Elder Espinoza

Elder Espinoza
Alma 26:12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The most important thing to focus on

                                                                                                                  11/25/14
Hello!
Last week was amazing! We had the wonderful opportunity to have Elder Villareal (our area 70) and Elder and Sister Corbridge of the 1st Quorum of the 70 come and speak to our mission! So we have everyone up north get together for one big one and everyone down south did the same! One thing that I really love that Elder Corbridge said was that when we focus on something that we really want to do such as becoming a great piano player we literally shut off everything else from the world when we go and practice or focus on that one particular thing. Its the same for any other thing that we would want to do except for one thing...and he called it the most important thing. And when we focus on this most important thing it does not block out everything else in the world and it should be our number one focus. Then he had this super long presentation and finally at the end he told us what the most important thing was. And what it boils down to is the spirit! He gave us a ton of scriptures where the Lord commands us to do things ALWAYS. There were quite a few such as pray always, let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly and many more, but all them had the promise at the end that we will have the spirit to be with us more. Which if we do this most important thing we can also focus on whatever else it is we want to focus on. But, the minute we lose focus on the most important thing and start blocking it out with other things of the world then whatever it is at the moment we are focusing on literally blocks out everything else in the world. It was very interesting but made complete sense to me! Obviously that was no where near word for word what he said but that was the main gist of things! Anyway I really enjoyed it!
So last week as well we had this AWESOME lesson planned out for our investigator to invite her to be baptized and to resolve concerns that she has had but about an hour before she asked to move it back a half hour which cut our time in half! So we still figured we could get the most important things of the lesson in but by the time all was said and done we had about 15-20 minutes to teach a lesson so we decided to not teach that lesson just yet and had to come up with something on the fly! We ended up showing her "Mountains ToClimb" the Mormon message by President Eyring. It was so inspired! Then we started talking about what it meant and somehow baptism was brought up very briefly but before I could say anything more than the word baptism she stopped me and said she had a question. She said, "How do I get baptized?" I'm sure you coulda seen my mouth hit the floor in shock because we were totally not expecting that at all! haha So we talked about what needs to happen and tried briefly to set a date with her but she wanted to wait till next time which is tomorrow so we are so excited!!!!!!!!!!! Miracle story of last week!
So things are going great here! Lovin' the new area! Thanks for all the birthday wishes and cards it was much appreciated! :) Love you all!


Love Elder Espinoza

We never got a picture together as the Albuquerque West Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders!
 Elder Taylor, Me, Sister Beech and Sister Barnard. 
We had a mulit zone conference so that's how we got together! 

 The Sandias turn red in the sunset. Not the best picture but its still a cool one!

 Elder Van Leeuwan and I! He went home for a few months for medical purposes and know is back out in the field so I was excited to see me MTC comp!



Thursday, November 20, 2014

Always having a prayer in your heart.

            11-18-14
So my first week in Enchanted Hills has been a great one!! Its fun being in a trio, haha, except we are still trying to figure out the best way to get all of our showering in on time and with hot water for everyone, lol, so its fun.
I was able to meet many of the investigators and one seems really close to being baptized. She has never accepted a date but we are going to try this week and I think it will go well :) She has been struggling pretty bad with her older son and asked us to come and bless her house, so that was a good experience for her. We also watched a Mormon message called “Good Things to Come” by Elder Jeffrey R.Holland. It was my first time watching it and it was really good! The spirit was there very strong and we have another appointment with her tomorrow with really good fellowship!!! So things should be going good for her :)
It has also been VERY cold down here! Well, probably not as cold as back home but hey I was in El Paso last winter, so I'm not used to all this cold weather. The wind is what makes it really bad honestly. Cuts right through ya haha. The weather here is just crazy though. Its pretty warm today which is nice.
So this week Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge from the 1st quorum of the Seventy is coming to our mission. He has written some amazing talks! So we are all very excited! Also, there is this sister serving here for a few transfers who was called to the Temple Square mission and was asked to play the violin as a special musical number. Well, someone lied to her and told her I was "good" at the piano and so she asked me to play with her, haha! I have definitely gotten a lot better on my mission but I guess we'll just have to see how this goes! We are playing A Poor Wayfaring Man Of Grief which is one of my favorite songs so I'm excited about that :)
I started reading the Book of Mormon again and this time I am going through and only highlighting anything that has to do with prayer. Its been amazing so far and I cant wait to get into more scripture!! I think I have learned the true meaning of always having a prayer in your heart. We literally can always pray to our Father in Heaven. He just sits up wherever He is I am sure and waits and waits to hear from us and I am sure nothing pleases Him more than to hear from us, even if it is the smallest thing. I truly feel if anything is important to us than it is important to Him as well :) Anytime we ever had/have a prompting to pray it, is the Spirit teaching us that we must pray. Any time we have a doubt on whether to pray it is from the adversary. So next time you are contemplating on whether or not to pray remember who it is that wants you to pray and who its is that does not want you to pray and most importantly who you will be pleasing when you make your choice :)


Love Elder Espinoza
First Snow!



Wednesday, November 12, 2014

I am pretty excited to learn more and to make weaknesses strengths!

11/12/14
It’s always interesting when you have plans to do certain things and then boom the Lord has different plans for you. I was needed somewhere else in this mission and I definitely was not expecting that one! But The Enchanted Hills ward on Rio Rancho is AWESOME! I haven't met very many people but they all seemed fired up about missionary work! I guess this ward was baptizing like crazy earlier on this year and its died down but now its about to pick back up again! :) I am also in a trio with Elder Stevens from Sydney, Montana and Elder Pattison from Murray, Utah. I've been out as long as both of them combined... haha, but they're good elders and we get along great! Don't have too much in common with either of them but its all good, we're having a blast so far!
I have already realized a few of the reasons why I am here now in this area, so I am pretty excited to learn more and to make weaknesses strengths! The Lord ALWAYS knows what he is doing ! 2 Nephi 2:24 says, "But behold, all thing have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." - aint that the truth!? Its never fun when things change but when we later realize why things happened it sure does make all the anguish worth it :) Sorry this is so short today but we only have an hour here!
Love you all!!!!
New Address-
Elder Jaden Espinoza
4501 Sprint Blvd Apt. 5212
Rio Rancho, NM 87144

​I wish my camera would capture the real beauty of the sunrise from our balcony!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Seek for commitments to extend to ourselves that will bring us closer to God

                                                                                      November 4, 2014
   Transfers last week always make the week go by faster! We now have two new sisters in the district. One I served around when she first came out in the field and we go home together! So I was pretty excited about that! The other one is new and she seems like a really solid missionary. Super prepared!
   So today is the Los Lunas Zone Turkey Bowl haha I’m pretty excited about it! They picked 4 captains and I got to be the first! So I don't have much time to email today cause Los Lunas is pretty far and we have to be down there early! I think my team will win, not gonna lie ;) hahaha
   I love this time of year. It’s starting to get cold down here and the leaves that we have are turning colors!
   So District Meeting topic was helping investigators make and keep commitments. Its chapter 11 in PMG (Preach My Gospel) I believe. But it was definitely a good one and what I felt my district needed as well as my companion and I. It talks about how to extend commitments and promise blessings and testify and follow up. But then I kinda started thinking about how we kinda need to do that to ourselves and the Lord. When we as missionaries extend commitments to investigators it should be things that we have sought inspiration for  what they needed to progress towards baptism but we can do that to ourselves individually as well. Seeking for commitments to extend to ourselves that will bring us closer to God. These commitments invite our investigators to repent and it works for us the same. We ALWAYS need to repent and to change things we do to conform our life to live more in harmony with the will of God. Following up is also extremely important. An analogy PMG uses is not following up is like buying a ticket to go to a concert and then not going to the concert. How ridiculous does that sound? Pretty dang ridiculous! I can’t think of anyone that would do that! Now imagine that but on a spiritual level which is definitely more important than a concert. We also need to follow up on commitments that we give ourselves. That is truly how we show the Lord we want to change certain things in our lives. Anyway, I hope that made sense sort of!
   Well sorry this is so short again! Love you all and hope you all had a Happy Halloween! 
Love Elder Espinoza
PS. Congrats to Chiawana for killing Pasco like that! whoop whoop!

My pumpkin!