9/20/11

ok, well this is going to have to be really short, i dont have much time, man this past week has just been so crazy i dont even know where to start!!! Seriously, we have never worked so hard, ever!! The lord is continually blessing my companion and i with the people that he has prepared to recieve the restored gospel!! we are just so swamped with people to teach, its worse than how it was when i was in wilmington!! So its crazy!

So this week, a lot happened. If you remember Carlos, the mexican that elder Freeman and i were teaching but then dropped off the face of the earth, well he almost died last week because he was drinking alcohol for 2 weeks without food or water at all, so we gave him a blessing, taught him, and he accepted to be baptized the 30th of oct!! What a great blessing and such a spiritual experience for us!! I am so glad that we have him back because my mexican accent comes alive!!! I miss mexican people so much, the dominicans and puerto ricans out here, man the spanish is so trashy and chopped up, and i just cant help but sound like them, so its nice for a little change every once in a while! :)

We were able to watch the groundbreaking of el Templo de Filadelfia and it was so amazing! Ive never watched one before, and we had john with us, and he was really touched by the spirit as was i and everyone who was watching and present! It should be finished in 2013 so i am comin back to philly!!! YEAH!!!! :) Church was amazing, we have a new senior couple serving in the ward with us as well, so we got 7 missionaries going at it here in Spring Garden Ward!! I am so excited!!! THe work is just going crazy!! also, we have been doing a lot of good finding through the activites!! We are playing futbol on friday nights, and we had like 15 people show up and it was so much fun!!! Its getting so intense, but we always pray and read a scripture, and there are a couple who we are teaching so it is paying off!! Also, the weather is already starting to get cold!! That means, BIG WINTER!!! YEAHH!!! i am so stoked!! My companion and i are going to freeze!! no car, and most of the buses wont be running, haha so excited!!

Yesterday, we went to the zoo, i havent been there in forever, but it was so cool!!! just thought that youd like to know! :) also, a couple puerto rican kids decided to punch a couple of missionaries here in our district, and like the philly people have always said, dont mess with the Jesus people!

well, it has been an eventful week, i cant believe i have been out 11 months today, but i am so glad that i am here! The lord is so amazing, and he always answers our prayers!! Always! Try to be like the lamanites that ammon and his brothers taught- Alma 23:6. thats what is all about! I llove you all and i am so grateful for all the support!! Like jose smith says, "shall we not go on in so great a cause?" live it , love it, and JUST DO It !! :)

Elder Gallego

9/12/11

HOLA!!

Man i dont know what is going on over here on the east coast with all this rain, but philly is flooding in so many places!! Im so confused too, because i guess there are 2 huracanes coming here again? Anyways, yeah, its really wet here, but the work is going great!! And to all those who now know, I AM GOING TO BE AN UNCLE!!!! i am so excited!!!! I hope they are twin boys so that i can teach them all sorts of fun stuff, and play sports with them!! :)

bueno, this week was so good! Our zone leaders sent out a challenge to all the missionaries in our zone that the companionship that has the best numbers with people contacted, other lessons taught, and new investigators ratios, we get to pick where they have to take us to eat dinner, anywhere in philly!! So we went at it and we really caught on fire this week!! My companion, Elder Mailo is progressing so much and i am so excited to be learning along side with him! We found some good new investigadores and we had 9 investigadores at church yesterday!! It was great!! We also had a lot of success with the less actives in our area, and getting them all excited about coming back to church! I love working with less actives!!

So that challenge that the zone leaders gave, really gave us the spark that we needed to just have the faith to talk to everyone!! My companion has been trying to work on his approach skills when contacting people in the street and just trying to not act so timid and stuff, and this week he made so much progress with all that he was focussing on! It really was a great experience for me as well, because it made me want to talk to more people as well and we met a lot of good potentials that we will be stopping back by this week!!

SO the groundbreaking of the philadelphia temple is this saturday!!! we are all so excited, and the city is just totally livid!!! Satan is really trying to overpower the members here, and they have been passing through a lot of trials, but the power of satan is nothing compared to the power of the being who created him!!! Always remember, no matter what the trial or the temptaion is, satan has no power over us, unless we give it to him! Read Alma 13:27-29!!! I love that scripture and testify that it is true!!

With all of this work that we have been doing here, hahah my pants are getting a little loose!! im down to about 155, and shrinking!! YAY!! BURN FAT!!! i dont have my little panzita anymore :( thats a belly by the way...and i am starting to skinny up!!! but im making sure that i dont go soft!! Nyal, i dont know how youre going to overcome going soft eating that type of food. P-90X!!! :D haha, but yeah, we have been working super hard here, and my companion eats like a horse!! I love samoans!! We have really started to develop a true love for the mission, and it reminds me of Alma and Amulek, and the sons of mosiah, all gone preaching the gospel for more than 14 years without seeing one another!! SO crazy, i truly do wish i could stay here for that long, but i know 2 years is what the lord has planned for me for now, so i will try my best!!

This week, we also saw a black guy, that was dressed up JUST like michael jackson before he went white, and man!! he did the dance, i cant remember what song it is now, but he did it perfect!! It was so insane!! I was laughing so hard, it was all right in the middle of the street too at some wedding!! He actually gets paid for it! It was so cool! ANyways, everything is going good!! We are getting some people prepared to be baptized, and recieve the blessings awaiting in store for them!! I love the mission, the gospel is so true!!

ELder Gallego

9.6.11

Youre not even going to believe, but i am training a 6 foot, 235 pound samoan!!! His name is elder Mailo!!! He is so cool!! it has been such a good week, and definately a learning experience for the both of us!! I am teaching him how to speak english and spanish, so its a bit hard at times, but he is really picking it up so fast!! We are working well together, and i am really letting him teach and testify and feel like he has about 6 months in the mission to boost his confidence right now!! He is doing great, his spanish is great, and his english is also getting much better! I am just picking up his New Zealand accent on english because he learned a little there before he came out! I also have ANOTHER companion who is the first missionary ever in his family!! SO cool!! He is 24, and made a promise with god that he wont fight people out here, or ever again, so that he can fully dedicate himself to the lord. So i have a body guard incase i need one :)
 
We have had a blast here this week, the rain is at it again today, and apparently will be all week, so i hope that we can find some success! Yesterday was great, we were playing some football yesterday at the park with some english elders and the other spanish elders, and i found out that my knee is great, and i have no pain today!! Very excited about that!! We played flag football, because the white handbook says no contact sports, but man that didnt keep me from eating it like 30 times!! haha, the grass was a little wet, and i didnt have cleats, ok..well i cut my elbow a bit, right next to the sar, but its totally ok, went flying after scoring a touchdown haha, and cut it on something, but its clean, not infected, and really bruised!! Looks really cool, and will be another scar to my collection!! :)
 
THis sunday was so great, my companion and i bore our testimonies, and it was so cool to see him go up there, and have the courage to speak some spanish his first sunday!! He is so cool, and just so natural! Learns so dang fast, and he is really teaching me a lot!! It felt good to get up and bear my testimony as well, i really felt a sincere love for the people and the members with whom we work with in this area. They dont really do their visits, well they dont do them at all, but they are always willing to help us, and i know that the members involvement with the missionaries is very important. So make a commitment to get out and do the visits!! We have a sad case with noe, a recent convert, feels like nobody in the ward except his best friend elvys, really cares about him, and has slipped into drinking, so that was a bit of a set back for us. Really hurts to hear when someone feels alone in the church. So be that person to go and get to know someone. It will really help!
 
I know that god lives, jesucristo is his son, and they love us both so much and they want us to do our best. We can and will become perfect through the atonement of jesucristo! I know it for a fact! THe book of mormon is the word of god. Read it, live it, love it!!
 
Elder Gallego

8.29.11

What a lame hurricane!! ok well, i guess it hit other parts of the mission and the other states pretty good, but seriously they acted like it was the end of the world over here!! The people in philly are all just nuts!! haha it was definately a lot of water, and ton of wind, but when i heard and saw on the newspaper the size of that hurricane, i just said, Uhhh....what am i going to do?!! haah, but i am still alive! It was cool to think that i was actually in a hurricane though!! We also had an earthquake this week, of which i didnt feel, but man mother nature is just angry on these parts of the U.S.! heck, i heard hurricane, and the first thing i thought of was Hurricane Katrina, and oh no. But im glad that it didnt do too much damage..with all of the rain that we got (6inches) it gave philly a very much needed cleaning!! haha but the sidewalks are already filled with trash again!! it was clean for a day!!
 
Man tyler you are training too?!!! Thats so cool!! Camara carnal y hechele ganas! Asegurese que le ensene todo bien, y que el entienda que la obra misional es increible y el mejor!! Que chido que nosotros tendremos hijos! le conocere este miercoles! asi que, trabaje duro y haga todo lo que este nueva programa nos ensena hacer, porque es bien importante!
 
Anywho, back to english, well, this week was cool! Elder De Leon and i didnt have the baptisms, church was cancelled on sunday, so yeah...we will be having them in 2 weeks when Jon gets baptized!! We are hoping to have about 7 new converts this transfer, so that will be a great experience for my son, who will have such a great start to his mision!! I am so excited to see and be able to learn from a new misisonary!! They have so much faith, and so much optimism, and i am just so glad and excited that he gets to start off in Philly!! I will definately work as hard as i can! Its really cool, because with this new 12 week training program, we have an extra hour of companionship study/training, so we will have a lot of good spiritual learning time!! And i am super excited to see what i have been able to learn as a missionary so far on my mission! Its a big responsibility training, but i know that the lord has prepared me!! I hope i get the Samoan that is coming! :) i was talking to president about it, ammon dana will be coming too, but he is english so i wont be able to train him! :( but i will be able to see him!! Im super excited about that!!
 
Well, there isnt much more to let you all know, this week has just been super hectic as you can imagine. Something absolutely hilarious that happened...hahah well remember how a bird pooped on me last week? HAAH well elder de leon and i were teaching and he got totally just destroyed with bird poop under this tree that we were sitting on! Probably one of the funniest things i have ever seen in my life, and the investigator was laughing he was laughing, i was almost crying, man. Good times!! also, some kids decided to throw water on us, and as i turned around, i realized that the guy was like 19 and running like a little girl!!!! We just started laughing, i was a little ticked, but it wasnt worth it at all. Just another moment that i realize how much the gospel means to me, and how i have to be an example at all times!!
 
I am super excited and super content with the mission right now! I know that the gospel is true! I have come to love and cherish the book of mormon and i know that it is the only way that we can experience true conversion! We have to read it to gain a testimony of the church, or else it is nothing! The prophet joseph smith saith that i man would come closer to god faster and better by reading this book that by any other book on the face of the planet. I know and testify of that to be true. In it, and in the gospel of our savior jesucristo, we can find all of the answers to our questions!! Keep doing the simple things, and apply the scripture Alma 7:11-16 to your lives! I know the atonement to be real! It works and we have to use it in order to recieve exaltation!

Elder Gallego