Oh Happy Day... July 27, 2011

hey there!

yeah i had a great week here in chicago. it's a little strange being back here in my old area. but it's good to see the members again and we're trying to work really hard so that we can grow the work. i'm not going to lie, it's less stressful as a district leader than it is as a zone leader. i feel like i can focus better on my area and i am responsible for less missionaries and have more frequent contact with them so that's cool. i enjoyed the time that i was called as a zone leader though. i learned a lot over those months. so my very first apartment caught fire due to an unattended grill or something like that. crazy huh? that happened to some missionaries on like the 1st of this year. but we have a really sweet new apartment now though. i really like it.

thats awesome that you are hitting the gym! sometimes it's hard to start when you don't do it for a while. so yeah all the missionaries got dvd players for the apartments. we have been given the preach my gospel training videos and we use those a lot for examples and to see how we can better our own teaching skills. it's really neat and i think it's effective! and i'll be able to use p90x in the mornings too so that will be cool!

thats great that gramps is getting so many blessings! i miss him and i can't wait to talk to him in spanish more. he's gonna have to teach me the Colombian accent though because everyone says that it's awesome. everyone thinks that it's a beautiful accent. has he gone to church at all? how come he doesn't want to get baptized??

well things are awesome. i miss and love you all. but i love this work. we went on exchanges on monday. i went to another elders area and we had a great time. the Lord helped us see miracles. we were knocking doors so that we could find them some new investigators and we approached a family that was trying to blow us off saying that they were catholic and believed in the virgin mary. but we didn't let it phase us and began talking to them about prophets. the woman we were talking to seemed touched at some of the questions we had for her and she agreed to listen to us. we taught her and her mom and they loved what we had to say. the elders are going to visit them again tomorrow i think. and on Sunday we saw miracles in our area too! we were trying to reach our goal of new investigators and we needed two more for the week. and we only had like an hour left of proselyting time. so we went to work!!! we started talking to people and knocking doors. i recognized one house that we got to and i had taught there before, but they didn't progress. maybe it was now their time to listen to the gospel! turns out they weren't interested... BUT! we kept going and the very next house we found a whole family that listened to us! they were really nice and we have hope for them. they are going to meet us at the church this saturday so that we can give them a tour and teach them a little more. i hope that they feel the spirit and want to come to church sunday!!!

oh how merciful the Lord is. blesses us when we are trying our best.

i love and miss ya'll tons!

elder derek munoz

July 20, 2011

hahah!

 

i knew you would enjoy that mom! it's been fun. my comp has helped me branch out and try stuff like that and it's been good. i like cooking and eating healthy much more than before.

 

man that must be such a change that things are so quiet and everyone is gone now. that's super relaxing now though yeah.? and that is SUCH a cool experience to go do baptisms for the dead with all those who hadn't done that before. did you know that's what our stake here has been doing? it's a GREAT idea. dad said that the stake president was thinking about doing it on that level too. i think it's neat. and you got to be apart of it! way to go mom!

 

i'm nervous about my mission president saying no. but i still want devin to come say hi. how do you feel about that? hahaha (don't judge me, i'm not perfect ;) )

 

thanks for your prayers! we have been doing really well together. i was truly hoping to serve one more transfer with elder swenson, but.... my time is up!!! i'm finally being transfered. i had a good run. 11 months in the ward! can you believe that? oh my i love this ward. i honestly think that it's one of the best in chicago and my area too. we have a ton of cool members! well my time was good but now it's time for a new adventure. can you guess where i'm going?? well... i'm staying in the city... somewhere that i'm familiar with... hahha i'm going back to the area where i started my mission!!! can you believe that? i'm stoked. i will actually know what i'mdoing this time around and how to speak spanish. i'm moving back to the south side in 26th street. i'll be in a new apartment though, i'm not sure if i told you but my old apartment burnt down. haha. i'll be serving as a district leader in the Chicago Zone with an elder hancock. adventures lay ahead!

 

we've had some awesome adventures recently though. my companion and i have been teaching a lot and really picking up the work in the area. we have found several people to teach and gosh dang it! i'm going to miss out on some baptisms for sure. we are teaching a Cuban lady that i'm pretty sure i talked to you about. she is really nice and interested in the gospel. she has been to church before and thought it was beautiful. the other woman that's really cool is a dominican lady. she's the mother of Carmen who has been meeting with missionaries for YEARS and has always loved the members of the church. but her husband didn't approve of "mormonism". apparently he has had a change of heart though! she should be baptized within a month. her mother has expressed interest in the church now and went to services. she loved it and now wants to prepare for baptism too!!! many good things have beeen happening in the area. many miracles from the Lord.

 

well thanks for sending me p90x! i'm really excited to get it. and AH! i'll be sure to send pictures soon. sorry i'm so lazy about that. forgive me! i'll try to print some off today. so my most recent convert, juan ramirez gave me a gift when i said goodbye. he gave me a 2 and a half feet high statue of a bear with a chicago Bears jersey and helmet. hahah it's really cool, i'll send a pic. i'm going to miss the people here in this area. and in the whole ward. they've taught me a lot and i love being able to serve them. but i look forward to serving chicago 2nd ward too. i'm a much better missionary now than when i started and i hope they'll be able to see the changes in me.

 

love you tons and miss you tons!

elder munoz

 

make this week an awesome one!! everyday choose to make it a better day than yesterday

Missionary Ninja... July 13, 2011

hey hey!

i'm doing so great. i mean lets be honest. the mission is rough. but i love it and it's all worth it! but i'm doing so good you have no idea! i've been writing in my journal, doing p90x, eating healthy, and we've been finding tons of people to teach!!

I love this photo! Me & my buddy fighting evil!

so it sounds like you all still haven't had a ton of time to just relax yet! still trying to recover from everything? haha stay strong family! you are babysitting Cloe, remind me who that is. sounds super familiar...

wow they are on a cruise to jamaica. so cool. and ya'll are going to go on a cruise too?? i didn't know that. i thought you gave it up to them. so tell me about ya'lls!!! are amber and jeremy going on that one too? speaking of trips... when i get home i really want to save up some money and go to Colombia with gramps. ya'll in?? also i wanted to ask ya'll, want to go to utah for the april conference next year? i want to try to go. there is an AWESOME family in my ward that is going to go. i told them i want to try and meet up with them and it would be a sweet opportunity to see some of my friends from the mission who are in utah (there's a TON of them hahaha).

mom this might be the favorite part of my email... haha so my companion and i HAVE been doing p90x and it feels good. i feel like it's been pretty effective, i just still need to work on getting rid of my love handles and i little of my stomach... :) but i'm only on week 2 so it'll come. anyways i would appreciate if you could send those dvds sometime. ALSO, you will be happy to hear that i've been eating much better. my companion and i make salads, SALADS!!! with grilled chicken, spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, and apple. super yummy. i also like to eat cottage cheese with fruit now. can you believe the change in me?? and i've been doing so much better at writing in my journal. i'm not going to lie, there are some spaces in the mission where i haven't written for months... but i've broken the habit and doing well with that. we'll have to print out these emails to fill the time i didn't write.

well as cool as that is, it gets better. my companion and i have really tried to keep positive attitudes, be obedient, and be diligent! i mean i always tried to do those things, but now it's a much more focused thing. i'm actively trying to make better changes. it's been cool so far! i feel good about the work, and we have been having a lot to do. the past few days we've found new people to teach like EVERYDAY! and guess what? we've found 2 families!! this is a cool story... so we were on exchanges and i had an Elder Harris here in the area with me. he's a great missionary and i enjoyed our day to work together. well, we were tracting a street and not having any luck. the exchange was almost over and we hadn't found anyone to teach yet. so i stopped in the street, pulled out my map, and told him, "elder harris, we need to find someone to teach! where do you think we should go?". he looked at my map and pointed out a street that i hadn't reallly worked on before. that area has less hispanic people in it, but we went anyways. the 10 minute bike ride over there i was praying the whole way. i was asking Heavenly Father to bless us and lead us to someone ready to listen. well we got there and began to knock. a few houses down, we got let in! it was an english guy though (and we hand over english investigators), but i figured, maybe this is who we were meant to find together. well he was an old man and began talking to us. he actually didn't let us teach him and was closed to our message.... haha but that's not the good part, 2 houses later, we got let in! we got to teach Ana and her daughter the restoration and the spirit was so strong. Ana seemed to really enjoy what we were teaching her. oh man i know that the Lord led us to them. she recently went through some bad family issues and what we provided her seemed to comfort her needs. she's been working a whole lot, but we'll hopefully get to teach them this week. i'll keep you posted :)

it seems like all the people we have been finding have been straight miracles from the Lord. it's been so awesome.

well i love you all. thanks for your love and prayers. i miss you all tons!!!

elder derek munoz

July 6, 2011

hey hey!

 

that is so awesome that you were all there together in the celestial room! i wish that i was there! it was so cool talking to devin and he said that the temple was an incredible experience. he sounded so happy when i talked to him, which just fills my heart with joy. i miss you all a ton! i can't wait to see all the pictures and i really can't wait to get to go do a session with you all after the mission. that'll be such a special experience. oh man how time changes things! i'm so so grateful for the answers i've recieved from my prayers.

 

dad told me about some of the challenges ya'll faced at the wedding reception. sounds super stressful!!! but i'm happy that it all worked out in the end and that everyone enjoyed themselves. tell uncle louie thanks for video taping the thing! i'm looking forward to re-living that with ya'll. yeah i know what you mean mom, it's strange having a sister-in-law. wierd stuff. cool though.

 

oh mom i'm sorry you haven't been able to get much sleep. i've learned my lesson on the importance of sleep! i don't know if i can say that i like getting up early... when it's early in the morning... but as soon as i get going, i'm very grateful to have gone to bed early and gotten up early. it feels good! (idk if i would have the self control in special occasions and parties though!) has devin told you that my companion and i have started P90X?? so far we just did day 3... but i really like it! i've been eating a lot healthier and the exercise is awesome. the other day my comp and i broiled some BBQ chicken breasts, melted a little cheese on top, and ate it with sauteed onion, carrots and zucchini! it was delicious. i was wondering if you were still doing it too? ya think you can burn the dvd's for me?

 

well i'm glad you had an awesome wedding, and an awesome 4th of july! over here we had a good time too. well really we had a mission council that elder swenson and i were at for most of the day, and then we had to do our report for stake missionary coordination. so pretty much all day was filled with neccessary non-proselyting things to do. bitter-sweet. but what was cool was that we got to see a TON of fireworks! although it's illegal, there's so many people that just shoot them off anyway, there's not much that the city can do about it haha. so my comp and i went out onto the roof of the house and watched an AWESOME fireworks display from all sides. it was like a war zone. it was tons of fun.

 

i'm happy to say that the work is going well. we've got some great ideas to implement into our zone and our own area. we had been struggling to get people to come to church the last few weeks. and it was a trend in the whole zone. but guess what?? the next topic the mission is going to cover is "revelation through church attendance"! we're going to learn how to better teach and invite people to come to chruch! haha it's so cool how the Lord works. He knew what our needs would be in this time, long before it came up. neat huh?

 

also, last sunday was awesome! although nobody we had invited came to church, the Lord provided. a member in our area had brought his friend to come to church with him and we got to meet with him! then we went over to the members house after church and taught him!! although everything is really new to him, he really liked what we talked about and agreed to prepare for baptism on august 6th!!! he just fell out of the sky! we had no idea that was coming our way. i'm just so happy that we have been so blessed for the efforts we had been putting in, even though it came in a way not directly connected to what we were doing. it's absolutley the Lords work and not ours.

 

well i love you! hope all keeps going well!

miss ya!

elder munoz

June 22, 2011

hey there!

 

no no no! don't feel bad when you can't email every once in a while. i'm fine i was just giving you a hard time! i really understand that you are so busy especially in summer!

 

i'm glad that girls camp and youth conference both went well! i miss those activities. they were so much fun but i don't think i appreciated the experiences then as much as i do now. they are such faith/character building things. so good work mom! the youth will remember what happened and even if you don't see the appreciation, know that your efforts are appreciated!!!

 

not much has gone on in this past week. we have been really blessed however to find many new people to teach again. we are working hard at finding some solid people. right now we have a pretty big, but young teaching pool. as in there are many people we've taught that will take a little more time to know how/where they are. but we have been so surprised and thankful to have found this really cool 19 year old boy. he's rough at first glance with his son and tattoos, HOWEVER he's got a great heart! he is such a sincere guy and has been loving what we have taught him so far. we are going to teach him this evening and are planning on inviting him to be baptized again, but this time with a date. i'll tell you how things go next week.

 

so i've realized that i want to do humanitarian work with my life. i want to do a lot of volunteer things in the comunity and in the world after the mission. i was watching some Mormon.org videos and there are a lot of members that go out and give their time and love to people that they don't know to help them have a better life. it's awesome. and there is a sister missionary in my district who's dad is a dentist. he is part of a ground of people that go to different countries to do free dental and medical things. apparently what they try to focus on is working with people in the age range of going on a mission! and they do they work for free and encourage them to go serve missions! that is so cool!!! i want to do that. i have misse dout on a lot of opportunities to offer service and don't want to miss any more.

 

anyways i love you alll and i miss ya. i hope that you are all not stressing too much about the wedding and all. it'll all work out. just enjoy the moment! 

 

peace out my fam!

elder munoz

Chicken for Dinner! June 15, 2011

howdy ya'll!

don't worry about the craziness family. i understand sometimes it's hard to write to your lonely son who lives so far away that you can't see or even talk to on a regular basis. i mean don't worry, i think he'd be okay if you ddidn't make time to sit down for a minute to write him a simple email so that he has a glimpse of happiness in his week... i'm sure that young boy would understand.... HAHA just kiddin pops. and mom. i'm doing GREAT :) and thanks for trying to email every week. it's awesome! sometimes it's hard and time just flies but i really appreciate the amount that ya'll write me. so don't worry about if you miss a week.

things are going well. and i'm working hard with my companion and we found 10 new investigators last week!!! it was so cool and it just fed the fire for us. we just wanted to keep working because of that. and we have goals to keep on finding. we are starting to try and teach Juans' wife. i think that things should work out :) he has kids but they are all grown up now. some of them live close by though so maybe we can teach them in the future.

we killed, prepped and ate the chicken last week. i almost chickend out of doin it but i just thought, if devin and dad were here, they would do it! so we did. i have to send pictures! my comp did the killing but after that i was in there for everything! i pulled the guts out and i held it's heart... haha it really was a great learning experience. for real. now i know how to kill prep and cook chicken from the beginning.

Gutting the chicken that we just killed!
You have to be brave or crazy to do this!

Are you sure this isn't considered a foreign mission?

Enjoying the fruits of their labors!

well there's not a whole lot to say today. we had a couple changes in the zone and we're excited aobut that. i will hopefully be in this area with this ward for one more transfer. that would mean that i spend just over a year in the ward! and 8 months in the area. i wouldn't mind.

i love you all!

elder derek munoz

June 8, 2011

hey there familia!!

 

anyways, last week we went to the hospital 3 times with different missionaries in the zone. aye. it was pretty crazy but thankfully enough everyone is doing alright. we just had transfers and there is a good amount of changes to the zone. i think in the city zones there's usually a good amount of changes, because they have more missionaries. anyways i'm staying the same. this is going to be my 5th transfer in this area, and the 8th in this ward. since last august! but i love it! hopefully i will do just one more before taking off to a different place. i'm still with elder swenson as well. i'm happy with that. he is a great worker!

 

Juan WAS baptized last saturday. it was really cool. we were hoping that a member that has been teaching us would do the baptism but he couldn't because he has a bad back. so he confirmed him sunday, and saturday elder swenson baptized him. it was cool, his first time doing the ordinance! great stuff. juan's baptism went SUPER smoothly. better than i had hoped it would go. his wife showed up who hasn't really wanted to learn too much from us and she really enjoyed it. and Juan bore a beautiful testimony at the end. i wish you were able to see all the changes that he has gone through and the difference you see in him now. 

 

well, we have quite an adventure planned for today. there is a store in our area that sells live poultry. so... we're going to buy some chickens! then we are going to kill them and prepare them to eat. haha what do you think about that? good thing the mission is teaching me such important stuff right? haha it should be a good learning experience. i'll let you know how things turn out. we might make chicken rolls out of them :)

 

 

i love and miss you all. 

elder munoz