February 10, 2014

WHAT A WEEK!!!!

Just for everyone's information: On your mission, when you have weeks where you feel like everything is going wrong... that just indicates that a miracle is waiting to happen.

World-wide, missionaries are expected to be teaching a minimum of 20 lessons a week. (yes, for some missions its harder than others, but the standard of excellence for all missionary team is 20 a week)

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this week, we finally had 22! Never before in my mission have I hit 20. Earlier in Victoriaville, we hit 18. But they weren't the best of lessons.

I can honestly say, 90% of the lessons we taught this week were powerful and meaningful. Teaching-wise, this has been the best week of my whole mission. With some new training we received at Zone Conference, my companion Elder Rock and I applied the things we were taught to do by The Mission. We have been time-managing well, and using all the tools given to us to be successful missionaries. We're going back to the basics, and doing what preach my gospel simply states. See, when you grow older in the mission, you start to naturally forget the fundamentals that The Lord has set out for his work. You start to gain confidence and trust in yourself and sometimes forget what got you to that point. Well, I feel like I started to become that way, and I'm super happy I was reminded of how to really do it right.

I now feel like I'm getting the hang of things. I feel like, I get it. Like, things just make sense and to always remember as we do things The Lord's way... we can not fail. My companion has been here for 5 transfers, and its his greenie area, so he will probably be transferred next week. Elder Rock is kind of sad because he thinks I'm going to baptize like 523487 people once he leaves. But needless to say, we have been preparing a lot of people to receive the blessings of baptism and its awesome!

Hey, if y'all get an email next Monday that says I'm training again, don't be surprised... all the missionaries out here keep casting curses on me that I'm going to train another greenie. Training is so fun... but so energy consuming. I don't know how I feel about that whole idea. And to be honest, I don't know if I'd want that right now haha. I guess we'll keep that suspense until next week where we will have our transfer calls! :)

Singles ward is awesome. Teaching people who are finding their personal testimonies is awesome. We teach young people who are trying to find themselves in life, who want real testimony not something they were born into. We teach people with abstract ideas, and high level of intelligence. We are challenged by theological, and religious students. We come across people who simply meet with us to just make a statement. It's awesome!!!!!

You all know me pretty well, and I'm a person that enjoys logical conversion. I love making "A Loving Heavenly Father" become logical to the common atheist, or college student. There is nothing more rewarding than bringing the gospel into these young lives. And there is nothing more fun than cracking jokes with people my age and hearing about the grammy's and justin bieber getting arrested. As you can see, The Lord knows where to put his missionaries. Lol.

Just the other day I taught a less active, who we're trying to have quit smoking weed. Its funny, because he happens to be a rapper. I asked him: "why and when do you smoke?" he replied: "Not often, only when I'm going to rap. It helps me thing freely, and more words come to my head faster." and I said: "hey, well I can rap pretty fast, and I don't need that crap".

I don't know, I thought that was funny.

Things are going well, just trying to work well with the ward council and kicking things into shape over here in Dows Lake. Just feeling nervous about a new companion, and a little stress from responsibilities... but other than that, I'M DOING AWESOME. Thank you for praying for me, I do feel them help me and my companion.

Until next time,

Elder Castrejon

ps. We're having a WHOLE mission conference March 22, with a member of the quorum of the 12 presiding, a member of the presiding bishopric, and a 70.

(When we heard this news... we pooped our pants.)

November 4, 2013

 It's November everybody! That's my month! And it has started off with miracles! miracles! miracles!

Last week my companion and had splits with the district leader and his companion. So I went to Drummondville to split with Elder Losee again and I worked over there on Halloween. It was very interesting. We contacted a media referral from the visitors center and we called them up. The zone leaders advised us to tell them we were friends of "K***L". So we called her up and she answered. (Elder Losee is a transfer younger than me but still got scared of the french and handed me the phone). I then started to talk to her and I told her: "Hey, we were sent here by "K***L" and we wanted to know if we could visit you, we are right outside of were you live actually" and she then started to curse and told me to tell "K***L" stuff... blah blah blah sfsdkhfkdshjfh ....

SHE WAS NOT HAPPY.

In a nutshell... the person that sent us to her house happened to be this 'sexual predator' who keeps harassing her handicap (blind) daughter over the internet.

... I KNOW. SCARRRRY.

I ended up figuring out who she was, what her experience has been with missionaries, what she liked, her family, so on and so forth. And she happened to be this old lady who was told by her doctor she doesn't have very much time to live.

I felt prompted to ask if she spoke English.

she did.

I than spoke to her in English and told her after being denied several times before to visit her: "My'am, we are the missionaries of Jesus Christ, and we would like to meet you and shake your hand and tell you how grateful we are for people like you in this world"

She really appreciated that and let us visit her.

We spoke with her and her daughter for 20 minutes and talked about the plan of salvation. She will now be receiving missionary lessons.

I can't imagine what would've happened if I would have quit at the sudden awkwardness that came from those first instances on the phone. Wow.

Anyways, the past 3 days have been unbelievable.

We keep ending up in the right places at the right time. I would go into detail but it would probably take more time than I am permitted.

In a nutshell... the Holy Spirit is real and it can guide you.

My companion and I felt prompted to bear our testimonies in sacrament meeting. I've never felt prompted to do so before on my mission. It was so strong and profound I could not resist (although we are counselled not to go up...) .. We went up.

As I stood up, the chapel got really quiet. it felt as though even the crying babies had been silenced. I opened my mouth and I felt like a French Puppeteer was taking control of me. Somehow I was speaking so fluently. That afterwards the members came up to me and told me how they admired the testimony I bared. I felt a reassurance that whatever I had said was true and that the families in Victoriaville needed to hear that. It was a nice feeling.

hmm... we also had a very powerful lesson with a former investigator who came back to church. It so happens, we committed her to baptism and she knows the church is true. If the Lord allows. We will have another 2 victoriaville baptisms. It was an intense lesson filled with tears and spirit. and SPANISH. She only speaks Spanish.

Well, I had Colombian Tamales and they are my new favorite ever.

Oh and just before my comp and I got to the computers, we thought we would go "thrift store shopping"!! YAYYY!

We went up to the thrift store where the door was locked but the sign said: "ring to open"... we rang and a lady came to the see through glass door and waved her head in disapproval. She wasn't going to let us shop at her thrift store. So I pulled out my wallet and waved money at her. She then opened the door and asked: "what do you want?" ... I said: "this is a store isn't it?" she answered: "Theres nothing for you here" (I could clearly see things that men would buy there) ... I answered: "We just want to look and maybe buy something" She said: "Your jehova witness" I said: "No, not at all" She answered: "sure, bye" and closed her business doors on us. 

The world is rapidly changing friends and family. It is getting further and further from the Lord.  Stay strong, keep your faith. God lives, Jesus lives.

Until next week,

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