Monday, July 29, 2013




Wassgood,

So im sitten here trying to figure out what to write about cause there is always so much that happens during the week! This past week we had a difficult time finding new people...but we did find a great family yesterday. The familia Mantell. Its the parents, Rosalina and Jose, and the kids Edgar and Claraiso. We taught them the first lesson and everything went great. The mom, Rosalina, is the most interested because she wants a great future for her kids. The kids are 24 and 20 so they are grown up and already have kids but you can tell the mom loves her family very much. Usually when you teach families you talk to the dad a lot to try and convince the man of the house about the truthfulness of the gospel. The dad, jose, was very quiet so we'll see what happens. We didnt feel prompted to invite them to baptism so we'll do it the next visit. They are a great family and i can see them getting baptized one day!
So because he had a hard time finding new people...we continued to teach our investigators with baptismal dates. A few of them is a family of 4! The family Eligio. They are so great and love every time we visit them. We taught the plan of salvation that past week and they were dying to hear when we are going after this life. haha it was awesome! You should've seen their faces! 
We also have this man named Edgar who is part of a part member family. His wife daniela is a member and they have a little month year old baby. We've only taught him 2 times and he's already planning his baptismal service..hahahah its so great!! hes a really quiet guy so he said that he only wants his wife and baby and us to be there. haha its so funny! 
On sunday i gave a talk in church about the members helping the less actives come back to church. It was a great talk and i was VERY firm with the talk. haha i hope i didnt offend anyone! After sacrament i was nervous to talk to anyone cause they kind of looked mad...but as church went on i think they all realized that they need to do their part in helping people come back to church. haha cause after church we had ward council and all they talked about was helping the less actives return to church! Also when we were working yesterday we saw a few sisters from relief society driving around visiting people!! it was so awesome! Sometimes its scary to be firm with people, but when you're doing it for the lord...it all turns on to be good in the end. 
The hottest time of the year is starting here in monterrey and let me tell ya...ITS HOT GETTIN HOT IN HERE. i might just start taking of my clothes........haha nahh im playin. But its great cause every one offers us water and food so yeah i stay healthy. But its also great cause i each so much here im started to get a belly. i freakin love it!! :) But anyways, thats my week y'all! we have a few baptismal dates coming up so we'll see how it all plans out!! the baptism that we were going to have didnt work out...so hopefully in a few weeks, Oso, will be baptized! 

I love you all. 

Elder Needham
Hola familia,

Another great week of working and lots of success! I messed up on the name last week on where i am at...its called Tamaulipas Andalucia. its a very big area! We walked SO much...my shoes are getting destroyed already haha. sometimes we have to walk a straight hour just to go to lunch. But its worth it cause the food here is so dang good. 
We had a lot more success this past week with finding people and setting baptismal dates! We found a full family, Martha Antonio Victor, and Jennifer and they all accepted to be baptized on the 16 of August. And we found a young girl named Esmeralda, who also accepted to be baptized that day. We now have 12 baptismal dates and im still waiting to get that first baptism. I have a lot of confidence with those 12 dates that we'll get atleast one hahah, but we are working to get all 12!! and more!! We are working our butts off and i have realized that if we want success, then you gotta work every day likes its your last. Its just like football or basketball...play every game like its your last. This area is great and we've been having some great help from some of the members. We are trying to get the members more involoved cause if we want success...its going to come through the members. I mean...we can contact people all day, but the members know people and have friends. Everyone just needs to work together with missionary work...its the best thing to do. 
We had a crazy rain storm this past week, it was so sweet. We were setting up an appointment with Esmeralda and it just started pouring!! We took off running and i just took off from my companion. haha i felt like i was in a movie trying to dodge all the cars and big puddles. It was fun!
On sunday we had 3 invetigators come to church which was way exciting!! it was Oso, Daniel, and Esmeralda. Oso has his baptismal date this weekend so we're hoping it all works out! Daniel and Esmeralda are boy friend and girl friend and they are great people. Those 3 are some of our most progressing investigators. Hopefully ill get my first baptism this week!!! :)
Having a companion from mexico is definitely something different. haha we just think different so sometimes it gets really frustrating. But we work well together and are having lots of sucess! 
Also a funny experience, we visited this man named Alberto who has a date of baptism but we hasnt been improving lately so we were going to give him a serious discussion to leave him for some time...but they he told us that he received answers that everything is true!! hahaha how crazy is that?! me and elder soto left after the lesson and were so confused! it was awesome!! We have some great people we are teaching! But if we want success, then we have to be 100% obedient and have diligence each day. Thats the key to success in the mission. Oh and LOVE THE PEOPLE.

LOVE YOU FAMILY. PEACE.

Elder Needham

pictures from first area!!
1. Elders 
2. Perla and Ramiro(fruit people)
3. Hermanas

Monday, July 15, 2013

 Good bye to Trainer Elder Boden

New Companion Elder Soto
My family that i miss so much,

WOW WHAT A WEEK. So all the emails that i've gotten this past week have said that you cant wait to hear about my week. So yeah a lot has happened. My emails are going to be different now since im not with Elder Boden any more and he has that little key board thing so im just going to change it up a little bit and do it like brittons emails. So i got my new companion and his name is Elder Soto. He is straight out of mexico city and he has 6 months in the mission. My new area is called Tamaulipas in the stake of Audulacia. But guess what?! ok heres the craziest part. This area has been closed for some time....And we both are brand new to this area and starting from a little bit of scratch. We showed up to the house last tuesday and just kind of sat there for a sec cause we didnt know what to do. When we found out that we were both going to this area and opening it we were scared out of our minds. So i asked Elder Larson, the assistant, how come the assistants and president walker(he was still here to make the transfers) decided to put farely new missionaries in this area that has been struggling for many years. And he told me when they were deciding which missionaries to put in Tamaulipas, they knew they had to look for 2 good missionaries. When they thought of me and Elder soto, they had a sense of peace come over them and knew we were meant to be sent here. I was confused cause im so new to the mission still and still learning. But when we arrived to the house and area, i knew i was here for a reason. I knew that the Lord had specifically called Elder Soto and I to work in this area. Tamaulipas has been open and closed many times cause it just doesnt have much success. So that right there, helped us set a goal to change this area and keep it open for a long time. This past week was the hardest week of my mission, but the most rewarding. We tried to be 100% obedient and do everything with exactness. We ended the week with 9 baptismal dates.
This work is amazing. Even though it takes every energy cell of my body, even though its 110 degrees everyday...this work is for the Savior. The only thing that keeps me going is my tesitmony i have gained for this gospel and my love for my family and Jesus Christ. We have been so blessed this past week i cant even explain. I've just been working my butt off cause i still dont have my own convert...i have a feeling we're going to get one soon.
Elder Soto is a very hard worker and a great example to me. He is very obedient which helps me a lot, but sometimes he's a little TOO obedient which gets annoying. But ill learn a lot from him. Its so weird cause we are the same age and we're just out here on missions working in random places. haha its just like chillen with a buddy from home and doing missionary work. He's a cool kid and we have a lot in common. He speaks pretty good english so he can help me out a ton with my spanish.
I'm not really sure what else to say besides this past week was crazy but we had a ton of success. I hope you're all well and i miss you all so much. The mission is hard. But its a duty. Love you family. I pray for you all every night. Peace and Blessings <3
Elder Needham

Wednesday, July 10, 2013




Aloha,

Man, these weeks go by so fast. During the week i feel like i havent written you guys forever, but when it comes to monday i feel like i´m always writing you. So this week i almost died.....no im kidding. But hey there was a gun shoot out like 5 minutes from our house. We didnt hear it or anything but thats still cool haha. ALLRRIIGGHHTTY THEN, ill get started on the week.

Monday: I had to go to the dentist cause i have to get a root canal, and i was scared cause i didnt know if dentists from México would be good, but it was normal. All went well. Always we went to a mall that is here called Citydel and it is so freakin nice!! its like a mall back home! And its like heaven here cause everything is pretty expensive here in pesos, but its so cheap in dollars. So i just unloaded on some ties. I got 3 nice ties for $15! I was in heaven. Im gonna go back there at the end of my mission and just buy a ton of gifts and what not.

Wednesday: today we had our first multi-zone conference with the new president bird. It went well and everyone seems to like him a lot. I personally think hes going to be a great president, he makes things fun! We talked about basketball and football so thats cool. Haha and he just cracks jokes all the time so its nice to have an american adult to talk to sometimes!

Thursday: today we UNLOADED on FOOD!! it was ridiculous. In the morning we ordered a pizza. At 2 we had our daily meal with a member. At 5, *** and ***, some investigators invited us to their house to eat carne asada, which is a meat and they made it into tacos. And then some of my favorite members, the familia cruz, invited us to their house at 8 to celebrate a surprise party for their brother in law, ***. And he´s the guy that i became best friends with right when i got to this area, so that was fun! I signed a tie and gave it to him for his b-day, he´s a cool guy!

Saturday: so remember that week how i baptized the mom of that family? their name is familia ***. And then i said the dad couldnt get baptized yet? Well today he got permission and was able to get baptized! it was so awesome! And i was able to baptize him also!! Its just an amazing experience baptizing someone. I did baptisms for the dead before my mission with like ty josh and carson, and i baptized them..which was way cool. But baptizing someone for their own salvation is just AMAZING. The guys name is *** and he said he felt so happy and peaceful right after the baptism! it was great!! Also we visited *** and gave her a tour of the church!! She absolutely loved it when she walked in the sacrament room, the spirit was so strong and it was amazing. I feel like shes going to get baptized soon!

Sunday: today was a wacky day. So we went to church and all was good, and some guy that we had randomly contacted the other day and invited to church CAME today. It was awesome. We sat through sacrament and then after we taught him in the first lesson in a classroom. During the lesson our ward mission leader came in and he was doing great sharing his conversion to this man, whose name is ***, and then they started talking about money and me and elder boden are like what the poop? so *** mainly came to try and get some money to help him out, but he actually knew a lot about the church so hopefully we´ll see him back next week! I can totally see him getting baptized one day! Also this past week we had been planning on Elder Boden getting transferred so during church he was like saying bye to a few members and stuff. And during the night we got calls from the Zone leaders. And guess what? Im out! We were both SO shocked. Usually i would be staying and he would leave cause he has more time in this area then i do. But i guess president received revelation for me to transfer to another area! But i wont find out where im going or who my new companion is till tomorrow, so ill let you all know next week! I gotta pack everything up and try and quickly say bye to a few members. I cant believe im leaving....im made some great relationships here. Missions are crazy, you make such great relationships and then they just boot you out. haha it sucks. But im excited to see where im going!! woo!!

Love you all

Elder Needham

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

July 1, 2013

Aloha,



So its getting pretty hot here.



Monday: as a district, we all made an American Breakfast! We made it all at the church and it was so good! We had pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. Haha i cante ven explain how fast i chowed it down! It was so good



Tuesday: so we went and visited the Familia *** and it was just the mom there. Right away we found out that she hadnt read, again…so we stuck to the plan and had to have a serious talk with them. It was very hard to do it and i hope i dont have to do it often. This has been my favorite in the misión so far, but they just werent progessing. When we left her with a prayer, right when i walked out of the house…i just wanted to cry. It was rough yáll.



Thursday: we continue meeting with *** in the street and she becomes more and more interested each time. We read 2 nephi 31 with her and everything just clicked with her. It was awesome. She´s a really kind lady. And her and her husband always buy us like drinks or something, haha i feel bad but hey its free. We also had a Ward misión activity and we had a few investigators come so that was exciting. The activity was on Lehi´s Dream. It was fun!



Friday: today i had exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Cayetano. He was companions with Elder Larson before and we have always got along pretty well so it was a nice fun day. Hes from De´Jefe? Mexico, so we spoke spanish all day which was nice. We also just have a lot in common so it was nice to talk to someone like him for a day. Ill put up some pictures! Oh and also, *** and her husband *** actually live in Elder Cayetano´s area but they´re always selling fruit in my area, so thats why we teach them. But this day with Elder Cayetano, we were walking and just randomly saw them at their house. Ha it was way weird. Elder Cayetano and me ended up teaching her at the house and it was good that now the zone leaders know where they live!



Saturday: today was a very exciting day. The hermanas in our district had some baptisms today of a family of 4. And i was able to baptize the mom! It was way fun! I was suppose to baptize the dad too but he wasnt ready to get baptized today because of some personal things that i cant say, so hopefully he can in a couple weeks..Its a way awesome family! And it was a great baptismal service.



Sunday: well the new president came in this past week and today he came to our church cause he had a meeting with the dad of that family that was baptized yesterday. We went to the church to meet them and they´re completely different tan President Walker. Haha he´s from California and speaks Little spanish. His names President Bird and his wife…doesnt speak ANY spanish. Ha it was so weird just talking to adults in english cause i havent done it for like 3 months! But its good to have people from the U.S. they are way great people and i already love them! They´re gonna do great!

I love you family and i miss you everyday. But things are going great here. One more week with training and then im most likely getting a new companion. WE'll see!!

Con Amor,



Elder Needham