11/21/11

HEYYY!!! man! philly is just the greatest!! we arent getting trasfered tomorrow so that was a relief to saber, we are totally not done with what we started here, and the lord is just blessing us in like waves of people that are ready and willing to come closer to him!! we have a great day lined up for christmas!! 12 people are going to be baptised and what a blessing it is for me to be a part of it!

ELder Mailo and i are supper stoked to be staying! we will be here for thanksgiving, christmas, and new years!! that will be crazy!! im sure they will make us sta inside or something lame, but we are really looking forward to another change together! i have never had a comp for more than 2 transfers, so hopefully everything stays good, and we dont pull a matt gallego/nyal sewell Jamboree status experience from being around eachother too much :) hahaaha man i wont ever forget that! greatest month EVER!!! :D

anyways, im sure none of you understand that, just nyal and i and our families, but anyways, it was a great experience :) este....oyeah, so get this, we have been teaching johns family, and now anna, the one who got baptized 2 weeks ago, well we are going to teach her 2 kids today, they are 23 and 25 i think? adonai and zaira!! they are really super cool, way interesado and they will make great future misionarios!! they are so impressed with the change that fernan, the 15 year old son of anna, has made that they want to do the same! only problem is that they both work on sundays, so we need to find them a new job! pray for them please!! ALso luis rodas, johns cousin, he is rading and progressing wery well, just need to dejar cafe and tea and he will be good and set!! We are having a ton of success through finding with the members. it is so important that we do that, that is the only way i have found my entire mission!! knocking on doors doesnt do it!! so get out there and help those missionaries!! trust me, we love it!!

We learned about adversity yesterday, and i have a strong testimony of thisprinciple. It has shaped me into the person who i am today, and i am so grateful for adversity! we watched a movie on Gordon b hinckley today, man i miss him, it was about the life of him. He faced a lot of adversity, especialmente en la mision! but one day his dad, wrote him back and said olvidete de ti mismo y ponte a trabajar! forget yourself and go to work!! It is so true! i have found that when i try to think about what i need, my mission is not as fun. Its not fun, and i shouldnt be doing it! but as i have been able to consistently through prayer and study focus on what others need, i have noticed that the lord has helped me accomplish those goals for them, as well as mine! Without even noticing it, wesometimes forget how much he silently does for us, and i know that he does it out of love and charity! he is full of it, and if we want it, we have to go through him!! Moroni 7:43-48

I am so grateful to be a missionary! thanksgiving is on thursday, ill score a sweet AZ TD for all my people back home, and i want you ALL to know how much i love each one of you, and how grateful i am to be able to be a missionary! the blessings are numerous when we serve those around us, i love it. Its my passion, and my desire in life. I know that if weare able to put our lives in accordance with the lords will, this will be our desire and our pasion, to bring others here and to make sure that they have what they need in order to live happily pero por la eternidad! LOS QUIERO muchisimo!! coman bien, y en once meses, la bandita estara reunida!!

Elder Gallego

Investigator

Here is Elder Gallego and an investigator!  He looks great!

11/14/11

HEY camaradas!!! como estan? this week flew by super fast, but there is so much i want to say!!! i am so excited to be a missionary, i love serving the people here, i love them and i feel as if they are all my literal family, and i know that through the gospel of jesucristo we can be able to reieve the blessings that we need!!

SO we are going to be having a white christmas....but with baptisms!!! YEAH!! we have been continually finding prepared people willing and ready to be baptized and are solid too!! we have luis, who is johns cousin, Jaime Lerma, she is the daughter a member that cleans the mission home, so that will be cool! We also will be setting up the wedding hopefully of yuriana y jorge soon, they are making plans to go to the temple together to visit, and it will be a great step for jorge, who is trying to become active again! With yuriana, we will also be baptizing her son jorgito!! Also we found a couple other new ones, Fransisco the colombian, Fransisco martinez, and fransisco Perez. There are so many fransiscos in this world!! haha they are all getting prepared and will be ready for christmas day!! As for other things, we have been super busy with trying to see all these people, and will be moving in under john next week!! that will be so sweet!!! but man we are so busy i have no idea how we will do it!

My companion, he is just the bet, and i love him!! he confirmed ana y fernan ayer and it was so cool!! his spanish is increible, and he is almost fluent!! we fel like we will stay together for at least one more with everything that is going on here, but i guess we will find out!! transfers are on tuesday next week!! Also, the district is doing great, we focused on the importance of not having baptism as the goal for our investigators, but the temple! if we have the temple in our minds as our vision, we will make the goal to get there, and baptism is part of the plan!! so its just a little step in the great and perfect plan that heavenly father made for us!! Keep the temple in your minds! DOnt do anything that would deprive you of the oportunidad a entrar!! its so importante that we make ourselves worthy to recieve the wonderful blessings of the lord! I know that the covenants that we make there are real and worth it! I love you, thank you for your support, and keep hechandole galleta en la vida!!

Elder Gallego

11/7/11

Hola amigos y familia!!! man this week was so awesome!! so im gonna give just a good quick rundown! the lord is just opening up doors like no other here!! the baptism went great yesterday! THe mendoza family of 4 was baptized, and there was also a hija de un miembro that got baptized! it was way sweet!! the whole ward stayed for it!! so insane the kind of support that we are getting here with all of the members! Weve got 15 more people too by the end of the year that want t be baptized!! So crazy!!

This week, we had a lot of preparing and teaching to do to get ready, i went on an exchange with the zone leaders, well just elder allen and i. For those that know Aaron Allen, he is awesome!! i felt like i was at home again! he is from mesa, came out with me and all, but i hadnt really been able to get to know him! turns out we know a lot of the same people, the reis familia and the hallsteds! well cecilia hallsted and i told him how her husbands brother baptized my parents!! he was like "no way!!" it was so sick!! i swear, people from arizona just have some sort of vibe that is so different!! DAHH!! i cant explain it it just felt way at home to be on an exchange with him!! we met some really cool people, and we found una familia mexicana and i was able to teach them!! it was so cool!! i love spanish!!

Elder Mailo is doing awesome, got a bit frustrated this week at his spanish and punched a hole in the door like the size of my head but it was so cool!! haha, he is learning so fast and i just tried to help him out a little more. SOmetimes im a little harsh of how he sounds like a puerto rican with his accent, and how its really bad, but yeah...we're all good :) He is doing much better now!! his spanish has improved so much since that day! and our unity has as well, we just had one of those weeks last week where you just get frustrated at everything and everyone! Thats how it is though a week before a baptism!! It was a great learning and growing experience! I sure to love my companion and all that he has taught me!

The weather here is getting chilly, we all got hit with a cold, but we're getting over it now! should snow again this week! last saturday and sunday we got pounded by some snow/ice stuff, looked like a slushy and my companion wanted to eat it, but in phillly thats not so healthy!! We also had to fight off an attack of cockroaches in the other elders' apartment!! haha it was a gigantic invasion of them under their fridge!! so nasty! so we have to move apartments, and it looks like they are goin to take our apartment, and we will be in the apartment right under John, our recent convert! so that will be so sweet!! ill keep you posted on all that ham!

Well, i dont really know whatelse to say, but the church is so true! the book of mormon is the convincing evidence of this, and i know that if you read it everyday with prayer, it will change your heart as it has done to mine! i love it and i love being a missionary! its all about love!! if you love that person, youll want to help them, no matter what they have done in the past!! trust me, after time, it will all work out!! there is a great family here, the familia perez that is preparing to get baptized pronto and they are an example of love! Satan is trying to tear the family apart, and its our job to not let that happen! without the family, its a little more difficult to live! So be united and share that love! the mision, its all about love!! I love it and i love all of you! Gracias!

Elder Gallego

10/31/11

ohhh another bomb week in the mission!!! this one is gonna be a little short, running low on time, but MAN!! i love the gospel!!

So this week, we didnt end up having the baptisms due to a couple little problems, no big issues and everything will be good for this week!! We are really seeing great progress in the development of the testimonies of the investigators that we have. For the first time in my mission, our investigators are all reading!! crazy huh? and not just little verses, like 3 or 4 chapters a day!! It is so chido to see the change that solo reading the book de mormon every day makes in the life of someone. i know that is what has really made the foundation of my testimony. The book of mormon is the central focus of what we teach, and why, because it talks about christ, and teaches his doctrine! thats why its so amazing!! and the people here and realizing it!! i love when people keep commitments!!

we have found a couple new families, yeah families, one of 4 and the other of 3 and they are super excited to get to learn more and to progress towards baptism!! We also will be baptizing Jorgito, the son of yuriana, she is still working on getting married so keep praying for her, but jorgito came up to me yesterday and asked about baptism, what it was, and why we did it and told me he wanted to go do it in his bath tub!! hahaha i was just dying laughing, but i was able to explain it all in good terms, talked to yuriana about it and she said go for it, so we will be doing that the 20th of nov!! super super stoked!! hopefully it helps jorge, his dad, get active and begin to change!!

also, yesterday the theme was food storage...to make things simple, get prepared! haha as i have seen the leaders tell us over and over for the past 14 years, it never hit me like it did yesterday!! so get ready so that IF something happens, youre prepared. Because when the time to make a decision has arrived, the time to prepare has already passed!! I am so glad that i am a missionary, that i have my great companion, who is doing so well, and teaching me so much, and to be part of this great work! im with my cuate elder farr when he says get out there and give the missionaries referrals!! sure we want food, but we want more people to teach! knocking doors is completely ineffective. In the 6 months i have been here, i have knocked 5 doors, why because the members are legit!! so be that member who brings others to the truth!! DyC 18:10! i love you all thank you so much for everything and natalie ashcraft, i sent you a letter like 3 months ago, and my dad said that you never got it so i will write a new one!! thank you for the tie!!

Elder Gallego

10/24/11

Well, i made it!! haha i passed the year mark, its kinda scary thinking about it, but it has been a year, and now that time, and all of the things that i have learned are going to come into great handy for the next year!! i know that the time is going to fly by even faster, so i am just not going to think about it!!

this week was just incredible!! john is doing great, he was working all week so we werent able to see him until saturday, but we did and we went over to his aunts house to talk to his cousin and her son, ana and fernan, well i felt impressioned to ask them to be baptized christmas day, so i did, and as i looked at her face, she was really hesitant. Elder mailo then testified of the importance of baptism, and that without it we cant live with god. Ana understood that, and was just so worried that it was too early, well then i was prompted to ask her to be baptized on the 20th of november...pretty funny but i did it, she got a huge smile on her face, and started asking about why we set dates. Elde mailo then testified of the power of goal setting, and that if we have a desire in our heart to truly change and repent, then we will set a goal, and that goal will lead to plans, and eventually we will have made the decision, and the blessings are then ours!! so as she sat there pondering that, the room went all quiet, and the spirit seriously was so tangible...she paused, and with tears in her eyes told us that she wanted to be baptized this next week!!! she has only been to church 2 times, so i had to talk to the assistants,and the zone leaders to see what they said, and they gave us the ok to go for it!!

So Ana, her son Fernan, Her mother Irma, and irmas mother Margarita, all mendoza, are getting baptized this sunday!!!! MAN!!!! the look on our faces when she said that to us, i dont think ill ever forget it!! john just about choked on his pupusa that he was eating, haha and elder mailo, was like "uh soa (means companion in samoan) did she just say that she wants to be baptized this next sunday?" i just smiled a him, and he just let out a big ol samuano laugh that just put us all into laughter!! he will be baptizing fernan and ana, john will baptize irma, and i will baptize margarita!! we gotta hurry with margarita, she looks like she couldve been there when noah landed the ark...haha so wrinkly and her skin is just like air soft, totally reminds me of grandma meo :) haha, loving it out here thats for sure!! the work is just going crazy!!

also, i was able to go on exchanges with elder lopez. he is a convert, of like 3 years, and is 25 years old!! he is mexican, from veracruz, and man so humble so willing to learn!! increible!! we had a great time, it was nice to have a native companion again for a day, i miss speaking spanish 24/7 with elder de leon!! we set some good goals on learing ingles and trying to make it easier on himself to meet people and try to establish a good relation. he has so much faith, and i know that his efforts will be noticed! i also was able to go on an exchange with elder burnham!! it was his last one as a missionary, and he is getting picked up at 2 today!! he was such a blessing to my mission, and i sure do love him!! he will be truly missed for reals!! elder mailo was in our area for the first time alone, well without me, and he did jut great!! taught a ton and was able to get to some less actives!! he is such a bessing to me in my life!!

district meeting was focused on trying to recieve revelation through church attendance, and w put it into play this week!! had 15 investigators in church, and a ton of the less actives just popped out of their holes!! it was so great!! also, dad, i need a copy of my line of priesthood authority...i dont have one with me...so if you could hook me up with that...that would be HAM!! (thats the new philly word for cool!) haha

anyways, this week was great, the work keeps going, and i am so blessed to be part of this area, and this ward!! its getting cold ot now, and we are just geting all these people floating around on the streets into the chapel!! its a great time to be a missionary!! GIt R Dun!! Toodles!!

Elder Gallego