Bednar August 28, 2018

Hey all

This week was especially special for a specifically special reason. Elder Bednar of the Twelve came and visited our mission! 

It

Was

Awesome. 

I am not gonna lie I thought he was gonna be mean and serious and rail on us. But no, he was very relaxed and nice and respectful. He definitely held himself like an Apostle, and it was cool because it was the first time I've ever seen one! He did not shake our hands but he was very cool and we got to ask him a bunch of questions and have a great time. He taught us that Faith is being an agent, and not an object. To have faith is to act, and not be acted upon. I was very happy to have been able to hear personally from Elder Bednar. He helped me out and gave me many answers that I had been looking for, for a long time. Awesome experience!! 

We also had a great Mission Leadership council with President and Sister Casillas. They gave a great talk and we learned a lot! I am really liking them as my new Mission President and Spouse. They are great! They also got us pizza so I mean I was happy for that too. I always love pizza! 

This week was a blast. We met and taught the Palacios family. Diana, the mom, and Valeria, Wendy and Paola, the 3 daughters. They are all super awesome and want to be baptized! We also met the Olguin family: Ulisses, Evelin, Axel, Ulisses Jr., and Oliver. They are super cool too and I feel like I was assigned here for a reason because it just so happens that Oliver is a HUGE ukulele fan haha, we get along great! We also met Sandy last week, her boyfriend is a less active member who lives in Ecatepec and she lives down the street from us. She has been to the Temple lots of times and went to church for the first time on Sunday and loved it! Zulema is ready, she just needs a divorce, Juan is doing great, so are John and Alondra. Kike is happy, so is Brandon. We have SO many people to teach that I dont know how to keep track of them all, and have an even smaller idea of how to update you all on everyone out here. 

Yesterday morning, Juanita called us and asked us if she could be baptized on Sept 8. I said yes haha

We went on companion exchanges with Del Valle this week and Elder Elizondo bought us a mega pizza. I like pizza. 

Today we went to Plaza Parque Delta and it was fun. 

I don't know haha we have so much fun every day that I don't even remember the days. I feel like I was writing here 5 minutes ago but it was actually a week. Next week on Thursday marks 2 months until I go home!!! 

Elder Bednar's greatest teaching was related to the Flying fiery serpents in Numbers 21:6-9. He explained how many people died because they would not look, because of the easiness of the way (1 Nephi 17:41). Then he got really serious and told us: "That pole for you guys is the Book of Mormon." Reading the Book of Mormon is so easy, yet because of the easiness of the way, many will not read it and will perish. His teachings impacted me in a profound way, and I have an even stronger desire to read from the Book of Mormon every single day. I loved my time with Elder Bednar. 

Have a good week, read the Book of Mormon! 

pics

1. me and elder ogden cuddling in public. kind of. not really. 

2. me and elder te at the temple from a few weeks ago

3. CDMX temple

4. the bros

 B

" The price to pay" Aug 21,2018

President Casillas is very wise. He definitely knows what he is talking about, because he told us that talking to everyone about the Gospel, whether they want it or not, is "The price to pay for all of the blessings that God gives to us". We saw that so clearly this week as we contacted a bunch of people every single day. We make a great contacting team, and contacted both old and young, slave and free lol Nephi is funny. But really we contacted a bunch, and only had 1 new investigator all week! So, on Sunday we were walking to appointments and discussing what we would do differently the next week when a man yelled "Hermanos!!!" really loud a few streets back. I could tell he had real intent so we jogged back to him and asked what was up. He introduced himself and his wife, Enrique and Diana, and explained how he had once been a member and wanted to be active in the church again. Diana is not baptized and wanted to learn more. So we set an appointment for the next day, Monday. WOW. Diana has 3 daughters, Valeria, Wendy and Paola. They are GREAT!!! I am positive that they will be my next baptisms. All of them are so golden and want to learn and follow Christ, combined with Enrique showing them the way by coming back to church, makes that family the typical golden family story that every missionary wants to have when he serves. I am sure that God blessed us because we had followed our President and trusted in his promise, putting our Faith in Christ.

We brang Juan to the Mexico City Temple this week as well, he is super happy and loves it. He also brought his girlfriend!! I see him embracing the Gospel very soon. He is awesome. 

Zulema is planning on getting divorced in a month and a half. I hope I'm still in Mexico when she gets divorced, I would love to be there for her baptism! 

We went to go visit a super Catholic lady and found her extended family who was over for a weekend visit. The mom knew a ton of Mormons and since her daughter is staying here for school, invited us to teach her daughter, Binisa. dope. 

Daniel is doing great, we are just waiting for him to come to church so he can get baptized. 

John and Alondra are the BEST. I LOVE THEM. 

Bednar will be addressing my mission this Saturday in the Temple grounds. I'm nervous, what if he calls on me?!?! haha but really that would be so scary

Today we got to meet up with Elder Te's older brother who served in Mexico City as well! It was cool for him to see his brother, I bet it was a great moment for both of them. 

This week we were walking around contacting when this old guy who cuts down trees said hi to us. He talks to us every time we see him and he talks FOREVER. Well, he saw Elder Te and started talking about China, and a bunch of random stuff I've never heard before. He asked: "Who was the first Mandarin in China?"

Te: "Jackie Chan?"

I am happy, and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a lot brighter haha. But I'll keep working until my last day, I do know that! 

People who have actually read this whole email, props to you because I've been out for 21 months and you still actually care about me. Since you have read so much, I'll leave you guys with a great quote I heard from my wise President, Gregorio Casillas. 

"We always look for the way to obey God, without offending Satan" Guys, just keep the rules, don't find the loophole, and don't justify the sin. Have a good week! 

pics

1 & 2: just chillin in the offices with Grimshaw, Te, me, Ogden and Anderson. And my dominican republic buddy Nuñez. 

T 8-14-18

Hi 

This week was cool, we had a ton of miracles and hard work, and then Vincent was chosen to leave the area, and I got my new companion, Elder Te! Te in spanish is tea so that's cool. However he is more attractive than me. But I'm still taller. so HA! I guessed that Elder Vincent would go to Tasqueña and he didn't believe me. Guess who went to Tasqueña? 😏

I went on companion exchanges with the Assistants in Xochimilco, we had a fun day, and it was hilarious because there was this tiny weiner dog and it jumped at Elder Hansen and he screamed like a little girl. I also smiled at this one lady as I walked by, and the assistants told me that she found them a few days later and wanted a visit, and now she's progressing really well. You can literally smile at people in Xochimilco and baptize them. Ridiculous. 

Then I had companion exchanges with Elder Sanchez in Iztacalco 2. it was a fun day, we ran around and visited a bunch, and kept walking by this super nice R6 that was up for sale :/. We at pizza that night. 

Then I had companion exchanges with Elder Pizzi! We had a fun time and also ate pizza. 

This week we found Sandra and Brisa, we were walking down the street and just starting chatting with Sandra, a young mom, and she explained that the missionaries had visited her like 8 years ago but only a few times because they always went with her sister who lived upstairs. Her sister was baptized and then moved to Texas and the missionaries never had come back! She is pretty awesome, still remembers that Prophets are really important and wants to be baptized with her daughter. 

We had been calling Ruby Vazquez for like 2 months, trying to put an appointment and finally got to meet her on Thursday. She is golden! She is super cool and really likes hearing us and she wants to go the church. I saw her daughter on the first day that I got to Iztacalco, cause she doesn't have a bottom jaw. I told Elder Vincent "I want to teach her, she looks like a cool person." Guess what, she is a cool person! 

we had just barely sat down to write to our families today when the CUTEST little girl tapped me on the shoulder. She asked if we were busy, we left the internet cafe and she told us she wanted us to pray for her. We said a small prayer right there on the street and her mom started bawling and idk it was super cool and a miracle and Nicole is just the cutest person I've ever seen. God works in mysterious ways. We will be visiting them soon. 

John and Alondra are great, Juanita wants to be baptized, Juan is doing awesome, he came to church and had great questions, Brandon still is fighting to get baptized, Kike didn't go to church but really wants to be baptized, Carmina is better, Brenda is fine, Mauricio is super drunk 24/7 now, Daniel Gonzalez is happy and progressing, Magdalena is good, Irma is progressing, Zulema is just waiting for the divorce, and there are a lot more people that we are teaching too. 

A really cool experience I saw this week was of the De Antuñano family. Brother de Antunñano was a Bishop, Stake President, and then an Area Seventy without a break, he hadn't sat by his family a single time for almost 15 years. And this Sunday he got to sit by them. It was so cool to see them all sitting together, beaming from ear to ear!

Aranda quote of the week: "Life is like a loaf of bread, slice it wherever you want." he said that to a girl trying to explain Agency. I think it kinda worked, it a roundabout way. 

Cool quote of the week. "The atonement is not only for those who need to repent, but for those who need to forgive as well."-Hno. Sosa. 

I officially have hit my 12 weeks. I will be home soon. Have a good week!

Pics

1. Me and Elder Te

2. Me and my son, Elder Corral

3. Me and Elder Benson

4. Me and Elder Bolingbroke

Good week! August, 2018

Adriana was baptized! She is awesome! She is what I would call a "dry Mormon" because the only thing she needed was to get in the Baptismal font. She was a faithful Latter Day Saint since the day I met her haha. She even invited everyone who was in the baptism to receive visits from the missionaries. It was a great service and she is so happy to finally be baptized! 

We have been teaching tons of people, like I've mentioned in other emails. I won't bore you to death like last week, so I'll just tell you all a funny story and call it good for this week. 

We baptized Adriana at Thursday. We had planned for it all to go down at 7pm. The Baptismal font currently doesn't have a working drain system, which is common haha, so we planned to go early in the morning to empty the font halfway, bucket by bucket, and then turn on the hot water and fill it back up with hot water, ready to go by 7pm. Well, plans change and we can't go until after lunch to the font, but it's okay cause we were told the font was emtpy and ready to be filled. 

We show up at 3, and it's COMPLETELY full. Uh oh. We didn't have time to waste, so I took off my pants, got in the water and started bailing water out the window in buckets with my companion. It's a big font, I can't tell you how many gallons cause I don't know haha but it took us like 2 hours to empty it halfway, working hard and fast. We finally get it to a low water point and dry off, go outside to turn on the water boiler and it doesn't work, so we have to walk to a store to buy matches and guess what, they don't have change! So we walk back to the church, back to the store with change and buy matches for 2 pesos. We start the boiler, although from a bystander's point of view, it just looked like we were smoking weed behind the church. We wait for the boiler to heat up the water, we turn on the faucet and... no water comes out. We tried and tried, we turned on and off faucets and switches and valves all around the church, but to no avail. We were without water, and the rest of the water left in the font was ice cold and too low to be able to baptize. The rest of the water we threw out became a nice watering for the plants, so we just kind of stuffed ourselves in a tiny corner and ruined everything. Then the Bishop shows up like 20 minutes early and turns this tiny little switch we didn't see and I'm not sure if he did black magic or what but we got water and the font filled up enough to baptize Adriana. And that's how I spent my Thursday. Then I bought a gigantic pizza to reward myself for almost screwing up the baptism. 

We are having a good time, enjoying what may be our last week in the mission field, and we're also a little nervous cause we've only got 12 more weeks on our mission. But it's life, and life must go on. 

Quote of the week: Me- "I also contacted her and you didn't" Vincent- "Well that's because she was hot?!"

I'm gonna go eat Burger King now. 

Lots of pics this week. You're welcome.