Christmas!! December 25, 2015

Kelton send home Mexico Soccer Jerseys

for all of us for Christmas!

Christmas 2015 

Skyping with Kelton

December 20, 2015 Pictures

 Baptized two young women from the ward

The girls families

Our Zone

Our Zone with President and Sister Whitehead

We Baptized This Week!! November 30, 2015

Family and Friends,

WE BAPTIZED THIS WEEK! Mohammad decided to stay here in Mexico for a little while longer and he got baptized yesterday. It really was one of the coolest moments of my entire mission. I wasnt here when they found him but I was here for all of his teaching. He is from Iran and in Iran just about everyone is Muslim and they have a very unique way of worshipping.  He says that he wasnt Muslim but for the most part he just stayed out of religion. In Iran there is no freedom of religion and the people dont have the same possibilities of learning about the gospel. We looked it up the other day and there arent even Missionary pamphlets in the Language that he speaks. It truely was amazing to see the change in this man. Just a month ago he was having a hard time accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior and then yesterday he was able to enter into a convanent with our Heavenly Father. He is a great man and was very emotional in his baptismal service. The bishop doesnt speak english so I had to translate the Welcome at the end of the baptismal service, and during the Welcome he started to tear up and you could tell that he had felt the spirit. Yesterday was truely a miracle that showed us really how much the Lord has his hand in this amazing work.

It is amazing to be a missionary and be able to see miracles every single day that we are out here. Sometimes its not the easiest to be dillegent and give it our all but all the tender mercies that the Lord gives us every day really keep us going. He truely is our Savior and Redeemer. He can change the life of anyone no matter who you are, or where you are from the Lord loves each and every one of us, and wants every one of his children to return to him. His work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Not just some people that have more privleges that others but of every single one of our brothers and sisters. 

On a less serious note for this week. Just to let you all know that I was able to celebrate thanksgiving. Its not a holiday here but luckily there is an American Family that lives in our ward and they were kind enough to invite us over for Thanksgiving to celebrate. It felt really weird to see such a big meal in front of us, and it really makes your realize how much we really have. I am thankful for each one of you, and hope that everything is going well back home.

Have a great week.

Elder Hirsch

Great Thanksgiving in Mexico

A Great Week in Mexico!! November 22, 2015

Mother,

First of all, I hope you had a great birthday and that you are forgetting how old you actually are! hahahaha sorry but it was necessary!

This week went really well and we had a lot of fun. We are working really hard but we are having a little trouble getting people to progress how they should, but we are going to work even harder this week trying to help all the people we know start to progress. Its been a lot of fun here with Elder Veazey, and with us being such good friends sometimes its hard to focus 100 percent of the time. We are getting better but we have a lot of improving to do. 

I am so happy to hear about Braden and his decision to play up in Idaho. I think that he will do great and that he is going to have a lot of fun. I know he will do great! Please give him an extra big hug and buy him some ice cream from me! 

We just had a pretty average week this week, and not too much happened but here are a few fun things that are going on here. The worst thing that happened this week is that we worked our butts off and found a lot of new investigators but on Sunday only two decided to show up, so that was a little bit of a bummer for the weekend! 

One cool thing we are doing right now is that we are teaching a guy from Iran. He is here because his girlfriend is from Mexico but he doesnt speak any spanish but he does speak pretty good english so we do our best to help him understand the gospel in English. He loves the gospel and wants to get baptized but he hates it here in Mexico so he told us that he might be leaving this week to go work in Canada. (Not sure why Canada but he thinks it will be better) In Iran they are all muslims and they dont have religious freedom. He told us that if you change religion in Iran that they kill you. He says that if he gets baptized he wont be able to go back to his country, but he loves the gospel and says he never wants to go back to Iran and that he wants to get baptized. We are doing our best to convince him to stay but we will see what happens by the end of this week!

Also another funny thing that happened this week is that my companion got bit by a dog. There are tons of Dogs here in Mexico, and you shouldnt mess with them. Some are really cool and nice but there are also scary ones. The scary ones usually bark and you can avoid them pretty easy and there is no problem, but the other day it was a little different. We were just walking down the street like normal and we saw a dog just laying down in front of his door. He just sat there really normal and then when we passed he jumped up and bit my companions calf! haha He didnt bark or anything. He just decided to bite Elder Veazey! We then had to go to the doctor and get medicine so it doesnt get infected!

Glad to hear that all is well. I love you guys and miss you a ton. Have a great week!

Elder Hirsch

Elder Veazley and Elder Hirsch

Zone leaders

Super Long Week! November 16, 2015

Mother,

Well this week was super long, and first of all I will appologize for not writing all week. What happened is that I wrote on Thursday and then I had to help with all of the new missionaries coming in on Monday at Presidents house. Then I had to head out on a 2 hour trip out to my new area and didnt end up getting back until 830 at night. Unfortunately in the mission field we dont get to choose what day we write and Pday was over, so I didnt get to write last week and figured it was alright because I wrote on Wednesday. Im not dead and the ATM wasnt working right and would only let me take money out of the savings account, just to clear up all of your doubts. Sorry for leaving you worried!

My new area is Lerma, and I am now a zone Leader! I got sent out with one of my best friends in the mission, Elder Veazey. We got to the MTC on the same day and we have been really good friends since we got to the mission. We are having a ton of fun being zone leaders. We have 9 areas that we are over and we are the guys that get to run around and help everyone out, and at the same time we have our area. We are always staying busy and doing our best to help out all of the missionaries in our zone!

A little background on Elder Veazey. He is from North Dakota, but his family is now living in Germany. He lived in Utah for a year going to BYU, but we are very similar people. He loves Basketball and we both might be two of the funniest people in Mexico right now. We are having a lot of fun together and getting some great work done. We had a bit of a rough week and a lot of people let us down, but somehow we still ended up bringing 5 investigators to church. Its crazy how much of a difference it makes when we get along well and we work well together. It is my first time not being in a companionship where I am training so it has been pretty great.

We had some awesome lessons this week and we have the spirit really strongly with us. The ward here is great and they love the mission work and they are all working hard to make the ward bigger. Its a great opportunity that the members have to be great missionaries. Being here in the mission makes me realize how important it is to share the gospel. (Answering you question that you received from the missionaries) (Still cant belive that the missionaries actually visited but that is awesome, tell them hello for me) We have a huge responsibility as members of the church to share the gospel. It is the missionaries job to teach people not to find them. Members find, and missionaries teach. I know that living in Utah it is a lot more difficult but we still know people that arent members of the church. We have to recognize how much the gospel has blessed us and share it with everyone else! Find someone that isnt a member, invite them over, invite the missionaries over and then let the spirit take over. Trust the missionaries and help them find God´s lost children.

Also your birthday is this week and I couldnt get a letter out to you in time, so I will have to save it for next year. I just want you to know that I love you and that I am very thankful to have you as a mother. I know it hasnt been easy raising us or going through everything that you have for us, but just know that you are loved and appreciated. I would not be the man I am today without you. You have taught me great principles that have changed my life here on earth and that will change my eternities. I am so grateful for all that you do. I hope you have a great birthday and that everyone treats you well. I love you mom, and I hoope you have a great week.

Elder Hirsch

Keltons Zone

Golf Course Kelton got to play on

New area Lerma

New Companion, One of Keltons favorite Missionary Friends

Elder Veazey and Elder Hirsch

Humbling Experience October 22, 2015

Family and others who care,

I havent written a group email in a while because we havent had anything too exciting happen and I havent had any time to write about anything else. This week I learned a lot and wanted to share a cool experience that we had.

So we went to visit this 14 year old kid named Javier who is preparing to be baptized. As we all know the average 14 year old isnt too open to learning about the gospel and when they are they just cant quite comprehend exactly what the gospel is or what blessings it brings into their lives. Well this kid is very different. He told us that for the first couple weeks that the sister missionaries were visiting his grandma he made sure that he left the house before they would get to their appointment, and that he really didnt care what they had to say. Then he decided to start listening and loved everything that they had to share. We had a very good lesson with him and we asked him why he was interested in learning about the gospel and he responded "I am worried about my Salvation" We were all pretty shocked because its not really a common thing to hear from a 14 year old kid, and even more impressive here in Mexico. He remembered everything that the sisters taught him and he himself told us that he wants to be baptized on Sunday with his Grandmother. 

This was a very humbling experience for me to be able to see the pure intentions of this young man truely trying to find happiness and to do the right thing. He helped me understand that the Lord is working inside of each person preparing them for the gospel. Its amazing to see people make these decisions that are truely changing the eternities. The amazing thing about this work is that its not only changing their lifestyle or their quality of life. It is changing their Eternity of them and all their generations to come after them!

I have been studying a great scripture this week in Alma 7:23-25. If we do our best to develop these attributes we will all one day make it to his Kingdom. The scripture makes it sound a lot more simple than it may be at times, but its only difficult if we want it to be. Like President Uchtdorf shared in Conference, If we want the gospel to be difficult and stressful it can be just that, but if we focus on the basics the gospel will bring us the happiness that is promised. Keep it simple and do your best every day.

Love you all. Have a great week.

Elder Hirsch

One of the Best Weeks in My Mission September 16, 2015

Mother,

This week was actually one of the best weeks of the mission, not for mission work, but for personal growth. We had a ton of work to do here in the offices and we didnt have much time to preach hardly at all during the week, but then on Saturday (Usually our day to go and work) we received a special assignment. We were assigned to go to the Cultural event that they had the day before the dedication of the temple. We had to go and sit at a desk and hand out the pamplets of the Missionary Lessons and give away books of Mormon. On Saturday there were two sessions of the cultural event. One started at 4 and the other at seven. Unfortunately we didnt get to go in and enjoy the celebration at 4 and we also werent planning on being able to go at Seven either. Well at about 5 when we were there just waiting for the first one to end we sent a text to President Whitehead telling him that he should find us 2 tickets so that we can go in at 7 oclock. (President Whitehead had tickets for him and his wife to attend) Then at about 6:30 President showed up, threw 2 tickets on our table and said "I got you guys better tickets than I have!!!" haha it was a great time. We got to go in and watch the whole thing and they did an amazing job. It was super spiritual and also very entertaining.

In the celebration they told the story of the Book of Mormon along with the story of the first converts to the Church here in Mexico and how the Lord had prepared each one of them to receive the Gospel at the right time. There were many huge sacrifices made by many people that had allowed the church to grow so fast here in Mexico. One phrase that really stuck out to me was "Dont worry we are in the hands of the Lord" I am not sure why but it hit me really hard. Every single person that makes sacrifices to follow the Lord can know with a surety that we are in his hands. The promise isnt that your family will be protected or that nothing bad will happen to you. The promise to every missionary is that "We are in the Lords hands" Us and our families. This was just one of the many things that I learned this weekend.

Then on Sunday we got to see the rededication of the Mexico City Temple. President Henry B Eyring and Elder Holland were there to dedicate the Temple. Elder Holland gave a talk that was really inpiring with the Lord. He talked about the promises that we have made with the Savior and how we have a great responsibility to keep these sacred covantents. He always does a great job speaking and it really helped me a lot with some of the things I have been thinking about lately.

My District from last transfer

A Family of some of my converts that I

was really close to.

Our Golf Trip

Elder Lowe, Kelton, President Whitehead & Member of ward

My new Zone

Trials In Our Lives September 9, 2015

Family and Friends,

I dont have much to say about this week, but we are having a really good time here in Mexico. I cant even begin to explain how thankful I am to be here in the mission and be able to share the gospel with all of those people who need it so badly. The one thing I can truely say that I have gained from the mission is my personal testimony on how important this gospel is in our daily lives, and how it can help us overcome the difficulties that this life has for us.

This week I was thinking a lot about challenges that we face. We all have a hard time with something. Whether they are small things or big things. I always have wondered why such rough difficulties come to people that are trying so hard to do the right things, and why they have to have it so rough. So many missionaries have a hard time in the mission. Whether it is because of family problems or some other personal reasons. In my opinion missionaries are some of the most righteous people that are living and for some reason they are having some of the toughest difficulties while they are here in the mission.

I have come to my conclusion, and I always teach this to my investigators, and it is that there are two types of blessings. First would be those great things that come into our lives and allow us to be happy. The other one, the one we usually dont recognize, are the worst things that come into our lives. The challenges that allow us to become better. The challenges that allow us to become better people, and allow us to become stronger in faith and in character.

The best part is, is that we have the gospel to help us overcome them. How would it be, going through our challenges without knowing how to pray? or without having a Book of Mormon? or without having the sacrament? Or without having a ward family? Personally if I didnt have these things I wouldnt be the person I am today. Life would be a very difficult thing if we didnt have the gospel in our lives. This is what gives me the motivation to share the gospel with everyone here in Mexico. Even if all we do is teach them how to pray. Or teach them about the Book of Mormon. Every small effort counts. Please share these things with all the people that dont know or have these things. Also share it with those who have forgotten how big of a blessing these things are. 

I love you all, and hope all is well. 

Elder Hirsch 

Things Are Great Here In Mexico! September 3, 2015

Family and Friends,

Just so everyone knows things are going great here in Mexico. We are working hard and finding a lot of success, and really seeing miracles every day.I am working in a really great area and we are over two wards, one of which is the American ward in Mexico for all the people living here in Mexico City! Its been a good time and I am really enjoying what I am doing.

These last couple of weeks have been awesome here in Mexico because we have had the Temple open house here. It has been closed for about 2 years for remodeling and they are finally going to open it back up. With the rededication of the temple come a ton of different blessings. First of all there is an open house which is going on right now. The other day we had the experience of going to the temple with a couple investigators and it was an amazing experience. I loved seeing the temple and feeling the spirit that was there. It is so great to be able to have temples it is such an amazing experience to feel the Love of God the minute you walk in. We are so blessed in Utah to have temples everywhere, and we need to take advantage of our opportunities!

Another great blessing that came to us this last week is that Elder D Todd Christofferson came to our mission to speak to us. It was an amazing experience to have 220 full time missionaries together with an apostle of God. It is a great spirit and we learned a lof of great things from him. One being the importace of the fundamentals and the importance of holding on to the great spirit that we have as missionaries for the rest of our lives. The only advice he gave us was to study the scriptures with prayer and pondering them carefully, going to chruch, and praying regularly individually and as a family. These are the things that allow us to have to spirit with us at all times. I know sometimes we feel like we can do it alone and it might be true, but wouldnt it be a whole lot easier to do it with the Help of our Loving Heavenly Father? Read Matthew 11:27-30. He will bless us and will help us make it easier but we also have to accept his help!

I love you all and I hope all is well! Have a great week and remember to be your best every day.

Elder Hirsch

Working in the Mission Home with President Whitehead August 24, 2015

Mother,

This week was great. It was a little slow because life is a lot different here in the offices. We spend most of the day here in the offices and then like 3 or 4 times a week we head out and work from 6 to 9 at night. The ward here is really great, but we live in one of the riches areas in Mexico and there arent a ton of people walking around like in other areas, and the people that are in the street arent from here, they just come to work. I am really excited to be working here and we have a lot of fun, but I am going to really focus on learning more about the scriptures here, and also using the short time that we have at night to work really effectively. I know our main responsiblity here is to help with the management side of things but I truely believe that we are going to find great people here who are ready to learn about the gospel and be baptized.

We are going to have a great couple of weeks here in the mission. On Saturday Elder D Todd Christofferson is coming to the mission to talk to us as a mission. He will be here for two hours and the entire mission is going to be there. This will be the first time that we have had a reunion with the entire mission so it will be an awesome couple of hours. Its an amazing spirit that is there when there are so many missionaries together! Then we will hopefully have a chance to go to the Temple open house. They just finished remodeling the temple here in Mexico City so we are going to be able to go to the open house and then on September 13 we are going to go to the temple dedication. Its going to be a great few weeks here! I am really excited.

My companions are great. I am going to be here with Elder Lowe for at least the next two months! Elder Demars is going to be headed out to the area that I was just barely in. He leaves tomorrow and he is going to baptize all the people that I found with my companion!

In the offices we are still in charge of a ward, so they still give us food every day, but it is a way rich area and they arent always home so a lot of them give us money to go eat in restaurants. This week I went to an Italian Restaurant, Carls Jr, Burger King, A breakfast place that is like the Ihop of Mexico, and one family made us some american Hamburgers! haha we basically live in the America of Mexico! We have a really nice apartment but it is where all of the elders come when they have to do something in the offices or when they are going home so it doesnt get maintained as good as it should!

Everything is going great here. Our Pdays are going to be different every week because we basically just choose the day that we have the least stuff to do. Please tell everyone to write on Sunday and that I will write back sometime during the week! I hope all is well and that everyone is doing alright. I love you, have a great week!

Elder Hirsch 

Elder Hirsch & Elder Demars & Elder Lowe

Transfers!!! August 17, 2015

Mother,

I know you are probably worried about me but everything is just fine. We had changes on Monday so we didnt have time to have our P day. I got transfered out of my area and got moved to be President Whiteheads secretary. I am going to be working in the offices of the mission and helping with the management part of the mission. I am in charge of all of the visas and passports. Also in charge of travel plans for missionaries that are leaving and also all of the cell phones in the mission. It is going to be weird working here because we only go out on the streets at night from 6 to 9 so there isnt a lot of time, but I am hoping that the Lord blesses us with a little bit of success while I am here! I think I will be here for at least 6 months, which means I will be coming to the end of my mission when I leave here. I am not sure how excited I am to be working here in the offices but I think it will be a great experience to learn from President and see things from a different angle!

We usually have to work on Mondays here because all the missionaries need more help on their preparation day, so we will be writing normally on Wednesdays but it will change a bunch because there is always crazy stuff going on. i will write once a week but I cant promise you what day! Also there wont be as many stories because we arent working as much with investigators, but it will be a good experience!

This last week went really well. Unfortunately we didnt have the opportunity to baptize Maria Juana, but I think she will be baptized at some point. It was a tough last week of the trasfer with my companion but the Lord really helped me get through it. I cant say that we worked harder but the Lord blessed us with a lot of new people to teach and we got 6 investigators to church the other day. We received a lot of blessings and thankfully I was able to hang on strong and not get too frustrated with my companion.

My new companions are Elder Lowe and Elder Demars. Elder Demars is training me right now and will be headed out of the offices next week so I will be working here with Elder Lowe. He is a really good guy and he is from Layton utah. He is really laid back and the best part about him is that he loves to play golf! haha we are going to have a good time here. We found a guy that is in our ward that is a member at the nicest golf country club in Mexico and we are going to go play golf in a couple of weeks there with President Whitehead! 

I am excited to be here and experience something new about the mission. Its going to be a lot of fun.





Family and Friends,

 Everything is going great here in Mexico! I just finished my last transfer in the area that I was serving in and we had a ton of success. We were teaching a lot of great people so it was difficult to leave. I am excited to work in my new area and find more of the people that the Lord has prepared for us to teach!

I dont have a lot of time to write but I wanted to share a little bit about what I have been studying this last little while.

I always said before the mission that the gospel is what makes us happy and that by living the gospel that we will become closer to our savior Jesus Christ, but one thing I have been studdying a lot lately is what is it actually that makes us happier than everyone else, and I have come to the conclusion that it isnt the gospel. The answer is LOVE. When the scriptures say that God is Love it is because it is the only way to describe him! It isnt living the gospel that makes us happy, but by living the gospel it allows us to feel Gods love for us. The steps of the gospel are there to help us be pure which helps us to feel more of the Love that our Savior has for us!

Love your neighbor. 

I love you all and hope that all is well!

Elder Hirsch

Fun group of missionaries

This boy is only 14 years old and no one in his family is a member

but they all came to support him. A great experience!

PICTURES!! August 2, 2015

Fun things Kelton bought in Downtown Mexico City

Trip we took to the Temple with all of our investigators and New Converts

We had a great time!!

Mexico City Temple

Mexico City Center

Museum of Fine Arts

  

Very Fun Trip to City

This little girl asked Kelton to Baptize her, she is a convert from 

Sister Missionaries in District

Her family

Zone leaders

Abie Got Babtized!! August 2, 2015

The good news first! ABIE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!! It was so awesome to see her get baptized. She went from being so difficult and not even wanting to sit down and talk to us to getting baptized in  3 weeks! She had so many personal problems and so much hatred and suffering inside, but she started living the gospel and everything changed. It was amazing! About a week ago she said a prayer at the end of the lesson and said ¨Thanks for taking away all of the hatred that I had inside my heart¨¨ It was truely amazing to see the way the gospel changed this teenagers life!

Abie was baptized by her Grandpa, Abie is the one on the left

Be your Best July 13, 2013

Family and others who seem to care,

This week in Mexico has gone really well. The work has gone really good and we are working really hard to find more investigators. We should be having a lot of success in the next few weeks. Starting off with Juan Bosco who has a baptism date for Sunday!

We found Juan Bosco about a month ago. We were in the street contacting people and we contacted a woman. She was really nice but wasnt at all interested in what we had to say. As always we asked her if she knew of anyone close by that we could go and visit. She said she works in a house of a family that is very catholic and that they won't want to hear us, but we could check with her boss, Jorge. Well we went and knocked on Jorges door and Juan Bosco answered. He said that his brother, Jorge, wasn't home. We then started talking to him about the church and asked if we could share our message of the restored gospel with him. He told us that he was really busy and that he doesn't have time for this kind of stuff, but we used a little bit of strategy with him and said it would only take 10 minutes. He said "If it's only ten minutes come on in!" Since that day we have been visiting him regularly and he has been reading the book of Mormon. Since day one he has accepted everything that we have taught him and on Sunday he will be getting baptized! 

We have some other really good investigators that are progressing and looking forward to these next few weeks! Thank you for all of your love and support. Have a great week. 

Be Your Best

Elder Hirsch

Keltons new child Elder Reyes

Juan Bosco Baptism

Great Day!!!

Another Brand New Companion! July 6, 2015

Family and Friends,

Well we had transfers today but I stayed in my area and my companion got sent to another area. I am still serving here in the city and I received ANOTHER NEW COMPANION. Today is his first day in the mission. He is from Mexico and he seems like a good guy. This will be my 7th transfer in a row as a trainer. Its not the easiest thing I have ever done, but I am learning more and more every single day. 

We are working with some great investigators right now who are really close to being baptized. The people here are great and are very accepting of the gospel. Sure there will always be those people who shut you down, slam the door in your face, or give you a few unpleasant words, but they dont slow us down. The Lord blesses us every single day and helps us stay focused on the work.

Its been raining every day here, and its not going to stop for the next couple of months so I am looking forward to that, but the people feel bad leaving us out on the street in the rain so they usually let us in! There are positives to everything.

A lot of times when we are passing through trials Satan likes to highlight all of the bad things that are going on around us. We forget about all the blessings that we have been given and focus on all the bad. The trick to getting through our trials is rocognizing how blessed we are. I can promise each and every one of you that there are more good things going on around you than bad. Its your decision to choose which things you want to focus on. If you want to be happy, I invite all of you to focus on the good, and allow the bad to take itself out of our lives.

I love you all and thank you for all of your love and support! Have a great week! 

Elder Hirsch

New Companion Elder Reyes

Our Zone

More Pictures June 29, 2015