Shaking Hands with Lamanites‏

02/23/2015 - Week #11

First off I want to explain the title of this message. The answer is yes. I actually shook hands with 2 Lamanite women on Friday! Ok they are pure descendants of lamanties but its as close as it gets to the book of mormon. They speak a language called Sotzil which we asked them to teach us a little bit. They taught us Hasta Luego which is ¨*Te Chavat* and also how to say I know the Book of Mormon is true which is *Mí ja li libro lek lie sventa li chankope* I just want to add that when they spoke in Sotzil I felt the spirit and I testify that I am literally serving in Zarahemla right now. They wear elaborate but modest promy dresses that cover their bodies better than Mormon standards because they believe their bodies to be temples of God. It is so cool to see that after all these years they still practice what the Prophets of Old preached to their Ancestors. 

The next really awesome thing is we have a baptism this Friday of a young investigator who has been taking lessons for almost 10 months. He probably is better at teaching the missionary lessons than I am but he never committed to baptism until last week! Hopefully he will go through with it and I can get 2 more souls into the kingdom of Heaven for my first transfer in Chiapas. 

The third awesome thing is all the stuff going on for us Missionaries this week! So today is PDay and because we have a zone activity on Wednesday, normally that means Pday is shorter. I am pleased to inform you that Pday is as normal as pday gets today for me which we are grateful fore. We go to a zone council meeting tomorrow night for reasons I do not know, and then at 7 am on Wednesday we leave for a zone activity in Oexaca Mexico which is the state right above Chiapas. President George will be there and hopefully he will bring my package if its arrived to tuxtla. Then on Friday we have the Baptism and then have to be at the Zone leaders house to sleep so we can leave for Tuxtla early Saturday morning. There we will be hearing Elder Dallin H Oaks answering any questions we have and its going to be amazing.

 Last Awesome thing for the week is there is a place in Tuxtla Gutierrez that is called Walmart, and earlier today I was testified to by Hermana Conalizo that they do in fact have Dr. Pepper for 50 pesos. For size I know not which, all that I doth know pertaining to this is that I have 100 pesos left for food, therefore I am buying 2 Dr. Peppers of whatever size may be. I have also been told that even though Coke is undrinkable on the Tuxtla Mission, that Dr. Pepper is totally fine! PARTY haha just kidding, we don't have parties and I am not sharing... Just kidding I will share eventually!

Five Fun Moments of the Week: 

1. Eating so much food all the time I am certain I have gained like 15 pounds.

2. Learning some sotzil and how everyone reacts when I say Te Chavat. Im pretty sure they think I am saying something in English though.

3. Meeting the 2 girls who are basically Lamanites.

4. Frapozol- A traditional drink in Chiapas that tastes like mocha but is only ground cocoa beans- The first time I tried it I didn't really like it but I had it again today and I want 4 more

5.Hearing from all the other missionaries each week. A lot of the guys from my MTC district are in the same Zone but I got to hear from Elder Kaye this week which made me happy! Also I hear from Elder Whitmore, Strong, Wasden, and my brother often so I get to keep up with the times! 

Valentines Day Mexico Style!‏

02/16/2015 - Week #10

Well I have had a super duper awesome week! Tuesday we went to Pueblo Nuevo to see the family of the little girl, Aimee, that I baptized. There we had a carne which was steak and chicken cooked in an old tractor disk and cooking oil. It was super good. 

Wednesday we had our first zone meeting and I got to meet some of the missionaries serving here! One of them looks a lot like Brother Larson but is named Elder Johnson. His skin is about as white as snow but he speaks like a true Mexican who lives in America haha. We will be having a Zone activity next week and on The 28th of this month and all the missionaries in Chiapas will be going to Tuxtla Gutierrez to listen to Elder Dallin H Oaks speak live! That means there will be a good chance I will see Hermana Hickman! She is serving in Tapachula and i am about 3 hours north of there in Tonola(aka the best mission in the world). 

Friday we went to Pueblo Nuevo again and had more food like always. We ate lunch twice, then had some fruit at Hermana Palacios shop and she also made us Respados! I was full afterwards and we went to give a blessing at a Hermanas house who has Chikenguya which is a mosquito disease that makes it hurt to move your joints and you get a raging fever. There we got a glass of orange flavored agua and I only could force myself to drink half of it. On the taxi ride home a Jehovah witness sat next to me and I had to scoot over to the middle seat. I almost puked and I thought to myself if this guy tries to bible bash us I will give him a lot more than he expects, but he was cool and didn't say anything to us. That night we had companion exchanges which meant I was going to a different area in Tonola with Elder Hunt who is our district leader from Arizona! We had a good time and his apartment is so much bigger and nicer than the house we live in! Even still I like our house better because its less like an office. 

Valentines day we were given money to get lunch from a Hermana who I guess doesn't ever have time to cook for the missionaries so she gives Elder Hunt 100 pesos every week. We bought a whole fried chicken and then later that Night I had Hamburgers with Elder Patricio which were as big as a plate but a lot thinner than those in the United States. Got a little bit of Candy from some of the members and so Valentines day was a score except the next morning was not fun because of all the greasy food I had eaten haha. 

Five Fun Moments of the Week: 

1. The carne we had with familia Carbajal Gutierrez

2. We have a family moving into our apartment right now but every time we go out on the deck they fly away...

3. How weird Friday was but how much my companion laughed when I told him I thought about puking on the Jehovah Witness if he tried anything funny.

4. Going on companion exchanges with Elder Hunt, talking about the Celestial kingdom and how much the milk sucks here.

5. The fact that I'm going to hear an Apostle speak in 2 weeks!!!!!!!

Carne in a tractor disk

First Baptism!!

02/ 09/2015 - Week #9

So much has gone on since the last time I emailed. I am feeling so much better this week and we are doing a lot of good work! We finally got money for taxis so we are planning to go to the far stretches of our area more during this next week. We met the standards of excellence this week which includes at least 140 contacts 21 lessons taught, 4 investigators in church, 8 lessons to less active or recent convert, and a baptism and confirmation is also necessary. I performed my first baptism this Saturday to a young girl named Aimee! She is 8 years old and is actually a citizen of both Mexico and the United States! We have been contacting like crazy and only had 2 new investigators until yesterday when we found 7 more! The people here are super awesome and always ready to hear a message about the Savoir. We Hopefully will have another baptism this Saturday with an investigator who just moved here last week and has already taken tons of lessons from the missionaries and has attended church over 5 times!

 My scripture reading is going super super well and I am planning to be done by the end of March with the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I started understanding Spanish a lot better yesterday so hopefully that means I am finally on the road to speaking perfect Spanish soon! Even though I miss home I am really starting to appreciate this great experience that I have. Its such an awesome place and I am really blessed with everything. I will not be switching homes anymore because the Hermanas have decided to not make us work an extra day for this than we have too which is really nice for us. 

We have been picking up our investigators before church on Sunday and this time we came with 3! The family of Aimee showed up also which makes us for 6 investigators at church Including Ivan the one who just moved here. 

We went to the market this morning and it is just like you see it on tv except bigger and there is raw meat hanging out in the open everywhere and it smells bad. It is supposed to get a lot hotter here come April so I am not really looking forward to that. Last night I figured out how to change the language of the movies we have from American Sign Language into English so Elder Patricio and I watched The testaments in our free time after training! i love that Movie so much!

Five Fun Moments of the Week: 

1. The Baptism of Aimee 

2. People still stare but I don't catch the adults unless they are drunk men or women who think I am Justin Beiber

3. Watching The Testaments

4. Teaching a lesson with 4 different investigators after a baptism this Saturday!

5. Hearing that there are a bunch of people here and back home who are preparing for missions. It is my ultimate goal to have an Investigator be a missionary and Lizandro is one of those who I am certain is going on a mission when he can finally go through the temple!

Aimee's Baptism

Week Number 2‏ in the Tonolá Zone

02/02/2015 - Week #8 

Buenas! I am super surprised that it is already P-day again, but at the same time It feels like its been an eternity haha. I have had a really really fun time with blisters on my feet and it sucks but I will get over it. I have been recently trying to not wear my church shoes and only wear the hiking shoes and its been helping a lot. Now I can walk without a limp and almost am ready to walk missionary pace again haha!

 I should probably start taking notes of what goes on during the week so I can write more detailed emails haha but I got a haircut today. We were walking here talking about it and a lady told me she really liked my new haircut. She later started babling at the truck parked on the street so I dont know if I really want to take her word for it.

 We have been working pretty hard and we got 5 investigators to come to Sacrament meeting yesterday! We also have a baptism this Saturday and I am honestly hoping she doesn't pick me to do the confirmation haha unless she wants it half in broken spanish and in English!! 

I miss home a lot but I am getting used to it more and more every day. The hermanas here want us to move into a different apartment because our house is across the street from where our area is and they don't like their house very much. We don't really want to move but if we have to we will, and we wont unless its at least as nice or nicer haha. 

It is really so amazing how quickly we find investigators here. I told you a few weeks ago about Manuel one of my first new investigators. Now we are teaching his older brother and he is so excited to learn more and be baptized! He came to church only after 1 lesson! I forgot to tell you how awesome we have it for laundry too! We get to use one of the washing machines a member has that's just right down the street. We have to rinse all of our clothes and hang dry them still but it is nicer then having to do everything by hand! I had a sore throat the other day and we ended up having basically Chicken noodle soup for lunch which made me feel so much better!

Five Fun Moments of the Week: 

1. First baptism and I haven't even been here for half a transfer

2. The members really like to help the missionaries, they also  like us to do stuff that probably isn't our responsibility but I am happy for the service.

3. Looks like I wont be getting a money card for a while but my money goes to my companion and all that I have spent of my own money will hopefully be refunded.

4. Shayla this is for you. We went to an investigators home and they offered us a SODA not a pop, not even a refresco, a SODA haha we drink a lot of strawberry soda down here which is pretty good when you get used to it.

5. Probably my favorite thing here is Bollis. Basically you mix anything you want with milk and sugar and freeze it in a plastic bag and whoulaughh!! Bolli. I had an oreo flavored one and it was fantastic!

Tonolá!

01/26/2014 - Week # 7

First off I want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALEY! My area is Cabeza de Torro Tonolá Zone and It is really awesome.  My companion is Elder Patricio, he is from Buenos Aires Argentina,he likes rock music, and also has watched the Regular show in the past. We get along really well even tho he doesnt speak any English. Tonolá is hot and humid, but not as hot as Chico can be, not yet anyways. The house we live in is really nice but all the members homes seem to be pretty poor. We all have toilets and showers which is a major plus but the water temperature is depending on what time of day it is and so during the night the water is cold. Everyone around here drinks out of 10 gallon water jugs but they almost never drink plain water. We always have agua sabor or polsol or my favorite Horchata. The people dont like the wind so we didnt get very many contacts this Saturday haha. One other really sweet thing about Elder Patricio is he has a "girlfriend" waiting for him named Sheyla haha! I have eaten tons of fish and tons of great food, but only eaten beans 2 times haha its not at all what I expected. I have also had Octopus twice which was weird but it tastes pretty good. We have also had hamburgers and pizza! The burgers were really good but the pizza was a little weird but not inedible. When they give us fish here they give you literally the whole fish haha head bones and all so you have to be careful not to eat the espinas!. One of the only members I can name is our Mission leader who is Hermano Rey. He is an older man with dentures who loves to sing in Spanish way off key and way longer than necessary and as he does it half the time his teeth are falling out! it is so funny that even the members laugh at him when he does it but he doesn't care. Elder Patricio says that I am famous because everyone looks at me when I walk by. Also we have had this popsicle type thing called bollis which are way better than normal popsicles. Oh and another one of my favorites was the snow cones. Basically like normal except the strawberry stuff is a mix between strawberry syrup and strawberry sauce with actual strawberries on top. Then to top it off with a ton of sweetened condensed milk and it is sooooo good but probably soooo bad for me haha. 

So only the native speakers go to the areas where they speak Mayan Dialect but when you have a few months in the mission you can get sent there and the only language spoken in the area is called Sotsil or something like that. Melanie is in Tapachula which is the hottest place in the whole mission and I am glad I am not there for my first area. Elder Paricio only has 3 months and is now my trainer. Last week we did awesome and contacted 159 people!!! The standard to get one baptism a week is 140 so hopefully we have some good stuff lined up for us! We have already found a bunch of new investigators too! One that I really like is these two boys named Alexis and Manuel. Alexis is 19 and Manuel is 11 and they were nearby when we were going to a less active member home. We ended up teaching them a lesson on the spot and have gone back 3 times. They didn't come to church yesterday but we moved their baptismal date back a week. Oh by the way did I mention that almost every time you invite someone to baptism they say yes haha, they would rather be baptized than hear the lessons tho so that doesn't always work out so well. The people are really prepared spiritually to receive what we have to teach them and It almost seems too easy to get them to learn. Nevertheless with our lesson with Alexis and Manuel I told them how I know the Book of Mormon is true. I said that when I read I feel the spirit and then I don't want to stop and Alexis said that he felt that when he read the Book of Mormon too!!!!!! They are set to be baptized on March 7th and we have a bunch of others on that date too! I am homesick sometimes but when I am working I feel a lot better. My Spanish is coming along swimmingly. The hardest part is understanding when the people speak so quickly haha but when I speak they say they understand and that my Spanish is really good. Its hard to feel the spirit and teach when I don't understand whats going on but Elder Patricio is patient with me and I am really thankful for that. He says that this week I am going to lead the lesson so its going to be really interesting. My district leader is Elder Hunt and he is from Arizona. He said he was really excited to have someone who he can finally talk to in English haha he has been out for 5 months. He also said he has gained 30 pounds since he got here so I better keep up on my exercise haha.

 So within the pictures I have added to the dropbox, the purple house is the one that's ours. The beach we went to this morning is in Puerto Artista which is 30 minutes away and still in our area. Our area consists of 3 different towns, Part of Tonolá, Cabeza de Torro and Puebla Nueva. Puebla Nueva is an hour away by taxi which is what we take everywhere. Its weird but it beats walking for half the day. This morning we tried the Pina coladas at a restauraunt on the beach and they were fantastic! They were non alcoholic of course haha. so apparently President David O Mckay forbid the people from drinking coke down here so we cant drink it or we will look like bad missionaries. They have a bunch of other sodas tho so I will be alright. My feet hurt really bad from all the walking but I used my church shoes for the first three days because most of the times we are on pavement but some of it is off road. I wore my boots the next day and got blisters in different spots but they feel better so I am going to keep switching them out. We have beds thank goodness but I don't have a cover so hopefully there wont be any bug problems. I have the sheets that I brought but they are straight on the mattress. 

Last night we helped a member in the ward turn in his mission papers! I am so excited and hope that I am here when he receives his call. His name is Maho and he goes on splits with us all the time! Right now the only problem is I have no money because the mission card hasn't come yet so I have used my own. Its really hard to get used to pesos but when I realize that the box of pancakes isn't 40 dollars its like 3.50 I feel like a dummy but Oh well!! 

Five Fun Moments of the Week:

1. We eat a lot of seafood and I have eaten whole shrimps, whole fish, and shrimp salad which consisted of shrimp, muscles and octopus in a saviche. It was pretty good!

2. Elder Patricio and I get along really well and we work well together too!

3. Our apartment isn't the best but I like it a lot even though there is a cockroach in the shower and it probably hasn't been cleaned in a long time.

4. Hermano Rey and his amazing singing!!!!

5. I could end up being a trainer right after I finish training which means I will be in Tonolá for 6 months!

Our District 

Elder Patricio and I

Our house 

Beach and Pina Coladas! :)

Bienvenidos de Tuxtla Gutierrez!‏

01/19/2015 

Hello everyone! It is only 11 here and it feels like it has been one of the longest days of my life! We had to be at reception by 2 this morning and none of us were packed so I didn't get to bed until 11:30 and woke up at 1 to finish packing and to get ready. It was only an hour flight and we have been in Chiapas for about 3 hours now and all we have done is drive around, eat pancakes for breakfast, and come here to email! Last night was super awesome because we got to watch The Testaments for our last Sunday night movie in the MTC. I miss all the guys from my old district who are not here right now but everyone who came from the MTC to Tuxtla is here. We will not find out our companions until tomorrow and our areas. We are staying close to the mission home tonight and I am super excited to be here! The mission home is super nice and everything is way better than I imagined it. I haven't seen where I will be staying tonight but that can wait. Sorry I don't have very much to say because we only have 4 computers right now and like 20 missionaries waiting to write to their families. Hopefully I will be able to talk to you again soon! I love this gospel and I cant wait to start bringing people unto it as soon as I can!

I will make up for the 5 favorite things next week for I am out of time right now.

Last Week Before My Actual Mission Starts!!

01/15/2015 - Week #5

Hey so just wanted to let you all know that I actually am not on my mission right now, but I will be leaving into the field on Monday at 2:30 am! Its really weird, like Mexico missionaries only serve for 22 and a half months and they get detained for the other 6 weeks... anyways,I got to go to the temple this morning! Its under construction so we couldn't go Inside but the Mexico City Temple Is so Beautiful! Its probably the most Unique temple I have ever seen. In person or in picture! We got to see Elder Milkey who was in our zone in Detainment! Its been 2 weeks almost since they have left and he said that He is having a really hard time with the language. Presidente Pratt was the first Mexico MTC president and he is being released the day after we all leave which makes us officially the last group for the first Mission president in this MTC! Its really cool but also sad to be leaving because we basically feel like we are leaving America for reals this time but I cannot wait! there are like 25 to 30 of us going to Tuxtla gutierrez and about 7 of us are American. The Latinos here like us a lot because we know enough Spanish and they know enough English that we never have any problems communicating! Its super awesome especially when they choose to sit and eat meals with us all the time. Yesterday was our last day with Hermano Garza,he is getting married almost as I write this email right now! He is the guy in a few of the Pictures I sent and there is one of just him and I. He was really awesome and I'm going to miss him a lot especially because I will not likely ever see him again. We keep asking people about Tuxtla and they always tell us it is super hot but after that it is different. Now I know I will be eating Iguana, monkey, and armadillo,and it is illegal to kill Jaguars unless they attack you first so thats going to be great. Especially because I'm pretty sure missionaries aren't aloud to have machetes. Sorry my typing is pretty bad,but this computers keyboard is terrible and I care not to fix the errors because of dumbness haha.
 A second bag costs 800 pesos which Im going to have to use my debit card to pay for but I am pretty sure we are going to get reimbursed by the church after we get to our areas. We have all decided that we arent going to go to bed the night before we leave because we would literally only get to have our eyes closed for 4 hours and nobody is going to be able to sleep anyways!
 I am really glad that Kaley and Kyle are sending me emails now! Kyles emails help a lot to know that even though he is going through something way way different than me that I am not alone. A guy told us that in our mission and missions surrounding that people are so open to the gospel that he would be surprised if we didn't get a baptism almost every week of our mission! I am super excited because that Is going to be a lot of lives to change in just a really short amount of time!
 I got a package from Dad 2 days ago which was full of Dr  Pepper and I was super stoked because I just ran out the day before of Dr Pepper that grandma sent me after Christmas! I love my mission and I am learning so much all the time! I cant  wait till I get in the field and actually start the work!

Five Fun Moments of the Week:

1. A little girl at the MTC said Hola to us just as we were walking here to email, and she was super cute!

2.We all decided to have rich snobby English names and laugh at jokes about how much money we pretend to have, It is super dumb but its really funny and everyone else seems to join along! My name was Lt. Colonel Harvey Specter.

3. The Latino class right next to ours likes to come over and talk to us all the time,there is a pretty good chance we will be companions with some of them out in the field.

4. Hermano Garza is going to email us and stay in touch with us during our missions so we can ask him questions.

5. Elder Kauvaka is the kind of person who wont let a morsel of food go to waste,and yesterday morning we had this awful chicken salad for breakfast and nobody ate it except for him. He was choking it down the whole time and on the second to last bite he threw up haha but the worst part is he swallowed it! He then finished the last bite and exclaimed how he was a man as he can grow beards, and chop wood, and swallow his own puke! he then proceeded to tell everyone how good the chicken salad was.

A Few of My Mission Goals: 

My goal to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish by 6 months Is going along so well that I expect to actually finish by 4 months or so.

1. I want to read the entire quad by a year in my mission.

2.I want to be fluent in 4 months

3. I want to be perfect in speaking and writing by 1 year

4. I want to learn how to bear my testimony and pray in Mayan

 

Hermano Garza and I