp, but I know the Lord has great things in store for me here and I have a lot to learn. I also love how close everything is together here in the zone, since I am in the city I can do more stuff together and I can meet more with all of the missionaries in the zone. Today actually we had the district meeting together with the whole zone and we are going to do the same the first p-day of every month. It went well and it allowed me to gain the confidence of all of the missionaries together so we can work together better.

I am sad to leave my old zone because things were going so well there. I had my good buddies as district leaders and so it was So easy to work together. I was in the Chuviscar Zone before and in the Zone leader conference we had in Thursday this past week President told us we got 2nd place in the whole mission :) The East Zone in Juarez beat us, but I had the Sierras where it is a lot harder to baptize and so we were happy with what we achieved. But I feel like there is a TON of potential in the zone I left this month! So I feel good leaving the area and knowing I was able to help do my part. :) It was also a lot of fun to see all of the new zone leaders in the mission and they are all good Friends! Cool no? I knew a lot of them from the old zone and they have all progressed so much and the mission is in great hands. Oh and my buddy Elder Killpack also changed areas to here in Chihuahua but now he is a zone leader :) 4 new zone leaders left the zone with me so that is also good news and good to hear. They are all excellent missionaries and going to achieve a lot in the mission :)

We have had a lot of spiritual experiences this past week and I feel like this is the time in which I need to apply ALL I have learned and we hope to have a lot of success here in the zone. Today I had to tell you all about the new changes and such but in the following weeks I will tell you about all of the great spiritual experiences we have each day! We already have new people to baptize and I will try to send pix in the upcoming weeks. Oh and we have a meeting with the stake president this week and so we hope to plan a great activity as a stake with the mission president and all and we are also going to plan a big Christmas activity as well with all the stakes of chihuahua and invite a general authority and all :) I will let you know as it all unfolds!

I love you all so much and can’t wait to hear from you all!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-09-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

8/30/10

Hey everyone!

So another fast week has gone by! We had a very successful week and I feel like we were able to put into play everything we have learned from the mission president has taught us.

Oh so last week I got a letter from my convert from Juarez, Priscilla, and she is doing SO well and is a counselor in the relief society in her ward! She helps the missionaries out a TON and feeds them and goes to all of the baptisms! Cool huh! She also talked about entering the temple and said she is going to tell me when she is going through the temple so that I can go with her!

So my best convert from Cuauhtémoc left to go to Torreon again… sad! But her husband finally opened up his heart and is accepting the gospel and accepted the invitation to be baptized. It will be cool to hear from them after the mission!

This week we had stake conference and it went well here. The mission president came and he is super powerful when he talks so that was nice to see the members a bit more excited

My companion and I are getting along great and he is growing a lot. He is newer in the mission and I love have a newer companion and teaching him everything helps me to remember all I have learned and to put it into play.

We are going to have changes tonight and the mission president told me that I am going to change so I will tell you next Monday where I am at. I am sad to leave Cuauhtémoc as I have come to love the people and the members. Plus we have so many cool investigators right now!

Oh and the El Paso address is open again! You can send me stuff through El Paso. The address is this one:

Elder Andrew Davidson

2220 BASSETT AVE

PMB 106

EL PASO, TEXAS 79901-2020

So you can send me stuff there until the end of my mission in case you want to send letters or packages. Oh and I turn 21 on Wed, the first of September!

Love you all and thanks for the love and support!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-09-19T21:01:00.002-07:00

8/23/10

Hey!

WOW! So much has happened since the last time that I was able to write you all! Last week we did not have too much time to write.... well actually we did not get to write because the mission president had a 4 day all mission conference! Cool huh!? All of the Zone leaders and the district leaders and the trainers from the whole mission were invited along with the entire sister missionaries! There we about 50 missionaries there all in all. We all went to Chihuahua and stayed in the mission offices with all the missionaries. We left Sunday night to go there and we didn’t come home until Friday morning! On Sunday night it was SO cool to see all the missionaries! I got to see so many friends and companions! It was so great to catch up with everyone! Plus Priscilla, my convert from Juarez, wrote me along with a few others. Then over the next 4 days, the mission president trained us about the new stuff we need to teach and how to teach. Well it was not too new to be honest; it was the same stuff, just more focused in. We had 4 days of conferences from 8am to 6pm everyday! I learned SO much and they were some of the 4 most spiritual days I have had here in the mission to be honest. There is SO SO SO much to tell and so little time to write.... sorry! But I will tell you all about it later, sorry!

These last 3 days here have been great and I am loving life! That seems to be the story of the mission, ups and downs...The zone is going great and we are ending August really well, and I really like ALL of my 4 district leaders! I am such great friends with all of them and it makes working together SO dang easy. We have a lot of work here in Cuauhtémoc and we have had great spiritual experiences to be honest!

We met a guy named Lehi the other day! Ha-ha! We showed him where his name comes from and he is ways excited to read the Book of Mormon :)

I have never felt so much spiritual power in my life and I am excited to keep on learning and growing!

Thanks for all the love and support and sorry that I can’t write more!

Love you

Elder Andrew Davidson

8/9/2010

2010-09-19T21:01:00.001-07:00

Hey family and friends!

So this week was another good week here in Cuauhtémoc and everything seems to be going well. I wrote a lot to the family and so I don't have all too much time to write this email since this week is the big week of the wedding and all! :)

We now teach the Doctrine of Christ in the first lesson from 2 Nephi 31 and 3 Nephi 11. So we share part of one of these chapters with the investigators and we follow the spirit and teach them based on their needs. There is now no order like lesson 1, 2 , or 3 and we teach them depending on what they need to be able to progress. We now focus teaching about baptism and preparing to be baptised! It has been cool to put this into play this week and see all the success we have had! :) I have never had so many spiritual lessons in the mission and it helps us to be so much more aware of the spirit as we teach. Plus it helps us to know who are the people we need to be teaching because if they do not want to get baptised and follow Christ we don't teach them.... they reject us quickly ha-ha!. It helps us find the people that are ready to be taught :)

Kevin and Paula are investigators of ours who are progressing a lot right now! I contacted Kevin on a splits like 3 weeks ago and we finally have been able to make good appointments to teach him this past week. They came to church this week and they loved it,. They have a lot of family problems and so they LOVE how the church focuses on families. They have to get married before they can get baptised so it wont be a super fast the baptism, but they are ready! :)

Brenda was baptised on Saturday and confirmed yesterday and I was able to perform the baptism. She did not want to go under the water and so I took three tries to finally get here under the water....I had to almost push her under as we got close to the water! (ha-ha)

All goes well here and the learning is always great. I have been praying and fasting a lot for humility and patience this past week and for the opportunity to recognize moments to learn these attributes and so sure enough the Lord has given me a TON in the past few days... guess it is my fault for asking.... !

The other cool part is that I have received a lot of spiritual confirmations about Danielle getting married. I know it is going to be an amazing experience and I am proud and excited! The spirit has comforted me a lot and to be honest I don't feel sad or left out at all. In the end this is how the Lord wants things to be. I hope you all get to go to the wedding and enjoy it! I am VERY PROUD of my sister! :)

Oh and just to remind you to NOT send packages to El Paso anymore. My birthday is coming up and in case people were going to send stuff make sure to send it directly to Mexico and make sure it is a safe source. Oh and if you want ideas of what to send I would like nice Sunday ties. :) I have a ties to use each day, but on Sunday and for conferences I have nicer ties I use only on those days. Thanks! :)

Love you all so much and I hope all goes well this week!

Love, Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-09-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

8/3/10

Hey everyone!

So this week was a much better week to be honest! Everything is going well and right now I am super excited because we had an amazing zone leader conference yesterday in Chihuahua with the mission president and all.

So my comp elder Gallegos and I have gotten along really well to be honest. We have come to become much better friends than I could have imagined right now. I always try to be really good friends with my companion because if not life is not to fun at all. I thought it was going to be harder with elder Gallegos but things seem to be going well. :)

So there is a TON of work to do right now in the area, but there is also a ton of baptismal interviews so we had to travel a lot this past week. Every district leader in the zone baptized and so I had to leave like 3 of the 7 days of the week. Plus when I have to do baptismal interviews they are like 2 hours or more away..... But the Lord blesses us when we cannot be in the area. The zone is going really well right now and we are on track to break the month record here :) We are one of the top baptizing zones right now as well which is cool because the 4 Juarez zones or Chihuahua are ALWAYS in the top 5. :)

Like I mentioned we had a great conference yesterday about the new way we are going to teach here in the mission. The first presidency has changed the lesson order and the normal order is now going to be different. Pte Angulo is SUPER excited and WAY prepared and the whole mission is super pumped right now! The mission Mexico Chihuahua is going to change SO much is the next 3 years and I am sure it is going to be the highest baptizing mission in Mexico :) The mission president knows what he wants to achieve and how to achieve it and is ready to do all he needs to. Plus his goals are not numbers but success. To be honest I am sad that I am no longer going to be here for much time and it is going to be so cool to be here in like months and have the 2 years to be with the new mission president! Plus it seems like Elder Scott is going to come in a year or so AND the area president Elder Johnson comes by a lot because he is from here! Cool huh?! I wish I still had another 2 years left!

This Thursday we have our zone conference and I am excited to share all we learned with the zone and to learn how to become better teachers. The new way to teach focuses a lot on the spirit and our ability to receive revelation for each and every one of the people we teach. I am excited and I will tell you how it goes this week.

Oh and just a reminder that my pday is now going to be on Monday from now on. So don't forget to write me by Monday morning!

Thanks again for your love and support and I hope to hear from you soon!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-08-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

7/27/10

So this week was the longest and hardest week that I have had in a while... Change always brings a bit of a challenge, but at the same time it is what allows us to grow and progress even though it can be hard. It has been different with the companion and all and we are learning a lot together. He is not too fond of the US so I have to make sure that I don't comment about the States much, but I think as he is getting to know me and he is opening up more. I feel like an American offended him one time or who knows what, but I am his first American companion in the mission... ha-ha! The good part is that he is learning how to teach still and it has helped me to remember all that I know in regards to teaching people and how to apply it all. I feel like we don't teach as well, but we are learning to teach together and he is getting better

Ana Rosa, the investigator, continues to progress a TON and wants to get baptized and all but we just have to wait for the mission president to come for the interview. But it is funny to see her at church because she is like a member now and has her own friends and ride and all. She is involved in the Relief Society and even signed up to feed us next month,

We have a number of people who are progressing right now and a lot of potential in the area so that is good. I also realize that I really love the ward I am in and know just about all the members.... which I guess in normal since I have been here for 7 months now...! But it is fun to work with them and a lot easier because I know them so well that they are more willing to help us out.

The mission president says that the first presidency has changed the way that we are going to teach and that they are going to train us on how to do it next month and that we are going to be there for 4 days training and teaching so I guess I am looking forward to that.

As you all know you can NO longer mail me things at the El Paso address, you have to send them directly to Mexico. Which costs more and takes longer so I recommend dearelder.com It is a lot easier there and it gets to me a lot quicker?

Thanks so much for the love and support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-08-06T14:31:00.002-07:00

7/20/10

Hey everyone!

So I no longer have much time to write you... sorry... we had a little conference with the mission president here this morning and so we have little time to do everything that we need to get done.

So this past week we had changes in the mission and my comp Elder Cruz went home! Crazy! I was sad when he left and felt lonely.... we were great friends and I have never taught the gospel so well like Elder Cruz and I were able to do. I will miss him a lot and he was definitely one of my best companions here in the mission!

Surprisingly I did not change areas..... I will complete like 8 months here before there are changes again. I really expected to change but I am glad I stayed. I am really happy here to be honest and we now have the whole ward to ourselves. Before we shared the ward with the sisters but now they both left and we have the entire area. It is a huge are to be honest but I am excited for all that we are going to accomplish here this next month! :) My new companion is Elder Gallegos. He has been here for 4 months but has been in the other ward, so he just changed wards and is now with me.... He is a junior companion normal and not a leader like before. I am now the only zone leader here AND I am the district leader here.... I liked it better before when my comp was the district leader but I expect them to call another leader here in another area and then I will be free to visit the other district leaders more. There were very few changes in the zone to be honest and so things are just about the same here. I am excited to work more with President Angulo and see all that we can achieve this month! :) I have a number of new ideas and things that we are going to try and accomplish with the zone. Plus president Angulo is changing a lot of things in the mission and I expect we will become much better missionaries :)

I am also excited to work here in Cuauhtémoc with the missionaries. We are a small number now so we are going to have to step up, and I am SO pumped for all we are going to learn.

Ana Rosa did not get baptized because she needs to talk to President Angulo first but we expect that interview to happen this week and that she will be able to get baptized :)

All goes well and I love the missionary work! :)

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-08-06T14:31:00.001-07:00

7/13/10

Hey everyone!

So this will be one of my shorter emails because I do not have much time because I have been figuring out what pictures I need to get from my district because this is the last week of the cycle.

This week went well and things go well here in Cuauhtémoc! Yesterday we had a leadership meeting in Chihuahua with all of the zone leaders and the district leaders from the three south zones of the mission. My comp did not go because he is going home this week but I got to go with my buddy elder Killpack which was a lot of fun. A year and a half ago we would have never imagined going to a leadership conference together on divisions in Mexico... ha-ha It was fun to be together.

So the new mission president is GREAT! He got rid of our ability to send stuff to El Paso and all... but he is so excited and experienced! He is an SUPER amazing public speaker! Better than you can even imagine! I love hearing him talk and he is going to change so much about the Mexico Chihuahua Mission! I am sad that I only have 6 months to be here with him, but at least have a fourth of my mission left with him so I am pretty excited about that. He said he is going change the way things run and he is going to make us expert teachers of the gospel! He has plans to do a ton of new activities in the wards and stakes here and is going to help the church grow so much. He had a TON of success when he was a bishop and a stake president for 10 years in Baja California. He is going to work a LOT more with the missionaries and is going to go out to work with us during the day and go with us to lessons and such. He is going to go to each ward and stake and teach the leaders what to do and excite them and he has a great vision for the mission. I really hope I get to work a lot with him because he is going to teach me so much and I know that they are things that I am going to apply during my whole life! :)

So Ana Rosa is going to get baptized this weekend... I realize I have not told you all too much about her... but she is great and is learning SO much. Since she started to read the BOM she has changed a lot and her progress has come a long way :)

I love the mission and I continue to learn a ton each and every day. Thanks you all so much for your love and support and I can’t wait to hear from you all.

Remember that the new address is:

Elder Andrew Davidson

Calle Morelos antes Ojinaga #2210-A

Col. Cuauhtémoc

Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México

C.P. 31020

Love you all so much!

With Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-08-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

7/6/10

Hey everyone!

So another week gone by! This week I feel like was one of my best weeks of work in the mission. Last week we worked a lot and all, but I feel like this week we worked a LOT more efficiently. We were able to teach a lot with the members and we are now bringing our investigators to the church to explain how it is in Sunday so that they feel more comfortable coming to church. It worked really well and we have a few families that are really progressing a lot right now. I had been praying for a complete family, mom dad and kids, for a long time and we finally found the family! They have 3 kids and are super receptive and ready to go! They will be baptized next Saturday! The mom is named Erika and dad is Ernesto, they have a daughter who is 14 years old, Anali, and a son who is 11 years old, Ernesto junior, and a son who is 5, Daniel. They have had a number of problems with the dad and he is changing a lot and the whole family is very happy. It is crazy to see how fast things improve when families live the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So we have a new mission president now, he is named President Angulo. I feel like he has a lot to do and learn so he is a bit stressed out right now, but tomorrow we have a multi zone conference so I will get to meet him tomorrow :)

But an important note is that YOU CAN NO LONGER SEND ANYTHING, LETTERS NOR PACKAGES TO EL PASO TEXAS. Everything must be sent directly here. The new mission president will no longer have a PO Box in El Paso.

Everything much should be sent to this address:

Elder Andrew Davidson

Calle Morelos antes Ojinaga #2210-A

Col. Cuauhtémoc

Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México

C.P. 31020

If you could please make sure everyone has this address and I am not sure how it is best to send stuff to Mexico by mail.

All goes well and I feel so privileged to be here in the mission and learn so much! Thanks for all of your love and support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-06-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

6/29/10

Hey everyone!

SO this past week was one of the toughest weeks that I have had here in the mission (I know that I say that like every other weeks... ha-ha) but we worked SO hard this week. I have never worked so much in the mission and I felt that I really applied myself and all that I have learned in the mission and we worked very efficiently... but we saw NO results on Friday or Saturday... and they were both SUPER tough days and we didn't let anything get to us and we just kept going on. On Saturday in the night time I was worried because I felt like we were doing something wrong because we did not see the results that we expected. But I realized and learned once again this week that the Lord ALWAYS blesses us, even if it is not in the way we expect. On Sunday a number of investigator came to church that we didn't even expect and a member brought his Friend to church that is super receptive. We now have a baptism for next week and 2 for the next week and we expect to have another 2 families, 7 people, read to get baptized in the next 2 weeks along with the friend of the member who came to church :) Obviously things are going MUCH better and we have learned a strong lesson in trusting in the Lord. It was not until after the trail of our faith that we were able to see the success. :)

To be honest I feel like I am at the peak of my mission and all seems to be going very well. We have now made like a 180 here in the zone and things are going GREAT :)

I have never been so happy in my life really LIVING the gospel of Jesus Christ and NOW it is real. I had splits with the assistants to the president this past week and it went well. And also went to the flea market on Saturday and it went really well for the most part. We got to talk to a lot of people and inform them about the church.

My comp and I get along well and things go well even though he is going to end the mission in just 3 weeks. He is a lot more focused and I try to be a big support seeing how it is not the easiest thing in the world to end the mission.

Thank you all so much for your support and love and I can’t wait to hear more from all of you!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-06-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

6/22/10

Hey family and friends!

So I think this past week was the busiest week I have ever had in my life! It actually made me remember finals week at BYU because it was so crazy! I have never had so much to do in my life!

This past Friday we had our zone conference and it went really well. It was weird because I have been to zone conferences my whole mission and it was now my turn to direct the conference. After the break I forgot I had to go up in front and lead and sat with my comp and the mission president was like hey.... aren't you leading... ha-ha! I also taught the missionaries about baptism in every principle of every lesson. Something I was really happy and excited to teach about. I was really happy because it was my best lesson I have even given in a zone conference with all of the missionaries there. I feel like I will be able to use the skill of teaching to groups a lot in my life :) The missionaries from the Sierra came and stayed here in Cuauhtémoc the day before and I had 4 other missionaries in the house with us and I had my buddy elder Killpack there with me too! It was weird to realize how far we have come and how fast time has flown by! It is fun to think about the beginning and where we are now as missionaries. He is an EXCELLENT missionary and I am really happy that we are going to be able to work together a lot this change :) The tough part about the week was that I had to put together a "work plan" for the zone before conference so I could present it to the district leaders and the mission president, which I had to do between Sunday and Thursday, and the mission president gave us two long talks to study before the conference and I had to prepare my lesson that I was going to give. That is why it was a lot do along with work in my own area AND I had to go to Chihuahua on Monday and Wednesday to have divisions with the 2 new leaders in the zone. But it went really well and like I told you last week I really liked training them and I learned a whole lot both days. Then on Sunday I had to give a talk..... I spoke about being an example and a felt like I was not too prepared but it went really well. I had a lot of stories to share with the ward. I have gotten much better at public speaking and I gave my talk without notes or even looking down to read stuff noted down - just me and my scriptures :)

So we are struggling a little bit in our own area, but we are starting to find a number of new people to teach. I had a way cool spiritual experience today looking for new people to teach but since I don’t have much time I will tell you all about it later.

I really like my comp and we get along really well. He is ending the mission but he is MUCH stronger than my other comps that ended their mission. Plus he has a lot of new responsibilities since it is his first time being a zone leader so he is strong. :) We are good friends.

The mission goes well and like always there are lots of opportunities to learn and grow. We get a new mission president next week so that is really exciting! I can’t wait for all he is going to teach us.

I love you all so much and hope to hear from you soon.

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-06-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

6/15/10

Hey everyone!

So this week was an interesting week and it went by super fast! Like 10 minutes after I finished writing you last week the assistants called me and gave me the changes for the zone and all the was going to happen in order to move the missionaries around to their new areas. Two missionaries left the district here in Cuauhtémoc, which was sad because they were my two closest friends here. But my new companion is Elder Cruz Parra! He is from Merida Yucatán, which is at the tip of Mexico. He is Way cool and he has taught me so much already! I feel like we are going to get along real well and I know I am going to learn so much this week. Elder Cruz is now the district leader here and the junior zone leader and they put me as senior zone leader here in the zone Chuviscar. I was sad to not be able to call the missionaries each night and today it was sad in the district meeting to not be able to lead or comment about much.... I know it’s a good new responsibility and all, but I loved being a district leader and the missionaries in my district! But there are 2 new district leaders in the zone and and it has been a lot of fun teaching them what and how to do everything. I had divisions with one of the new leaders yesterday in Chihuahua and it went way well. I felt like the Lord made me better than I am able to be able to give him an example and help him learn all I need to teach him to be able to help his district. ALSO the coolest part is that my buddy Elder Killpack is now a district leader in the zone!!!!!! I get to talk to my friend every day and we are going to have divisions and all! :) How cool is that! We obviously get along great and I am thrilled to have him here in the zone :) This past week has been one of my better weeks and Elder Cruz is a lot more focused and spiritual than my other companions have so I have felt a lot better to be honest. Oh the sad part...... Elder Cruz is going to end his mission is 5 weeks..... ha-ha! I am going to send ANOTHER missionary home! Can you believe that?? But I feel like this time is going to be a lot different than before and he is a lot more focused so we are going to have a great change.

We have our zone conference this Friday so that will be cool, plus it’s the last zone conference with Pte Flores as we will get a newMission President in a couple of weeks. I hope we do something special :) I am making a zone work plan for this change which I have to present on Friday so that is cool.

So the only sad part of the week is that I was robbed... I lost my USB drive that has 16GB of memory with ALL of my pictures from the mission!!! Sad.... but in the end it helped me to realize what is really important here in the mission and understand that all trials are here to help us grow and be stronger.

I love you all so much and thank you for your love and support! Oh and no one writes me anymore.... I used to get like 6 letters a month and packages and all....and now no one remembers I am here. I guess that means I have been out for a while now.... ha-ha!

Love you!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-06-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

6/8/10

Hey Family and Friends,

So another week has gone by quick and my companion left for home!

It is always weird when a companion goes home and it was even weirder this time because my companion was probably my best companion and friend that I have had in the mission. We had are struggles and all, but we were really good friends and I have never had such a strong friend in the mission like I had with Elder Rojas. It was sad to say goodbye on Sunday, but it is all part of the mission and all part of learning and growing. We had a fun last week together and we even canceled some of the time we were going to eat with members to be able to go and eat out together :) He taught me a ton about leadership and the mission and about loving the people I serve with here.

Since Sunday I have been with 2 other missionaries from the other ward here in Cuauhtémoc and we have been working the two areas together. I have learned a lot here with Elder Valadez and Elder Gallegos and I know things happen for a reason. The Lord never messes up in the way he makes things. Today they are going to tell me about the changes we are going to have in the zone and next week I will let you know who is my companion and such.

It has been a bit heck tick here having my district of 10 missionaries and the zone as well for these 3 days, but it has taught me a lot. Every night I am on the phone for like an hour and a half talking to everyone.... ! Today in our district meeting we talked about gossip and how to avoid it here in the mission as well as how to find new investigators and invite them to be baptized. We had a few practices as well and it went great. We also talked about how we can improve for this next month and what we are going to change. I love working with the missionaries and I love my district and zone :)

All goes well here and I am doing great. Thank you for all of your love and support and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-06-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

6/1/2010

Hey everyone!

Another good week has gone by here in Cuauhtémoc. This week went by slower because my comp goes home this week and so he is counting time! I am glad I can help him out and all, but he has turned into an emotional wreck... I can imagine it must be hard and all, but he is like bipolar now. It has taught me a lot of patience and I really see Elder Rojas as a friend and so I am glad to am able to help him out and all. But I sure hope I don't have to do this again with my next companion.

So this week one of the sisters gave us cow tongue!!!!! She served us rice and beans and then the meat.... I stared at it for a while because it had lots of weird tentacles all over it. Then someone asked what kind of meat it was and she said tongue from a cow. GROSS! ha-ha! It actually didn't taste too bad to be honest. But I ate it all, and she put a ton on my plate. We were eating with the sisters as well and they were laughing a lot! I don't plan on eating it much more....

Marisol Parra and her daughter Lorelly Parra are progressing a lot. I told you about her last week I think. Marisol is a single mother and is 25 years old. She was a reference from a member from the other ward here in Cuauhtémoc and is SUPER smart. She is also a bit wealthy. We explained some of the commandments and she was worried that she was not 100% sure. SO yesterday we had a lesson with Betty Bustamante, the member from the other ward that gave her name as a reference, and a recent convert who is super strong in the church. Her name is Bripcel and she has been a member for 6 months now. She is also a single mom and is very converted and is super smart too. We also brought another teenager from the ward and so it was the 7 of us there. It was one of the best lessons I have had in the mission and Marisol was SO much more receptive and the testimony of Bripcel was great! We all testified and shared our personal experiencesand there was a very strong spirit there. I feel like she will get baptized this Saturday :) I will let you know how it all goes.

I had my last interview with the mission president and it was not too great to be honest.... not to sound selfish, but he talked about my comp the whole time and helping him. He told me that he had problems with depression and that he is doing okay now and that I need to help him a lot in this last week. But he didn't have too much time so it went by quick. He always teaches me something though so I realize there is a reason for everything. You know?

I thought we were going to get to go to the temple this week, but the mission president said no and that we did not achieve enough baptisms... even though we baptized 5 more than this district ever has in the past year. But this month there is a lot of potential so I feel like we can achieve even more this month.

Today district meeting went well and I taught the district about the importance of the constant companionship of the spirit. We then did a practice that I learned in the MTC. My comp shared his testimony at the end and all and then we ate together as a district and we went to the Mennonite museum together. I have come to really love my district and the district members :)

Oh and this week I had one of my most spiritual experiences of the mission. My comp has been struggling a lot and one night asked me for a blessing. I gave him the blessing and I have almost never felt the spirit so string in my life. I KNEW the words were from the lord and after I could not even remember most of them. My comp said it was what he needed and that I said a lot of the things that his patriarchal blessing says as well. I love being a missionary and all of the experiences that it presents to me. For all the opportunities that I have to use the priesthood and see how real it is.

All goes well and thank you Cheryl for the letters from Tyler and I am glad to hear he is doing well. Also thank you Linda for the letter as well. Love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-05-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

5/24/10

Hey everyone!

So this week went well for the most part. We had a number of baptisms in the district this week so we were really busy the whole week with interviews and such. Last month we did not baptize much at all as a district and this month we baptized 20 as a district so it was a big difference! I am way proud of all of the missionaries because they did a whole lot this month :) I think next week we will have a fun activity if the mission president does not let us go to the temple. We have a goal of 37 baptisms in a month to be able to go to the temple, and it looks like we will end with 30. Our district had 20 of the 30 and we are only a third of the zone!) We are going to try and convince the mission president to let us go anyways because this zone has never gotten above 27 in about 2 years. But we will see how it goes :) It all depends how we finish this week.

We baptized Sayra Acosta on Saturday and it went really well. She asked that I baptize her and so that was cool too. Her mom is a little more interested than before, but she has had a hard life and has a lot of problems. She was baptized 20 years ago but is not active at all. Sayra was super happy at her baptism and to be honest we did not expect many members to come, but then like 25 of them did! :)

Marisol is the 25 year old single mother who is preparing to get baptized this week on Saturday if all goes well. Her daughter Lorelly will also get baptised with her. She is SUPER smart and understands everything so well! She has a ton of potential to grow in the church and will be a future leader. :)

I had been struggling a lot with my companion these past few weeks and this week I had a great spiritual experience that changed me a lot. I decided that if I was really going to help him out I need to be positive and an example. I had gotten lost in being bothered by the things he would do and say and I criticized him. I decided to stop judging him and criticizing him and just LOVE him and to be able to focus on only the good and to serve him. Things changed so much and I felt so much better and we have become much better friends in such short of time. I realize I too make tons of errors and mistakes as well and if I expect others to see the best in me I need to do the same with them. My comp, Elder Rojas, then shared a number of personal things about him that helped me understand his struggles more and my role in helping him. It has helped the both of us to be able to progress so much more!

In two weeks my comp goes home... so we will see how all of that goes with all the farewell talk. I am happy to be here and I am loving the mission!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-05-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

5/18/10

Hey everyone!

So this week I had a number of great experiences that have helped me so much to grow and learn.

So first off..... this week is missionary Sunday and normally the 4 of us speak in sacrament meeting, us and the 2 sisters in the ward. But this week we decided to sing two songs and each of us were to share a conversion story from the mission that we have had. So I obviously choose the story of Jesus Huerta (Chewy) from Meoqui. Then on Sunday before church started the sisters tell me they have a surprise for me! Then Chewy walks in the door!!! My convert from Meoqui!!!! Crazy! I was so excited and had many emotions! He was there visiting with a few people from Delicias! I was so so excited! Then he tells me he now has the Melchizedek priesthood and is the young men's president!!! His mom has had cancer for a while and the night he received the priesthood he went home and gave his mom a blessing! Then he showed me pictures and turns out two weeks ago he went to the temple in Juarez! He performed baptisms there and Edwin his younger brother went as well! :) He is attending institute and all and that he is going on a mission in a year!!!!!!!!! He has NEVER told me that before. Before it was an idea we tried to instill in him, but he told me with so much surety and determination! Then I had to speak in church and share his conversion story in front of him and at the end I told the congregation that he was there and that it was the first time I had seen him in 4 and a half months! It was SO weird to see him there with all his member friends and SO changed! He had a new light in his face and about him. Also it was cool to be with him in class and hear him respond like a normal member and all..... he has changed so much and is so much happier and more relaxed. It was a very joyous experience to be able to talk to him for a bit! :)

The week went great and we have a number of people preparing for baptism.

Sayra Acosta (10 year old investigator) is going to get baptized this week and is way exciting and she such an example to her family. They have a lot of problems.

Also Marisol is an investigator we have taught for 3 weeks and it is going great. She and her daughter are going to get baptized the 29th of May :) She is SUPER intelligent and understanding everything so well. She is 25 years old and has had a hard life and is way ready for the gospel. She also is a designer and has a way cool modern house :)

This week the scriptures have helped me so much and I realize the power of daily study. It is something I can never miss and starts my day out so well!

I love you all so much and thank you for all of the love and support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-05-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

5/12/10

Hey everyone!

So this week was a great week because on Sunday I got to talk to the family! :) It was a lot of fun to hear how everyone is going and to hear how grown up Spencer and Trevor are! It was also weird to realize that I have officially been out on the mission for a while now... I still feel like I have just started but talking to the family I realized that I have been out for 16 months, that is a long time! Also I am pretty sure it was my last time calling home, because I think the mission president is going to send us home before Christmas this year because of school and all. Plus that way we can be with the family for the holidays.

But this week we went to visit a less active member who lives in the area and it turns out her kids are not members of the church. There are a lot of problems in the house to be honest, but we found Sayra Acosta, possibly one of the best converts I will have in the mission. She is 10 years old but SUPER smart and mature. She basically lives on her own because of all of the problems in the house and the fact she is alone most of the time. She feels the spirit so strong when we are there and LOVES the church. She can feel the difference and the love that her Father in Heaven has for her. She is going to get baptized this next Saturday the 22nd of May. She came to church this week and loved it and is our great friend :) She has a strong desire to have something so much better than what goes on in her house and wants to grow and learn so much. The church is going to change her life forever and I plan on staying in contact with her for a long time, she is the cutest little girl. It is sad sometimes so see her so alone in the world and we always want to be able to do more for her.

So yesterday we had zone conference in Chihuahua and is was one of the better zone conferences we have had. I was not too nervous this time around to teach and did a better job than I have done before so that is good. Also we bought a cake for President Flores since he just had his birthday and that was a lot of fun. We talked a lot about our purpose here as missionaries and how we can depend on the Lord more. We need to understand that we are doing the Lords work and must do it his way. That pride is thinking we can still find people to teach and baptize even if we are disobedient. It was a great conference and I learned a lot. Oh and we also talked a lot about change and the atonement and how we are here to grow and change and that that life is always changing. We can never expect things to stay the same and should be always changing for the better.

All goes well here with my comp and we keep working hard. We have found a number of new good investigators so we will see how it all goes, I will keep you posted about it all.

Oh and I got letters yesterday at the conference. Thanks Grandma Davidson, Cheryl, Paul. Sister Dozier, and Larissa for all the love and support. I will be much better at responding quicker!

Love you!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-05-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

5/3/10

Hey everyone!

So another week down already... This week went well and we found a number of new investigators so that was great. Luis Angel is going to get baptized on Thursday of this week so that is exciting. He is a teenager that is more than willing to do all the lord asks of him. We have been teaching him for like a month now and has progressed quite a lot.

So this past Friday we have the zone leader conference and it was great. President Flores asked me to teach in the conference and it went well. I still need to slow down a bit and try to talk slower, but I am improving a little. My buddy elder Killpack also taught and did a great job. it’s crazy how much we have grown since we got here and how much we still have to go. I love being at the conference and how much we learn. Also president talked about how he leaves in a little bit and the change of the mission president, so that will be interesting. He leaves the 1st of July, so in like 2 months from now.

All with the comp goes well and I love Cuauhtémoc and the members. There are always a lot of ups and downs in life and sometimes it is not the easiest thing to do, I know that the Lord always understands what is best for us.

Thank you all so much for all of the love and support! Hope all goes well in the states!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-04-28T23:41:00.000-07:00

4/28/10

Hey everyone!

SO another fast week has gone by and we have also started a new cycle here in the mission. The changes in the mission happened today and I am staying here with my comp and he is going to end his mission this change..... I am not sure why but ALL but one of my companions has been SO old in the mission. And to be honest I really don’t like being with a missionary as he ends his mission. But I know the Lord is the one controlling this work and that he has me here or a reason even if I don’t understand it or like it. I feel like that is one of the great learning lessons of the mission, obedience without understanding.

Recently we have had very few investigators and spend just about the whole day looking for the ones the lord has prepared. We have worked hard and have not had too much luck. But it has been a blessing because it has taught us to trust in the lord and allow Him to direct us to the people we need to find. To confide in Him and to realize that we can’t do this work alone, that we achieve so little alone. The sisters in out same ward had a baptism this weekend and I got to perform the baptism because she chose me. It was a nice experience and I love being at baptism services. Also an 8 year old in the ward was baptized and wanted me to do the baptism as well :) It was a privilege!

This week on Friday we have the zone leader conference which is going to be fun. It is my favorite part about being a zone leader... Plus we are going to learn about all the things Elder Johnson told President Flores to change in the mission. Plus I love seeing all the other missionaries because I have become good friends with so many of them.

Sorry to all the people I don’t manage to respond too.... I am not too great about responding to letters if you have not noticed already.... Sorry and thank you so much for all of your love and support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-04-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

4/21/10

hey everyone!

So this was one of the busiest weeks I have had in the mission! We had to travel a lot and the district had a lot of baptismal interviews I had to do so I had to travel all over Cuauhtémoc! The sad part was that we ended up with little time to work in the area and teach our investigators. The obvious highlight of the week was the conference we had on Friday with Elder Johnson, the area president.

We went to Chihuahua on Thursday night and then on Friday in the morning we had the conference and then after we all ate together and had an open question discussion with elder Johnson. He is a very powerful speaker and he taught us so much about missionary work. He talked a lot about the first 4 articles of faith and talked a lot about the 4th one. We talked about the most basic part of missionary work and he showed us how little we understand.... ha-ha. He talked a lot about D and C 29:7 and how we are here to look for and teach the people the lord has prepared. There is NO excuse to not baptize every week and to find the people that the lord has ready for us. We also talked a lot about how we can have the spirit with us and the cost of not living worthy of it. It was more of an open discussion and he was guiding it. He teaches so powerfully and with almost ALL questions. I also thought it was cool that he speaks English and his wife as well. he is from the state of Chihuahua and is from Casas grandes here in Chihuahua. His wife is from Idaho who he met when he studied at BYU in Utah. He speaks perfect English and Spanish without accents on either language! He has spoken both since birth. His wife also speaks Spanish, but she talks like us... ha-ha! I was great to listen to and get to learn so much from someone who understands so much of the gospel and the plan of salvation. I realized that pure knowledge of the gospel makes us humble. When we understand we are humble and patient.... which means I need to understand a LOT more of the gospel... I realized how much power there is in the simple act of reading the scriptures each day and how the Lord reveals to us the things we need to know when we need to know them, IF we do our part of look for them.

Daily gospel study has changed me so much and was a key factor in my change here in the mission, I HIGHLY recommend it if you are not currently doing it. :)

I was also really privileged to perform several baptismal interviews this week and I LOVE hearing the testimonies of those who are going to get baptized, they are so pure and so reliant on the lord. I learn SO much every time I get to do one.

But also when the spirit indicates that someone cannot pass and be baptized it is SUPER sad. A young man did not pass and after I felt like the whole world was against me. The spirit told me very strongly that it was the right choice, but his mom was so sad and she had invited so many people to the baptism.... it was sad and I felt really alone that night. But like always the lord is there to comfort us always! :)

I love the mission and all goes well here in the mission Mexico Chihuahua

Congratulations Chase and Hayden and I hope you have the best experience in the mission as I have! :)

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-04-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

So another fast week like always with lots of trials and things that help us grow as missionaries and as people.

The best part of the week is that Diego got baptized on Saturday! It was one of the best baptismal services I have ever had and I was privileged to be able to baptism him :)

His family came and we are working on teaching them and getting them to come to church. He lives with his grandma and she had listened to the missionaries before so she is way ready and a funny lady. She is great and we hope to see her at church this Sunday, Oh and Diego fasted on Sunday!!!! How cool is that! And he did it without us telling him to. Oh AND he came to church in a white shirt and a tie I gave him! It is an unexplainable joy to see him there and with such a desire to learn. His is pumped about receiving the Aaronic priesthood this Sunday and to be able to baptism his family members in due time. I don’t expect much time to pass by before he receives the Melchizedek priesthood as well! He also told us he wants to go on a mission!!! I am super excited for him and he is the reason I am here, to help the ones I promised come unto Christ and see the blessings. He has changed so much and is so willing to change, that is why he is so powerful.

Veronica is also super powerful and is WAY active. She goes to the activities and all. Her husband, Even Apodaca who has had a number of baptismal dates is doing okay. With the example of Veronica I know he will get baptized soon. Right now he is scheduled to get baptized the 24th of April, but we will see how it turns out. Veronica should get a calling soon and continues to progress a lot.

Cuauhtémoc is great city and I loved being here. It is not super hot like in the other parts of the state right now the there are a lot of people here ready to get baptized. :) My comp and I get along great. We have our struggles and all, but we get along like brothers and are quick to become friends. I feel like we will be lifelong friends and I hope I get to stay with him for a while.

So today I got robbed for the first time in a while... never to great of experience.... ! We only lost the cell phone though.

So the WAY exciting part of the week is going to be Friday! Tomorrow we have a meeting with all of the district leaders in our zone to discuss how the change went and how we can improve. We have done well this change so the assistants are happy with us right now :) But on Friday Elder Johnson, the area authority of Mexico who is a member of the first quorum of the seventy is coming. He is going to have a meeting with just the zone leaders and the assistants to president!!! 18 people and a seventy! How cool! I am so excited and am trying to prepare myself spiritual for the experience! We have no idea what he is going to talk about but I will tell you all about it next Tuesday. We leave Thursday in the morning and have all day Friday with him! I feel so lucky and want to learn all I can from the day! :)

All goes well here with the district and the zone; I am enjoying the mission and am a very happy person! I love the gospel and seeing firsthand how much happiness it brings into the lives of others!

Thanks for all your love and support! I got to go because we have interviews with the mission president!

Love you all.

Elder Andrew Davidson

4/6/2010

2010-04-12T13:14:00.002-07:00

4/6/10
Hey Everyone!

So like always another week gone by with looks of great experiences and opportunities to grow.

On Friday we had the baptism for Veronica Apodaca and it was excellent! It was her birthday and we made the baptism real special. I was able to baptize her and I will send pictures of it. She was super ready and happy to be there. She has such a strong testimony and is going to be such a strong member of the church. Her husband Evan was there and he was going to get baptized but last week he backed out when he got into a fight and was not too excited about it all anymore. But yesterday we had a POWERFUL lesson with him and we felt the spirit SO strong! He felt it too and wants to get baptized! :) It was such a spiritual experience and I love how powerful the truth is. We re-taught Lesson 1 with his wife testifying as a member and we testified a lot. I think he will be baptized the24^th of April but he is going to pray first.

Conference was great and as always there were a lot of uplifting messages! I had to watch the Sunday part in Spanish which I am not too big of a fan of. Maybe it’s because I’m used to it in English, but it was a lot different. I think that is why people here don’t care too much about or go to conference. But I felt the spirit and learned a ton in the end. I especially liked Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about patience and how impatience comes from selfishness and the idea that the world revolves around us. I am not too patient sometimes and this talked really helped me to change more :) I also came to conference with a lot of questions and EVERY single one them were answered! How cool is that! Oh and I forgot about Easter... no one does anything here for that so I didn’t even remember till Sunday morning when the other American elders told me about it... ha-ha. But it was a good day!

Diego Qintana who is 18 years old is going to get baptized this Saturday! :) He has stopped smoking a pack a day of cigarettes, drinking, and drinking coffee daily! He has gone so far and will not let anything keep him from getting baptized. I LOVE teaching people my age because we become such good friends and we understand each other so much more. He lives with his grandma who is not all too concerned about him because his step mom does not want anything to do with him and kicked him out of the house, and his mom abandoned him. Yeah, you can see how much this baptism means to me. He has never felt so much love in his life and loves the gospel. He has truly felt its healing power in his life and I feel privilege to be able to help. Also in his prayers he thanks good for helping him find his friends! I KNOW he was a friend I promised to share the gospel with in the pre-existence and that I am here for that reason! HoH How great and wonderful is the plan of God! Saturday will be a very special day :)

My comp and I get along great most of the time. He is super direct and is a lot different than me, but we get along great. We are like brothers and have a lot of confidence in each other. :)

I love being here in the mission and have never been happier in my life! I love the Lord and thank him daily for the opportunity I have to be a part of this great work.

I love you all so much and really thank you for all of your support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

3/30/2010

2010-04-12T13:14:00.001-07:00

3/30/10

Hey Everyone!

So I do not have much time today so it will be a quick note... sorry.

This week went by fast but we have a number of investigators progressing so that is great. Veronica Apodaca will get baptized on Friday and she chose that day because it is her birthday! She is way excited and we hope to shortly afterwards baptize her husband and mother in law :) She has gone to church like 6 times and has felt the spirit so strongly. Also an 18 year old named Diego Qintana will get baptized this next Saturday :) He is way excited and all of the youth helped him to feel at home on Sunday during services.

We also helped the sisters with their baptism this past Friday and the water for the baptismal font was not working and we had to fill it up with buckets of water... ha-ha! It was interesting and funny, but in the end it turned out great.

I loved a saying in the Liahona from March about how it’s not as important what we have done in our lives as who we have become. It was not talking about the mission but I thought it had a good application to being a missionary as well.

All goes well and my comp and I are working great together. It is funny because he is so small, but always wants to pick on me. Its funny and we get along great! :)

Love the mission and continue to try and do my best!

Love you all,

Elder Andrew Davidson

3/23/2010

2010-04-12T13:13:00.001-07:00

3/23/10

Hey everyone!

So another SUPER fast week and a lot of new things happened as well!

On Tuesday in the afternoon my companion elder Fojas got here. He is from Pueble Mexico and has 21 months in the mission. He is a world different than many of my other companions but I am excited for all of the new things we are going to do with the zone. He is not focused on going home at all and doesn’t mention it to the members so it helps a lot so people are not always bugging him about it. He has taught me a ton already and I feel like I am learning so much. I now have 10 missionaries in my district! It’s SO great and I’m excited because big districts are always fun. The missionaries are way excited right now and I really hope we can accomplish a lot this cycle. :) Oh and it’s funny because my comp is super rich.... ha-ha!

The sad part about changes is that we lose a lot of the time we need to work in our own area. I know the lord blesses us for it but it’s sad to not be able to visit our investigators too much. On Monday I was with 2 other missionaries because their companions had left, Tuesday I had to help with all the missionaries coming and going in the zone, on Wednesday we did have a bit of time during the day, but Thursday not as much, Friday we had the zone leader council in Chihuahua, Saturday we had to go to Guerrero to do 5 baptismal interviews, on Sunday we have a meeting with all the district leaders in the zone and yesterday we had the zone conference where president Flores comes and it’s a all day conference. I had to give a talk on Sunday, teach in the meeting with the district leaders and then teach yesterday as well! It was great because it helped me to stretch a lot and really allow the lord to take control of it all. I know by myself I could not have accomplished it all or have done a good job. But the lord is always there as we rely on him and he allows us to succeed. ;)

The zone leader council meeting is always super powerful and it’s a whole day of doctrine and talking about how we can better the mission. AND Elder Johnson, the area president is coming on April 23 and 24 AND he wants to have a conference with just the zone leaders!!! I am so excited and its going to be so powerful. Oh and I was thrilled to see my good buddy elder Killpack at the zone leader conference. He is now a zone leader in Chihuahua and so it was a lot of fun to be there together. :)

Our investigators Veronica and Even are struggling a bit right now. Even went drinking again and then got in a fight... and got beat up super bad.... It was sad but I feel like the lord was trying to help them be humbled.... After the incident, we had a great lesson and they realized how much they really need the lord and even more during their trials.

Thank you so much Larissa for the package and all the food! I shared with everyone and my comp, but it was great! Especially the Costco trail mix! :)

The mission goes on and like all change I have learned a ton. I really get along with my comp and he is much more direct and he has taught me so much. I really hope to be able to focus a lot on humility and allow the lord to work through me. I love you all so much and thank you again for all for your support and love!

Love

3/18/2010

2010-04-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

3/18/10

Hey everyone!

So this week went by super fast and brought a lot of changes. My comp went home on Sunday and it was sad to say goodbye, but it’s nice to be done with the whole him leaving thing. It’s not a super great experience to be with a comp as he is going home to be honest. I have been with a number of missionaries over the past 2 days and it has been great to learn from them all. It has also been a great growing experience to be able to work with all the district leaders and run the changes in the zone. It has taught me a lot and I like it when I feel like I have to step up to the plate. It helps me to grow a lot. I am going to receive me new companion today and his name is elder Rojas. He has 2 cycles left and then he goes home too. I have heard good things about him so I’m excited for all I am going to learn and all of the new challenges that I will face in the mission.

Ricardo Gonzalez did not get baptized this past week because he has to wait for an interview with the mission president. When there are heavier sins it requires a longer repentance process. But he continues to be way excited and willing so I’m glad I am going to be here to help him get through it all.

Also there is a family in our ward from Venezuela! They are SO cool and I love talking to people from different cultures and parts of the world. It made me want to travel a lot of central and South America when I get back. I love hearing about other parts of the world and how things are there and all. They also taught us a lot of new words they use there when we ate at their house.

This week I studied the Christ like attribute of charity and it has helped me a lot. I realize it needs to be the motivating reason for all I do and will allow me to be the missionary the lord needs me to be. It will help me help the people progress and also to help the missionaries. My mission has come to mean so very much to mean and I want other missionaries to be able to have the same joy as well. Like I told you it makes me sad when I see missionaries not taking advantage of their missions. Not to judge them or make them feel bad or anything like that, just because I have come to love it so much and it brings me so much happiness that I want them to have the same life changing experience as well. You know?

All goes well here and it continues to be the greatest learning and growing experience!

Thank you so much grandma Davidson for the letter and also Kendra too! Thanks for all of the pictures :) Thanks Larissa for the letter as well. Your support means a lot, thank you!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

3/2/2010

2010-04-12T13:11:00.002-07:00

3/2/10

Hey everyone!

So another week gone by faster than ever before! This week was a better week for the most part, with the exception of Sunday.

My comp and I continue to get along better and we are working together great. I feel like I was also able to learn a lot about teaching efficiently this week which I hope will have a good affect of the rest of my mission. This week we also worked a lot more with the members and we were able to accomplish a lot with them. The lessons are always a lot more powerful when they are there and are able to help apply it more.

So this week was a trail with the investigators.... The week went EXCELLENT and we helped so many people progress and all and we had 10 people with baptism dates and all. We visited them all of Saturday in the night and they are were way excited and ready to learn, then on Sunday almost NO ONE comes..... it was devastating and its one of those times when you have to rethink things. When I teach and all we become a part of the investigators lives and we come to have a strong friendship, so when they don’t come to church it’s real sad. We even had rides for all of them and all. But trials help us to grow and to be better missionaries. Turns out they all had a bunch of little excuses... ha-ha! Like sick kids or last second work problems.... so we have high hopes for next week and everyone continues to progress.

Right now the Apodaca family is doing great and them only thing they struggled with was the book of Mormon, but they read the Book of Mormon on Sunday night and changed their opinions to say the least :) They are SUPER smart and have studied the bible a lot so they understand a lot of our message. It a big family, so we hope to start with the mom and the daughter and then continue to be able to baptize the other members of the family.

We also had our interviews with President Flores this week and it was WAY different than before. . I love learning from him and he always gets us way pumped up.

The mission goes great and I am well and happy!

Thank you all for all of your love and support!

Love elder Andrew Davidson

3/9/10

Hey everyone!

SO there is a lot to tell all of you, but I have very little time so I won’t be able to tell much about the week. My comp is going home this Monday so I had to get a lot of photos and such off his USB card before he left so I lost a lot of the time I had to write.... sorry!

So we baptized Cristian Cobos this past Saturday and it went super well. He is the son of a less active family we have helped to become active in the church. They are WAY excited and I hope to be at their sealing in the temple soon :) He was confirmed on Sunday and it was excited to see them so happy and together at church. We are trying to get the brother of the husband, Ramiro, to come to church but he plays in a band and so can’t come much. We hope to teach them a lot more this week and we will see how it goes.

So we have been teaching Ricardo Gonzales for about a month now and he is going to get baptized this Saturday! :) He is 28 years old and Nora, a member, brought him to church one Sunday. He is way excited to change his life and has stopped smoking, drinking, and drinking coffee :) He has become a good friend and I'm way excited for his baptism for this Saturday!

My comp is leaving soon and it kind of sucks to be honest. I prefer to not be with missionaries as they end the mission, but I know there is much to learn from it all and it will help me to be a much better missionary in the long run. He leaves on Sunday and we don't have changes in the mission till like Wednesday... so we will see how it goes. I am going to go with some of the missionaries from my district for the days and be alone as a zone leader so it will be a long 2-3 days. Double work! But I’m excited and know I will learn a lot in the process.

The mission goes well and I have learned so much from my current companion Elder Montero. We are a lot alike and so we clash sometimes, but that just means I need to be more humble!

I received a letter today from Cheryl and Grandma Stevenson so that was nice to read and it’s always good to hear about how Tyler is doing in Texas! :)

I love you all so much and thank you for all the support even if I seem to be terrible at writing back or thank you cards... please forgive me!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2/23/2010

2010-04-12T13:11:00.001-07:00

2/23/10
Hey everyone!
So sorry lasts weeks email was so short, I have more time today so I hope to write a better email.
This week went by so so fast and like normal I had a lot of good learning experiences. So most of the week I had been praying to know how to help my companion finish the mission strong, seeing how he will be done in 3 weeks. We are great friends so be honest and get along great almost all of the time. But I want to do so much more for the zone and if I start to do more he gets offended and mad and then it’s SO hard to work with him.
It’s been good at the same time because it’s taught me to be more submissive and patient and humble, which is always good to learn more about and those who know me when I was a teenager are probably thinking I am getting up comeuppance (ha-ha). We had divisions with the assistants and I had a great experience. Normally the senior assistant goes to the area of the senior zone leader, but the senior assistant came with me to my area and so I was way excited. He told me he knows I am going to be here so a lot longer and wanted to teach me a number of things. To be honest it was an answer to my prayers and I am going to really help my comp to finish out the mission strong. I know the things I am learning now will have endless application to my life afterward and will help me to have success in life.
So this week we had divisions 3 times and I almost didn’t get to work in my area for the whole week. On Wednesday I went to the other side of Cuauhtémoc, on Fri. I went to Matachi and Temosachi and on Saturday we had a baptism to be at and a ward activity we planned. Then on Monday I had to be here working with the assistant to the president the whole day. I worked with elder Martinez and he is an excellent leader and missionary. I look up to him a lot and his friendship means a lot to me. I feel so small sometimes in realizing how much I have to learn, but little by little I will become better and not so weak at times.
So a number of people came to church on Sunday with us and it was a great. We were going to gives talks, because we always do the 3rd Sunday of the month, but a member of the stake presidency was there and so he took up out time. I have learned to work a lot more with the members which is the secret to success in the mission field. Many of the members don’t participate in missionary work by themselves so we teach them a lot and try to work with the members each day of the week so the investigators have friends and feel better about coming to church.
So remember Ramon? The guy we found in the street? So turns out he had several federal felonies in the states a few months ago and can’t be baptized... but we have helped him to turn his life around and we have helped a lot of his family members as well. His cousin Veronica and her husband came to church and they have baptism dates for the 6th of March. :)
Sorry to not say much about our investigators.... I was not here much this week and traveled a lot. To be honest I’m not a big fan of it and like just being in my area, but I get to learn a lot and so I love it. Plus I love being able to help the newer missionaries on a one to one level and really teach them the best that I know.
The mission is the hardest yet most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life! I will never forget this time here and I have nightmares about going home some day.... ha-ha!
Oh thanks mom for the great package! :) Everyone loved the chocolates!
Love,
Elder Andrew Davidson

2/16/2010

2010-04-12T13:10:00.001-07:00

2/16/10

Hey everyone!

So sorry to write a short email, I do not have much time this week because we had to make new email accounts. The church now has a contract with Gmail for the missionaries and I now have a new email address. My mom will attach it at the end of this email because I do not have the email address right now, but I will send it in a minute or two.

So this week went well for the most part. There were a good number of trials, but that just means more opportunities to learn and grow. We had zone conference with everyone this past Wednesday and it went great. For the first time I was able to teach okay and not get too nervous. We learned a lot and President Flores always teaches and inspires the missionaries to be better.

This week I was sick for a little while and then my comp was sick, but we are both okay now and working hard.

The mission is going great and I would not trade these experiences for the world even though it can get tough at times.

Thanks Livermore 4th ward YW for the package, it was a lot of fun to open and look for all of the scriptures! Thanks Elms family for the package and I need to write everyone! Ha-ha! Thanks Grandma Davidson and Larissa for the letters!

Love you all,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2/9/2010

2010-04-12T13:09:00.001-07:00

2/9/09

Hey everyone!

So I don’t think I have as many cool stories but the week went really well. I had a number of good growing experiences and although it was a tough week, I learned a lot so it´s always worth it.

We had changes in the zone on Wednesday night. One of the sisters in my district changed and there were a number of others. A good number of our district leaders had changes and a lot of them became zone leaders. :) My companion is going to stay here and end his mission here is Cuauhtémoc with me. It’s a good thing because we have a lot more to learn together and this week has been our best week together so far.

On Friday we had the Zone Leader conference with all of the zone leaders and the mission president. I felt much better being there this time around and I was not too nervous. But 30 minutes before it started the assistants gave us a piece of paper with a topic for preach my gospel on it and we had 30 minutes to plan out how to teach it to everyone. We did a fairly good job and it worked out well. I have learned how to teach much better in front of groups of people so that has been a great quality to learn. It was a great conference and I learned a lot! It was a lot of fun actually and I get along well with a lot of the other elders.

The sad part is that most of the American missionaries here never stay in leadership too long because they have a relaxed view of the mission and break rules until the mission president takes them out of leadership. They come to Mexico without taking it all seriously and do stupid stuff, to say the least… it’s really sad to me and I am determined to help it not happen at least so much. I get to have divisions with a lot of the elders in my zone and so I always try to help them take the mission much more seriously. Out of 14 zone leaders (7 zones) only 2 others are Americans…. And they BOTH leave at the end of this cycle. I guess we will see how it goes, it’s not that I want there to be more American leaders, it just bugs me that they all do such dumb things in the mission. You know?

Anyways, the conference was great and then on this past Monday we had our district leader conference. It went SUPER well and it has been a great learning experience to be in leadership and to learn so much. It has also been a GREAT reminder that I am NOTHING without God’s help. The mission president talked about this a lot at conference as well as the importance of prayer, allowing God to lead us. He told us that is why we are called to leadership, so we can learn to be humble and learn to not trust in our own strength, but in the divine power of the Lord. It’s a great thing to learn and one we all seem to struggle at. I’m excited I have 11 months left in the mission so I can learn to APPLY the principle so much more.

Tomorrow we have Zone conference, which is the normal conference we always have every cycle with the mission president. When all the district leaders teach something and the mission president goes over some of the current mission stuff. It is with the whole zone and so there will be 30 missionaries there. I’m excited as zone conferences are always a very uplifting experience.

So Ramon Moreno continues to progress and will be baptized on Saturday!  I am way excited and he really loves the church. The cool part is that all his family members, his aunts and uncles and cousins are all way excited for him and we have started to teach them as well.

We have also met a few other families that we are teaching as well. I just love teaching the gospel and it makes me so happy!

Last night I met a super young newlywed couple and they seem very interested. My comp and I have gotten much better at teaching together and it’s made a big difference. My comp and I had a good talk this past Wednesday to work out a few problems we were having. We were both a bit frustrated and things have been different ever since. It’s taught me the value and need for humility and selflessness. Two things I will always need to work on better.

Life goes on and the mission is great. Anyone who is thinking about serving mission, DO IT. I promise it will be a decision you NEVER regret and the best 2 years of your life. I am sure of it! 

I love the gospel and know it’s true!

Thank you all for all of the love and support you give!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-02-09T18:11:00.001-08:00

2/2/10

Hey everyone!

So this week was great and as usual I learned a TON to say the least.

I LOVE teaching. I love teaching the gospel to everyone and anyone, I love teaching the missionaries and I love how much I learn when I get to teach. This week I realized how much I have come to love sharing the gospel. In the beginning it was hard because of the whole Spanish thing and so I was always nervous and always thought I did not do to great of job. But now my testimony has grown so much and I have learned to put my heart into teaching and now I love it. I love helping people see the light and the truth. I love seeing the way their face and posture change as they hear the message of the restored gospel and FEEL that it is true. It such a great experience each time and it’s helped me to be a much more confident teacher.

This week we had divisions twice, once an elder from Chihuahua came here and then the other time I went to a little town in the mountains called Madera. It’s like 4 hours away in the bus. Since our zone includes the entire Sierra so we have to travel a bit more. It reminds me of the little mountain towns that you see as you drive up to the ski resort… It had snowed a lot the day before, but when I got there on Friday a Little bit of sun was out so it was not too cold at all. It was great to be able to talk to and teach someone different the whole day and share the things that have helped me so very much with them. Plus I learn a ton from them so it’s a win-win situation. There is always something to learn from others as long as you stay humble so I really enjoy the divisions. I do not like to be away from my area to be honest, I put my heart into how I teach so it’s sad to not be able to keep visiting my investigators and help them progress. Plus I also really like the people we teach so I’m disappointed when I don’t get to see them for a little while. This week I had divisions with Elder Boone and Elder Baldwin, two Americans. They are both younger in the mission than me and are going to be great missionaries some day so I’m glad I was able to help. Plus it makes me realize everything I do and it has helped me a lot to step up and be a leader. But at the same time a leader is not the "best" by any means. If I am going to be a leader in the mission it means I need to learn to forget about myself and serve others and have a selfless attitude and give everything to our missionaries. The best leaders are those who serve with humility and love NO matter who it is or how the situation is. I am trying to do all I can to really learn and APPLY the principle, but obviously I have a long way to go still :) But I’m growing and improving a lot so that is what counts.

So I have had a number or cool experiences this week and I want to share a couple with you. The first one is about an investigator I contacted like a week ago. We were walking in the streets one day 2 weeks ago and were headed to an appt and I saw a guy standing outside of his house just doing nothing and I felt the need to contact him. Sadly, I didn’t do it. We were in a hurry and we had passed him quickly. Two days later we walked past the same house on the corner and I saw him outside doing nothing again. Once again I felt the need to contact him and that he was waiting for us. So I tell my comp and we walk over and start talking to him. His name is Ramon Moreno and just got back from Juarez. He has had a lot of struggles recently and was WAY receptive to all we taught him. He has now come to church and loved it and has shared the gospel with all his family members who live in the same house, which is a couple of cousins and an uncle. AND he has a baptism date for next week and is way determined to be baptized. He has FELT for himself the truthfulness of our message and has no doubts. He has received an answer to his prayers and has felt the spirit countless times with us. He wants to do everything to get to the celestial kingdom! :) He is going to have surgery next week so we are hoping all goes well but he is awesome. This has helped me to realize that the lord really is preparing people for us to teach and will ALWAYS guide us to them. He will tell us and all we have to do is listen. But you don’t have to be a missionary to do it. You ALL can share something with someone and the spirit will tell you who the Lord has prepared for the gospel, all you have to do is LISTEN. This is something we forget to do so very often. It was a great experience for me and it has helped me to be more humble and listen to the spirits voice.

So the other thing I want to share is about Marisela de Cisneros. We contacted her husband the other day at his work and he was receptive. So this past Wednesday we taught their family, his name is Walter. He is 25 and he has a 24 year old wife, Marisela, and 2 little kids. One that is 4 years old and the other is like 2 years old. When we got to the house Walter welcomed us in and we started talking. His wife was on the other side of the room and tried to look occupied so we wouldn’t talk to her. When we saw her the day before with her husband, she went into the other room as we talked to her husband. SO I invited her to come talk and she gives us a look like, don’t talk to me. I act like I don’t understand and urge her to come over. She says she is shy and not interested much. We talk a little to gain confidence and a friendship with them and then start teaching. So at first she doesn’t listen too well but as we continue to teach she feels the spirit and starts to change. By the time we start talking about the first vision she is WAY focused on all we say and even turns to quiet her kids and says "hey, shhh - I can’t hear!" Then I shared the first vision and we felt the spirit so so strong and they both were just starring at us. A lot of people have never felt the spirit so strongly before and so it’s something new to them and they are a bit confused and KNOW there is something different about us. We taught the remainder of the lesson and they committed to come to church and pray to know if it is true. They also said that if they got an answer from God they would follow it and be baptized. THEN at the end we invite Walter to pray because he was so much more open during it all and he is like.... uhhh... and is nervous, then Marisela says she will do it and said a GREAT prayer! The one who wanted nothing to do with us in the beginning was excited to pray for the first time in her life! Then after as we are walking out she walks us to the door with her husband and asks us again when church is on Sunday and where! Cool huh! I love the power the truth brings! She FELT the spirit and the truthfulness of our message and wanted to be in our presence. It has almost nothing to do with who we are as missionaries, but the message we share is what is so powerful. It was so great to see such a big change is someone because they FELT the truth. It’s something really new to a lot of people and a lot of them do not understand it all, but everyone can FEEL it. No matter who you are, how old you are, or how smart you are. They all can feel when something penetrates their heart and illuminates their soul with a love that was not felt before. How cool is it to be a missionary!!!!! :) I love it. I recommend sharing the gospel no matter who you are, I promise it has the potential to bring you more joy than any other thing in the world!

Something that has helped me so much to change and to really love the gospel has been the DAILY study time we have. When I began to take it seriously and really study diligently, my whole mentality about the mission began to change. This has been a process since I have had like 4 months in the mission. But I feel like it is why I have come to be so happy and so willing to share the gospel. I love the spiritual experience I have each morning and it’s what allows us to really teach by the spirit. I don’t think anything can change someone faster than DAILY gospel study. I feel like DAILY study is what has turned my life around and the way I see things. As imperfect as I am, it gives me the strength to be stronger and have the ability to accomplish all I set my mind to. I have come to love it! I love studying and an hour and a half each morning seems like so little and flies by. Although it may seem hard or even impossible at first, over time if you TRY it will become possible. And what is possible over time then becomes a habit and something normal to do. One of the apostles said something like that in this past general conference :)

So we also have been teaching a less active family. Both the husband and wife are members and were baptized as kids but have never came to the church much at all, and have been inactive 17 years. They are both around 30 years old and have 2 kids, a 8 year old and a 3 year old. I love their family and they have been to church twice since we started teaching them 2 weeks ago and are progressing a lot. The 8 year old will get baptized this next week and they are going to get sealed in the temple some day. I KNOW it! :) They are the perfect little Mormon family and will be another strong family in the church here - so I’m excited. They both are way ready and we are helping them with all the changes that are required to live the gospel. We are going to have a family night this Wednesday :)

Oh and yesterday some missionaries went home and one of them was Elder Rodriguez. He was currently the assistant to themission president, but we have been good friends for the past 7 months. He is the one who helped me so much in Juarez to be a better missionary because he was the first leader I knew in the mission who practiced what we said. He was obedient and he was the one who helped me to have the strong desire to be obedient and to see the power in obedience with exactness. So we have had a number of opportunities to work together since and he helped me to prepare to be a zone leader. So on Monday morning at like 9:30am when we thought he had left for home already he called us and gave my comp and I some great advice. He talked to my comp Elder Montero for a little bit and then to me. He gave me a lot of great advice and told me to stay humble and obedient and to give ALL I can to the other missionaries even if I get left with nothing. He is a great missionary and will be missed in the mission. I feel like the lord gave me so many chances to work and learn from him for a reason. If I had to choose one missionary to pick as the missionary who has had the strongest influence on me it would be him. So it was great to hear from him again after we thought he had left. :)

The work goes well in Cuauhtémoc and yesterday we started a new cycle. We have not had changes yet, but my comp might change so I have to know how to do everything already. This is good because it will help me to realize all I have learned and to put it into play.

I love you all so much and thank you for all the love and support. It really does make a big difference! I love the work and the gospel!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-02-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

1/26/10

Hey!

So another week gone by and it was again a super fast week.... I feel like I should stop saying that because all the weeks seem to go by super fast these days.

This week was an eventful week to say the least. I like being a zone leader because things seem to be so much more eventful and exciting. Plus we move around a lot more and so we have lots of different experiences.:)

On Wednesday of this last week we went to Chihuahua to have divisions with the assistants to the president. That’s when we change companions for about 24 hours and one companion goes to the other's area and the other stays in the same area and works with the other companion. It was a lot of fun and I went to the area of the assistant for the day. I was with Elder Gollaher, an American, and it was cool to be with another English speaker. So quick story, so one of the elders got ran over by a car like 3 weeks ago and is now living at the mission home, but he is much better now and was able to go out and work with us. So we were 3 Americans working together it was way fun! He is about to go home, the elder that was in the offices for medical reasons and so he had a lot of experience in the mission. He was actually my first district leader in the mission in Juarez when I got here. So it was fun to talk and see how much we both have grown.

On Friday we went to a little town in the mountains. Oh and by the way my comp and I are the zone leaders over the Sierra zone, the mountains with all of the little towns and such. So we went to a little town to get a couple married on Friday! The sisters work in the same ward as we do and have half of the ward boundaries and we have the other half, so we had to go to help them out and be the witnesses to the marriage. They go to a little town where the mayor is a member and does not ask for much documentation about the whole thing and does not charge too much as well. It was great to see them get married as then they were able to be baptized on Saturday. I baptized the mom! :) Also the sisters are in my district and so I did my first baptismal interviews! It was a family of 3 and it was amazing and such an uplifting experience. It was amazing to feel the immense guide of the spirit and all went well.

So on Sunday we had a regional broadcast for all of the members in Mexico. Cuauhtémoc does not have a satellite so we had to travel to la Junta, which is a little town like 30 minutes away. We had the Cobos family all ready to come with us, but they ended up going to Chihuahua and so now they can’t be baptized this week... sad. But Esteban went and really liked it and he is WAY ready to be baptized this Saturday! He is so humble and excited for all that he is learning. All goes well with the other investigators, they have their struggles and so all is not as perfect as it was, but we expect them to come to church on Sunday. I’ll keep you all posted.

So President Monson spoke in the regional conference along with Elder Anderson, Elder Gonzales as well as Sister Allred. They all spoke Spanish except for the prophet. I was surprised that Elder Anderson and sister Allred spoke Spanish! I didn’t know that Elder Anderson knows 4 languages! Crazy huh!? It was filmed in Utah in a little chapel without people. But it was great and I felt such a strong impression that they are servants of the lord and that they are in fact called by the Lord to lead and guide us. It was great to have our investigator listen to the prophet.

Also the mission president was there with all the missionaries from the Sierra as well. La Junta is like the stake center and so we all came there. The mission president is like the stake president in the Sierra and so he always comes. We got our mail and had our interviews with the president as well.

My comp and I continue to get along great and I am learning a lot. We have become good friends quickly and it’s made a big difference in the way we work together. We are moving ahead in a very positive way.

Oh and thanks Larissa for the package for Christmas and also thank you Bryan family for the package as well!

So today the other district leaders and I here in Cuauhtemoc planned a trip to the Mennonite museum. The Mennonites are from Germany and there are a lot of them here and we went to take a tour of the museum today. It was very educational and I learned a ton! There are way cool and it’s cool to see white people with blue eyes - ha-ha! It helps me to not feel so left out! I would tell you more about them, but you could just look for info on the internet if you wanted too. It was a lot of fun and very interesting.

Well all goes well and I love the mission! :) I have never been happier in my life and I’m so excited for all I know that awaits me. The gospel is real!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-02-09T18:07:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

So another week gone by already! I feel like time is only speeding up because these past 2 weeks have gone by so very fast! I do not have too much time to write because we have a couple of things to do before we head to Chihuahua tonight to have divisions with the assistants to the President which I’m way excited for because I know I am going to learn a whole lot.

This week was a great week with lots of ups and downs like always. On Wednesday we had a meeting with all of the zone leaders and the assistants to the president to talk about the goals we reached last month and what we plan to accomplish this month. It was short but it went great and we have a lot of great plans for the month of January. On Friday we had to go to Juarez (which is 7 hours away) because one of the families my comp baptized in the beginning of his mission was going to get sealed in the temple! Cool huh? We are allows to go if we are the ones who baptized the family. We stayed in Juarez in the same zone from when I first got there. We stayed with the zone leaders and it was good to see that they are having a lot of success as well. I had to stay with an elder that.... well.... he was a challenge to say the least. I realized how much patience I have learned but at the same time how much more I need. I will spare you the details, but it was a growing experience. Saturday afternoon we headed back to Cuauhtémoc for Sunday. There are 4 missionaries in our ward, 2 sisters and then us. We all gave talks for the missionary week and it went well. I had little time but I felt good giving the talk.

The greatest part of the week by far was the investigators! When I arrived in my new area, there weren’t any investigators to be honest, but the Lord has blessed us with SO many right now! We met a family like 2 weeks ago that is huge and we are teaching so many of them! We had like 14 people at church and 10 of them are over the age of 8 and are going to be baptized the 30th of January! They are an amazing family and I love teaching them. They are the Cobos family which includes the grandma, 10 kids and they have a bunch of grandchildren. We have also been teaching the Gonzales family, Gloria and Misael are the two that are going to be baptized the 6th of Feb. Then there is Esteban who is about 45 years old and super humble and also is going to be baptized the 30th of Jan. They all came to church this week and we have taught them most of the lessons. We need to review the commandments and help them to really prepare to be baptized. :) They are have their distinct problems and struggles but my comp and I have learned a lot about really applying the gospel to their lives and using it to really help them face and solve the challenges they face each day. It was hard to have to be in Juarez on Friday and Saturday, the 2 days before church, but in the end a lot of our investigators came. Also one of the kids of the hna. elvira Cobos (the grandma) is a member and his wife is as well. They both got baptized when they were kids and they have a son who is 8 years old who is going to get baptized as well. He does not count for us because he is 8 years old and his parents are members, but they are a perfect family to re-activate and they are helping the other members of their family to progress as well. The wife, Nilda, was born in the church and knows a ton! She is a great support and it was great to see them at church this week!

Oh and on Sunday we stopped by to give them a ride and we had 2 cars filled with all the family members! It was crazy and there were so many little kids! We brought like a fourth of the primary! They are all way awesome and the funny part is that kids are helping the adults to progress! Also it’s nice to have a nice big ward that helps us out with the investigators and makes them feel comfortable! It makes a big difference! Between the sisters and us we had like 21 investigators at church! :)

At first my comp and I got along well but we both have strong personalities. I feel like I might have mentioned this last week. Plus my last comp and his assistant comp were both really shy and timid and so we both are used to stepping up a lot. Obviously it was the pride and lack of patience on both of our parts. Plus my companion was way lax on the rules and so there was a little tension sometimes. We have always gotten along, but we were not the best of friends. Then on Wednesday night we had an amazing talk and we both listened and really were blunt and straight forward with each other and talked about the fact that we both have stronger personalities and such. It was great and neither of us was offended at all and we have been GREAT ever since. I mentioned the obedience part and we have been much better since. Plus we talked about the humility that is necessary if we are going to be able to work together well. We also talked about patience and other things we can improve on. It was great because we both are way excited and we have so much potential together. Yesterday we had an awesome day taught with so much more power and unity! There was a big difference and it really taught me the importance of humility and allowing the lord to guide us. It is why I feel like we were really able to address the needs of the investigators we have. We have become better and better friends and we are now succeeding so much better. But the most important thing is to stay humble and all goes well. :) We are both WAY excited to work together.

Thanks so much for the letters Larissa, Grandma Davidson and the Picket family! Your love and support mean a lot to me! Oh and I feel like I am going to be able to respond better to letters because I learned how to write letters on the bus! We have traveled like every week (which is way more than normal) and so I need to use my time to write letters then and I will be able to do it :)

I love the mission and everyday has provided so many learning experiences. I have NEVER been happier in my life than I am right now and I continue to learn each day what true joy is. There is a peace that ONLY god can give us as we LIVE his gospel. It has been the most valuable thing I have ever learned in my life.

I love you all so much!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-02-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

1/05/10

Hey!

So I had a great week this week and I have a lot of things to tell you all!

So New Years was okay... we didn’t really do anything at all... but I’m okay with it to be honest. I like being a missionary better than celebrating and plus I have all of my life to do all I what to. The least I can do is give all of me to the Lord for these short years. I can celebrate New Year’s next year. We went to bed like normal and got up the next morning like normal. It was funny though because when we left the house at 9:30am to teach people NO ONE was out and about. January 1st is a national Mexican holiday and NO ONE works. On Christmas people work and such, but NO ONE does on the 1^st of January. It was a slow morning but we taught still and found people and all, it was just funny to see the roads so empty and such.

Church went okay... the ward struggles a bit and we really need to help people take more initiative. It’s tough sometimes but we stayed positive and had a number of great lessons.

Then on Sunday at night we found out we had CHANGES!!! CRAZY! I was not expecting it to be honest and I am now in Cuauhtémoc! Its pronounced Qualtemac in English... I think. Not sure how to tell you how to pronounce it but it’s a bigger city with a lot of members. I moved to one of the best zones in the mission and have a great companion! I am in the city and we have a big ward of about 120 people who come to church each week! Cool huh? When I was traveling everyone told me all kinds of great things about the area and city and I’m stoked. I was also surprised to received a new calling. The mission has all the missionaries organized into groups of elders and every group has a district leader and over about 5-6 districts we have a zone leader and then the next people up are the assistants to the president. But there is always a senor zone leader and junior zone leader together, and the junior zone leader is also a district leader of the district where the leaders are at.

That’s me. I’m the junior zone leader and district leader and I have 6 missionaries in my district. That means I have to do baptism interview, interview the missionaries and also lead district meetings. I also call them each night and help them out and keep track of them and such. I’m their leader, crazy right!? I also have an amazing companion to teach me everything and also teach me how to help him with all the zone stuff. We have 32 missionaries in our zone and we call all of the district leaders to check on them and ask how their districts are going and such. I am WAY excited and feel VERY humbled by the opportunity I have. I have a lot to learn, but since yesterday I have already conducted, lead, and taught district meeting; interviewed some of the missionaries in my district(they had companionship problems) and made calls as a zone leader to the districts. It’s a lot all at once but I know I have so much to learn and am very excited and grateful for the chance I have front of me. To be able to work with and learn from my comp, work with the assistants to president, and work closer to President Flores. I know I am going to learn so much. I know I can’t do it alone, my own talents and abilities are not enough. But it’s taught me so much about humility and allowing the Lord to really make us so much greater than we are. It is the Lord who can make us into great missionaries.

Also I realized how much the Lord has prepared me during my time here in the mission and how many of the current leaders have taken me under their wing and have taught me a lot. But all-in-all I’m just here to buckle down and do my best at where ever I am or whatever I am doing. The only title we have that matters is the title of being a missionary. It’s the title we are here to represent. I have seen a lot of leaders who get so lost in the pride of being a "leader" that they forget who they are here to represent and that it does not mean someone is better than someone else. No matter where the Lord puts me or what He needs me to do, I’m here to forget about myself and go to work. There is not much more to it.

I am very grateful to be here and for all I have been able to learn and for all that a waits in front of me. I love the work and KNOW with a perfect surety that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and real. That He loves us and we are here to share the happiness he has in store for us.

I love you all so much and thank you for all of your love and support!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:15:00.003-08:00

12/29/09

Hey everyone!

So this week was a crazy one that was a lot different than any other week in the mission! With Christmas, the phone call home, and the mission Christmas conference it made for a great week!

So I have so much to tell you all and do not know where to start....

So the week went by quick and we now have a new investigator named Rosy and her parents Manuel and Damariz. Rosy is great and is reading the Book of Mormon and is definitely one of the chosen ones that God has been preparing! I contacted her in the flea market when we put up the table and all and she is progressing a lot. The down side is that she is a girl and is 22 years old.... which makes it hard to be really concerned and really be a part of her life because it looks bad and you always have to be careful in those kinds of situations. Whereas with Chewy he is a guy and we have become great friends and all and we don’t have to always be reserved with him to not send the wrong message. You know? But she is great and way excited and I really feel like she will be baptized soon :) Her family listens to us sometimes but they are not that interested. They do not reject us by any means, but they are not supportive of Rosy’s desire to keep learning and going to church and all. It’s the first week so we will see how it goes this week.

Veronica is great and we are continuing teaching her and her two daughters, but she struggles to understand the importance of being at church on Sunday. She does not like to be in front of a lot of people so she struggles to come church. We continue helping her though so we will see how it goes. Her daughters are why crazy too by the way! Ha-ha

Also some recent converts, the Salas family, have struggle a bit recently. Their grandma has become anti Mormon, not sure why, and she has been manipulating their kids and such. We worry a lot about them and are doing all we can to help them out. I imagined having close family members attack me about the church and I realized it would be SO hard. I am so grateful that all of my close family members are members of the church and for all the support they give!

So Christmas Eve, which is the big day here, was okay. My comp made his call home and then we just made Christmas treats in the house and relaxed. We had to be home at 8pm so there was not time to go eat with anyone and such. I was okay with it though, I’m not here to be at parties and such, I only have two years to work so I know I have to make the most of it. Well.... I guess I now only have 1 year! Crazy how fast time flies!

The on Christmas day we opened gifts and I called home. It was great to have gifts and all, but I missed the family a bit. It’s not the gifts that make Christmas “Christmas”, it’s the family and time spent together that counts. The phone call home was great and very uplifting! The rest of the day we finished making 84 caramel popcorn balls and then delivered them to the members and investigators on plates of about 4-5 each. We shared a little message with them and invited them to church and all. It was fun and I’m glad I was able to spend Christmas in the service of others. Life is never too great or happy if you just think about yourself, so it was a good Christmas.

Then yesterday we had the mission Christmas conference! It was great and it was the first time I saw the mission president playing around and such in the whole mission! He is a very efficient person so it was cool to relax a bit. I was not too into all of the festivities and all but I really enjoyed talking to everyone because there were 90 missionaries there from 3 zones. Also the best part was that my buddy Elder Killpack was there and we talked a lot. He is a great missionary and I look up to him a lot. I also received packages from mom, grandma, and the Zavoral family! Thanks so much! I love all of the love and support you give me!

Now we are back to the work and going at it again! I’m excited for all I know I will learn in the coming year and all that I was able to learn this past year! I know the gospel is true and it brings us happiness!

Love you all so much!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:15:00.001-08:00

12/22/09

Hey everyone!

Merry Christmas! :)

I hope everyone is able to have an amazing Christmas and all goes well! This week I got the package you sent me mom and also an AMAZING package from the Mason family!!! Thank you so much Jill and Shawn for all you sent and I have yet to open the wrapped gifts but I shared all the treats you sent! Thanks! :) Also, we listen to the CD a lot!

So it’s crazy to think that its Christmas already and that I get to call home! I’m way excited, but things around here have not been too different to be honest. Christmas is not as big of deal here as it is the U.S. Everyone has a little party on the 24th, but there is not as much excitement about Christmas. It is weird to me. Everyone says that the New Year is what people celebrate more so we will see. Meoqui put up a big Christmas tree and there are several holiday decorations around the city and on the houses. I feel like it does not feel like Christmas because nothing much has changed in my daily life. You know? I just keep on working each day and serving people. :)

But I am looking forward to the phone call home and on the 28th we have a mission conference for Christmas. So I’m way excited more than anything to see my buddy Elder Killpack who has been my best friend here in the field. He was in the MTC with me and we write and were in the same district my first 3 months in Mexico. Oh and I have lots of gifts to open on Christmas morning and that should be fun too!

These past 2 weeks have been great because I feel like I am progressing so much personally here in the mission. I have talked to my leaders a lot and today my zone leader gave me this big "future leader" talk. It was nice of him and I am glad he sees potential in me. I have been trying so hard to put my talents in the hands of the Lord and have him make the most of them. Obviously humility is a big part of it and I have been trying really hard to be much more humble in all I do. In listening to people and really taking advice well and staying patient in all things. It’s been a good growing experience and I have a LONG way to go. I have learned a ton, but I feel like the Lord has much more in store for me :) As humans we are a very prideful people and we struggle to really rely on the Lord in all we do. This is a lesson the Book of Mormon teaches us and it also teaches us how much the Lord wants to bless us if only we stay humble.. Obviously it’s a life goal and one that is hard to achieve, but that does not mean I shouldn’t try as hard as I can to be all He needs me to be while I learn. After all, we are commanded to be perfect. Which to means we better try our best and as we fall short, as we always will, The Lord will make up for the rest :) I hope to stay on this learning curve and allow the Lord to teach me all He needs to. Sorry if I don’t make sense, I’m still a junior in all of this and am learning how to put it all in play, but it’s been a good learning experience. :) I would not trade this mission experience for anything! I know as we allow the Lord to take hold of our lives we can and WILL soar to new heights we could have never imagined we could achieve!

So this week has been another successful week and we have met a number of new investigators thanks to the activities we have done at the flea market these past two weeks. We have improved the way we teach a great deal and we hope to keep improving a lot.

Chewy is great and we are talking to the bishop about having him called as the young men’s president for the ward! :) Obviously I’m very proud of him and he has progressed a lot. Sometime he can be a prideful person and so he does not progress as much as he could sometimes, but I too was a prideful person so I’m not one to talk. We just do our best to help him all we can! :)

Sorry I am not able to include more details this week, I was watching the videos my mom sent me for Christmas and I have had little time to write. It was weird to see pictures of the house and realize how blessed we have been and how blessed I have been. How lucky I am to have the mom I have had to teach me so much, how lucky I am to have a dad who really cares about and loves his kids, for my brothers who should be more grateful sometimes, and my amazing example for a sister I have! I need to thank the Lord much more than I feel like I do for all the blessing I have received and our receiving! It’s crazy to me how much the lord loves us! :)

I love you all so much and thank you for all the love and support you give me! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and all goes perfectly!

CON MUCHO AMOR

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:14:00.001-08:00

12/15/09

Hey everyone!

SO today I have to organize pictures to send home so I do not have much time, but I have had a very eventful week to say the least!

So this week we taught more lessons that I have in my WHOLE mission! We stayed really diligent all 7 days of the week and we did not have to go to Chihuahua so we accomplished a lot! We taught 94 lessons! :) And that does not include all of the super short conversations we have with people daily when we are teaching. Part of the reason we were able to teach so much is because we had a little activity on Saturday that my comp and I put together. Well actually we had 2 activities on Saturday. First in the morning we went to "las segundas" which is like a flea market where people sell second hand goods. Meoqui does not have a very big one obviously because its not a very big town, but we put up a table with lots of pictures and pamphlets and such and contacted people. Chewy came with us and it was so great to have him there! He is a convert of 2 months and already is sharing the gospel with all of his friends. Obviously he was nervous in front of lots of people, but he got used to it and was contacting and teaching on his own after a little while! :) I admire him a lot because I was always too nervous to share the gospel much with my friends and he is changing his whole life with the gospel! Seeing him progress is the happiest thing I have experienced in my life! :) We met and talked to a lot of people and found a few new people to teach. I love the mission! The activity was a lot of fun! Then that same night we had a FHE for the ward and had Chewy lead the activity and the members filled all of the roles and we were there to just participate and help the people progress. A good number of people ended up coming and we made a giant bucket of Carmel popcorn to eat at the end too. :)

On Sunday we had to both give talks and because of all the activities and such I had not prepared anything to speak on. But I was reading the book of Helaman the other day and I loved how the lord told Samuel the Lamanite to just go and speak and that he would put the words into his heart that he needed to say and not to worry much. So I studied a bit in the morning and prayed a lot to have the words come to my heart that I needed to share with the ward. I also tried to share a lot of stories too because the best talks always have a lot of stories and I am a good story teller. The talk went great and I spoke about love and missionary work and sharing the gospel. I gave the best talk I have ever given in my life and I was very relieved about it. I realized that God really will help us, IF we ask for it and stay humble. I realize it was not my own talents that allowed me to speak with clarity, but the Lord’s and he allowed me to be an instrument in his hands. :)

Today I also had to teach in district meeting and did the same thing! :) I prayed so much to help me be humble and to have the words come into my heart. To have the ability to stay relaxed and share what I had planned. My leader told me on Sunday night that I was to teach so there was not much time to study, but I did all I could and left the rest up to the Lord. If you remember the last time I taught I was very unpleased with the job I did so I really was hoping to improve this time around. THEN today I felt I gave a good lesson! It was EXACTLY what I wanted it to be and once again I had to just kneel down and thank the lord for making me more than I am and giving me the ability to teach and help the missionaries’ progress. Especially seeing how I was to speak on the law of chastity! ha-ha! It went great and there was a great discussion going. The best lessons are when it’s more of a group conversation than one person just speaking to everyone. I was excited after and pleased I was finally able to do a really good job. The trick is to stay SUPER humble and allow the lord to magnify your talents :) The mission is the greatest learning experience I have ever had! I am SO grateful to be here!

Oh and this week we had ward council and our bishop is stepping up a lot. We had our meeting with him this week and we figured out a lot of the things we need to get done. We do a lot if not ALL of the work the bishop should be doing during the week and we need to help him step up and fill his role and leader. We are going to visit several families this week with him so that is exciting and I hope we are able to help a lot.

It’s crazy to think Christmas is so close! There is not too much going on here, but the city did put up a big Christmas tree so that was cool and we took a few pictures in front of it. We are going to have conference with the lower half of the mission sometime soon, but I’m not sure when, so we will see how that goes. All is well here and we continue to work hard! I love the work and the time I have to be here in the mission, I would not trade it for the world!

Love you all so much and I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas!

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:13:00.002-08:00

12/08/09

Hey!

So wow its Christmas time already! It’s crazy to me how fast time is going by! This week I do not have much time like normal so I’m sorry if this is a little short...

This week was a little tougher to be honest and we have faced a lot more persecution this week. The people here have been struggling a lot and have not accepted us too well these past two weeks. During the week we were really able to help a lot of people out and I felt like we are making a difference... but then not many people come to church and it’s really sad. We just have to continue onward and do our best to help Meoqui progress. Meoqui has taught me a lot of patience and that we must always have the attitude of service!

So I wrote a number of letters and made some packages, but the mission president is not going to send them for another while... so I’m sorry if they do not get there before Christmas. We have to go to Chihuahua again next week so they can put on my final crown (the last one broke) and so I will try to send a few more things out as well. Sorry to everyone if I am not able to write as much as I would like too; I am going to try and get on that.

I have been re-doing all of my lesson outlines and really trying to include lots of questions and such. It’s been great to see such a difference in the way we have been able to teach. I have really been focusing on my ability to teach as of recently and it has been of great help. Teaching is a wonderful talent I really hope to develop more completely here in the mission.

SO it has been WAY cold here! It even snowed a little bit here this past week and snowed an inch in Juarez! I thought I was supposed to be in Mexico! Why is it cold!? Ha ha

So this past week we went to Chihuahua again and we got to ride with the mission president and his wife and it was a lot of fun to talk to them for an hour. They are great and I really enjoy talking to hna Flores and hearing all the stories she would share. She told me how she would interview her son’s girlfriends and scare some of them off if she did not like them! Ha Ha I thought it was great! ;)

I KNOW the gospel is true and all of the trials we have had here really help me to realize how strong of testimony I really do have. There are not many members here and we have to help them a lot to stay strong. There have also been a lot more people mocking us recently and it’s been great to realize how much I have grown and how patient I have been and how unbothered I am. I am here to testify of the truth; if people do not want to accept the message God has then that is their choice. All I know is that I need to do my part and do all I can to help them progress. They are ALL children of God. I KNOW the gospel is true and that we are blessed for all of the sacrifices we give, I know it!

I love the work and continue to learn a ton!

I love Spanish and now have an American leader. We speak English more and I now can speak English better,:) I’m learning to be able to speak both languages together so I’m happy about that.

One of the great blessing we have among all the trials we are experiencing is the spiritual growth in Chewy. He is GREAT and continues to prepare himself for the mission.

Sorry to not write more details... I just do not want to say negative things, it does not help anything. We are here to struggle, learn, and continue onward!

I love you all and thank you so much for all of the love and support!

Love Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:13:00.001-08:00

12/2/09

Hey everyone!

So this week went by real fast like normal and like always there were lots of exciting experiences! Crazy to think its December already and that I have been out for 11 months! CRAZY how fast time has gone by! It’s also great to think about how much I have learned and grown in the past 11 months as well! It’s weird to think Christmas is already coming... I forget most of the time that Christmas is soon because people are not doing anything different and most people haven’t put up decorations yet. It’s also a little sad because I am not going to be able to really send anything to people for Christmas. There is not much to buy here to send to you and plus I don’t have money... SORRY! I’m going to try and get some letters written this week, but the mission president asked us to write lesson outlines, different than the ones we have written, and have them done for interviews next week.... so it’s a lot to do. Plus I have my own personal and study journals I need to write in so I have a lot to write each day. But with some diligence I can get it all done in the little time we have. But not having a p-day these past 2 months because of the dentist thing has made it a little harder as well. But I love you all and pray for you! That’s what counts, right? ;)

So we have this investigator, Veronica, who I mentioned last week. So she has read the whole BOM already and is reading the index and all! Its great! We taught her about the word of wisdom the other day and she was all upset because she has an addiction to coffee but she is already making the changes. BUT the BEST part is that she goes around town telling people that technically she is catholic, but that she is reading the Book of Mormon and it's changing her life! She goes and tells everyone and shares the book with them! How cool is that! We are teaching a less active who has a bike shop and she passed by and just started telling him about all of the B.O.M and such and how great it is and it helped him a lot to hear about the power of the book of Mormon and how it can change your life. It is great!:)

So the stake president of our stake gave a presentation during ward conference and it was so well done! He is a convert of 5 years and his second calling was bishop and his third was stake president! He is way humble and ready to serve! He spoke about how bad Chihuahua has gotten with violence and all and how we need to act and be leaders and stop blaming the government for everything. He helped everyone to see the need to ACT and really make a difference. But he showed a few numbers comparing violence and Chihuahua has some of the highest rates in the world! By a lot! The state of Chihuahua kills so many people and we are only below South Africa, El Salvador, and Venezuela, but we are HIGHER than Colombia! CRAZY! The numbers are all in comparison to the number of people in the state, but it was very eye opening. Chihuahua is the worst in Mexico by far and one of the worst in the world and is in the top three for most of the numbers!

Wow!! Don’t worry though; I’m a servant of the Lord! :) We are safe as we are obedient! :)

Oh and they finally called a bishop in our ward! SO that is exciting and we hope to work with him in trying to generate more activity in Meoqui.

Anyways, the work goes well! Sorry I do not have more time to write today!

Love you! Thanks for all the love and support!
Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:12:00.002-08:00

11/25/09
Hey everyone!
So another weeks gone by and it’s already Thanksgiving. Well in the states it is... here people do not even know the holiday exists! I had actually forgotten about the day until today when everyone wrote me about it!
So I do not have too much time to write because I was looking at the pictures mom sent me, but this week was a little less eventful.
So we have this new investigator, Veronica, who is hilarious! She is a little hyper active and so she has a hard time listening to someone speaking, but she loves to read. So we gave hear a Book of Mormon the other day, like 10 days ago, and turns out she read the WHOLE thing! She had the book covered and bought a leather case to put it in! She loves the book! Veronica has read the bible a little before, but she stayed up till 11pm reading the book and then gets up at 3AM to read more! She is so funny about it and her testimony is so pure. She raves and raves about how much peace the book brings to her and how it is SO clear and makes her feel so much love. She loves the short story of Joseph Smith that is at the front of the book and has read it like 15 times she says. It’s funny as she tries to explain how she feels about it to us and talks about how different this book is and how the words go to her heart and she struggles to explain it and then asks us a lot, "do you know what I mean??" ha-ha and we are like YES we know what you mean! She is great and I’ll let you know how things continue to go with her. She is 39 and has a family of 4 so we hope to see the whole family at church :)
OH side note... so Veronica tells us that when the Jehovah witnesses came to talk to her, her daughter took the water for the dogs and dumped it on them! They come and try to make you feel dumb and teach you that you are wrong, so the daughter wanted to defend her mom and poured water on them! This happened a while ago and Veronica says she daughter likes us so we don’t need to worry! The way she told the whole story was great! :)
So for another quick story, we contacted a 7th day Adventist, Alberto Olgin, a little while back and his family lives far away. So this last Friday we ride like 30 min to go visit him in the little town next to Meoqui and it turns out he knows a ton about the bible. He has not been going to his church for like a month because they say that God, Christ and the Holy Ghost are all the same and if you read the bible that’s OBVIOUSLY not true, they are three separate beings. So he is way smart and educated and when we talked the first time he was just talking about how wrong the Catholic Church is for like 20 min… It was funny! But we talked a little about the restoration and he did not have too much time and we had to come back this past Monday. SO we get there and he is nice and all and I had studied the bible during the past 3 days so I would be ready for his questions :) So we start talking and all and he gets all stuck on a few points and I teach him from the bible and he changes the interpretation of the scripture a lot. He understands very well that God has called prophets in past times and that there is a NEED for a restoration and that there was a great apostasy, it is all taught in the bible. But he was stuck on Joseph Smith seeing God, so I showed him Exodus 33:11, and he says that Moses made an error and who knows what. Then I showed him the other 4 scriptures that say the same and he gets frustrated, which is bad because we are not there to argue with him. The spirit of contention helps nothing. When he realized we were firm in what we know to be true, he asked to end with a prayer. Then he said a great prayer that was EXACTLY how we pray! We ended on great terms and talked a lot and he had quite a few random questions about the church and us so I was glad we were able to plant the seed and allow him to see the differences. That we are NOT just another church NOR an American church, but the church that has existed since Adam. It is God’s church. It was a good experience and we made another friend. :) The coolest part is that he is the house keeper for a mansion! So we were able to wonder around for a while at the mansion.
Thank you mom for the package and Larissa for the bible and wonderful letters and also to Grandma Davidson for the letter and thanks Brie for the letter too! :) Your support is amazing!
The work is amazing and I love the chance I have here to grow and learn so much! I love the Lord and know the gospel is true!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

2010-01-10T09:12:00.001-08:00

11/18/09

Hey everyone!

SO another week has gone by already! It has been a tougher week to be honest, but that means I learned more so that is always the upside :)

So right now I am actually in Chihuahua... again... for the whole root canal thing. The people who had to make my post for my tooth messed up twice so that is part of the reason why I have kept coming back for so long.

The weird part is how much money there is in the state of Chihuahua. There is a bigger town close to us in Meoqui called Delicais and it has a lot of money. There are a lot of rich people and a lot of nice building with lots of technology, and I was confused about where all this money comes from because the city of Chihuahua has a lot of money too. But every time I ask anyone where all the money comes from and what Chihuahua does to bring in so much money and everyone says it’s from drug trafficking.... I think it’s kind of funny because Chihuahua is actually a really nice city.

So this Sunday I had to give a talk and I prayed to find out what I needed to speak about and the spirit indicated I was to speak about repentance, so I studied the topic a bit and learned a lot and then as I walked to the front of the pulpit on Sunday I felt prompted by the spirit to change my topic to keeping the Sabbath day holy... It turned out real well and I learned a lot from the whole experience. The talk went well and I felt really good speaking, I have gotten rid of my nerves when I speak at church. Well not all... I still get a little of the "pre game gitters" but that’s it.

BUT... that was not the same case with zone conference.... We had zone conference on Monday and the mission president asked me to teach at zone conference on Sunday morning before. We had to be ready to leave at 4:45am on Monday so I only had Sunday night to prepare. I felt really good about it and had it all planned out and all, but I felt nervous during the whole presentation to be honest. People said I didn't show it too much, but I felt weird. I have never been nervous like that before. I had to teach for 10 minutes and then have the zone practice for 20 minutes. Its only 30 minutes and I had it all ready, but my nerves got me more than I had planned.... In the end it turned out okay and I was grateful for the chance to learn. All though it was really tough, the experience made me stretch a LOT plus remember I had to do it all in another language... ha-ha :)

The cool part of the conference was that it was in Parral, which is the very bottom of the state. We had to drive 3 hours with 17 people in a van made for 12... It was fun and I got to meet a lot of other missionaries. Plus on the way home I was able to sit in front for a while and I had a really good one on one talk with President Flores. I’m REALLY grateful to have such a great mission president. He is really focused and we work so hard. A lot of elders are sad because we don’t do lots of side activities and recreational things, like going to sporting events or site-seeing, but I love that we have very little time wasted. We ONLY have 2 years, we can do want WE want our whole lives. But for now, the least we can do is what the Lord wants. President Flores is a very efficient mission president. That is why we can baptize 200 people in a month, we don’t waste time. And I love it this way and it’s really pushed me and to focus on what I am doing.

OH and another positive note! We baptized Jazmin AND Chumel this week! And we had the best baptismal service I have had in the mission! :) We had Jazmin all ready to go and I told you about her last week. But Chumel was an un-expected baptism. We have been preparing him for the last 3 months and he has been ready, but he allows other people to influence his decisions and so he was delaying his baptism. We wanted to help him set a baptismal date this week, but when we were teaching I felt really inspired by the lord to teach about the plan of salvation, something he already knows really well, and then after I tied in the part of how we cannot make it back the Gods presence without baptism and flat out told him that Gods loves him and wants him, Chumel, to be as happy as he can. That is why the missionaries were there and that God wants him to be baptized into the church of Jesus Christ. The spirit was really strong and my comp was surprised, but I KNOW he felt the spirit and accepted the invitation. He was baptized 2 days later :) I also baptized him so obviously that made it a lot more special. He was way ready and will be an amazing missionary someday as he is still a young man. Also his mom is now active and excited to be at church after YEARS of not wanting anything with the church. I think I mentioned something about her last week. She was WAY excited to see her son baptized after being so against it for so long. It really helped me to realize the power of our calling and that we are here to speak for Jesus Christ and tell people what Christ himself desires to tell them. Obviously guided by the spirit, we can teach with authority as God says we can. A MTC teacher taught me this principle in the MTC but since being here I forgot a little about it and the whole experience was a big testimony builder for me. It is important to truly know that the spirit can and will work through the missionaries. We are not just another church, nor are we competing against anyone. We are part of the church of God, he is on our side. If we call on his power he will respond, I know it. I have seen it. I LOVE the work!

So as I mentioned last week we had a lot of member support during the baptismal service. It was great! People brought food and we had people to give talks and direct and all. It was amazing to be there and I was SO very happy! One of the happiest times of my life once again. There is no joy like the joy of sharing the gospel, and the happiness it brings, with people we love! :) I love the work and would not trade the experiences I am having for anything! There is no way to learn what a missionary can learn in the mission field without living the experience, it’s a life changing experience. Learning how to forget myself and put myself in the service of others is the best thing I have ever done and will never regret the 2 short years I got to give for all I have learned.

So although we have been blessed immensely over these past few weeks, we have struggled with the current ward leader. He is not the bishop as we don’t have a bishop yet, but the stake president has put him in charge and he was the bishop for 7 years more than three years ago and the reason a LOT of the members had become less active. He can be prideful sometimes and struggles to let other participate in things and just does things how he wants. It’s been tough because we HAVE to work with him, there is no other way. We have done all we can to be really respectful and have a friendship with him, which we do. But he wants everything his way and when it comes to the work he does not confide in us. It’s hard because we do all the work and are the ones helping everyone so I don’t understand how he cannot trust us. Who knows.... I feel like he had a bad experience with missionaries in the past. I guess that means we need to serve him more and pray more. The Lord can soften his heart, I’m sure of it. Sorry to babble about it, it’s one of our current challenges.

So we don’t have much time left and I feel like I have written a lot. But today when we were in the mission offices some American missionaries who have only been in Mexico for 2 months were there because they had to go get their finger prints done and such to get the whole visa thing figured out, like I did a few months ago. It was funny to see them and hear their conversations and see how nervous and unsure they were. It brought back funny memories because I was in the same spot 6 months ago! It made me so happy to be able to speak Spanish without doubting myself anymore. It was fun to remember how far I have some. I was talking to Elder Anderson, who is from my district in the MTC, he works in the offices, and we talked a lot about how far we have come in the mission and about a few other missionaries from our group. I was glad to help them out a bit and translate for the Spanish elders a little bit.

Oh and about the whole Christmas thing... ha-ha, if you want to send me something just make sure it gets to the El Paso address by the 15th of Dec. If it gets there a little late I feel like it will be okay, but just to be sure the 15th is great. Sorry I am not able to send more stuff to everyone... I don’t really have money or the ability to go buy cool stuff to send. I’ll try to look for stuff though. Oh and half of the mission is going to sing at some big event here in Chihuahua on the 19th of December so I’m excited for that! We are going to sing “Called to Serve” and the "We have been born as Nephites of Old". Obviously in Spanish!

I love the work and thanks for all the help and support! Oh side note, the mission president has not gone to Texas in 3 weeks so none of my letters have been sent yet, so sorry everyone who has not received letters from me.

LOVE you all!!!

Elder Andrew Davidson

November 10th 2009

2010-01-10T09:11:00.001-08:00

11/10/09

Hey everyone!

So this week there was transfer changes in the mission, I didn’t change areas but a lot of the missionaries in my district and zone did. A lot of cool Elders came into our district so I’m excited to see how things go. We have a lot going for us right now in Meoqui so I’m glad I did not change. We are headed to Chihuahua today so I will get to see the sheet that has all the changes on it :)

This week was a great one! Because of the activity we did at the cemetery last week we taught a TON of lessons this week... like 75 between the lessons with members and the less actives taught. One of my best weeks, we worked hard! :)

So we are going to baptize this week! :) We are going to baptize Jazmin, who is the fiend of a family of members, the Saenz family. The father of the family is not a member so it’s been good to work with them a lot and help him understand a little more. But Jazmin already has friends in the church and although her parents are not members they are going to come to church and to the baptism. Also the all of the Saenz family are going to be there so the dad will get to be there too. Richy, a member of the Saenz family is getting ready to go on a mission and he will baptize her. Also the members are really stepping up and are helping us out this time. There are 3 sisters bringing refreshments and others giving talks and people to lead music and all. The best baptisms are when we help to organize and assign bits to everyone, but when we don’t have to do much at the actual baptism. That way it’s more of a baptism for the ward and not for the missionaries. She is great and continues to progress and read the scriptures and pray! :) She will stay strong in the church.

So Sunday was great! I love watching Chewy bless the sacrament and Edwin pass it! :) Seeing them at church in white shirts and ties using their priesthood was wonderful. I feel like they are my sons. Their mom, Margarita is still less active.... but we have become GREAT friends with her and she is going to drop her job that makes her work on Sunday this week and says she is going to invite us over to eat a lot. I just want her to support her family. Oh and I found out that Margarita has cancer and has little time to live. Just a few years! Plus their dad just died last year from cancer! Edwin is only 12 years old! He will be 13 and without parents... that would be hard. But their sister lives in the States, in AZ. SO they might go live with her, which would be awesome because then they are closer to my home in Livermore. We will be lifelong friends and I will for sure be at their mission farewells and weddings and when they enter the temple! :) I literally love them like brothers!

So side note... people in Mexico eat cow utter.... yeah! People eat a lot of the parts of the cow I did not know about and I have tried it all. To be honest it usually tastes good. Like cow heart, tongue, and brain are not that bad to be honest. Just weird to know you are eating it. But I joke with the family I saw eating it the other day and they say they are going to get me some... ha-ha! I’m excited to try it! :)

So, one of our investigators, Natividad, told us the greatest story the other day. She does not know how to read or write as she has never gone to school. But it’s not all bad because she pays a lot of attention to her feelings and thoughts and has felt the spirit and has a strong testimony. We just have to go over to read to her and such. So she tells us the story of some JW (Jehovah Witnesses) that knocked on her door. The JW here like to knock on your door, ask you to take out your bible, and then teach you how bad and crappy your religion is and how right they are. So Nati defends herself and says “well I’m part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” while they are trying to tell her stuff. SO then they say that her church does not work and is wrong, Nati tells them that their church is wrong and that she KNOWS that the LDS church is true and to go away! I loved it! She is SO humble and does not know much but she has felt the spirit so strongly and when God tells us something we can NEVER deny it. She told us the whole story all excited and frustrated. It was a big deal for her. I’m happy for her. :) She has taught me about humility and reliance on the lord every time we visit her. The only down side is that she is not married and is old, like 60, and does not have any legal information to get married...

So I lost our cell phone... which sucks because it’s a big hassle to call people and its cost a lot when I have to call my leaders at night. So the guy who found my phone lives in Julimes which is like an hour away, but part of our area. He wants money for the phone and says we have to come out there to get it. I think we will go on Thursday so I’ll let you know how it goes...

Oh and the other day we ate sugar cane, Pure sugar cane! It’s a tradition here during Nov 1 and 2 for the Day of the Dead and they sell the cane whole and you have to peel it. You then chew the cane for a while and suck out all the juice and then spit out the rest. It’s REALLY sweet, obviously, but I don’t like the after taste or that I have to spit the shell part out after. It’s cheap though so that is cool. I made friends at the activity we did last week and they gave me some for free. I was too cheap to buy some!

Yesterday we had the greatest FHE ever! :) Every Monday we have FHE with the Salas family, I think I have mentioned it before. So yesterday was Sister Salas’s birthday and so we wanted to do something special for her. Especially since her son is sick, he has eye problems, and she had to use all the money they have to buy him medicine so she had nothing planned for her birthday. They are recent converts by the way. So we bought them a cake and the people at the Store gave us half off because we have made friends with all the workers and it only cost 50 pesos! :) So we first put the cake in their backyard and then knocked on the door and so they saw that we did not bring anything. SO then after when we were eating the refreshment we brought the cake it and she was so surprised and happy. Plus it is tradition here to have the person who is having their birthday to take a big bite out the cake before it is cut and for someone try to shove their face in the cake. I love the tradition and so we sung "las mañanitas" the happy b-day song and had she bite the cake and got her face shoved in and all. It was great and she was so happy. It made me happy for her so see her feel special on her birthday because her family didn’t do very much. It was fun.

So turns out Meoqui has a great night life! On Sunday we were passing by down town and there were lots of people and food and music and ALL! I have been here for 3 months and never knew! We even live close! We just have never passed by on Saturday or Sunday at night so we never knew. The cool part about the little town is that we have made friends with everyone and have people to talk to wherever we go. If not we just make more friends. :) It was cool and would be a great place to contact people!

Oh and Sunday the primary kids put on a primary program and it was GREAT! The even had little kids dressed in robes when they sung the prophet song and all! They did great and everyone loved it! The stake presidency was there again and they love us now! We had 51 people at church and most of them were less actives! We only had 4 investigators at church and a number of people said they would be there and weren’t, so that’s it not too great. We there were SO many less actives. We had to pull out extra chairs! :) I love Meoqui! We do worry a little because one of the less actives, who has been at church 3 weeks in a row now after not coming for over 8 years, told us that Meoqui is going to fall apart when we leave. We need to make sure get everyone real excited and get the local leaders to step up and keep it all going. Because she is right, we will leave some day and so we can’t personally do too much. We have to keep the responsibility of the members in the local leaders hands. So I’m glad to have another transfer here to work on it. It would be great to have 60-75 members attending church on Sunday :)

So the work is going great! I hope I was able to write something interesting this week and do a better job of writing to you all. I have come to know with a perfect surety that I am doing the work of the Lord. This is His church and I know that as we are obedient He will make up for the rest! I know it! I know that obedience is the key to life and everything we do depends on that obedience and confidence in the Lord. Our Heavenly Father loves us and always makes it possible to do whatever he needs of us. Meoqui has been tough, feeling so alone in the work sometimes with little member and companion help, but more than anything it has taught me to rely on the lord. He is there to talk to you. Ask and you WILL receive. :)

I Love you so much and thrive off of your support! Thank you!

Con mucho amor

Elder Andrew Davidson!

2009-11-06T11:14:00.001-08:00

11-04-09

Hey!

So this is going to be the lamest email I ever sent and I hope that none of my other emails are this lame... ha-ha! I have absolutely no time at all to write with all of the Chihuahua trips I have taken. I have lost a lot of my p-day time and so it’s been tough trying to do everything and still have time to go to internet cafe.

This was an exciting week to say the least! There were a lot of things that happened and I have so much to tell you all.

So the most exciting part was “Day of the Dead” and the activity we put on in the cemetery. Day of the Dead is the first and second of November, and it is like a mini fair at the cemetery. Everyone goes and cleans off the grave of the one who has passed away and then puts lots of nice flowers on the grave. But also everyone goes to sell food and stuff and the whole event turns into a fair. So the mission president had all of us go to the cemetery and put up a little table with lots of pictures of Christ and we brought all kinds of pamphlets. Then people came over and asked as loads of questions and we were able to contact like a billion people. It went great and we have enough work for the whole month now! It worked great because the people who have an interest in learning about Christ are the ones to come over and talk to us so we get the best of the people. Plus there were a lot of people there so we had plenty of people to talk to. The other missionaries, our leaders, were going to help us... but they bailed out to go work only in their town so we were alone, but I learned a ton because of it. I feel like I have become a much better people person and learned to really bring a lot of energy to the conversation. I have learned to present myself in a good way - if that makes sense. My comp is way nervous and timid so it was great to see him come out of his shell. I could tell he felt real awkward but he did great and we both stepped up and learned a lot. I felt so awkward for like 3 minutes and then I loved it and just went about talking to everyone. Even if we don’t teach anyone, we gave the church a little better image because a lot of people have crazy ideas about the church.

Halloween was sad... no decorations or trick or treaters or anything.... it’s not even a special day here. But we had a great lesson with Brenda and Chewy on Halloween night so it was much better than a normal night.

We also had interviews with President Flores this week. He came by and we met him at the church. It went well and I left real motivated. I have not really realized how much of a difference we have made here until he started asking questions and then seemed so surprised with our responses. Oh and in August our mission completed our goal of 200 baptisms in 1 month and that is the most baptisms this mission has EVER had in one month!! We got a cool shirt to remember the accomplishment (but we had to pay for... ha-ha). But it’s cool to be a part of, especially since I personally baptized 6 in the month of August :) Oh and I got a few great letters from home too, thanks grandma and Cheryl for the letter and I also got a few letters from so friends who are out on missions as well.

So this week we had to go and get permission from the local government here to be able to go to the cemetery to put up our table and we had a lot of fun doing it. We went about making friends with all of the government people and now we have all kinds of friends in the local government. They even gave us a huge map of Meoqui for FREE!! Cool huh! We did not have a map that even showed all the streets or anything and now we have a great big one with all the street names and all! Plus we even ended up teaching a group of the government people and then more and more people started coming by and then we taught the whole group of people. It also made me see the large economic gap in between the upper class and the lower class. There is such a difference between the two and I thought about it a lot. The largest part of the gap comes from the mentality of the lower class. Yeah there is the whole situation they are in, but the way they see things and the goals they set are what really define the difference. I try really hard to give the people hope and push themselves to leave the poverty behind and TRY to reach their maximum potential. They don’t set goals and without goals how do we even accomplish anything.... It was a weird thought process that is hard to explain.

So today I was in Chihuahua the whole morning for the whole tooth bit. We slept in the mission offices last night and it’s been great because I have made friends with all the office people in the mission home. I talked a lot with the assistants and I learned a whole lot. They taught me by their example and we discussed for a while about the mission and things to improve on and such. I liked talking to the leaders of the mission and trying to see what makes the leaders “leaders” and why others aren’t. The thing they ALL have in common though is their level of obedience. Obedience is the secret to life I have decided. It takes a lot of humility and patience, but it’s something to really work on.

So that is the week for the most part.... All goes well and I have been healthy and all. We have a LOT of work for this next week so we will see how it all goes. I love you all so much and thank you for all of the support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson

10/28/09

2009-11-06T11:13:00.002-08:00

Hey everyone!

So another week down and many more to go! So this week went well for the most part, I have been a little sick these past three days, and not that it’s too bad. It’s just sad because no one really cares... sad, but true. You just have to deal with it and act like you are not sick and keep working to the best of your abilities. I guess if you have a good comp he would care, but all of mine just look at me like I need to suck it up more and doesn’t say much to me.... Life in the mission. It always teaches me a lot about little sacrifices and relying on the lord, so that is always great.

Today I have to head to Chihuahua again; we were just able to get in our email time before we have to leave. Kind of sucks to lose your p-day for a month for a tooth... But what can you do?

So there have been a number of good experiences this week. We have been working a lot with the part member families and the less-actives and have had a number of Family nights this past week. It’s always a lot of fun and interesting. In one of them we were having it in the lower end part of town and we had a good activity all planned out and the people were going to write stuff out and all.... but then as we started we remembered that no one could read or write... opps.... ha-ha ! We made it work out and we were just a humble group of Gods children trying our best to learn :) I liked it!

So our investigator Brenda, who is 30, continues to progress a ton! We hope to baptize her this week end, but we have to wait to see how a few things work out. She is very strong and knows the gospel; she just needs to allow it to really touch her heart. She is actually the best friend of Chewy; they are not dating at all, just really good friends. So that’s exciting.

Oh and this week we confirmed Chewy and then had Chewy and Edwin ordained to the Aaronic priesthood! :) It was awesome and chewy already talks about a mission! Okay, so side note, we made the radio here in Meoqui!!!!! One of the members was listen to the radio, and then some Catholics got on and were bashing other religions, what they often do, and they mentioned us! SO I have mentioned that I started an English class and it was free and it was a chance to serve the people. So this radio station is over all of the area and delicias and other bigger cities. So these Catholics on the radio mentioned us giving English class for free! Cool huh? I don’t think they meant to help us out. Not sure if I explained the story well or not, but it was funny to us.

I continue to love the work and love being here in Meoqui. Even as times get tough i know why i am here and what I need to be doing. Obedience is the secret to life. If you want to be happy, follow God’s advice, it’s ALWAYS the best advice :)

Love you all!

Love, Elder Andrew Davidson

10/19/09

2009-11-06T11:13:00.001-08:00

10/19/09

Hey everyone!

So another crazy week gone by already! I swear time keeps speeding up! I had to be in Chihuahua again yesterday so I did not write. I had to see the dentist again for the whole root canal bit. I have to go each week for like a month; does it always take this long? Guess I have never had a root canal before so it’s new to me. We came back yesterday in the night because I did not have to have another appt in the morning. SO that was good.

This past Friday we had the baptism of Chewy, or Jesús Huerta! He is one of my best converts and is amazing! I have already told a number of stories about him, but it was an amazing experience to be at his baptism. He is already preparing to receive the gift of the holy ghost this weekend as well as receive the priesthood so he can baptism his best friend who is going to be baptized the next week! :) Cool huh? He is way excited and so is she! She is not his girl friend, but she is a lifelong family friend who continues to progress as Chewy is! His younger brother, Edwin, my convert is going to receive the priesthood this week as well! :) Chewy also goes to institute and all and has friends in the church and everything. We have even talked about the mission a few times as well! :) I know its quick, but I want him to want to go for the whole year or so he has time to prepare. :)

Also when we were at the baptism and we eating cake after (yes, we bought a cake) some guy from Oklahoma comes in and looks for me and starts talking to me in English. He is here for work and is a member and saw the church open and just wanted to stop by and say hi. Turns out he went to the BYU Oklahoma game in TX and showed me pictures and all! He wanted to talk to a few people, but doesn’t speak Spanish.... so I forgot and start introducing him to Chewy and such as he wanted to congratulate him and then after one would speak they would both look at me to translate... it was weird, but kind of cool. I forget most of the time that I speak two languages so it’s fun to remember sometimes.

So we had stake conference this week and there were two members of the seventy there so that was cool. One was from the first quorum of the seventy and part of the area presidency of Mexico and gave a great talk. It got Chewy all excited all over again and it was fun to be there with him and explain a bit of the church organization to him.

So we had a family home evening this past Monday with a recent convert family and it was a lot of fun. They are all so humble and ready to learn, but yet so unsure of themselves. They always want us to tell them how to do it all... but then they don’t learn. So we help them to do it all and just help out a little. It’s a lot of fun and I love being with families :)

Oh and my comp turned 20 this past Sunday so that was cool. I made him breakfast and gave him a little present. :)

The work continues to go well and I love being here. It’s a lot of work and can be really tough at times, but I would not trade these 2 years or experiences for anything! Thank you for all of the support and love!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

10/13

2009-11-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hey family!
So WOW these past two days has been rough to say the least! I learned a lot, so I’m happy about that, but I’m just really tired right now. So this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I was sick, especially on Sunday. I couldn’t even get out of bed Sunday morning and then I got all ready to go to church because I just felt I had to go as hard as it was for me. So this Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting and I have my convert, Edwin(12) there wearing a white shirt and tie for the first time which alone made my day as he had his priesthood interview! :) PLUS his older brother, Chewy (22), was there in a white shirt and tie with his friend, Brenda (30) who will be baptized next week! :) It gave me all the energy in the world when I saw them there together - happy and excited! THEN Chewy gets up after 5 or 6 people had borne their testimony and said "I’m the one getting baptized this Friday (it was announced)" and then continued on to say how excited he was and how proud he was to be a member and how real and true the gospel is. AS AN INVESTOGATOR! He isn’t a member yet! It was the best moment of my life. I have never been happier than hearing him bare his testimony! He called us out during his testimony and it was a little awkward...But he was just saying how we were the sign God sent and have changed his life forever. We even talked more about a mission this week and he is going to go to institute as well! He is amazing and has such a strong testimony. Then.... I don’t know how because I had not eaten in 2 days, but I got up to bear my testimony and it’s was so great and the whole meeting was very inspiring and spiritually uplifting! :)
Then on Tuesday in the morning we went to have zone conference in Chihuahua City, which is like an hour away. It was AMAZING and I learned so much! After I had my dentist appt so we went with the mission president and his wife, who I really like, and it was so cool to just feel like their kids and to go run a few errands and talk for a while and THEN we get to go to their house which is the house for the mission president! We got to eat with them and their son, who I got all excited for water polo and it was really a fun experience. The house is SO cool though! When President was giving us a tour of the house we saw the room where the general authorities stay when they come! I touched the bed.... ha-ha!
Then the hard part of the trip.... waiting in the dentist office from 5 til 9 just to be looked at.... then them telling me I need a root canal because of a bad filling I had that was loose and allowed food to get stuck in for a while.... and then being operated on until 1:30 in the morning! Yeah! SO then we go the mission office, where the assistants sleep and where all the offices are, and slept for a few hours and then went back in the morning. I was there from 9am till 12pm ad then we TRIED to go back to Meoqui, but someone was killed in the bus station so we had to wait a few hours.... carrying like 30 pounds of materials for the zone the whole time. Also we saw drug deals when we were walking.... they were moving someone in very rich clothes and he was holding a HUGE M-16.... not an everyday sight.... So then as we are walking back just trying to get home and then about 4pm a member who is a "detective" who also has a huge M-16 and a pistol in his truck he opens the door and says get in as he moves is guns around to allow us to fit! It was kind of funny and weirdly not that strange. Guess I have been here for a while. Everyone here has a general respect for us and knows us and our purpose and don’t ever mess with us. That is a LITTLE part of my days. I have to go back next week to have more work on my tooth done, so we will see how that goes.
Crazy huh? One of the highlights was when we got stranded out of the bus station in the hot sun, in jackets, and lots of stuff to carry I realized how much I have changed. My comp was all frustrated and upset and it made me realize how calm and optimistic I was. I wasn’t frustrated or mad or angry at all... Plus not to mention my throbbing mouth after having it jacked around for so long. But I was semi happy and really calm and just looking forward and making the best decisions I could step by step, not letting the pulls of life phase me. Obviously I still get frustrated, but especially since the prophets talk on anger, I have really tried to cut it out. It does NO good and just destroys the things we care about most. You know? It was part of my learning day, just rolling with the blows of life and not letting Satan get you frustrated. :)
Life continues onward and time is flying!!!! Wow! I love the mission and love the gospel!! It’s everything and I know if I live it, I will be happy. No matter the circumstance. :)
Thanks for all the love and support! Oh and thank you grandma Davidson, Emily and Suzy Bush, and Sandi for the letters! :)
Love,
Elder Andrew Davidson

2009-11-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

9/29/09

Hey!

So I don’t have much time today because I spent all my time writing my family individually and writing a little longer emails... sorry!

But this week was another fast week and I am pretty sure I worked harder this week than any other week in my whole mission. We taught a ridiculous number of people and we really stayed diligent. I have one of the hardest areas in the mission to say the least and so we have really have the privilege to learn to continuously stay diligent and not let up. Obviously we had times when we lost a little bit of time, but we stayed real strong. I feel like running every morning and getting up early has helped us to really stay focused and diligent. :) It’s something I really need to learn and carry into my life when I come home.

So I realize that I need to be better at telling more stories when I email and tell more about the lives of the people we teach and less about the little things... ha-ha sorry. So I will try to tell more stories of the people from now on. I don’t not have much time and the internet cafe is about to close, but I will write what I can.

So right now we are teaching someone named Jesus (Chewy) Huerta Gallegos and he is the older brother of a convert and is 22 years old. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned him before. So he continues to progress and we have become great friends. But the other day we were ending a lesson with him and his friend and we invited him to say the closing prayer. So in his prayer he mentions how he wants all of the people who feel lonely and alone like he did to find the missionaries where ever they live. Then he says that before we came he had been praying for a sign that God exists and loves him and that he can be lead and that WE are that sign. That he has come to have so much more faith and loves the changes he has made and how much happier he is. So he mentions all of this in his prayer thanking our Heavenly Father for all of it, and we were just like.... WOW.... We all felt the spirit very strong to say the least! Then after I was writing in my journal and reflecting on what he said and I realized how very sacred this calling we have is. How lucky and privileged we are to be here and how we are to be this "sign" from God. We are to be on His errand for these two years and need to be doing all we can every second of the day. We need to allow ourselves to be totally obedient and be lead by His guidance. How amazing is the opportunity to be a missionary! I recommend it for anyone! It will change the way you see the world and teach you how to truly be happy! :)

So we are getting kicked out right now, but I promise to tell more stories next week! The work goes on and we are working hard! Its tuff sometimes here in Meoqui but I have come to love the people and all they continue to teach me each and every day! This is all one big learning opportunity for everyone! :)

I love the work and thank you for all of your love and support! Oh and thanks Larissa and Grandma Stevenson for the package and letter!

Love you all so much! Thank you for all the support!

Love,

Elder Andrew Davidson

2009-09-25T07:42:00.002-07:00

2009-09-25T07:42:00.001-07:00

9/8/09
Hey!
So today we have like no time at all because we are using the internet in the morning and this place is about to close for lunch time. Speaking of that, the WHOLE town here just shuts down completely between 1 and 3 for lunch time. Nothing is open and no one is on the roads, it’s crazy! Everyone just respects the hour of lunch time too much and everything closes down, cool huh?
So this week was not terribly exciting, we had zone conference this past Thursday so that was cool. Zone conference is when all the missionaries close to me all gather together with the mission president and 6 missionaries teach along with the president and we all become better missionaries. SO I had to teach and it went well. Not as good as I hoped it would and I felt bad immediately after, but I talked with the mission president after and he said it went real well and I should expect to do it again in the near future.... great!! I was not as nervous as I thought, but I needed to me more direct because I went a little over on time. But I was WAY nervous before conference though. Conference went really well as a whole and I really enjoyed it. Oh and Elder Juarez, my first comp was there and it was good to see him. He was all excited I was going to teach during zone conference too! The point is that I learned a ton and struggled enough to help me learn even more so I can continue to get better each time, you know?
Oh and I got a few letters too! Grandma Stevenson, Paula, Steve Swan(missionary in NY) and kali all wrote me so that was great to hear from all of them! Today I hope to get a few letters sent out as well.
Also our bishop is not longer here... our only help... so now we have to do and lead everything and have no bishop for the time being. It is a lot of work and we have so many people we are visiting right now, but its taught me a lot and we have to stay very focused to get everything we need to do done.
I love being here and love the work! Mexico is awesome! :)
Hope all is well and home and thank you for all of the love and support!
Love,
Elder Andrew Davidson
9/15/09

HEY!
So another week down and I have 8 and 1/2 months in the mission! CRAZY how fast time flies! I just had my birthday! Well I guess today feel like my birthday because I got an amazing package from home and from Paul and letters from grandma, a convert, and another missionary here in Chihuahua! SO that made my day! :) Thank you so much! I already wrote my family emails, but thank you so much Paul! I loved the letter and the tie and especially the PMG. Danielle has a note I sent to you from her. :) Also thanks grandma and grandpa! I love hearing from you! :)
So this week was not too exciting and a little tough to be honest but it has taught me SO SO very much. It’s really allowed me to become a better missionary and focus on what’s really important as a missionary and what I need to do to help the people feel the power of the message we are sharing! It’s helped me to reflect a lot on why I’m here and what I need to be doing here. Meoqui is definitely one of the harder areas in the mission with the members and all and without a bishop, but it has allowed me to stretch and grow in ways I could not have imagined before.
Anyway, so the English class went well and a lot of new people are coming. Plus it teaches me a LOT of patience. Lot of repeating things and talking real slow. I have decided I would like to work at the MTC when I get back so its taught me a lot about teaching a language and how best to do it. It’s fun though and I get a kick out of the fact that I teach a English class. :) Also on sat we had our monthly cooking class and it went real well. Well for the most part. So I had to teach this week and I taught how to make caramel popcorn. Everyone LOVED the caramel popcorn and how easy and cheap it was and thought I was so cool for knowing how. The women here just assume all guys can’t cook at all, well because it’s true here, and were all so amazed with a guy teaching how to cook something. I had fun doing it. I was meaning to take a video of it but I forgot to...sorry. It was also cool because I had to learn a whole other vocabulary to teach how to cook it and all and I expanded my vocab a lot in the process. I also think in Spanish now.... like 100%.... weird.... sometimes I remember I speak Spanish and think it’s funny. You know?
So yeah we had those activities this week and we are planning a family home evening as a ward for this sat and we have assigned all the members a little part and have flyers and all so I feel like it’s going to work out really well. Everyone is really excited about and we hope to get a lot of people out to church in the process. Oh and we spoke again on Sunday. I guess it’s not news anymore. But we had 30 min to fill and my comp used 9.... so I talked for like 20. It went by real fast and I didn’t even I filled the time till after. I have grateful for the opportunity to plan and direct so many activities and give so many talks because I am really becoming a lot better at it and learn a TON in the process. I especially learn a lot about people and working with groups of people and learning to be a better leader and keep their attention. You know? I have never been a big fan of group projects so it’s taught me a lot about working with people to accomplish a goal. I’m grateful to say the least. Hard, very very hard at times and a lot to do and figure out, but rewarding at the same time. :) That’s pretty much the story of the mission.
Oh and I completed my second full journal the other week! I’m on my third and write a page everyday still :)
So the work has been a little slow and hard. A lot of people just live together and decide they are together and never get married, and we can’t baptize people who are not married so we have to work a lot with people to get married. It is weird to give council and all seeing how I’m not married yet.... ha-ha. There have just been a lot of hard situations out investigators are facing, like family deaths and illegally entering the US with their family and then get exported living away from them and all. And it’s hard because we want to solve their problems and help them, but we have to remember we are to teach them to confide in the gospel and use it to solve all of their problems and get through all of the trails. You know? We do what we can. But it’s taught me a lot about family and marriage life and what does and doesn’t work in marriage and what it takes to have a successful one.
The work goes on and I love the people and Meoqui, even if it is a little bit hard at times. I grateful to be here and know there is NO where else in the world I rather be than here. The gospel is TRUE! ;)
Love,
Elder Andrew Davidson

9/1/09

2009-09-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!
Thank you for all of the birthday emails, they made my day! Yes today is my birthday and I’m glad I can email everyone on my actual birthday, makes it a little more special. To be honest I was dreading my birthday a little and thought it was just going to be a sad day and be no different than the rest. So I was trying hard not to expect much seeing how I don’t know many people yet or know them very well yet, but surprisingly it has been a great day! I washed a lot of my clothes last night so I don’t have to wash so much today, oh and we wash our clothes by hand. Like with soapy water and a scrub board. The old fashioned way ;) We also shower by filling a bucket with cold water and dump in on ourselves in the shower... :) I love life here though. I actually really like washing clothes by hand, it MUCH more effective and CHEAPER :) It just takes a LOT more time, is the only real down side.
Any ways so in the morning my mission president and his wife call me and wish me happy birthday and they were driving to a zone conference of another zone and all the missionaries in the car sang me happy birthday and also sang the Mexico birthday song too! :) PLUS the coolest part was that my best friend here in the mission, Elder Killpack, who I have not heard from or seen in 2 months now, was in the car too going to his zone conference and I got to talk to him for a few minutes! :) It made my morning! Plus there are 180 missionaries in the mission and he called me personally to tell me happy birthday! cool huh?
Then we went to district meeting and it is my birthday and it’s the birthday of one of the sisters in our district, so after the meeting we had cake and it was fun. They made us take the biggest bite out of the cake that me could and then shoved our faces in it! I have pictures and a video of it all. I am going to try and send a picture of it home. So also someone in the sister’s ward made a piñata! The best part was that it was Michael Jackson with the silver glove and ALL! I laughed so hard! I’ll send a picture home of that too! :) We then played a little basketball and it was a lot of fun, we have 8 people in our district by the way. Then my comp and I came back to little Meoqui and cooked hamburgers and drank IBC root beer! It doesn’t exist here in Mexico but someone brought it back from the states and sells it in their little shop. Today has been a good day, especially since I did not expect much. I’m glad it’s a p-day though, so it was at least a little different, you know?
So this week as a whole has been pretty good. We still have loads of work to do and have been diligent, but of course we can step it up. Oh and we spoke in church on Sunday again. We speak twice a month here so that is good. I have really come to enjoy speaking to be honest. I always learn a lot and I love being able to share a message with everyone. Plus I’m not really nervous anymore before or during. It’s becoming a more normal thing. And of course I learn lots of Spanish in the midst of it all too :) Oh I spoke about family prayer this week and how amazing it is!
So sorry, but I’m not going to tell the Paula story today... it’s been a little bumpy this past week and so I’m going to wait till it has a good ending to tell it. Sorry!
Oh and when we were teaching two of our investigators at the entrance to Meoqui. It’s a road that comes in and everyone sells things on the side of the road. And so we are teaching two of them and there is an ex-bishop of a ward over in Delicaias that works there too. So his daughter and the ex-bishop, stops by and she has a non member friend and we contact her and what not, and then it turns out the daughter lives in CA and is visiting and went home yesterday. So she asked me if I have any letters I want to give her to send and she can send them from the states, which is WAY faster and for my home telephone number and she is going to call you mom and ask if you want to send anything to me and that you can send it to her and she will bring it to me in October when she is coming to visit again. You can send something to her if you would like to, she seems reliable. But just expect a call from someone who does not speak too much English - ha-ha :) So I was able to send a letter off to home and to Larissa through her and I feel like they should get there real quick, but who knows. It was great luck and she is a very nice lady! She drove all the way from Delicas to Meoqui to get the letters from me to send! :)
So we have had a few more meetings with the bishop to be discuss working together and really helping the ward grow and such and then at the end of our 2 hour meeting, he tells us that next week he is leaving to Monterrey!.... so we think the old bishop is going to be bishop again because there is no one else, but who knows, I guess we are going to have to wait and see this week. But we have organized the priesthood quorums and got quorum leaders called and all and have a list of all the calling holes we need to fill. So we will go little by little reactivating people and baptizing people to fill the holes and get the ward going real strong.
Oh so I also am officially an English teacher... ha-ha! I teach English classes every week and we made flyers and all and have them posted all over town. We only have like 14 people in the class but a lot of people are interested and it gets people out to the church and allows them to get to know the members and such. It’s been really successful so far and since I just learned Spanish I just use all the games and activities we did, but in English. It’s a lot of fun and the kids call me professor which is funny to me :) We have started a weekly English class, mutual activity, and a monthly ward family home evening and cooking class! It’s been fun to be honest! I love working with the ward to such a great extent, it’s been really rewarding to say the least. :)
My companion and I have been getting along really well! We work together really well and have been really unified in teaching! It’s just great to have a companion who wants to be obedient as well. The last two were so difficult so it’s nice to have a good chill companion!
So Edwin Huerta was baptized this week. Aida and Javier Hinjos didn’t because Javier had to leave for work this past weekend and so we are going to have their baptisms this coming week so we are stoked for that!
We also have been working a lot with Edwin’s mom who WAS a less active and we have really become friends with her. We are even starting to put goals for her to enter the temple and get sealed to her husband, who died a year ago, and to her 3 kids. Well only 2 are members but we are working with her other 22 year old son to get baptized right now. She is a lot of fun and WAY happy and I love feeling like such a part of the family. We are actually going to their house at like 7 to have an appt with her son and she said she was going to make something for my birthday! :) She was the only one to offer something, but I’m excited!
WOW! So my zone leader just called me and I have to teach in zone conference this Thursday! Only 6 people teach and they are the zone leader, the 3 district leaders, the assistant to the president, and ME.... cool huh? It’s the conference with the mission president and his wife and the assistants and ALL. I’m really excited and nervous! I know I will learn a lot from the experience so I’m excited! I’ll be sure to tell you how it goes.... :)
So that is about all of this week! All goes well and I LOVE being here and love the work! Oh and thank you Danielle for the package! I love it! I have not gotten anything else from others yet, but I’ll be sure to let you know when I do! :)
Love you so much, the gospel is true and if we LIVE it, it will change our life!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Andrew Davidson

8/24/09

2009-09-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Wow! So a lot has happened this past week!
So first off on Wednesday I received my new comp, his name is Elder Agustin and he is from Puebla Mexico. He has been on the mission for 5 months and was in my district in Juarez for the whole time so we already knew each other and we have always got along. I am also officially the senior companion with 7 and a half months in the mission but we still work 100% together it just that someone always has to be senior and the other is junior companion. I have always liked him and he is obedient and diligent, so that is GREAT. We get along well and I’m just way excited to have a companion who is not way dead in the mission and wants to work hard too! We are DEFINITELY going to make a big difference here in Meoqui! I’m way excited! Oh and he likes to play basketball, so we go to the church in the mornings and play so that is nice (we live 2 blocks from the church, or less).
So we have had a LOT of success this past week! It’s been amazing! First off we have the Hinojos family. They are a family of 7 and we baptized the two kids over the age of 8 this past Saturday, and we are going to baptize the mom and dad this coming Saturday. The dad, Javier, had to give up alcohol and really make a few big changes so we are pumped to help him out, and have really seen the difference and happiness in his life as he has embraced the gospel! They are EXTREMELY poor but it’s always a ton of fun to be over at their house because they have 3 little kids, 3 years old, 4, and 7 and they are hilarious! They find big bugs and play with them and it’s just a lot of fun to play with them. They don’t have any money to buy church clothes so I really want to buy them some. I don’t have any money right now, but I’m hoping someone sends me a little money for my birthday next week and I will use it to get them like a white shirt and tie. There are flea markets here so it should be real cheap, but I figure its a little way I can help them out. They also taught me a lot about pooling together as a family to make things work and about how really working together can make a difference. They are awesome!
So then there is Edwin! He is 12 and his mom is a less active, but she says she will be at church next week and her older sons are also members so we have been working with them a lot to help them get back into the church and be HAPPY! Edwin is EXTREMELY intelligent and his dad died a year ago, so we have taught him a lot about the plan of salvation. He gets baptized this week as well.
Then we have Paula and Aolani, they have a WAY cool story that is a little longer. They are going to get baptized next week so I will tell their story next Tuesday, or the one after their baptism. Sorry!
Oh and when they whole mission had changes this past Wednesday I got letters from mom, Mara, the Elms, Elder Lindsay, Larissa, and well a convert from Juarez too. I changed areas during special changes so the rest of the mission changed a lot this time around. I LOVED the letters and I am going to respond to all of them! Mara I am not sure where to send your letters and I’m pretty sure you have not gotten my last letter.
Oh and Danielle I got your package already! THANKS! I am not going to open it yet because I want something from my birthday. So yeah I will be 20 by next Tuesday! crazy! I’m excited, but to be honest not really.... I’m pretty sure it won’t be too exciting, but I’m not here to celebrate birthdays, I have people to serve!
It’s also been way cool being senior companion as I get to make the decisions. I like it... ha-ha! But really it’s not that much fun, but it has helped me to grow a lot and to be diligent all the time and never let up.
So yeah, it’s been a great week and I love being a part of these people lives, they are so amazing! I really love the people here! It will be hard to go back to the states ones day... Through serving people I have really come to love them so much and care about them. I love being on the mission and all the opportunities I have to learn and grow everyday because of it! There is nothing I rather be doing than serving the Lord right now!
The gospel is true, learn it, LIVE it and apply it. It WILL change your life; there is no doubt about it.
I love you all so very much!
Elder Andrew Davidson
P.S. This is my last email as a teenager..... HA-HA

8/17/09

2009-09-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

8/17/09
Hey everyone, so another week in Meoqui! And my birthday is in 2 weeks from today! Wow time has flown by! Crazy to think I will be twenty! I feel like it won’t be a great birthday because I have only been here for two weeks and I am going to get a new comp tomorrow... but I’m not here to celebrate birthdays so I don’t expect too much.
So my companion went home on Sunday night with all of the others, and yeah it was a little distracting for a little bit because it made me think about what things will be like when I go home. But I have been with Elder Woodward an elder from my generation since then so we have just been working here while we wait for changes to come around. We will all get our new companions tomorrow so that is exciting. Also on Saturday I had a really good interview with the mission president and he was real direct with me and thanked me for pushing Elder Regnier and Elder Mar (my last two companions) so much. He helped me out a lot and it got me real excited to lead here in Meoqui, and try to really make the difference here.
Things have been changing around a lot with all the changes and people going home so I have been able to talk to the leaders quite a bit and it has really been a big help and I have learned so much! I’m pretty sure it would have taken me like 5 years to learn what I have learned in the past 7 months here. It’s been a real up and down experience but it amazing to me how much I get to learn each day and how blessed I am that I get to be here and work with the amazing people of Mexico.
I have already met a ton of amazing people here in Meoqui and I should be better about telling you about the people we are teaching... sorry. I don’t have too much time but we are preparing a family of 4 to be baptized this next Friday. There are many more stories but I’ll be better next week about telling you about them!
Life is great and the gospel is true! Live it and be happy!
Love,
Elder Andrew Davidson