I'm just having a BLAST! (Semana 65)

So lets just say I am having a blast up here in Nuevo Laredo!!  We saw so many miracles as a zone this week and we had the best results that we have ever had here in Nuevo Laredo! 

Ok so I will start off here in our area with some amazing people that we found and are teaching! So we found an awesome family through some less active members of the ward. They are 3 kids and a mom. The grandparents are members but the rest of the family isn't and they told us that they wanted us to visit and teach them. We went with them on Friday and invited them all to church because the grandparents hadn't gone in 5 years and the kids had never gone. And the most awesome part is that they all showed up to church yesterday!! All six of them! SO that was so amazing! We also brought a girl to church that we had been teaching and she loved it. Her daughter was killed about 3 years ago and she has been so sad ever since. But yesterday she said she felt so much peace and she loved it. She is also ready for baptism and she is planning on getting baptized the 15th of December!

We also had Zone Conference this week and it was pretty good. Elder Diaz and I had to give a training so that was fun as always. We talked about how we can work better with members and have more success here in the mission. It was overall pretty good.

Honestly I don't remember what else happened this week because we are working hard everyday. OHHH something awesome is that Jorge and Angel and Angelo, people that Elder Alfaro and I found and taught in Viveros, were baptized this past week!!! Its was so awesome to see them enter the waters of baptism to make promises with God! 

A side note this week was also a blast because one night we just start hearing some loud bangs and we were like "ahhh those are just kids with fireworks" so we went back to sleep. Turns out that they were grenades and bazookas from the narcos lol.  It makes it even better that the narcos respect us and we are even friends with some of them! Its dope lol!

Something that I read a little bit about this week (and it turns out that my family did too) and that has been on my mind is this scripture in Alma -

“Alma 7:23-24 /  23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.  24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.”  May we all strive for these Christlike qualities remembering to be grateful in our circumstances.

Well thats all i got folks!

les amo y les extraño!

con amor 

elder mcclellan

district activity with tacos

it was elder balam's bday 

banana republic sweater...$1...i love it here

Be Thankful (Semana 64)

YOOOO que pachuca por toluca??? How the heck all y'all doing??? I am doing super duper awesome here in the Nuevo Laredo.

This past week we didn't have much happen here but we keep on grinding here in Mirador, talking with everybody, teaching a bunch of lessons and seeing so many miracles!!!

This week we have started a new focus on working more with the members and have had more success. It has actually been working really well and we are seeing some awesome results come from it. For example, we visited an Hermana two weeks ago and she was the only member in here family and we invited her to church and to look for opportunities to share the Gospel with her friends or family. Yesterday she actually came to church and brought her granddaughter Jennifer with her.  It is so awesome!  We are starting to teach her and she is loving it.

We also found an awesome girl named Karen this week. Her family are members in a different ward but she was never taught cause she moved here and the missionaries never found her. The way we found her was awesome though. We had a reference to go to a street but the person wasn't home so we left and talked to a dude in the street that wanted to listen to us. We went to his house but it turned out to be the wrong address so they told us to check another house and in that house they told us to ask a guy that  was outside cause he was the house owner and they rented there. When he went to go get the guy he knocked the wrong door and a girl came out and she was super excited to see us and asked us when church was so she could go. And that girl was Karen. So yeah it was super awesome!

Its so awesome to see the Lord's hand in His work here in Nuevo Laredo! 

And just to close here is a scripture that I like that I want y'all to focus on this week about the importance of prayer-

Alma 37:37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and He will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

So yeah do what Alma says! PRAY and GIVE THANKS!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving week!!!

les amo y les extraño!!

con amor!

elder mcclellan

we made tortas today!!

when its freezing and we don't want to shower

Happy Monday! (Semana 63)

YOOO! How y'all doing? I am just loving life here in Nuevo Laredo! It's honestly the best zone in all of the mission!! We have progressed so much as a zone and it is so awesome to see. We are a pretty tight group of guys and we are just having a blast up here.

Just some highlights from this super crazy week. SO we started off with just a normal week of work. Having a bunch of lessons and talking with a whole lot of people. We found some pretty awesome people to teach this week including an amazing family that we found last night that really want to learn about the gospel and want to be baptized and go to church!! It was such an awesome lesson and they are such great people.

We also had the opportunity to go down to Monterrey for a special conference with Elder Pino We had to leave at 4AM on friday just to get there so yeah we were tired jaja. We got to talk about the importance of Faith, Humility, Diligence, and Obediencia. We also talked about how important our attitude is. It reminded me a lot of football and Performance Course back home. They always told us that we can't really control that much of what happens but what what we can control is our effort and attitude. It's so true, we can always control how hard we can work and our attitude while we do it.

On Saturday we had a leadership council so that was awesome and uplifting. We talked about how we can work better with the members and have success in our missions. It was such inspired consejo and Elder Pino even told us that it was the best that he has been in, and he has been in a lot. After that we had to hop on a bus and head back up here, about a 4 hour ride. Overall it was a great, long and tiring 2 day experience in Monterrey. 

Yeah so thats about all I got for y'all this week. I am honestly still pretty tired but I am loving every moment here!! Have a great week!!!

les amo y les extraño

con amor

elder mcclellan

Dia de Muertos! (Semana 62)

Hey y'all!!! how all y'all doing???

Here in Nuevo Laredo we are killing it!!! Elder Diaz and I have been working hard and having fun! This week was actually a pretty tiring week but we saw the fruits of our labors on Saturday when Coral and Dulce got baptized! It was so awesome!! They were super excited and nervous at the same time but they were so ready.  After the baptism we were talking with Agripina, their grandma, and she asked us when she could be baptized. It was such an awesome experience and the Spirit was so strong! 

The rest of the week was a great and busy week with a lot of things to do. We started out with Divisions with the APs, Elder Garrido and Elder Riches which was super fun! They are awesome guys and we are all pretty good friends so it went really well.  We got a lot done that day and we partied in the night with some Dominos Pizza and some great convos! Then on Thursday we had interviews with President which was pretty good as always. Afterwards Elder Diaz and I went out to Anahuac to do divisions with Elder Ramos y Elder Ramirez. It was like an hour and a half away in bus, good times. We did some work out there for a while and had a pretty solid time. The only bad part is that we had to sleep on the tile floor because they don' t have extra mattresses.  That was rough because we got no sleep at all jaja. 

The craziest day was Friday! It was Dia de Muertos and let's just say it was super weird! The first thing is that there was a gun fight between the marines and the narcos right by us while we were teaching a lesson. The second is just a little bit crazier jajaj. There is a group here that worship la santa muerte something like unto a female grim reaper and so not a true saint.  We passed by a party for la santa and there was a narco truck with like 4 armed dudes paying their repsects jajaja.  It was probably the craziest thing I have seen in my mission jaja.

The last thing I'd like to share is a short and sweet scripture from 2 Nefi chapter 5.

"27 And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."

So I was reading a talk from Elder Jeffery R Holland this past week that talked about happiness. He says that we should always look for happiness even in the most difficult moments. We can use Nefi and his example from the scripture above. His life was not the easiest...actually it was pretty hard but he says that they "lived after a manner of happiness" so yeah thats my advice for y'all - BE HAPPY and live happily despite your circumstances.  

well I got to go! 

les amo y les extraño 

con amor

elder mcclellan