Hi loved ones!!!

So I owe a HUGE HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my wonderful father!!! And I owe it to a lot of other men in my life who have been here with me as well! I can honestly say that I have been blessed with an incredible amount of father figures along with my amazing biological father.

It was an excellent week. I can’t believe that i am in my last 6 weeks. I have been giving all that I have for the last 17 months, everything. Today my companion and I were able to go to Cuautla (where I started my mission and the last area that I was in) to say goodbye to investigators and members. It was an incredible experience. I was able to talk to so many people that I love. To finalize this trip we went to my first area. I had to so many flashbacks. I was able to see a member and an old investigator for the very last visit in that area. It was very emotional as I left. What hit me so hard was the huge change that I have seen in the last 17 months. There were a lot of tears and I cried a fair amount as I left Cuautla. It amazed me that I could barely talk Spanish when I had first got there but had made some of the strongest connections in my life there... 

Honestly I can't describe what I feel in the hour drive back to Cuernavaca I just felt content and satisfied. I was able to look back and say to these last 17 months that I have left EVERYTHING that I had in that time. I am not perfect. That doesn't mean that I was perfect nor that my decisions were the best, but in every moment that I have had here in Mexico I have given everything that I had in that moment. 

There is a lot of work to do still. It's not over. I know I will cry when I leave, but when I am home I know that I will be ready to start my life there with the confidence that I did all that I could in 18 months. I have given the Lord my whole being. I know He lives and works presently in our lives. I know that we must work every day to be perfect like our Example and Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that every moment that we dedicate to him is worth it. I know that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that faith is action. 

I love you all so much.

Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him.

Just because I am going to be home in 7 weeks...

I am officially a "valiente!" Which pretty means that I am officially 

almost home! That's the list... haha  We took pictures at the mission home :)

DOES NOT MEAN that everyone STOPS writing me. I need you guys still, ok? Haha! I am not mad... but I am being honest that I still need your support until the very last week! 

You guys, I am so sorry that I forgot my birthday list this week again but I DO have shout outs for those that I remember.

  

1. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND FATHER'S DAY to my amazing father. John Naut, you are such a wonderful man and I am so lucky and SO BLESSED to have you.

This is the last picture that I have with 

my mission president, President Kusch 

and his wife Sister Kusch. :( 

They leave for a week and we will be 

getting a new mission president 

for my last transfer.

2. HAPPY GRADUATION to my hermanito Chris Naut!!! He is graduating on Friday from welding school and I just feel so happy for him! He has gone through a lot but the Lord has been merciful and has helped him achieve this goal!

3. CONGRATULATIONS TO SAMANTHA HUTCHENS who is officially engaged and will be getting married in late August! I am sooo happy that I will be home to see such a special moment! 

I am sorry, I know that I have forgotten people. I promise that next week I will get on top of things.

This is the family that I mentioned last 

week about the husband that is less-active.

We have a dog... named Perry... well he's

 the bishop's dog...and we live

 next door to the bishop and 

share the same patio sooo it's our dog too

As my title mentions... 7 weeks. 6 p-days.... that's it. You guys. This has been the best year and a half of my life. I have learned so many things. This week was so much better. I feel better health and spiritual wise. I feel so up and down with my emotions recently but the Lord has been with me every step of the way. We are just seeing little miracles left and right. The Lord has blessed me with the perfect companion for my last 12 weeks in the mission. I love the way we work together. She works harder for me because I am ending my mission and I work harder for her because she is starting her mission.

A few of the members of my

 ward...they are awesome!

We had a baptism on Saturday. I totally forgot to tell you guys about a huge miracle that happened when we got the whole ward a few weeks ago. Remember that I mentioned to you guys about a lady named Mari? I found her with Sister Canales in February. Well, when we had transfers and we were taken out of that part of the ward the other missionaries and her just didn't get along that well. They weren't patient with each other. Mari fell into deep depression and the other sisters just kind of let her fall. Well when we got the whole ward we were able to visit her and see how she was. She had A CHANGE OF HEART. Mari had a hard time with the Book of Mormon. She said it made her stomach sick every time she read the word Mormon. Well a member let her borrow another book of the church called Gospel Principles. She began to read it and she was just looking for all of the errors. Then she got about halfway and realized that she didn't get anything out of it. She started to read it again, and read all of the references to scriptures that it gave and came to a better understanding of all that we teach. She finished the book and realized that she doesn't feel the way that she did towards the Book of Mormon. 

Last Monday we went to Centro where you 

find a lot of art and historical sites. 

The big building you guys see is called "Palacio de Cortez." 

When Cortez came to colonize the Americas he 

stayed in this place for a while... If I am right haha

 

She began to read it and came to and understanding that she had been doing everything that God asks us to do HER way instead of His way. She came to love the Book of Mormon and finally was baptized. She took is so seriously. After her baptism she just kept saying that it's a new start and that she just sees up. Her daughter was able to see the baptism and that was a great support for her. It was truly a miracle. Another miracle was that Sister Canales called last night to give us a reference and I was able to give her the great news. She was so happy because the way we found Mari and how things happened was just a miracle. 

Mari was baptized by Elder Smith from 

every part of the US possible. He and his 

companion are going home on Friday. 

Elder Smith is going to BYU Idaho in Fall as well. 

We aactually will have a Book of Mormon 

class together and Elder Holmstead is f

om POCATELLO IDAHO!!! WOOO HOOOOO!!!!

The baptism was wonderful :)

Things are good. I was to make a special request that all of you, my loved ones, in these last 6 Mondays just send me inspirational stuff. I don't want to be unfocused for any reason at all. I realize that I have to make a few decisions right now but that won't let me be unfocused. I feel so happy about my whole mission and I just want to live up these last 7 weeks. I can feel the Lord's love so much more in my life. I can feel that He is here with us and that He is helping us do some great work! I love this ward. I love where I am. I love the mission and I love the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And I am grateful.

I was able to do divisions with a sister from my 

MTC district, Sister Corriveau from Illinois

I love you all soooo much!

See you sooooon!!!

Hermanaut

49 days

Family,

I can't believe that another week has flown by. I feel like al of my letters recently have been huge so I am going to try to be brief. My testimony of fasting has grown so much in these last few months. I have fasted more in these months than ever. I haven't been feeling really well and I asked in my prayer to start my fast that the Lord would give me strength and allow me to see a miracle. 

Yesterday, a sister (the sister of the bishop's wife, super active) came up to me informing me that she has shared what she had learned with from us in our food lesson with her husband. He has been less-active for about 30 years. He comes to church but he doesn't partake of the sacrament or do any other thing that would be considered active. He doesn't follow the word of wisdom and just plainly doesn't believe in/understand some doctrines. We had planned something in this visit but right before we were about to start the lesson I felt prompted that we should share something that I learned in the interim training that we had. So I changed it last minute and my companion just felt it as well. We talked about the Spirit and how it sanctifies us. We compared 3 Nefi 27:19-20 and D&C 20:77 and showed her how the promise of the sacrament is that we can have the spirit always with us if we try with all of our might to do the three things mentioned in the sacrament prayer and the spirit then is what sanctifies us and allows us to be clean. 

Well she shared that with her husband because he asked her "Why can't I feel the Spirit like you can?" and it had a profound impact on him. She invited her husband to take the sacrament AND HE DID! For the first time in 30 years! He had chosen not to take it because of certain reasons but after sacrament meeting he asked his wife to ask us to give him the missionary lessons newly! The sister who was supposed to give us food didn't show up so we ended up being able to go to eat with them and start talking with him. He wants to enter the temple one day with his family. It was so special! He is truthfully very intimidating sometimes and often very closed off. He was that way in the lesson but we asked him to do the closing prayer on our knees and he offered the most sincere and open prayer I have ever heard. I did not expect that from him at all. He even asked the Lord to allow him to feel the spirit more because we had taught in the lesson that it is something that we can ask for in our prayers. It was so incredibly special! 

Truthfully everything worked out so wonderfully! IT WAS A MIRACLE! I mean, he even had to close down his restaurant yesterday because of the elections so he wasn't distracted by his job. The Lord is so merciful with us. I love missionary work so much. This wasn't the only thing that happened yesterday. As I mentioned I hadn't felt that well but I know that the Lord has given me a new spirit to keep working. Sometimes I am so very hard on myself. I truthfully beat myself up. Sometimes when I feel bad I feel like I shouldn't be doing what I am doing but something within me fights. Saturday night, I read the adjusting to missionary life booklet that they have given us and I just realized that I am so mean to myself. But something came to my mind and I realized that I need to start thinking more positively especially towards myself. So as I wrote in my journal thinking about things I realized one very good thing about myself. I don't want to sound like I am being prideful but I realized that I just don't ever give up. Even when I thought about my volleyball days, even on the days where, embarrassingly, I may have let out tears on the court, I never gave up trying to get better. And now, in the mission field, when the days are hard or I don't feel good I just get up and do it. And I don't give up trying to do what the Lord has asked me to do. And I am grateful that the Lord has blessed me with this ability. And realizing this ability has given me a new light and a new hope and a new vision to keep working for these last 8 weeks. 

I know I said it would be brief but I had to write these things. And I have to give an open thanks to my Father in Heaven for the mercy that he has had with me. He has opened my mind, expanded my vision, enlightened my heart, and loved me even when I have failed. He is so perfect and knows us perfectly. We are here to progress and to learn and to love. And I know that this progression can't happen unless we look to Him in everything thought and action. I know that we can't do it without Him.

I invite all of you to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. We have a divine purpose and I know that as we learn about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, we can come to know that purpose and live a more fulfilling and a happier life.

I love you all

See you soon!

Hermanaut

56 Days

Also, I have just found out that my grandma on my father's side isn't doing well. I ask you to please keep Edith Naut in your prayers. Thank you

Learning

Hi everyone!

From left to right: Sister Hernandez from Tabasco Mexico,
Sister Campos from Cajamarka, Peru, Sister Naut
from RENO NEVADAAAAA wooo, and Sister Lizano from Lima, Peru.

Another super-fast week. Things are going great in Burgos. We are working our butts off. We aren't perfect but we are perfect and trying to the best that we can every day. 

It was another good week. I feel such an incredible difference in my life. I feel like I am so much more in tune with the Spirit. I don't know what has changed. I just feel like so many of my prayers that I have been pleading for have been answered in these last few weeks. It's unreal. I feel grateful, purely grateful. We have seen a lot of little miracles. I want to share what happened yesterday. There was a rally or something for one of the political parties so a few of our appointments fell because they were there. So we went contacting and we were walking down this hill.

I had this feeling that someone was behind us so I looked behind and I noticed it was a woman. As I turned my head back around this heart stopping feeling rushed through me that we needed to talk to her. I was trying to figure out how we could smoothly talk to her without turning around suddenly and contacting her and ultimately scaring her. At the most perfect moment we had to stop for a car and she caught up to us. We have a lot of giveaway cards for talking with people and a lot of pictures of Christ and things like that. The whole day I had a card with the temple on it with me and for some reason I just never gave it away. I consciously made the decision to not give it away. I don't know why but I didn't.

When we were talking I gave her that card and we were able to do some inspired questions to be able to get her to tell us about herself. About 12 years about her husband at 24 years old died of a brain tumor. He left her with her daughter of 7 years. Although she told us that it has been fine you could see in her eyes that it hurt her. Coincidence that we had just given her that temple card? I think not. We explained that families were created by God and that He intends to keep them together. We explained that she could be sealed to her husband and daughter for time and eternity, that it would be a guarantee. Her eyes glittered with hope. In that moment and in that street corner, the Spirit was so strong. It testified to every single one of us that this was part of the perfect plan that God made for us. We have an appointment with her at 7. I am excited to teach her.

The week was filled with these kind of testimony building moments. I feel so happy. I feel content with everything. I also found out that the mom of two of my converts in Palmas (Joselyn y Bet-Sua) was baptized last Saturday. She was a reference that Sister Pirez and I received. We taught her a few times but it just wasn't her time. It brought tears to my eyes to know that she finally accepted the gospel. I have a growing testimony of the timing of everything. God truly intends that all of his children learn about the gospel. 

This was last monday night when we had special changes.
Sister Hernandez is also training another Peruvian missionary
and we thought it was funny that we were wearing
 the same thing and we are both training.

My companion is so very wonderful. She is so very humble as well. It's been difficult sometimes for a variety of reasons. As I try to help her understand certain things about doctrine and norms of missionary work, she humbly listens and tries to improve every day. I love her very much. I admire her humility.

Things are well. I am signing up for classes this week. I will be taking political science, introduction to international studies, Spanish for returning missionaries, a Book of Mormon class, and piano lessons! My counselor put the first 4 classes together for me and said that this load is what I should do for my first semester back but I needed one more class to be a full time student. I went with the vibe of my counselor and will be taking this class to help me be calm :) woo hoo!

I testify with all that I am that Christ lives and that He is actively working in our lives. I know that God knows us perfectly and we can have hope that all things will work out for the better. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and perfect. And I know that we can come closer to our Heavenly Father by reading it and applying its teachings in our daily lives and that there is no other book that has the power like it does. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a onetime thing but a way of life. I know that the spiritual things are a million times more important that all temporal things. 

I love you all so very much. 

See you soon!

Hermanaut

63 days