Week 31 - Changes

So, this week has been pretty good.

I’m in the “Pantitlan el Palmar 3” ward, in a Colonia (colony) named “el sol calle 31” if you want to look it up on google earth. My companion is Elder Luna he is from Tampico, Tamaulipas, I think I spelled that wrong. Mexico we were in the same district in ixtla. he is super cool a little disobedient, which is always hard but ill help him with that. Hahahaha theres a scripture in DyC that talks about putting the strong with the week, and he definitely strong in ways I’m not also. He is super good at speaking to people connecting he’s a people person, I definitely have things to learn from him too.
So we got to the area and dropped our stuff off in the house of the elders who are in palmar 2 where we slept for one day. the area is super organized it’s a grid with streets numbered from 1 to 40 with house numbers that start all at one and all the odds are on one side of the street and the evens are on the other side. so finding people is not difficult because you cant really mess up the directions. So looking for the less actives is easy cause the directions are actually real.

On Wednesday we moved into our house and to move into our house we had to take all of the stuff of the sister out. Practically she could have made it onto hoarders pretty much each room in the house was full of just stuff. Old newspapers broken appliances tons of pans dishes and plates and a lot more random stuff. We spent all day cleaning the house, but its super cool three stories 5 rooms I have my own closet I sleep in like a queen sized bed, I have a real desk not just a plastic table to study on.
Oh and when we were cleaning the house we left to go find cardboard boxes to pack some of the stuff. We went to like a market in the store and some lady walked up to me and said: “Hi Elders, blah blah blah.” Anyway, we thought she was a member and we got her address and her phone number to meet with her later, not a member someone super ready to hear the gospel knows a lot about the church though, she wants to get married in the temple and have a family like that, cause she’s been married 3 times and divorced twice and is only 30 years old. it is interesting that she was married three times and she didn’t just move in with some guy three times. hahaha miracle person that wants to get baptized she asked us after church when we stopped by hey when are you going to baptize me? haha so thats a family of four, that we’re going to teach baptism and prepare for the temple, in the house we live in the sister has two daughters and the boyfriend of one has been coming to church for 3 month-ish and she’s been teaching him, and reading the BoM with him. they are both lawyers so thats cool haha but it makes it hard to teach him cause he’s only at our house at like 9 at night, so i think we are going to get to bed late…. idk and i surely hope he’s not been staying the night. but who knows.

We’ve found a bunch of members and people with potential, we found the super old lady who’s been a member for like all her life and she’s 92 i think, i have no idea why if she got married in the temple her children didn’t get baptized but there is a family that lives there that almost got baptized when they lived in the US but when the returned to Mexico the fell off the map, that family has a lot of potential.

Idk I’m really excited about the work here, normally opening an area is hard but this has been easier than my previous area.

And there’s WALMART! Theres a plaza named plaza jardin that has a ton of really cool stores we went to Walmart and I splurged and spent like 500 pesos. In my old area I spent like max when I was buying food 200. Hahaha but I felt like I was practically in the US. WALMART. A real store.
Idk, what else happened this week… oh I feel like in this area they’ve never seen like a white person before I get way more people staring at me and all the women and like teenage girls like stare and me it’s actually pretty hilarious.

So this area is completely flat not a hill in the area, I surely hope I don’t gain weight, and that ill be able to sleep cause honestly I’m not tired at night when its time to go to bed, like before I walked in the apt. and nearly collapsed, here I cook an egg make a sandwich putz around take a shower cause it feels nice… and then go to bed.

Do you guys watch the mormon messages? The make a new one every month and I really like the one that came out in the last month, its called like the hope of gods light, look it up its cool.

I’m great and I hope ya’ll are doing good.

Love you guys,
Elder Blotter

I got transferred to an area named “El Palmar 3 Pantitlan”.

I’m opening this area with Elder Luna, we’re both new here he was in my district in ixtla, were I was before

Oh and a before and after pic of the study room.

Soooo the pics are of the coolest mission house I’ve ever seen. Yes, that is a real kitchen the first one I’ve seen in the mission with a functioning oven and with although not a full size fridge at least its big.

Week 30 - Change is coming

So the news: I’m leaving the area and the zone; zones are stakes here so I’m leaving my stake. The change is tomorrow at 12:00 pm.

Inv.

We had ward conference yesterday, and in Mexico that means activities every night during the week with a party and larger activity Saturday evening. We went to one of the activities during the week but I cant remember what it was. Haha, it was relatively at the same time as the ward mission leader correlation meeting. Anyway, one of the elders had a baptism at 5pm Saturday, the same time as the activity to have members be there. We invited three investigators to go to the baptism and stay for the activity and the food after. It was a cool baptism. There was a psychologist that talked about families and kids and parents and then tacos after. The three investigators that we invited came, it’s one family. They came, stayed the whole time, and enjoyed themselves and then came to church the next day and told me they really like the activity and the stuff super cool.

Also beginning this week we only had 3 inv. We now have 5 with the possibility of 4 references; super cool.

Miracle

We went like 5 or 6 weeks without a new inv. and in Mexico thats terrible. Then, on a Tuesday, we found a lady and her two daughters that accepted us and was progressing. We put a return visit to go to the church on a Saturday and explained the church and committed them to baptism with a date. Then on Thursday, during weekly planning, they called us and said they couldn’t continue in the gospel because they were moving. I wanted to cry. Haha, we said a prayer and thanked God for our trials, and then in 20 minutes we received another phone call from someone who we had taught 4 weeks prior, who like understood the restoration and accepted it 100 percent but she had some problem with her knee and we lost contact with her. She called and said why didn’t you come visit me on Saturday we replied “We didn’t have an appt on Saturday.” Haha, so we made an appt with her to go re-teach, if needed, the restoration and teach the BoM. We got there and a Book of Mormon was on her table she had already started to read it she was like halfway through 1st Nephi. It was super cool. Haha, oh and like the last of the like 17 miracles in this story was that we showed up for our appt. and the Jehovah’s witnesses had just knocked on her door. We walked up behind the JW’s and she said oh the only reason why I was down here to was to answer the door for these young men come on in-to us not the JW’s hahahahaha.

We also got a ref. this week of someone who I’m pretty sure is ready to change and accept the gospel pretty darn cool.

Thats cool about Sam!

Idk how I feel about leaving my area. I’m like super excited and at the same time like super anxious about leaving. I’m going to miss a lot of families. The family Sanchez’s 2 returned missionaries, who were powerful missionaries, one of them we reactivated them, we go visit them on Sundays and have really good discussions about deep doctrine or he like plays devils advocate and talks about the “mujerdocio” — sacerdocio (priesthood) for women — and then combat with the scriptures and doctrine and stuff hahaha. Honestly, I’m going to miss them and a bunch of other people too. I’m mainly I’m just nervous of new things. It’ll be good I’m ready to leave.

This past week I had decided to stop looking for numbers. I’m not on my mission to teach 8–10 lessons a day; I’m here to help others come unto Christ, and be converted. I didn’t do any of the dumb stuff we do here to get numbers really quick. I didn’t teach 8 lessons one day this week, but I had 42 lessons which is better than practically any of the other weeks this cycle. Idk, I thought this was a really good week.

Thats pretty much all that happened this week.

Love you!
Elder Blotter

Week 29 - Power Outage

So the prop was pretty sweet? Hahaha… So he couldn’t get up on the good ski, that’s too bad. About getting up with the rope to the side when we went boating as young mens with Bret I wanted to water ski and I brought our ski remember? Haha and then he didn’t have a ski rope with a v and I tried to ski anyway and couldn’t get up. It just pulled me to the side and down. Hahaha idk I couldn’t do it either and id rather ski than not ski haha.

So the power went out and we have like 5 mins of back up power on the computers.
Two of my converts the other day were crying as they thanked me and my comp for helping them change their lives and he asked me if he could go on a senior mission and they are already planning on getting sealed. The feeling in that room is why the mission is worth it.

Idk, I think I’m getting changed I had a semi good week, kinda hard and doing have any inv. progressing which means no baptisms which sucks but ay voy (that’s the way it goes).

We got stuck in the rain the other day that was a cool experience.

And I’m nervous that I cant write more so I’m sending this love you!

Soooo the power came back

Hahaha… Umm ya, the weeks of 60 lessons have come and gone. Since they changed the area i teach on a good week 39 lessons. which is below the goal and we get semi chewed out for that number. the mission is soooo number focused it kinda sucks. actually it really sucks, so we got we call planched — means ironed — by our district leader about our numbers and we´re doing something wrong cause god doesn’t send people to fail, if we were doing what we were supposed to our efforts over the last month would have shown. Ya, haha so in my mind I’m thinking I doing everything I need to I’m studying super hard how to be better contacting new people and trying to have inv. and to help the inv. progress but I cant supersede their agency, nor can I force them to listen to me nor to pray or come to church. AND God has a plan and maybe his plan write now is not for me to baptize but to work and work and work without results to see if I’ll keep working. Idk kind of a rant but this week was semi tough haha.

We had 0 baptisms 0 confirmations 0 inv. progressing 0 baptismal goals 0 new inv. and 0 inv. in the church on Sunday.

Ya, it was a bad week. Idk, hahaha I hate that the mission is so focused on the numbers. It’s so important to do 8 lessons and 15 contacts everyday that you cant think out of the box to find new people or give 8 lessons that are powerful or needed, if you don’t have the numbers you go visit every member you can think of to leave a scripture and share a thought and leave only for the sake of numbers. Idk, we just keep working!

Week 28 - Lunch

So... your week sounded really busy, hahaha.

The teaching is going well, we only have like one family that we’re teaching, so the week went by rather slowish and kind of tough with the numbers cause we don't have a ton of investigators. My comps feeling fine, and yes I got my haircut. Ya I got the pics.

My Week:

The only people we are teaching is the family of Juan Carlos, and his mom, dad and sister.  They are pretty cool about completing the compromisos (commitments) and everything.  We keep having problems meeting with them like we get their like 10 minutes late and then the daughter goes and gets the dad who is working, and so the lesson starts like 20 minutes late.  I say something while we’re testifying about the plan of salvation that derails the lesson for like 10 minutes while he asks about missionaries in the spirit world and why we need to try here if we can repent there. Hahahahaha ugh I realized I needed to study more deeply plan of salvation to understand what I need to teach the people and the things they don't need to know.

Also we like dropped a significant number of inv. this week. We dropped about 4 people like straight forward we aren't going to come to teach you anymore cause you're not doing anything, the first one was a little uncomfortable at first but it's a little liberating to tell people straight up why you're not coming back and our purpose as missionaries.

What else — ya, I told you that we cooked in the church.

We got 200 pesos, with is about twenty bucks, for the 6 of us to eat; that’s not a lot of money.  A good lunch with a sandwich and a water or soda costs about 50 pesos. So we decided to go and buy longaniza, which is a type of sausage, to make tacos and that we could cook it at the church and then stay at the church for a baptism of the other companionship.  We told the other elders to go for obisbo (bishop) Castillo, the old bishop, to go and buy the meat.   They came to the church with about 2 kilos of longaniza and a little more than a kilo of suadero, seasoned, for free.  Then we bought tortillas and salsa and a coke and ate in the church.  It was actually a really good lunch and was fun to do it ourselves. 

Umm, I think thats about it, hahaha.

I love you guys have a great week and ill try to do the same.

Elder Blotter

P.S. I’m Sorry that I didn't write a lot.