March 4, 2019 (Week 74)

Calms and storms!!

Wow, well at the beginning of this week it seemed like we had everything under control, but just at the end the Lord shows us that he is in control!  We started off being able to get a lot of people back to sticking to their commitments to read the Book of Mormon and to get to church!  It sounds somewhat easy for us, but we've found that Satan really tries to stop people from just going to church, because if they don't keep that commitment they can't be able to keep a covenant!

But luckily this last week the Lord really blessed us and we were able to have so many sincere lessons!  By far the highlight person of this last week is Vanessa; we've been teaching her for a few weeks now and she's wanted to get baptized ever since the beginning, just lots of stuff was getting in the way.  But she and her dad (hermano Rafael, who was baptized a week ago) have really just fought against the adversary and are really great examples!  The best part is that all the young women have gotten to know her and are all fully able to support her!  Woo, the power of fellowshipping!!

Anyways, thanks for all of y'all's prayers, they sure are helping bring these miracles to us!!

-Elder Varney

The baptism of hermano Rafael!

One of Elder Varney's new Districts...

Service Activity

February 25, 2019 (Week 73)

Rough roads, but great rewards!
This week the doctor told my companion not to walk on rough roads or his knee would fail.  He didn't restrict anything else, exercise, walking, even running is fine, just not the rough rocky roads!  They kill knees! (supposedly...)  But it appears to be true, because his knee hasn't failed yet.

Anyways, the reward this week was the baptism of Rafael!  He told us he twisted his ankle earlier that day, but that is wasn't any big deal, and that he was still coming to the baptism.  But when he arrived it turned out that his ankle was hurt badly, and he could only walk really slowly.  But he was determined to get baptized, so in the end after a lot of effort on his part, he was able to be baptized!  Such a great feeling that has accompanied us.

We've been so blessed here, lots of people literally coming out of nowhere who want to learn more about the gospel!  Our days are almost all full of appointments, hard to set apart time to find new people!  But it is just such a great feeling we have right now!

Anyways, thanks for all of your love and prayers, see y'all soon!

-Elder Varney

February 18, 2019 (Week 72)

Howdy there everyone!

Well, this week sure has been so friggin' tiring!  It all started off with managing the transfers, bouncing back and forth with a total of three different elders as companions while they waited for their companions and buses.  But in the end it was really great to be able to hear each of their short conversion stories and see why they are all here!  And the real miracle is even during the whole mess we were able to get to all the appointments we had for the day! 

That truly is amazing given the public transport here, but in the end we were almost falling asleep during the lessons just from being so worn out, but in the end it was the right sacrifice!  It all worked out in the end because this week Rafael and Vanessa were able to go to church and they both now have baptismal dates!  We will be able to baptize Rafael this next week, Vanessa the next, and with the familia de la cruz we will probably be able to have at least 3-4 weeks of back to back baptisms! 

We are truly being blessed down here!  

Thanks to all of our prayers on our behalf, please keep them up so these next brothers and sisters can get baptized!

Love you all!

-Elder Varney

February 11, 2019 (Week 71)

The time flies when you're having fun!

And this week was full of it! (sorry for not writing last week, my bad.)  These past weeks were great for our investigators, they are really getting into all the ward activities, especially the English classes and our new piano class!  It is super awesome to have the ward helping with bringing in all the people learning about the church with great useful activities!  This last week we were also able to progress a lot in particular with hermano Manuel.  His dad is actually elder Taylor's convert from the other side of San Luis, and it was interesting to hear how when his dad was baptized he was totally atheist and against the church.  But now just a month later he has changed completely and is very humble and listening for the impressions of the spirit.

He himself said from our first contact that he wasn't prepared at the time of his father's conversion, but now with sufficient time the lord has prepared him!  How incredible!  He needs help overcoming some confidence and addiction issues, so he could really use your prayers!

Anyways, this last Saturday we were able to go and preach with the young men and women in a pueblito named Cerritos, a place where the church has never been before!  But in the end it was so rewarding, we felt as if we were missionaries of old, truly preaching the gospel to the people!  But in the end so many great blessings came from the activity; in fact too many to tell here!

But I can witness that the Lord does truly prepare people, even if they have never even seen the church or a missionary before!  Anyways, this next week I'll finally be getting my own companion, he's named Elder Aquino, from Oaxaca.  He is a super cool dude, it's gonna be great!

Thanks for all your individual love!

-Elder Varney

Elder Tayler taking a break...

Cute homemade birthday card that one of the primary children gave Elder Varney

February 4, 2019 (Week 70)

Quick update - Elder Varney got caught up in Zone meetings this last week, so he forgot to do a update for his blog, but he is still service with the other companionship in a "Tri" still in his Zone, and he just celebrated his 20th Birthday in Mexico, so we have attached a bunch of pictures he sent from this last week - More updates to come in next weeks update!  Keep up the prayers!

This is a Mission tradition on their birthdays - to eat a Flan with no hands

Elder Varney with a "really cool" DC-3 he found in a park on his P-Day

Elder Varney with his "Tri" companionship in his Zone

Elder Varney's current Zone and Mission President and Wife

All of the February birthdays, from shortest to tallest (Yes, that is Ethan's Mission President on the shortest side)

January 28, 2019 (Week 69)

Lonely times...

Just kidding, you can never be lonely with a companion, especially with two, which is what I have now!  Elder Dominguez had to go to aguas in some special transfers, but the really special part was for me when I was informed that they aren´t sending me another zone leader companion!!

So now its just a juggling act of keeping the whole zone stitched together, especially that we have two branches located far away and both of their phones stopped working this last week!  Anyways, in the midst of all this commotion the lord has really blessed us with a ton of new people and with really strong testimonies for those who we are teaching.

We had stake conference this last week and Rafael and Vanessa were finally able to come and they both said the church is even better than they imagined, and are really looking forward to their baptisms now!  We also had great times teaching Jesus; he always has practical doubts about what we are teaching during the lesson, but it always just comes back to personal prayer and personal revelation, and then he gets all happy and peaceful, because he knows that every time he asks, he receives his answers!

Anyways, it´ll be fun splitting the work between two areas for now, but I know that the Lord is watching over us every second of the work!  Thanks so much for all your love!

-Elder Varney

Elder Varney and his new companions; elder Lemus (de ciudad de Mexico) and elder Taylor (de Idaho)

Juggling both District call-ins at the same time! (Ignore his skin color - bad camera colors)

January 21, 2019 (Week 68)

The good times are rollin´ here in industrias!

We had just a great time this last week!  Our mission president fixed the goal for every companionship to have ten families receiving the lessons, and so far we are getting pretty dang close to that goal.  We had a huge stake missionary activity and nearly half of all the missionaries brought families and we were blessed to be able to bring two of ours with us!  And even more interestingly we were able to bring three different families with us to the English classes our ward has.  It was a fun time with so many mangled words and syllables flying around inside the chapel!  But there was such a strong spirit there with us, there was a great feeling of learning and progression there!

Our biggest challenge for now is to get these families to church, one goes strong every week, but just little things get in the way of many more being able to come!  I pray that we can get those other two families with us the next week and get them baptized!  But regardless, its all in the Lord's time, but we feel so blessed down here!

Thanks for all of your individual prayers for us!

-Elder Varney

Elder Varney at the Stake missionary activity

Elder Varney with the Stake President