Week 11 - General Conference Thoughts

So the baptism, ya he came to church the next day and got "Baptized with the Holy Ghost", haha I wrote baptized on accident so i just used it, and he came to conf this week, idk, he´s never recognized the spirit before so he doesn't know how to respond.

To answer your other question: no, splits aren't senior comps wanting to frito around, it's so that more work can get done. The tuesday split was so that work could happen in the areas while the dl interviewed an inv. and the other split in my area was because the elder is dead and doesn't work well, so they moved him around to like everyones area to help the work in his area - to revitalize the work, idk in dc 84 i found this scripture about missions that talks about those strong in testimony should be paired with the weak in testimony so to strengthen the other missionary.

General Conference 

We watched it in english in some different room on a little tv with a bad picture -  it was great.  I'm so glad it was in english.  I learned a lot about truth obedience love, more than living jesus speaks and idk those are all things that ive been studying lately, so maybe my thoughts about them came from study and not conf hahah. I've been really impressed recently with "the Jesus lives and speaks, more than only lives - way more."  He isn't passively alive doing nothing i think if people understood that it'd be different. I don't even remember if that was said but there was a whole talk on the resurrection and President Packer's talk he all but said I've seen jesus with my own eyes, its what the spirit was teaching, if not the apostles.  Umm... Obedience, I don't have my notes here with me either but there were some stellar thoughts. and I loved the truth you cant just set it aside, its truth and it has to be dealt with, as always there are things that I think of in conf that I need to change and be better on, and truth obedience and love were all on that list.

Things are going good here, I think I want to be in this area for a while with Elder Zubietta.  I really like my comp; he's a really hard worker. 

ya going to conf never was my favorite thing, but its better than going to the stake center to watch it on plastic chairs.  At least there are enough gringos here that we watched it in english, phew! I'm so glad that I could focus on what they were saying doctrinally and not have to worry about trying to understand spanish. 

This week the work, was just as good, but we had to go to migracion in polanco, which is like super rich city area.  You almost could forget you were in Mexico when you're there.  Seriously most of the people were essentially white & rich.  We saw a Ferrari - one of the elders we were with a latino could hardly believe his eyes.   

haha you wont believe this but I met an Elder Blotter this past week. haha he's from the East Mission and from the Logan area.  He knew Robbie Blotter.  The world is rather small.  After migracion we got back to our area late and had some food (comida) and only had like four lessons that day.  That kinda stunk.  Saturday was conf and we didn't have time to go back to our area and then return in between sessions, so no lessons on Saturday.  Sunday was almost the same, but we did have some lessons that day.   

So cool lessons this week: One of the members of our bishopric is the only member in his family, so we are trying to baptize the rest haha.  This is something I do find cool about Mexico - three generations live in the same house. Anyway, we taught his little brother and his girlfriend, hector y sandra, and they are progressing but need some work.  They're fun to teach because you cant just give the normal restoration or plan of salvation lessons - we have to teach to needs and questions and doubts they have, so it keeps you on your toes and we really have to focus on the simple parts of the gospel.  We also teach his wife, angelica.  She essentially has a testimony, she comes to church practically every week, and stuff like that, but the difference between a knowledge that its true and a spiritual knowledge that its true.  My comp decided we´d teach about "The Plan of Salvation" but specifically the Resurrection and Eternal Families.  It was an interesting choice, I thought, but I went with it.  We taught part of our little plan, and she brought up the doubt of are families eternal.  She actually doesn't really believe that they are.  At that point I took control of the lesson and steered the lesson to testimony and the simple part of gaining a testimony of the B.O.M, and that that solves all doubts and problems. idk it was a cool lesson and I actually felt like I taught with power, she´ll get baptized hopefully this month with her two daughters.

Today we had like a zone meeting activity, it was really fun.  We played soccer.  Apparently soccer balls here are really chincy or they just bought some crappy ones, because we popped two balls while playing.  I scored and had a pretty cool assist...  And yes we were playing against and with latinos. haha At the stake center there is like this little bobsled with wheels and a steering wheel the missionaries today had fun with that driving around in the parking lot, until the packed like 8 guys onto the thing that should hold 4 max and it flipped and our zone leader got some major road rash on his face.

We must have eaten something my body didn't like cause dang.  And the plumbing and bathrooms here are a little questionable anyways.  Sometimes with toilette paper the toilette just doesn't flush.  Sometimes it's the kind of flush that you pour a bucket of water into the bowl. ya it was an interesting week.  I'm not sure I'm over it either.  My stomach hurts every once in a while now.

Randomly...  my hands like swelled up yesterday, that was fun. haha they used to to that at home though it doesn't worry me, it's just weird.

Thoughts about General Conference: 

Lots talked about truth, obedience, and the whirlwind of satan, those are things that God wants us to think about. Also, I had a thought about when 70s quote other general authorities: I think "Don't you have your own experiences to share?", but I had the thought, call it an impression if you want, that they are saying exactly what God wants and maybe God wants us to here the quote from the general authority again.

I love you guys, the pics the little bobsled thingy and the baptism that we had at 9 am before the session of conf, only one baptism the older man baptized his son in law (as of one week)

Love you!

Elder Blotter

Week 10 - Busy Busy Baptisms!

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

I'm sure theres more I'm forgetting to tell you...

love you guys a ton, miss you guys more than I thought I would ;)

Elder Blotter

Week 9 - Week of the Drunk Men

So, this week we had a baptism and have 4 four more scheduled for the upcoming Saturday; the work is coming along.

This week has been really hot.  Like almost sunburn hot.. sweating is way better than freezing like at the MTC, I did ask some of the members and they said that June is like the hottest month so, I don’t know if they consider it hot right now and that its going to be scorching in June.

Healthy Kick - In the last half of the MTC I decided to do push ups and sit ups and I was really good at doing that every morning in the MTC but.... ya that stopped like the minute I arrived in Mexico. I really should work on that cause I don’t want to be a weakling when I return. 

That's exciting that Hunter Ensign has his call; Ireland is really cool.  Many of the general authorities served their missions in that area… haha

50 lessons a week is under the goal.... and this week we only got 42. slacking…! J.K, not slacking, sometimes its just hard to get 8 lessons in a day, especially Sundays and Saturdays, when nobody is home. 

Junior High, what a terrible time.... haha I had a blast in 7th grade but 8th and 9th weren't my favorites.

Tell Chloe I love her.

Ya, my Spanish is improving, I can ask questions about the lives of the members and understand now. haha…  and ya, it was pretty isolating.  Geoff and Sam, among others, have said that having latino comps is hard.  I actually like my comp a lot, but my only problem is that he doesn’t speak English. We communicate through spanish so if I don't have something I need to say or a specific question we don't really talk about non essential stuff.. which kinda sucks.

Yes, the entire area is a hill. and the picture I sent you last week is not the hill that's terrible-- that hill is rather normal.

So that sucks about going to Bountiful's seminary building at 2 in the morning .... haha and puke in class is always fun... Not!

I forgot that Holly's parents are moving to Utah and Tanner -- I miss that little guy. 

I think this was the week of the drunk men, we talked to so many drunks. And a guy we were talking to took a hit of cocaine right in front of us... haha and I see weed all the time.

My comp was almost robbed, some weirdo was walking by and came really close and tried to pick pocket him. But it was the shoddiest attempt I've ever seen, we were like "whats up?" and he was like "Hey come into my house.... that lady over there is white..." we turned around and said, "see you later man."  haha

What else?  Oh we ran all the way across the city, and when I say run I don't mean run, but we had an apt that was way up high and we were on the complete opposite side of our area. So when we finally get there, no one was home.... ya that stunk.

So baptism. I had to speak at the baptism about baptism, in spanish.... It went okay, I shared a lot of scriptures and bore my testimony-- haha I hope it all made sense... The baptism was of an old lady named Graciela. She has hard core arthritis and she was afraid of the water, so the baptism in the font wasn't the best experience, she was crying.... and they re did it... kind of a fiasco but it was good.... 

We would have 5 baptisms this Saturday but one of them didn't come to church so his date “callo" or fell through, going to bump it back like a week or two.  

So a little story about faith and judging people.

When I first got here we had this investigator who was a drug addict with tats and ear rings and stuff. He actually is American I think.... i.d.k. he was born in Indiana.  Anyways he got kicked out of the US after being in prison there and stuff like that.-yes he speaks english which is nice sometimes-

Anyways, he wasn't progressing in my view and I wondered why we were teaching him, I didn't have much faith in him, and to an extreme view not I didn't have enough faith in the power of the gospel to change lives. Anyways, the last two times we visited him he has cleaned his bedroom and he does his hair now, and everything about him looks cleaner, and his faith is definitely growing. idk I'm telling this poorly, he made some comments during the lesson about how he noticed from our teaching that somethings in his life he wanted to change, like playing video games and music... which is way cool I think. He is using the light of Christ in his life more to discern and he is more receptive to that light. I left that lesson a little bit humbled and with faith in the power to change.

Too bad he didn't show up to church on Sunday --the next morning... 

idk What else. 

I love you guys. Oh, and anyone who hasn't read Jesus the Christ read it, and if you have, read it again! I love it.

well... love,

Elder Blotter

Yellow Water...

Week 8 - Dead Tired!

This week has been good.  Tiring, but good.  Seriously, I am so exhausted after the day. When we come home to plan, I like struggle so hard to stay awake to write the next days appt.

Ummm sooo this week:

We worked hard - 51 lessons and 51 contacts, the contacts are supposed to be 80 for the week oops......

There’s like a giant hill called AV Revolution, it’s a massive hill that seriously sucks so hard to climb. At the top is like a poor area, the rest of the area is like slummy houses and like they are all pretty similar with like a big metal door on the front and behind is a little courtyard thing or a hallway or whatever and then you get to the house.  Oh, and all the houses are like connected, like the pictures I sent last week.  I’m doing a terrible job explaining this, anyways Marvillosa, I think is what its called at the top of the hill, is different.  The houses are more shack like and disconnected and they actually have yards - not like an american yard; like a Mexican yards - anyways way poor at the top of the hill.  I saw a couple dogs eating what either was a dead human or a dead dog. It was that eaten it was hard to tell; pretty gruesome.  At the top of the hill are a couple of families that are pretty faithful.  When we visited them we got a bunch of contacts that actually turned into appointments.  i.d.k. People seemed more humble up there, but it’s so far away.

About halfway through the week I was told that I was going to work our area with someone else cause my comp was going on splits with the DL.  I nearly died.  I was so stressed about it.  Like, literally I was resigned to just being lost all day long.  Sunday morning, the day that the splits were supposed to happen, came and my comp cancelled the split cause I would’ve just been wrecked.

I mean seriously only a week and a half in an area and not speaking spanish, you can handle this on your own right? no.

Spanish:

Much better than last week.  I can use spanish well (after I wrote that I laughed... well is relative) during lessons with sharing stuff and teaching doctrine, but conversationally… haha… ya,  I’m not there yet.  I definitely understand more than I can say.  

Two of our investigators with baptismal dates fell through, which sucked.  Fell through as in they didn’t come to church this week, so we have to move the date back further. We have two baptisms this Saturday which is cool though.  We had three investigators come to church, so that’s cool.

So we taught a couple of investigators with members present, but the members are less active. It’s a little annoying.  This has happened twice now; the members, during the word of wisdom lesson, say “like, but Jesus drank wine, why could he drink wine and we can’t?”  Finally, in one lesson, in my terrible spanish I was like “In the Old Testament, when the Israelites came back to the promised land, they killed everyone that was there -  the women, children, cows, goats, etc.  Is it okay to kill people today because they could in the bible?”  My comp was like “In the law of Moses, if you didn’t keep the sabbath day holy you got stoned to death, why don’t we do that now?”   It was a little harsh but it wasn’t that harsh in the lesson.  But seriously people, if the church is true and God said we can’t drink alcohol then that’s why.  Isn’t that enough? Cause it should be enough.

Umm… funny thought that popped into my head: our laundry is like soaking our dirty clothes in dirty water and then calling them clean. haha it’s kind of a joke.

We have/had 5 baptismal dates, which is cool, but two didn’t come to church so there’s that. Haha with one lady, who I thought was a member, we were visiting her and we taught “The Restoration”, which is a little weird to teach a member, but some members need that, so I didn’t think to much about it. Haha, at the end of the lesson we gave her a baptismal date, ya she was an investigator.  Haha my bad. 

Oh, theres one lady that we talk to that acts like I´m speaking some language other than spanish, maybe the other members are being nice and pretending to understand, but I’m pretty sure my spanish is adequate in that I use verbs.  Maybe I conjugate them wrong but it still should make partial sense.  This hermana (sister) just turns her head and says huh?  It’s frustrating.  Haha, the funny part is that she speaks rather slangy and not good spanish either, so I have a hard time understanding her.  Haha, ya we visit her all the time, she is a recent convert but she practically knows nothing, we go and define words for her which is hard for me cause I have to recognize the word in spanish and then try and explain it in spanish.

Ummm… this letters been long.  The hills are tiring and the altitude is like double that of Utah, so its tiring. I get home and have to walk around from like 10:00 - 10:30pm, so I don’t fall asleep.

I’m trying my hardest to be a good missionary, and I know I cant do it alone. I haven’t gotten sick yet so… lets hope that keeps going.

Love you!

Elder Blotter

P.S. There is this lady we are teaching, that is a member of some crazy religion, that believes Jesus or another form of Jesus is some old Korean lady, and she is called the church of god or something weird.  Also they have a religion here that worships saint dead, also very creepy.

Week 7 - First Impressions

Well...... so much to say and I'm not good at writing or remembering so I'll try to tell you guys everything... but don’t be upset if i miss something.

So the flight we woke up monday morning at like one am, the bus was supposed to leave at 2:30 am-ish, it was late. so we could have gotten like another hour of sleep. packed up, had to send some crap home, you should've gotten that... don’t need any of i think. anyways... bus left at like 3:30-ish to the airport and then get to the airport and there were a ton of missionaries leaving and so the checking was slammed and that took like twice as long as did security, annoying, but like our flight boarded at 545 and thats like when we, me and like the other kids in my district, got finished checking our bags. zoomed through security pretty easy, 

Flight to Houston/Dallas (I forgot)

It was like 20 degrees colder in Texas than was Utah, weird.  Not much to say about the airport except it was bye to a bunch of different peeps from the MTC.

Flight to Mexico City

Not much to say it was a flight, easy enough. We arrived in Mexico at like one in the afternoon;

customs and immigration took a little while but no problems, so that was nice.

We got picked up by two elders at the airport, and were taken in, like, these really nice taxis to the office where we got fed by the mission presidents wife, like hot dogs french fries and some beef; kind of a weird meal.

We then got taught how we teach in the mission for the rest of the day.  Oh ya, pretty much the President doesn't speak any english so like the interview was in spanish, that was though, haha so we got taught forever in the office, so tired it was rough.

The next morning we woke up, got ready, etc. and drove to a stake center where we got our companions.  Every white person (gringo) always gets a latino for a comp and all the new latinos get gringos for their trainers.  My comps name is Elder Zubietta, and he is from Ecuador.  He doesn't speak hardly any English, he’s a convert of like three years, he´s a hard worker, which is nice, but his last few comps were what they call “fritos" here, which means slacker - but literally translated is fried - so sometimes he does stuff and I’m like: “you probably don’t know this, but I think thats against the rules.”

The Area

I’m pretty sure Brad (brother in law) served here, you guys have got to tell him that.  There is a less active member who is trying to find him on FB named ¿yeni? or something and she told the other elders about him.  They were shocked when I said I was related to Brad.  The area is called Ixtla in Pariaso.  It’s pretty ghetto - I.D.K -  the pics do it justice, I think.  There are tons of stray dogs; I practically own a dog. There are tons of VW beetles - I’ll probably have to buy myself one of those after the mish, to remind myself of Mexico.

hahaha 

My comp doesn’t speak much english so its tough to communicate, and my spanish totally sucks.  The members who we meet say my spanish is really good, but..... ya no. It’s not.  I understand some people almost entirely, well the gist of what they’re saying during the lessons, but with other people I have no clue. 

The members here are really cool.  They just give us food and stuff whenever we visit them.  We are in an area that have tons of hills and stuff. Those were just two random thoughts....

Anyways we have to eat (I think he meant **make**) our own breakfast, which is like eggs cooked on a hot plate and I bought corn flakes... and apples.  Ya breakfast is lame.  For some reason we go to the church building and do our morning studies with the district, which is annoying cause then I can only bring the stuff that I use during the whole day and not my spanish text books or Jesus the Christ and stuff. I.D.K… we study till about 11 or 12, and then we go to work.  We have like appointments for every hour of the day.  A good amount of them are less active members.  We are supposed to contact 15 people in the streets during the day.  We eat lunch at like 2:00 pm and lunch is at a members house or a member gives us money to buy lunch somewhere.  I eat like the same amount as my comp and get harassed for not eating enough. idk haha i haven had anything i didn't like, they have tons of like fruit juices here, they ask if you want water and then they go blend a cantaloupe and pour you a glass, its pretty nice......  what else oh ya i cant figure out when we are supposed to return to the apartment, 9 or 930, then we plan and then i sit around till like 1030 to go to sleep.

Thats a typical day.

We have had like two golden investigators already.  We found one in a shop as we were walking back to our appt. she like yelled to us and told us that she wanted us to teach her, that was pretty cool.  The other lady, which was a reference, we went to teach her and it turns out that her kids are all members and stuff.  She has read some B.o.M and had like all the pamphlets, and I think she has a Liahona subscription, hahaha.  We bore our testimonies and then she bore hers. She´s been to church for like 10 weeks in a row, we´ll baptize her on the 22th of March, hahaha, so that’s way cool.

Then there’s the investigator that speaks english well, because he lived in America. He got addicted to drugs and was in prison for a while before he got deported to Mexico. Ya, we gave a cool lesson about the word of wisdom, and I shared a bunch in english, but he didn’t come to church, so that sucked. 

The mission president wants every companionship to have a baptism every week. That’s pretty cool, a little lofty I think, but idk.

What else....... idk.  It’s all a blur.  I follow my comp around cause I don’t really know whats going on hahahaha.  Not knowing spanish sucks; like it’s pretty discouraging. Anyways... idk what else to write. 

I love you guys!

Love,

Elder blotter

Week 6 - Arrived in Mexico City

I'm in Mexico so far its very pretty.  I've been assured its very safe, I love you.  Monday is my new P-Day... Sooo I'll write you in a week I guess.

The mission president told me I was getting a latino for my first companion; this is like the highest baptizing mission in the country.

The first day is like drinking from a water hose; I only got like two hours of sleep last night.

Anyways later! love you!

Elder Josh

Week 5 - Last Week in the MTC

So this week.... I don't know, its been really exciting that its the last week, we've had no real difference in our schedule yet, tomorrow is completely different and sunday is different too but so far its the usual, but our teachers have been doing some stuff different so thats been nice.... hahaha seriously you're going to be disappointed that this is short and i didn't really tell you anything but... nothing happens here.

we were teaching this lady from Guatemala I couldn't ever figure out if she was a fake investigator, she was really cool it was really cool teaching her, we taught her for the past two weeks and this week when we went to teach her we were about to start our lesson and the scheduling guy came in and was like, hey so you guys are done teaching her...... it kinda sucked she started crying and stuff we took a pic so that was cool.

What else? My district was like ya we're going to focus in and really grind hard the last week... what a joke. they have been way less efficient this week than in the past, which is saying something.

I'm not ticked at them cause its not my problem, and the district leader was distracted too, I just used the time for more personal study so that was nice. haha I've almost finished all the short books in the mish library, I haven't started jesus the christ yet.

umm ill look up the scriptures that you gave me... i had some scriptures i could share but i left my journal at the apartment. matt11:28 and then follow the footnote to 1st Jn 2:6 three words in the matt one is come take and learn. the action words pretty cool i.d.k.

love you guys,

Elder Josh


**************

That's elder Zach Checketts and elder venn Spencers cousin.. it was so fun seeing them before Checketts left, his mission call is to india but he didn't/yet get his visa so he's going to Spokane Washington, thats a far cry from india.  Im not sure where elder venn is going somewhere south america spanish speaking.

p.s. - hahaha don't worry I'm getting a hair cut like tomorrow.... wish me luck.