Week 100 - See you in two.......... days (Last Post)

Soooooo....

Any last, profound words? Not really.

I love you guys a bunch and I'll see you on Wednesday.

This week was cool we had a baptism on my last Saturday. she is super cool, her name is nancy which surprisingly nancy is a common name for teenage girls here in Mexico. we told her about the baptismal interview and she was like dang i have to be super prepared for that. hahaha she read all her pamphlets again watched the Thomas s monson video, read her book of mormon for like an hour hahahaha she wanted to be ready and she totally was.

What else I had a very cool spiritual interview with pres. talked about careers marriage..... awks..... hahaha and my service here in Mexico and what impact it had on my life. how to be more optimistic. idk it was a wonderful experience. to have the president say that christ saw my efforts and my work and he was proud of me.

umm what else...... i love Mexico and my converts and the people that helped me along the way.

and I'm going to be in mi casita on Wednesday.

Loves!

Elder Blotter

Week 98 - I'm dreaming of a white christmas too...

HEY

sorry im writing sooo late its cause i went to visit guelatao, my old area today. hahaha that was super super great! but..... it took all day......

but it was super super great. idk i really loved visiting my old area today adn the people that i taught... like a plus and a huge con, is that im still the last missionary thats been there. sooo they all were like hey elder blotter!!!  its been sooo long are you back here to stay? and i had to say like noooo... in going home.... soon.... hahaha but it was super nice i love the people there.... hahahahaha i really disliked the ward, but the people there are super wonderful nice, dont really work in callings or visit... but i love them, a whole lot has changed babies born actives gone innactive, new people moved into the ward, idk tons of changs.

this week in teh area it was tough, haha had meetings or weekly planning idk i felt like the days just got swallowed it goes by sooooo fast now, sooo fast, its already december 7th, thats insane, our inv cousin died so she couldnt go to church, that stinks... but we had like another 17 less actives. there is a family here with the hourd of children that i really love. hahah the kids are just so genuine and i love them they have come to church twice in a row now which is awesome.

ummm love my comps, we live 5 in the house and its always a party i try and help them stay on task which i find backwards..... cause im the one with 23 months.... hahahahaha we started waking up early to go to the gym, feeling great. my comp is a homey and likes cooking sooo he makes brecky.

ummm... i was studying and idk its been weird for me to study these last couple weeks cause i feel like ive studied, and i dont know what new to study... not like ive learnedd it all but like what do i study at the end of my mission? so ive been reading old general conf talks and i started reading Doctrine and convenants. and this week we visited the family with tons fo kids and i fely like i needed to share a scrip which is in like DC 6 talks about rich is having eternal life not money, cause this family is poor, and are kind of focusedd on working and its a problem but she was like elder why did you share that? im like idk, i read it this morning and i really liked it, and she says elder i felt like that was just for me, the ear tugging i needed. and then she came to church for the first time in a long while, and brought her mother and oldest daughter who hadnt come the week before... ie the only onther week i went to church here.

next week is insane, deárture interviews, then zone conf then have like 2 days of not leaving the house the temple dedication, then in two weeks is the mission christmas party then my generatino is going to the temple.......... as in chrustmas is cool but almost impossible for missionary work.

LOVE you guys tons. ahhahaha yes mom i watched the christmas devotional live. super cool you went, im sure it was better in english.

my comps father showed up to church this sunday.... hahaha oops? hahaha it was weird.

idk, highlight of the week was probably going and visitng my area today. im still pretty happy. such good people stinks hard that the ward is unsafe, hahahaha id be willing to go back. hahahaha

Oh..... ixtapaluca will be becomming part of our mission in january.... tell brad he´ll be excited he was there.

BYE loves im dreaming of a white christmas too.....

Elder Blotter

Week 97

Hey!

Thanksgiving: James Bond & football, haha, sounds fun.

This week I got to eat a tamale with bacon in it.  Be jealous, because it was delicious.

So day one here: I got to the changes a little late because the member that was driving is like deaf or has selective hearing.  I think I know what it's like to have a teenage son.   We finally got to changes, got my companion and accidentally left one of my bags in the van.  Ugh... on to the new area.

The house that we live in is large and two companionships live there, but they had the house filthy and the landlady is super annoying and is a great fault finder, haha.  So we, as of yesterday, were on the point of getting kicked out of the house.  We talked and have till the 3 of January to find a new house, or in other words i don't have to worry about moving, haha.

But the house was filthy dirty.  We cleaned it.  It's sick (a good thing) now.  Like we have three or four couches sick, haha.

The ward is cool.  We have lots of less actives to visit and members that like the missionaries, and investigators that are progressing.  We had three baptismal dates for the weekend before I come home but two of them didn't come to church so I wont be here for two of them, lame.  But, there are some pretty cool people here.

Idk, I get along with my comps.  One of them loves cooking, so I'm stoked because he enjoys making us food.

Ummm, idk.  We visited a bunch of less actives and 19 came to church on Sunday so that was sick........... there are two different families here that the sister has like 32 years old and her son is 18......... other words had a kid when she was 14. two different people. wow. or a 23 year old with 4-5 children.


ummm idk I'm doing fine out here in la perla. or the pearl. hahaha have fun before i get home cause I'm going to come home and sleep for like a week. hahaha I'm tired all the time.

apart from sister Stutz having Facebook she has a blog http://stutznegger.blogspot.mx/
her blog is a hilariously different perspective being the mission presidents wife.
you'll probably like that.


hahaha love you tons mom
have a great week.

Elder Blotter

Week 96 - Last week of changes

Last week of the changes. We spent a lot of time in a pueblo called Apipilhuasco.
Super, super cool place with only like three different members of the church. And one investigator
The investigator is super cool but super like flakey...…Idk.... One day he'll get baptized and all his family. His wife is already a member, when she got baptized they had like marital problems now that everything is better cause of the principles of the church she comes less cause she spends more time with her family...…

But, slowly but surely the husband will become a member of the church and their like 5 children.
The other family is a family that got baptized a long time ago, but they never really or don't want to say they felt the spirit. So.... We are teaching them as if they were new inv. its pretty cool.

we also had an activity to go to the visitors center and we invited all the ward all the less actives, we've been planning this activity for like a month or more. we rented full bus to go. 1300 pesos which is like a little under a hundred bucks. at 10 which was the planned leaving time. no one shows up. nobody. at 1115 we had 8 people. in a bus that seats 32. ugh...... so we went anyway with those people...… and one was an investigator i have and she closed her heart and wanted to fight about the money used to build the visitors center and a bunch of stuff instead of learning and feeling the spirit. after the wonderful video of the family that they have she pulls her phone out and takes a pic of the tv. cause its huge. but seriously strong spirit present and hard hearts.

What else. Not a lot ,more, have changes. Lame......................
My last 4 weeks in the mission in a different area. Um not going to get to know anyone. That stinks. And its cause president wants me to end my mission as a ZL.........… for four weeks.
I'm not really into missionary titles and I'm not too excited to be in a new area for the last four weeks in my mission.
Ugh more reporting... more talking to leaders every day.


Nothing more. Really. I had to wash two weeks of dirty clothes cause I don't know how but I accumulated white shirts and garments for like two weeks.

Love you tons,

Elder Blotter

See you soon.

Week 93 - Halloween

I almost forgot to shoot you guys an email.

How are you doing? Didn't snow on halloween?

Speaking of halloween, Mexico's weird cause they've adopted a ton of stuff from the states and so now in addition to day of the dead they celebrate halloween. And I don't know why but we were instructed not to leave on halloween but i'm nearly positive the largest parts of the festivities were today and yesterday. But who knows.

so last week, Monday was mission conference. with elder Nelson, Tuesday was p day and then they cut Saturday in half making it useless to me so i had Wednesday Thursday and Friday to work this week so that was kinda hard. we found some new people to teach and we have a lot of important appointments this week. we had a ward activity on Friday too, it was like a talent show, some people came dressed in costumes but instead of showing talents they did like an evening of improv.  they assigned songs and had costumes.... they assigned us the village people in between macho man and ymca...... haha pretty crazy

This morning we played soccer with the young men in the ward, cause they didn't have school.

umm...… we've decided to use the phone a lot more to schedule and verify a lot more, cause holy cow its horrible to go to a pueblo for an appt. and they're not home...…

Not a whole ton to share, we had an investigator at church yay! Marcus, he's the husband of a recent convert we're going to the visitors center with them on Thursday.

ummm.....

Love you guys tons!

Elder Blotter

Week 92 - Note from Executive Director of the Missionary Department

Dear Brother and Sister Blotter,

My wife and I just concluded a tour of the Mexico City Southeast Mission.  During our time there we had the opportunity to meet your wonderful son, Joshua.  He has been an outstanding missionary.  His President and wife speak very highly of him.  I was able to interview him during our zone conference and found a very mature young man with a strong testimony of the gospel.

Thank your for sending your son and thank you for raising such and outstanding young man.

May the Lord bless you and your family as he continues to serve.

Sincerely yours,

Elder Brent H. Nielson
Executive Director of the Missionary Department

Week 92

Hello.

how are you guys im doing great.

I´ve been punching it out here in texcoco without like any visible success. we arent getting discouraged though. we had zero investigators in church again. that is just sooo painfull to have.

but sunday was ward conference. which is nice cause lots of people come to that, and the stake pres talked and the bishop. the stake pres gave a good talk he just didnt take his talk to application it was just a feel good talk.

And monday we had a zone conference with elder nielson and his wife. it was a really cool experience and i like the sister nielsons talk she talked about how what is being a nielson, then she talked about how in laws change and she said ruin but as a joke, the dynamic in the family and how to accept and more than just tolerate people but really to learn from them. i really liked that cause i feel like in the mission i had thought that it taught me that but i realized i have just tolerated some of my companions, tolerated very well, but never really got to the center and loved them adn made them my best friends.-on some of my comps yes- she went on to talk about her sons and their character adn some comps they had in the misino and how they learned grew and applied it to us.

elder nielson talked to us about the atonement and the enabling power and the doctrine of christ and he helped us apply it to missionary worka dn hwo to teach better contqct better certain principles that he thought we could do a better job teaching and stuff like that. it was a truly choice experience.

the meeting was in the stake center, whichis like 90 mins from my area, so we got permissino to stay over at the zone leaders house, actually they told us to do it so we didnt have to wake up at 5 am to be there. but at the zone leaders house they had like 2 extra blankets and no extra mattresses and there were four of us that slept in their house. i had brought a blanket, but it got chilly, and the cement floor was cold. so i slept all night on a a cardboard box that i laid out on the ground like a homeless person, it was terrrible. hahahhhahaha

idk we went to siome lame ruins today in my area, i bought a chess board to teach my comp how to play chess. hahaha to keep the brain active in between study sessinos.


not much more. i sent an email to a dude about my job, he still hasnt replied if chels could contact him, i sent an email to kyle.
when is registration for classes? and i dont want an earlier class than 9 am please and thank you. also about the apartment, if you could find one where i only have to sign a semester contract? cause after a semester i probably will have friends i wan tto live with again.



UMMMMM did i forget anything? chang my major no?

love you

Elder Blotter



The first two pictures some super lame ruins in the middle of the city of texcoco, my area

this was at a fair, we paid like 10 pesos to take a pic with this cool snake