9/25/2015

RETURNED WITH HONOR

This wonderful discipleship is all worth it!

WOW what the heck is it really over!? No me Diga! haha I cant believe that my final days are coming to an end. The first week in was like that hardest and I didn't know a lick of Spanish and not having any idea of what was going on in the lessons but here we are. We got to to this point ​with a lot of faith, so many prayers and a testimony solid and firm! I am so happy to be here at this point. All the missionaries have said that we should work so hard all the way to last days in your mission so you wont feel that remorse and honestly I feel like everything is in place! I am so happy to have had the opportunity to serve in this wonderful country and to have felt a little of what Christ had to pay!

Now this week my goal is to finish strong I want to work until the last hour and not slow down. I don't want to die until Wednesday! I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father for giving me these two years here to learn, serve, and love! I am know this gospel is completely true. I have seen the miracles and the blessings. They will always be stuck in my heart to help me and to keep and cherish! I know the Book of Mormon was passed to our loving prophet Joseph Smith and he did restore the church. I know that he was empowered with the authority by celestial apostles and that we are here for one purpose so that we can be tested, tried, and to put the atonement into play! I know that Christ payed the price for me and he did suffered every affliction and type of pain ever known. I know that this work, this wonderful hard discipleship is all worth it. I love this church and I love the director of it as well. In the name of Christ amen!

p.s. I will see you guys on Friday! :)

Love

Elder Santacruz

My companion sleeps with 2 fans

16 days!

SEPTEMBER 2015!

Wow are we already in September? oh dang!!!! haha

Do I still have to say that this week was another great week because I say it all the time! Every week is just amazing!

My comp and I are good friends, wow I just want more time with him because he's so cool! I can always extend?????? hahaha no just kidding. Yeah my two years are up and I feel so good that I don't want to spoil it!

This Sunday they I gave a talk about missionary work and I could feel the spirit so strong I wish you guys were there because everyone enjoyed it! Mom I mentioned you in my talk! I gave the talk and then suddenly everyone decided to do missionary work! This week we have already received 5 references and 4 lessons with members! My district has been telling me that I am not dying which means that I am not slowing down because a lot of missionaries slow  down and they tend to stay longer in the house and waste time but me NO WAYYYY!!! We are teaching in the mornings and in the afternoons! I am  not going to waste any time! I am so happy that everyone is giving us all this work to do!

The other day we met a family that is having lots of problems. They are members from a long time ago and they really didn't want anything to do with the church  at first but we have been going every week and we finally had a lesson with the mom who is a member. Wow she started crying and starting saying that one of her sons was saying to her that¨mom I would definitely not want to be your son after this life¨ and we started explaining to her that there is a plan after this life that she will be able to live with her son after we pass away. She felt so happy she said that she feels like her family is falling apart and that she doesn't feel like she is teaching her kids correctly about God and the gospel. She wants to start doing it! We want to help her more and her family and yesterday we left to go teach some lessons in the morning and we passed by her house and she was cleaning the house!!! SERVICE!!!  We got in there and we helped here clean the house and she was so happy and she even trusted us more!!! It was so great!

Eleazer is progressing even more, we are going to see if he will get baptized next week or the next week after that! He is definitely progressing and definitely wants to be a memeber of this church! This was my great week  and I hope you all love it and were able to feel the spirit!

Also I was able to visit crisot rey before I leave so I am so happy! I got to see my activated familys and my converts!

Love

Elder Santacruz

Bye to my Cristo Rey families

Elder Faalogo

Bye to Sis. Lopez

God and his army is stronger

Hey guys!!!!! How are we all doing? I hope everyone had a great week! This week here in Sabaneta was great! It has been raining everyday this week which was so great! Everyone was saying that we are in a drought and that we were going to run out of water in one month but it started raining hard so not anymore!!! so that's good! Its pretty crazy that one river is the sourc of water here! But God always loves and he has blessed this little town! 

But guys guess what? We found two more people this week and we invited them to be baptized. The first guy is a Peruvian so that's cool. His date is on the 19 of September!! So the weekend before I leave we are planning to have another baptism!! The lesson was with him last Thursday. I don't know if I've told you guys about him before but his name is Omar and he works for Kola Real, a soda company here but he has taken the lessons before in Peru when he was 17 but now he is 28 so now he is really interested but anyways the lesson was so spiritual!!!! It was so calm in his house, there was no noise what so ever but he had read the whole pamphlet! He said that he loved the first part of the pamphlet so I just kept going and he understood everything! The thing that was so great from the lesson was at the end when my comp and I finished teaching and both bore our testimonies, just from his face we could feel that the spirit was touching his heart and let him know that all the things we had said were true. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted right away! He was saying that it seems true because just by our dedication to this work helps him realize more that these things are true!

Yeah he is a cool guy! So happy to have him!:) he has gone to church twice!! 

Now we have another investigator that is new but he is another reference. He has come to church 4 times even before were teaching him but his name is Eleaser and his advantage is that his girlfriend is a member and they are planning on getting married. The girl doesn't was to force him. She is so cool she doesn't want him to be baptized for her so he definitely knows that it has to be his own testimony which is great! We have told him that they have to be his desires and he says that he really wants to know if this is the true church. The girl was telling us that she sees a change in him. He goes to church without her invitation. He goes by himself so we feel like he is preparing himself to be baptized so we will see if we can see two baptisms next month!!:) 

Leonidas is still preparing himself to be baptized. We want him to be really prepared for his baptism so we don't know if he will be baptized this Saturday or next Saturday but he says hi! He told me the next time I talk to my family to say hi for him! He is a really great guy! I told him he has to go to my wedding and my reception to play bachata haha but he is such a great guy he is definitely going be a great member of the church. Just pray for all of these guys please. Satan is trying to tear them down but God and his army is stronger as you guys can see the work is so great here in Sabaneta! I can't complain!!!  I wanted to let guys know that I am getting home on the 25th of September, it's a Friday and they still havent got the flight plan yet but they think I will get home around 8:15 not 100 percent sure but that's the approximate time!! Wow that's so weird to talk about.... hahaa but love you guys so much!!! Have a good week! This week lets try to give a reference to the missionaries! It will help a lot! 

Love

Elder HOLYCROSS haha everyone calls me that! 

Elder Christianson

Hermana Dulce and her sister

Hermana Zagarra is leaving us

Nelson my workout buddy

A successful missionary is one who is dedicated

​¿Como estan mi gente?​ Que loco me falta solo 7 semanas ¿verdad? Pero... I'll stop talking in Spanish because no one can understand me only mom! Yeah buddy buddy mom we are just gonna talk in Spanish. English doesn't exist for us hahaha but anyways this week was so cool! Guess what we found a less active this week and here is a crazy experience for you guys! Okay ready...?

So when I got to Sabaneta I met a less active member his name is Napoleon. the president of the branch introduced us to him. He has so much time not going to church and also guess what he is an ex missionary... so sad... but okay I met him one random day out in the street and we have always wanted to find him. My companion Elder Pinales didn't want to waste time trying to help him so we never went to his house when I was with him but when Elder Lopez arrived I wanted to find him because he is a cool dude. He is super smart and I don't know why but I felt something when I met him. What I mean is I felt the holy spirit telling me that I needed to go see him. Anyways when I went with Elder Lopez to his house no one ever answered. I remember that sometimes when we went over there right before we got to his house we would see him and he would walk inside and hide from us or he would just never answer the door when the door was wide open. After like our 10th visit my comp said to me yeah we should stop coming we are wasting our time! So I agreed.

Now, last week on Thursday we saw him in the streets which was weird because he never leaves his home. He lives by himself and he doesn't work and he has no friends so he likes staying in the house....anyways like I was saying we saw him in the street but we actually bumped into him... like it was perfect!! We got his number and he was saying yeah go to my house on Saturday at three and we were like yeah buddy!! When the day came at three we tried calling him and he wouldn't answer....and when we got to his house he wasn't there. My comp was so annoyed I was a little also but get this!!!!! On Sunday, the next day I get the the impression to say to my comp, "hey lets go visit napoleon again tomorrow." My comp was saying why? like thinking I was crazy but we did and when we got there the next day he was there!!!!! He let us in and he said hey guys sorry I had to do something the day we planned the appointment we were like no its okay! We sat down and guess what? We talked in English. He is fluent in English and he is super cool. He just has a lot of problems! We talked for 2 hours about his life and everything but when we got out we realized that we were being that successful missionary according to preach my gospel!!! It says that a missionary that is successful is one that is dedicated and we are definitely that!! We kept trying and trying until we even doubted but I learned so much by that little moment from the beginning until now to always pay attention to the spirit and always be persistent. I learned that from Elder Holland!!! Wow I love the mission!! I love you all so much hope you like my week!

Also Leaonidas is not ready to get baptized. We think that he needs to wait another week because we don't want to baptize him until he is sure that he will endure to the end and until his testimony is strong! 

Love you all!! 

Elder Santacruz 

Shout out to My Boy Elder Jake Peterson for being a boss and finishing your mission! You are a great example to me man! Keep going dude!! Love you!

God is Love

​Hey guys!!! Wow this week already finished? Flip... haha 

Well this week was a little loco. We had to go to Santo Domingo because we had to renew our Visa. They are doing it because they are sending all the Haitians back to their country because most the Haitians don't have papers so that's kinda sad! We did that Monday and yesterday it took us 5 hours to get back to our area can you believe it!? Wow Santo Domingo is far. Oh by the way Santo Domingo is the Capital!

This week we were able to find 5 new investigators. Can you guys believe it, they were all references!!! Hey we might be seeing some more success soon! Woot Woot! One of the investigators is a Peruvian and he is so smart. He works for Kola Real, its a soda company. He is an engineer but he is so interested in the plan of salvation. He has studied about everything. He looked into Buddhism, Jehovah witness, Atheism but he is understanding everything we are teaching him! Wow he asks a million questions so that's good! He did go to church last week, not here in Sabaneta in a another city. He enjoyed it, he said he will come to the one here so were excited to have him!

Leaonidas went to church again!!!!!!!!! That's four weeks straight going and he is still focused on it!  He is making sacrifices to be a member of the church of Christ!! It's so great! He said to today that he feels apart of something and that he is starting to feel happy for once in his life!! Wow!!!! That's so cool! The Lord is definitely helping him!! 

He might not get baptized this Saturday because we want him to really have a strong testimony but he will get there right? Yeah buddy! 

President of the branch is happy! Today we saw him and he said he is so happy about the work that we are doing, he is seeing a lot of progress and its true the work here is changing! People are more motivated to help us. 

I am so excited for this week. We are going to meet a new family. They are a reference but they are really cool. They want to know more about the church so we will see how it goes. Please pray for us!! Prayers do work!!!! I love you all Mucho!! This work is great!!! God is love!! Christ lives! This is his true CHURCH!

Elder Santacruz

Super funny man

Dominican working in sandels

Temple selfie