Elder Joshua Blotter's Mission: Week 10

hahaha ya adapting to the work and altitude, haha i still think ill be exhausted after every day. This past week was so insane. We had three baptisms and so had to schedule the interviews right, and two of them were wednesday night at six k so we go to the church and the alarm is blaring and no one knows the code to shut it off, so my comp and the dl go to the stake center and do divisions and I with another greeny, but he's Mexican, go to his area. I had nothing more than pamphlets and scriptures. I stayed the night in the other area and then the next day was a zone meeting in the stake center which is a good half hour walk from my area and a good hour combi (van) ride, had showered or changed in two days, then after/during zone conf my comp goes with the zl because one of our inv. was getting married and I went with the other zl to his area.... finally at like 4 that day my comp shows up and we walk for a good half hour to get back to our area and got to work and the next day was zone conf with the president at a different stake center. walked there too. got back to our area at around one-ish and then worked, the next day was saturday with the baptisms had to clean the font fill it and stuff like that, hahaha... Ya I was a little tired.

Tracting - I apologize haha, we only had 41 lessons this week and three baptisms and the dl kind of rode us and I was like what do you want?

Tennis sounds fun; it's like perpetual spring time here, it down poured, even hailed for a little bit too, yesterday pretty hard core.

Spiritual Thought: in 2 nephi 2 talks about there needs to be an oposite in everything and cosas similar to that, we taught an inv. last night who believes in god sometimes, and we see testigos de jehovah all the time and they dont beleive in life after death from what i understand. anyways with those things ive been thinking and i shared this with the investigator that literally everything denotes god, he had said he had a desire to be a better human, which is an acknowledgement of god because without god without anything after there literally is no purpose to anything. also something i learned in the mtc and the member in last nights lesson shared with the inv. that with a true understanding of who god is, and i mean a human understanding, becuase we cant conceive god and i know that, but if you understand that god is your loving father, like really understand what that entails nothing else really matters it all makes sense past that.

A month in Mexico feels like no time at all and at the same time an eternity. I can hardly remember what life was like before the mission. I am doing better at the language every week, people act surprised instead of relieved when i tell them ive only been in Mexico for a month. haha still need more language skills though.

So this week, in my mind, I want something sewed like a little case for my scriptures haha nothing much just so in my bag they don't get hurt, and I realized I cant just have you sew it for me mom. hahaha theres a lady we visit that I'll have to ask.

I'm looking forward to gen conf too, we go to the church and it's live I think, 10 and 2 and 11 and 3 on sunday so one of the days is delayed but ya we watch gen conf on the 5th and 6th, and we have a baptism in between sessions. and we´re bringing inv. so it'll be pretty wonderful I think.

So this past week: we baptized three people Juan Carlos, Lesly and Alicia.

I personally baptized Juan Carlos. haha... Funny little story about him, so it's Mexico... so the baptism was supposed to start at 6. The first people arrived at 6:20 - two members who we invited to attend, the first inv. to be baptized arrived at 645, and every person asks if they're late when they arrive, and you look at your clock and wonder idk are you late? haha anyways we didnt start till after 7 because the bishop was the last to arrive, both the members that were going to give talks didnt show. hahaha ya the other missionaries in the ward spoke for us,

Then I baptized Juan Carlos, just keep in mind that the font was prepared to be used at 6 not 730, haha we go in the water, and i honestly think most Mexicans haven't seen that much water in their life before, so he got a little deer in the headlights look, and then acted like the water was ice water, it had been warm an hour before, haha so we go down I say the prayer, baptized him pull him up, literally I had to like lift him because he didn't keep his feet on the ground, and once he stood up he like idk even how to explain this: I'll start with when I told him to use his hand to plug his nose he said he didn't need to, so we stood up and he acts pained like something is hurting him, he covers his face and stands there for like 15 seconds and then he´s like okay hahaha

so take him out of the font to change, and stuff and my comp was going to baptize the other two, so I change as well, in the bathroom Juan Carlos says to me... "I didn't like it." and I was like "what didn't you like?", he said "All of it." So theres that? haha then after he gets dressed he just leaves, I kind of like follow him to see where he´s going and he just exits the church gets to the road and just takes off running. haha turns out there was some party he wanted to go to.... Ya he has his priorities straight.

After the baptism, the old lady gave me a hug. haha... I just accepted it and hugged her. It was a transgression not a disobedience. The old lady is Alicia; she´s way cool. I like her a lot.

haha so we´ve found that the testigos de jehovah (j-dubs) prepare people for us. They teach about the "Bible" and people learn a little about jesus and stuff like that go to church and they don't really like it. Obviously stupor of thought because its false. haha and then we come and teach and they feel the spirit and they go to church and it feels right because it is. hhahaa