What up, FAM!!

Hey hey!!

Sounds like everyone had a busy week! It's good to know that you're all doing well and keeping yourselves anxiously engaged in good causes. I also had an excellent, miracle-filled week with my son Elder Flores. Sorry the "Man Expo" was lame Dad...haha I can't imagine what they would have there. Not sure if I want to. To be honest, I really enjoy being in the city a lot more than out in the boonies. It was a nice little surprise when I got transferred...I was mentally preparing myself to be out in the middle of nowhere for at least six months. I'm definitely grateful to be among the chilangos again...I love these people so much. I was missing the dirty street tacos for sure.

Looks like the whole Honey Business dealio is taking off! That's great news! You should sell Budge's Golden Sunshin Honey down here in Mexico. That would be "sweet" hahahaha. Well I'll just let you all in on how my week went.

Well I'll just start off by saying that the week started out pretty slooooww. We had a sweet District class over at the Stake Center in Aragon; I talked about the importance of inviting investigators to fulfill commitments, having them commit themselves, and the importance of verifying the commitments afterwards. It was a really fun class. On Tuesday we just went out contacting in the morning...and not a single person accepted. But the Lord knew we were working so he decided to give us an awesome blessing--the Bishop from a different ward in the Stake (where there are currently no missionaries) called us and told us of a complete family that went to Church by themselves on Sunday, and the Bishop told us he set up an appointment with them in the Chapel on Tuesday night! It was great. All of them accepted a baptismal date for the 21st of November (this coming Sunday), and they're progressing really well. BUT, the missionaries from their ward finally arrived so we'll be passing that family along to my other son, Elder Montoya, and the other missionary whom he is training.

On Wednesday we went to visit a good handful of dry members that members from the Ward told us to go visit. We decided to listen to them and went to go visit...and I'm always reminded that there's always a reason WHY these investigators are eternal investigators...they just don't want to progress. Kind of a bummber but we're trying to win the confidence of the members, and visiting their referrals is an important part of that. Como dijo Nefi...pues, ¿ya que?

Thursday we decided to put the ol' Celestial References to the test again...we spent a lot of time praying and deciding where the Lord needed us to work that day. So we chose a few streets, knocked all the doors and contacted everyone in those streets...again to no avail. But did that get us down? NOO!!! Of course not. Getting down isn't worth beans! We continued to work and went to a few appointments we had, which kind of didn't work out either. We checked our online referrals and checked some of those out too, and set up some appointments.

We had a sweet District Leader Council on Friday, and we learned a lot about setting goals and how to accomplish them, and the Zone Leaders showed us Elder Walk's (did I tell you he's assistant now?) "Plan of Action"--or in other words, the process from getting from a desire to seeing results, and it's helped us figure out a lot of things we can do better in our own area. I love that Elder.

Saturday we saw some AWESOME miracles. My companion and I were both thinking..."we've worked hard all week, we've been super obedient...where are the miracles?!" And, lo and behold, we run into the Assistants from the Mexico City South mission (their offices are down the street from our house). We stopped to greet them, and started to chat a little bit to get to know each other. We had previously met an AWESOME investigator my first week here, but he only works in our area and lives in their area. We asked them if they knew him and if they had tried to teach him. They said that they had tried teaching him, but they could never find him at home because he's always working. They said, "Go and teach him and baptize him". I'm not one to question commandments or anything like that, so that's the current plan. We're going to be teaching him this week and all the good stuff.

So we continued talking, when a lady just came up to our little circle and asked "Are you guys Mormons?" We said yes, and she said that she had had some curiousity for some time and wanted to learn more about the Church! It was awesome. We took down her address and we have an appointment with her tomorrow night.

Moral of the story: Just be good boys and girls, obey the commandments, keep your covenants faithfully, and just put your trust in the Lord. If we don't do anything to interfere with the Spirit's guidance, we will receive the blessings the Lord has prepared for us. And a lot of the time, that just means being in the right place at the right time.

Elder Bednar, President Eyring, Brother Craig C. Christensen gave an awesome Stake Conference broadcast from Salt Lake on Sunday. It was absolutely incredible. What stuck out to me most is what Elder Bednar said about receiving revelation. He compared receiving revelation to three different types of experience with Light: the way light comes when we turn on a lightswitch (immediate revelation from God, i.e., Joseph Smith's first vision, Paul's vision on the road to Damascus), the way light comes into view slowly at daybreak (the more common way to receive revelation), and the light we receive at daybreak, but on a cloudy day. Needless to say I was able to receive several answers to very important questions I had.

Family, Mom, Dad, brother and sisters, brothers-in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, best friends: This Church is directed by Jesus Christ Himself. He has called and authorized His servants to instruct us and help us walk in the path that leads to Eternal Life in the presence of our loving Heavenly Father. Sometimes we need to walk in the daylight we receive on a cloudy day, and trust in what the Lord has revealed in these last days to guide our path. We will not understand everything perfectly. But we can have a perfect trust in the commandments, the council, and the wisdom we receive from the Lord through His authorized servants, and through our own personal revelation.

Go to the temple.

Elder Budge

PS I'm sending some photos of my District, of a 300 peso Jenga game I bought for District Class (I guess you could say that Mom bought it, haha!), and my new son, and my agenda for the month of November.