mi cumpleaños en mexico!! (Semana 56)

Que tal mis amigos!!! Hows everyone doing?!?! I am doing pretty great here and still loving life here in Meixco!! 

Well this week was a pretty solid week of work, rain, birthdays, and conferences! 

Ok to start things off this week we have been working pretty well with the people we have right now. Jorge is doing really well and is progressing super fast! He told us that he had prayed and recieved an answer that the Church is true and that he needs to be baptized! The only problem is that he still doesnt have permision from his mom. We are still working with him on that and hopefully he can be baptized soon! We were also able to teach Sister Dolores Lucero and her family and one of their friends. It was a super cool lesson and they all came to church yesterday!! It was super cool because it was a whole bench filled with just them! 

I had my second birthday here in the mision!! Woohoo!! I have 20 years!!! Super crazy!! We celebrated it with a piñata (thanks mom!), a cake with the familia Amador (coolest fam here in Nuevo Laredo), some tamales from the hermana Pillado, and a Pizza Party and Oreo Cake with the familia Godina (the other coolest fam here in Nuevo Laredo)!! so yeah all in all super dope birthday!!! (And muchas thank yous for all the birthday wishes!!)

This week was also our Zone Conference and it was actually pretty good and i learned some new stuff! We talked a little about the Doctrine of Christ and focused on repentence. We talked about why its important to repent and how repentence is a really important gift from God that we don't take advantage of. Repentence doesn't always mean that you did something super bad, but rather a change from something that maybe not is so good so that you can become more Christ-like, which is really our goal here in life, to become more like Christ!

so thats basically all that went down this week on this side of the border! Hoping that all yall have a great week!!! Siga echandole ganas!!

les amo y les extraño!!!

con amor

elder mcclellan

Dia de Independencia!!!! (Semana 55)

QUE TAL!!! Hows everyone doing out there?!?!

Everything is going pretty well here!! I am sorry but I don't have that much time to write today!! It's been pretty busy!

This week was a pretty great week! It has been raining a lot but it's awesome biking in the rain! The only bad part is that you get soaked, but its all good! We have had a bunch of awesome things happen this week and I'll try to see if i can remember them all. On Tuesday we got to visit an hermana named Laura. She called us out of the blue last week and we were able to visit and teach her this week! She is so awesome and she really wants to strengthen her relationship with God! 

We also found another dope family that is super nice and funny! They are members but their son still hasn't been baptized but he really wants to!! We are going keep helping them and he is super excited to be baptized!

This week we also went on divisions with some of the youth in the ward. My comp went with Rogelio who is about to leave on his mission to Tijuana. They went and visited a super cool dude named Jorge who wants to get baptized! We made a goal with him to be baptized this month and now we only have to talk with his mom so he can have permision. I went with Samuel (he is preparing to go serve in Argentina) and with Miriam (another youth in the ward who is cool too) and we taught a a less active family and their two kids who haven't been baptized about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a great experience! The members here are super awesome and support us in everything. They go out on visits with us almost every day and the food that they make for us is super good!!!  We are blessed.

Just a quick thought I want to leave real quick is a scripture in Mateo 22 and it says
 37 Y Jesús le dijo: Amarás al Señor tu Dios con todo tu corazón, y con toda tu alma y con toda tu mente.

38 Este es el primero y grande mandamiento.

39 Y el segundo es semejante a este: Amarás a tu prójimo como a ti mismo.

Theses are the 2 great commandments! Love God! and Love your Neighbor! and who is your neighbor you might ask....It's Everyone!!! 

well i got to go!!

Les extraño y les amo!!!

con amor!

elder mcclellan!!

It's Raining, It's Pouring (Semana 54)

Howdy Y’all!!! How y’all all doin??  Sorry I gotta be super Texan because yesterday we went to the Rio Grande!!!! We were like 10 yards away from Texas!! It was cool!!

This week was a pretty average week filled with a bunch of rain!! Like a ton! Like we have had to ride our bikes a lot and it has been pretty ugly with the rain.  The streets fill up with water really fast here and they don’t drains. There are times when we are riding through about a foot of water getting soaked but its super fun!!  Other than just being a lot of rain here, there has also been a big Marine presence.  Since Nuevo Laredo is a border town with quite a few problems,  Marines are the Law here so its pretty cool. 

This week was also a bummer with some of our investigadores.....The family that we have been teaching has been really great but they couldn't come to church this week which was weird because they were really excited to go. When we called them right as church was starting they told us that they couldn't leave their house because their street was under water and they couldn't get to their car. But they are coming next week! 

We also had two pretty awesome things happen this week! So one day we were not having any success so we decided to say a prayer.  We said a very specific prayer to find a family of 4 that is ready to listen to us and that live in a green house and that the door is open and has a Ford Car out front. About 30 mins and contacting 5 houses that were like that we later knocked on one last door and a really sweet lady answered the door. She told us that she wants to listen to us and for her 2 sons and her husbands to listen too.

 It was so cool!! It was such a testimony building experience and we have a lesson with them this week! The other awesome part was that out of nowhere someone called us to check in to see how we were doing. It was so random but it turns out that other previous missionaries had been teaching her and her family but they lost contact. She called us and invited us over tomorrow to get to know her and her family. It was such an awesome experience!!

So yeah that’s has been our week. Pretty cool, pretty wet, and super fun! 

Well I got to go!

les amo y les extraño!

con amor

elder mcclellan

Elder Bednar and One Year! (Semana 53)

Well I officially have one year in the mission! A little over a year ago today I hopped on a plane and flew to Mexico! It's crazy how fast it has gone by!!! 1 whole year, 12 full months, 365 days!! Just crazy!!

This week was one of the coolest ever!!!

We started off the week pretty well! We worked pretty hard the first few days and we got to meet a lot of people! On 

Tuesday and Wednesday we had to bike just about an hour to get to lunch so that was rough! They lived about 14KM from our house...so yeah pretty far. We had to go and then come back...28Km...two days straight...We were tired to say the least. But hey it was worth it because the family is super awesome!!
The best part of the week though was on Saturday!!! So on Friday we had to take a 4 hour bus ride down to Monterrey because on Saturday we had a once in a life time opportunity!!! Elder David A. Bednar, one of the Twelve Apostles came and had a three hour conference with just us. We talked a lot about being converted unto the Lord and how having only a testimony isn't good enough. We also talked about Faith. How faith is one of the most important things in our life and how we show our faith through actions. How we as human beings are agents, not objects. We must act, not be acted upon. There is a scripture that I love in Doctrine and Covenants 58 verses 26-28 

26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

So yeah...we got to ACT!!! 

He gave an example of acting with prayers that we sometimes say when we go to church -

When we say ¨bless the people that didn't come today and that they can come next week¨ , Elder Bednar said, do you really think that God is going to sprinkle magic fairy dust on the less active people so that they can come next Sunday...I really don't think so. 

He then said if you really wanted to minister like Jesus ministered you have to act! In your prayer, say that we will commit to go visit and look for these people right after the prayer. He said that with faith, which means believing AND acting, comes blessings and miracles.

The last thing I would like to share is something that really touched me and everyone else in the conference. He said that you can't just Believe in Christ, you must Believe Christ. Believe that his teachings, his Gospel, and His Atonement is for YOU specifically! It is such a powerful principle! 

So that is my invitation for y'all. Don't just Believe in Christ, Believe Christ!  

les amo y les extraño!!! 

con amor

elder mcclellan