Week 78: Merry Christmas Skype

     We love our missionary!!  It was so good to hear his voice and see him in person.  He is loving his mission!  We were touched by his Christmas gift.  He sent his brother, Levi, a name tag along with the teaching pamphlets and things that he can study to prepare for his mission.  He told Levi to try on the name tag with a white shirt.  It was surreal to see him with that name tag on.  Next year he will be the one serving during Christmas.  It was special to hear his brother encourage him
to forge on with submitting his papers and the life changing experience that it has been. My favorite part of the call is our missionary saying the family prayer.  It is extra special to hear him praying for his siblings and other family members. 
   
     I am so thankful for the Daniel and Stacy Mitchell family that took the missionaries in on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!  They have a special place in our heart.  Brother Mitchell told me that Elder Gutierrez is an awesome missionary and has had great success in their area because he and his companion are extremely hard workers and obedient.  It is so great to hear.  He mentioned that they will be sad when he gets transferred from their area.  I am so grateful for these ward members that treat the missionaries like their own children.

- Last Christmas Skype in the books

- Heidi Gutierrez

Best Christmas Present for a Missionary Momma!!

Week 77: Make Room for the Savior

    Hello everyone, only one more week until Christmas!  Make sure to #LightTheWorld and look for every opportunity that you can to serve those around you.  Your family members, your co-workers, or even complete strangers.  This is such a special time of the year because the light of Christ is so evident all around us and being a missionary for the Lord only makes it better.
 
     Elder Warner and I had a super cool Christmas miracle happen this week that I am super excited to tell you all about.  Early in the week we received a media referral for a lady named Caroline for a free Bible.  We called and texted her and she sent us a text saying that she just wanted us to mail the Bible because she was too busy for us to stop by.  Well of course we didn't mail the Bible and just stopped by a couple of days later.  We thought we were going to have a bit of an awkward interaction, but to quite the contrary . . .Caroline was so excited to see us and immediately invited us in.  She had all 3 of her daughters come down (Alexia, Brianna, and Kaiden) and we were able to teach the whole family the Restoration.  Caroline was so amazed that we had set apart two whole years to serve God.  She loved our message and we had such a great lesson.  They were unable to attend church on Sunday but later in the day they were able to attend a Christmas Pageant our ward was putting on.  They were fellow-shipped great by the ward.  They are a huge miracle to us and we are exciting to start teaching them.
   
     Things are still going well with Marjorie and she is progressing super well.  The only thing holding her back is her boyfriend because he is not sure if he wants to get married yet.  We set a baptismal date with her this week for January 13th.  For the past little while we have been trying to teach her two step-kids and her grandson, but they are a little too crazy.  I'll explain:  Marjorie and the three boys were able to come to church for the second time this week.  During the third hour, we heard one of the boys, Hervince (6) screaming in the hall.  We went into the hall to check it out and we saw him running around like a maniac with a stressed out primary teacher following behind him.  We stopped him in the hall and settled him down and told him that he had to go back to the primary room where all the other primary kids were watching a Christmas movie.  We sat in the back of the room to make sure he was going to behave and out of nowhere he started yelling and let's just say that what he was saying was not good . . .All the primary kids were shocked by what he said and so we had to take him out of the primary room and walk around the halls with him until church ended.  Great parent training. Ha, Ha!  So we are super excited about how Marjorie is doing, but the kids not so great.  We are going to just focus on her until she is baptized and then we will focus on the three boys.
 
     Things really are going so great here in Bridgeport.  Our district leader has set some awesome goals with us to hand out hundreds of #LightTheWorld pass along cards before Christmas.  We are seeing great things and we are hoping that Vernice will continue to progress so that she can be baptized next Saturday, keep her in your prayers!  Thank you to everyone that supports me.  I love you all, talk to you again on Christmas!

Love,
Elder Gutierrez

Christmas Card Picture

Christmas Card

Our scrappy Christmas tree - famous elf hat in the backgroud

Temple Trip to the Hartford Temple with recent convert Zhong to take out his own endowments

Teaching with Patrick, Marjorie and the boys!

Week 76: #LightTheWorld

     Hey everybody!  Elder Warner and I have had a great week in the frozen tundra of Bridgeport, CT!  The snow finally came this week and the weather has gotten a lot colder.  Our investigators are doing well and we are working with some super awesome new people that I am very excited to tell you about.
   
     Last week, I mentioned a lady named Marjorie that we picked up as a new investigator.  She came to church with her 3 kids/step-kids.  Again this week things went very, very well with Marjorie.  We began teaching her 3 kids:  Rooby (12), Derby (10), and Irvince (6).  You could definitely say that they are a little "wild", but we are loving teaching them all.  They were unable to come to church this week, but Marjorie has shown great desires to become closer to God.  She even cooked us some awesome Haitian "legume" after a lesson this week!  She's the best!
   
     Wednesday was a super awesome day for Elder Warner as we got to go to the Hartford Temple to see one of his recent converts receive her endowments.  We had a great trip to the temple.  As I was thinking of my own converts, I gave a couple of them a call and found out some great news about Tony Collazo from Worcester.  He got engaged to his girlfriend Krissia who introduced him to the church and last week they both received their endowments.  Also, they will be getting sealed together for time and eternity on January 20th.  What a great joy it is to see people you taught in the beginning of your mission thriving in the gospel and continuing to have their lives changed.  I am so excited for Tony and his fiance.  They remind me a lot of my own parents story.
   
     We were going through the ward list visiting all the members we didn't know and saw a huge miracle.  We stopped by the home of the Ochoa family.  When we rang the doorbell, a lady came out on the porch of the second floor, saw us, and said, "Elders!"  She ran down to the door to let us in.  We were both so excited.  It turned out to be Sister Ochoa who is a life long member, but hasn't been very active for the past 10 years.  She used to take herself and her 4 kids to the Spanish Ward in Bridgeport but her children didn't like to go to the Spanish speaking ward.  Her husband is not a member and so over time she just stopped taking her kids.  We later found out that just earlier this week she had been telling her oldest son that he needed to be a good example to his three younger sisters and that got her thinking about what kind of example she was being for her children.  She realized that she needed to improve and prayed that God would help her to be a good example to her kids.  She then told us how we were an answer to her prayers.  This Sunday they all came to church and loved it!  Donald (10), her oldest son, is unbaptized because his father doesn't agree with the church but we hope to start teaching him soon.
   
     Things really could not be any better.  We continue to find many new people to teach each week.  Vernice is still doing great and we set a baptismal date with her this week for December 30th.  She has been stuck in New York due to family problems, but she continues to show great desires.  Claudette is doing well too and we are striving to see her baptized on December 30th as well.  The Lord is blessing us abundantly and we are so excited.  Remember to #LightTheWorld this Christmas season, it really is such a special time!  Love ya all.

Love,
Elder Gutierrez

Elder Warner and Elder Gutierrez #LightTheWorld

#LightTheWorld

Saying Goodbye to the old District

Our Zion Beds

First Day of Snow in Bridgeport, CT

Sister Matambo's nursing graduation

Marjorie's Legume!

#LightTheWorld Snowman Style

Preview of Our Christmas Card . . . 

Bob Womboldt's Baptism from Amherst, MA (Elder Little and Elder Poleman)

Hartford Temple Trip with Elder Warner's recent convert to receive her endowments

Week 75: December Already?

     Hello everyone!  Elder Warner and I had a fantastic week together in Bridgeport and we have exciting news!  We will be staying together for another transfer, woohoo!!  We are both very excited and relieved.
   
     Time is going by so quickly and I cannot believe that it is already December.  As time is going by Elder Warner and I are seeing great progress in the work with our investigators.  This week we were able to pick up an awesome new investigator named Marjorie.  She is from Haiti and has only been here for a couple of years.  She is loving the Gospel and is super excited to be learning.  Marjorie and three of her grandchildren all came to church this week!  It was so great.  We are expecting great things from her.
 
      Last week we also picked up a really cool investigator named Claudette.  I failed to mention her in my last email.  She is originally from Jamaica and was actually taught by the missionaries there!  We found her because her neighbors are actually members in our ward.  We had a fantastic lesson with her this week and we set a baptismal date with her for December 30th.  She came to church this Sunday and so we are really excited for her.  She is really determined to receive an answer about the Book of Mormon.  We are excited to meet with her this week to see if she has received an answer yet.
 
     Also in the past couple of weeks I received exciting news from two of my former areas, Springfield and Amherst.  An investigator that I taught in each area was baptized.  Arline in Springfield and Bob Womboldt in Amherst.  I was very excited to hear about both of them and I am so happy for the both of them.  It is so great to hear that the work continues to go on after you leave an area and that really nothing can stop this work from progressing.
 
     I am so thankful to be a missionary and that I can wear Jesus Christ's name on my chest each day.  This is such an exciting time of year as almost the whole world stops and takes a minute to remember our Savior.  I invite you all to participate in the #LightTheWorld initiative.  There's no better way to celebrate this time of year than to serve those around you as Christ himself did.  I love you all!

Love,
Elder Gutierrez

Elder Warner and Elder Gutierrez - Temple trip with a recent convert, Nyiesha Tobin

Service at the Zoo

Exchanges with Elder Felt

P-day Sports

Baptism of Arline in Springfield, MA with Elder Little and companion