May 12, 2014

Eddy came back into reactivity. Roberta (lady in purple) just got her answer about the book of Mormon and knows its true. Caroline (purple skirt) wants to serve a full time mission. And the old man with the hat is being prepared to be baptized as well. Through Eddy, his parents, his siblings and 4 non members have been introduced or re-introduced to the church.

March 3, 2014

IT'S MARCH ALREADY?!?!?!I hope you all realize that on May 1rst. I will be out for 1 full year.

WHAT THE HECK?

Anyways, I'll share a cool experience I had this week.

So my new companion Elder Hardy is a NERD. I love him!

He listens to classical music, eats like a pig, has a funny voice, super intelligent when it comes to the gospel and other smart stuff. Hates math though. Super creative. Played trombone for the BYU marching band. Has a problem with contacting people. Makes really sarcastic jokes. And this week he had a dream that he pee'd himself so he woke up and changed his pants, then realized it was just a dream.

This is going to be an awesome transfer. Hahahahahaaha.

Anyways, like I said... Elder Hardy has a hard time talking to people on the fly. So we've made goals to talk to more people. So one day, on the bus home. We sat down in different areas of the bus so we could talk to people and Elder Hardy started to talk to some "big bearded lady" (he described her as) ... and I noticed he was contacting her!!! so I said to myself: "If Elder Hardy is doing it, I gotta do it too!" ... so I look to the person I'm sitting next to and it is a young Chinese man.

FYI: Lately I've been learning how to speak some Mandarin Chinese so that I can contact people and testify.

So I decided to practice my Mandarin. I contacted him in Chinese and set up an appointment with him! (He spoke some fair English as well) He is what you call a golden investigator.

He expressed to me how all his life he has wanted to "follow God" and how he liked previous experiences with going to church. He just moved here for school and needs friends. I'm praying Greg (his name) will get baptized. I just know it!!!

Anyways, that's my short story! :)

this is a picture of Simon. I taught him on splits with the Mandarin Elders and he was baptized 2 weeks ago! This week I did a baptismal interview for an Islam guy named Arzan and his baptism will be this weekend! So excited!

Have a great week!!! 

(oh yeah... I ate pupusas last weeks for the first time on my mission)

January 27, 2014

Hello everyone!

This week has been a faith testing week.

8 of our lessons got canceled in a row on us between 2 days.

Our investigator with a baptismal date for Feb, 1, 2014 blocked our phone number and is now hiding from us (let me tell you, this guy is totally sane, and has a huge testimony of the restored gospel) and we dont know whats going on!!!

My companion lost one of his tags... ugh.

Ok, I'll stop naming off all the negative things that happened this week.

POSITIVES! YAYYY.

Our district is having another baptism this Saturday!She is Chinese and awesomeeeeeee.

We went out knocking doors with a member named Paul and basically, we got into a apartment with 2 young girls from Africa and he testified to them of his conversion and how the book of Mormon is true and made one cry! Of this experience the girl said: "I'm so sorry... everything was just going wrong today, and all my plans were failing... and I was having a really rough day... UNTIL YOU CAME AND KNOCKED ON MY DOOR" ... (ahh... the old fashioned favorite words of a missionary)

have a great week!

ps. in case you're wondering why my emails are getting shorter... its because I now have to write to the mission president every monday about the district... and it takes long haha sorry fam!

LOVE YOU!

Elder Castrejon

October 21, 2013

ITS-GETTING-CHILLY. (just saying)

You know, I always have these cool "opening the red sea spiritual experiences" but the moment I get in front of the computer, I can't remember them!! Well, let me be random as usual.

Yesterday, we contacted a Muslim. He let us in and fired away. Spirit of contention from the very very start... but of course Elder Castrejon had to learn more about his beliefs and share some of his, so he did.

We were there for about 20 minutes, just having this Muslim "teach us the truth" and telling us Jesus was only a prophet, NOT the son of God-"Mohammed wrote the Koran, Thomas S. Monson is not a prophet, blah blah blah, try to ask me a question I don't have the answer to"

I'd say it was pretty intense. I definitely learned a bunch from that one conversation, very interesting fella. When we left, we were sure he felt content and happy about how he "won" his little battle. It was fun. (all in French of course)

Hmmm...

Oh, this week, we decided to take a plate of rice crispies to a potentials house. We had never met the parents before and we wanted to meet the parents of the family there. So we gave them treats and told them we would return to share a message about how families can be together forever and they accepted! OH THE POWER OF TREATS :)

So we have this less active brother, right? And apparently he used to have this really strong testimony and we've been working with his family on helping him return to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we have never been able to find out the root of his departure from the church... or in another words, "why he left".

but this week something very interesting happened.

We contacted into a man who claimed to be his boyfriend.

WOAH.

Yeah, you can say that again... and we are not even sure his family knows this or if it was a joke or something but now we are soooo lost. Haha... it was rather interesting. Anyways, we offered the man to hear a message about eternal happiness and he denied us... (of course)... but hey, we tried.

What else what else what else...

So our branch president really loves ping pong...? For some reason, and he bought 2 ping pong tables for the branch. So we play with the youth & non-member youth from time to time, and I feel like I have the skills of Forest Gump. Elder Noel and I are unbeatable. (Except for Brother Labbe... brother labbe is thee equivalent to the Olympic China Ping Pong Team)

Oh... this morning we finally had ICE on our windshields.... YESSSSS.

Snow should come in the next couple days. YUP, and we ARE NOT READY-AT-ALL.

As for our investigators...

We are teaching a Spanish family of 3 tonight and we hope to commit them to a baptismal date. Pretty exciting!!!

There is nothing like the joy we missionaries get from seeing someone grow to know the gospel is restored on the earth today!

NOTHING BETTER!

Until next time,

Elder Castrejon

August 5, 2013

Bounjor Tous!!! Cava bien?

2 weeks ago, my companion and I were privileged to be the witnesses at little Lorenzas baptism. She was baptized by her father and at her baptism there were 33 non members. The stake president told us to call in an extra team of missionaries. So we had help from the Drummondville Elders to contact each non member at that baptism. It was a spiritual event. The family has 4 beautiful little children and they sang ``families can be together forever`` before the baptism and the spirit was so powerful. All the non members were there to witness it. In fact, there was more non members than members. After the baptism, we contacted everyone and I met the Grandfather and Uncle of little lorenza, and they spoke Italian, English, Spanish, and French so I got to speak with them in 3 of the languages I know. It was an awesome conversation. I told them I would visit them when I move to Montreal because they live there and its 2 hours away. I will soon send the Elders over to them because the Uncle really enjoyed the unity in our church and told me they don't have that in his catholic church. Anyways... the baptism was great. We got some potentials but all in different cities. We sure have the trust of the members here in Victoriaville, they really do rely on us for things. Its nice.

We met a man a week back who was an ex-jehova witness. We had a pretty heated conversation about religion and while we had him read the intro to the Book Of Mormon he closed it like it was blasphemy before his very eyes. (he was a very kind guy though) ... as he closed the book as if though he was going to be sick, we testified to him but everything bounced right off. Later that night, I thought to myself, wow... how.... just how. Its like I`m ``throwing my pears before swines.`` ... Anyways, that experience taught me a good lesson.

So in correlation meeting with the branch president (because we have no ward mission leader) My companion and I have began to start the tradition of FATHERS AND SONS here in Victoriaville. We are making preparations to have a camp-out at the end of this month, and I am stressing this activity to the members so they can bring their friends and sons plus fathers. We are starting up great activities for the members, such as movie night, culture night and etc. Its going well so far!

Its my 2nd transfer already and by the end of this month it will be my 3rd. Time is going so fast. But my companion and I are staying in VICTO! :)

The biggest miracle we have had here thus far is CLAIRE.

CLAIRE is what you call, an ``ETERNI-GATOR``. She has been a on and off investigator for the past 8 years and her best friends are Mormon. She has had a baptismal date before and it fell through. None of her family are members. (2 kids 2 parents) In fact her mother is a Eternigator as well. Her and her mother. Her father is against the church, super prideful and catholic. The son follows the fathers example. They are originally from Haiti. Anyways, one day she texted us for a lesson. That lesson changed her life forever. As we taught and talked to her, we decided to give her a new baptismal date. She rejected it at first, but we said according to what the spirit directed and she was then ok with it. I was so in tune with the spirit that I said a lot of bold things to her this day and I made her pray then and there in front of us, that if she would be baptized on a certain day. She ended up praying and started crying. I testified to her that this day would be a day her and her family would remember forever and that the wait was over

.... This Friday (or Saturday) she will become the ONLY member in her family and my companion will have the blessing of baptizing her. Her father and brother refuse to come. But I know she will be blessed and will be an example to them. She also told us in an appointment that she wants to serve a mission (in south korea hahaha) ... Her testimony is so strong and even as a non member, in high school she finished Seminary as a scriptorian. We are so happy. I can`t put it in words. The ward is wonder how did we do it. We just tell them its not us, its the Lord. I`m sure the ward thinks we`re big hot shots or something because of our 3 baptisms together. People are just ready... ready for the mix Elder Fontaine and I bring to the mission field in Victoriaville.

So both of the brakes on my bike broke last week and it was soooo hard to stop. My companion told me to brake by using my back shoe on my back tire and my shoe got THRASHED. hahahaha...

We tend to get rained on quite a bit... you can never tell when you will get POURED ON. And since we dont have a car... we are always biking! Its fun though.... COLD but fun...

oh and we got groceries on bikes... it was quite a sight....

We met with a less active named Guille. We always visit him but this time we visited him, he told us his convert story and said he saw an angel and thats what made him be baptized. Crazy stuff. He saw his angel twice... weird.

I love people who stare at us and forget the light turns green. I also love people who talk about us behind our backs and say mean stuff. But i hate being called Jehova witness. The Jehovas here are hardcore, they take ``tracting`` to a different level. The force themselves upon people so people fear men in ties and with books ... haha. Its always their first impression of us. ``La temoigne de Jehova!!!!`` NO! WE`RE THE MORMONS.

Teaching English every tuesday is rather fun. I get relate to people here learning a new language just like me! They`re are so hilarious. One of my students brought me and my comp. a fruit smoothie last week. She is so sweet!

Also, the families from France here eat FRENCH CHEESE. Hardcore moldy stuff and, I can`t eat it. They always joke around trying to give it to me and im like noooo! I`m lactose intolerant! and my companion is from france so he helps the members force me to eat it ... ahhhhhh hahahahaha... its an experience.

The Becquereau family says they will make escargot for me soon... OH MAN.

We found a new investigator named Bruno. In a nutshell, he let us in, he was super kind, and he said that THE BOOK OF MORMON WAS THE ANSWER TO HIS PRAYERS. He believes in some weird stuff though.... so we`ll see happens with him. We`re excited for him. He said he literally prayed the week before to have a new set of scriptures because he felt that the bible didn't contain the fullness of the gospel. PRAY FOR BRUNO! :)

Well, I guess I`ll end this email with some of my personal feelings.

Before my mission people always told me I was humble. That they always admired my humility. Well, Being on the mission I have learned that I am not as humble as people think. Being quiet and obedient does not make one, ``humble``. Not being able to teach people as well as I could in English, not being able to say what I want to say in my prayers, not being able to target a persons needs the moment I meet them and ask them questions they might need to hear at that time in English, not being able to sound as good as my companion when I know I could do just as well in MY language.... THAT IS HUMBLING. Praying for the strength to retrain my pride. Constant prayer with heavenly father to give me the energy to learn and loosen my tongue... THAT IS HUMBLING. Being on my mission is really teaching me true, and Christ-like humility. I am so grateful for all the trials I have already been through, and I pray I can be more humble. Think about what you could work on and pray for the strength to achieve that goal. The Lord will strengthen you. I promise, because I know how hard it is now. I love it here and I love you all. Keep choosing the right and until next time where I write you another huge letter.

Elder Castrejon