Erik's baptism, street contacting, new apartment.

Hey Family!

What a day! Elder Wanner and I went to look for a new house. Our place is so small and super expensive for what we have, so today we spent most of the day looking for a house. Luckily, a member is renting this place, not far from our area and super big and nice!  2 rooms, a kitchen, family room, a dining room and bathroom! For the same price! yahoo!  I am excited :) We also went to KFC for lunch. It was a pretty successful P day. :)

Elder Jex and me

This past Tuesday was a great day because so many people came up to us and asked us about the Church, or we would contact them and they would be so interested. We set appointments for them later in the week, but most of the spouses were the ones who would answer and they would straight up lie and tell us the other person wasn’t interested or they would give a name that wasn’t theirs and later find out their real name. It’s really frustrating.

Wednesday we went to the doctor for Elder Wanner. He’s had some infection in his stomach that later went to his blood so he is on some medicine, but he will be alright. He is doing better right now. Also the doctor checked our blood pressure. We were both high, me higher than my companion. Do we usually have high blood pressure in our family? Nothing to worry about.  I feel fine, but just wondering. 

Thursday we went to this one member’s house. There is a 16 year old girl thinking of serving a mission. We talked to her about Preach my Gospel. It was cool to help someone prepare for a mission and do what we are doing. Later at night, Elder Jex and Elder Wanner went to some people’s house to talk to a mother about her son getting baptized, but she wouldn’t let them in. It makes me really sad because this boy wants it and he is such a good kid. While they did that I went with Elder Gomez for the night and contacted. Almost every person we talked to said we could come back and visit. It was so nice! I think they felt bad for me because I am this white guy at 8:00 at night in Mexico, but fine with me! 

Friday I went on interchanges with Elder Jex. It wasn’t a great day because NO ONE was home. I don’t know where everyone goes in the day haha. But it was okay because at night we went to an appointment with the bishop and their missionary leader of their ward. After, the bishop bought us street tacos. They were so GOOD! 

Saturday Elder Wanner and I went to an investigator named Erik. We watched a church movie with him and talked about his baptism. We helped him get prepared a bit more and got him excited. 

And then Sunday we had the baptism of Erik! It was a really nice service.

Erik's baptism

There are some members here who I really love. Although I can’t communicate super well with them, I still feel connected to them. I love Centro Toluca. I hope I stay another change. Plus for my birthday! :) Remember it takes a few weeks to send stuff here haha. I am thinking of buying a Toluca Diablos (soccer team here) jersey. It’s a bit pricey, but they are sweet. Should I?

Yeah so that’s my week! Not super exciting, but it’s all I got. Hope you are all doing well! 

-Elder thomas

crazy, weird and hard to believe

Hey everyone!

Another crazy week in Mexico. Almost everyday I ask myself, "Where the heck am I?"

This past Thursday at 4:30 AM our phone goes off. Some lady named Gloria is calling saying something about getting kicked out of her house. Elder Wanner told her to call us in a few hours after we have slept more. She asked us to pray for her. We got down on your knees and said a quick prayer and went back to bed. Her husband then called at 8:30 and said he thinks his wife called us early in the morning. He said something about bad spirits in the house. He asked us to come by their house and we said we would come by later. We had to met some other Elders at 6:00 and apparently there are two streets with the same name in different sides of town, so we didn’t have time to go by their house.

On Friday we went by their house again but they weren’t home. Somebody else was home and said they would tell them we came by. While eating at some member’s house, the husband called us and told us to come by again. We brought the 2nd counselor of the bishopric with us. We went in the house and you could kinda feel a bad feeling there. Gloria told us what had been happening. Some little child spirit had been tormenting her. She had bite marks on her wrist from a child. There were some other weird things. We gave the husband a blessing and blessed the room and bathroom where the things have been happening. While talking with just Gloria, the 2nd counselor was talking about God’s love for us and some other stuff and then she just starts crying and breathing really hard and says that the spirit is there. You could just feel this heavy hot feeling in the room. The 2nd counselor stood up and put his arm to the square and said in the name of Jesus Christ he commands the spirit to leave and never return. There was a peace in the room, but it sure was creepy. We gave Gloria a blessing afterward.

I know this is a crazy, weird, and hard to believe story, but I really learned that Satan has power too, but God’s power/priesthood is greater. Mexico sure is a crazy place...

I feel like daily I encounter a drunk person. Haha. Yesterday this drunk guy insisted on giving us $50 pesos. okay, yeah we will take it :)

In terms of our investigators:

We have been working with this guy named Eric who just got out of rehab for drugs a month and half ago. We hoped he would get him baptized this week but he didn’t come to church because he didn’t feel prepared. His whole family is are members and he is 29. Hopefully this next week we can help be baptized this next Sunday.

We are also working with the nephew of Ruth. He is 13 and really nice. He is also really into cars. My companion has been sick the past few days so he laid on their couch and I talked with the nephew forever about cars (well he talked more to me then I to him). I just thought of Dallin and Aaron. haha. We got him a hot wheels cars today at Wal-Mart. His Mom doesn’t want him to "convert" to another religion, but we told him it’s not converting but following Jesus Christ. She said this Thursday she will let us know her answer. Hopefully she says yes!

That’s who we are looking forward to for a baptism this week!

Like I said, my companion has been sick, so it’s been hard to do a lot of work because he has to lay down at people’s house, but we continue to work.

The language has been frustrating still. I can’t feel like I am progressing and if so it’s very slow. I officially hit 2 months this week here in Mexico. Hopefully by month 3 I am more fluent. Pray for me that I will have the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. I can really feel your prayers.

 Thank you everyone for your love and support. I had a dream about some of my friends and family this morning. First dream I’ve remembered in months. It was so nice to hear your voices but I sure I miss you all! I love you!

-Elder Thomas

Interesting fact of the week: about 1/2 the toilets here you have to pour a bucket of water in for them to flush. Also, they have a weird culture thing where they throw their used toilet paper in the trash can instead of in the toilet. I think it’s nasty so I don’t do that.

Good companions...lost umbrella...Dominoes

Hi Family!

Wow what a week. This week felt really long, but as always short at the same time. So after p-day last week we started at 6:00 our day of teaching. Of course since I knew the area I had to lead to our appointments. We went to this lady’s house and I had to lead the lesson. It is really stressful because I have no idea what to teach, or even how to say a lot of stuff. It is helping me grow, but at the same time I just don’t know what to do.

My new companion Elder Wanner is a big football player and you can tell. He is really different than my last companion and pressures people a lot more. It is hard to get use to and I usually just sit in silence because that is not who I am. We get along really well though. He has been out 8 months and we are pretty good friends. It has been a really fun week. 

On Wednesday we had our district meeting and we met with the zone leader’s district. After the meeting we did interchanges and I went with the zone leader Elder Jex to our area. He is also from Utah in Spanish Fork. He is super nice. We went to help the hermanas in another area move because they just opened a new area. We finally got back to our area and then had to go to some other hermanas area because one of the hermanas was sick so we contacted in their area for a few hours. Elder Jex is such a good missionary. He is the type of missionary I want to be. He teaches with the spirit and is still himself. He isn’t robotic. He has been out 17 months, and I hope I get to work with him more this change. He reassured me to be patient with myself and that the language will come and so will the doctrine. 

In our area we hardly had anytime to work. We spent a lot of time in Almoloya because the hermanas needed help with something or Elder Wanner had to interview someone for baptism. Hopefully this week we spend more time in our area.

We have been working hard with this one family to get their boy baptized. He is 9 years old and the dad isn’t a member but the mom is. The mom thinks the boy needs more time to prepare. Elder Jex helped teach the mom the importance of baptism and he has a date to get baptized the 31st of this month. 

This past Saturday was interesting. We had to go to Almoloya for the day and then we came back to work a bit. After the food we were going to visit some people and it just started pouring rain. And then hailing. It set off a car alarm. (see picture). 

We decided to wait it off, but then we had to meet Elder Jex and his companion at the chapel so he could come with me to an appt. with that lady and her son and convince her to have him baptized. We ended up just taking a taxi. After the appointment we went back to the chapel to switch back with our companions. We were almost back when it started pouring again. With hail and thunder and lightening. It was insane. The thunder was so loud that it set off another car alarm. It wasn’t stopping so we ran the rest of the way to the church. We met the other elders who were waiting under a house ledge. Elder Wanna and I went to go find a taxi. We found one and picked the others up back at the church. Since it was already 10:15 we all went to Elder Jex and his companions apartment to sleep. It was fun night just hanging out in their apartment. But through all this, I left my umbrella in a taxi. I am super sad because I loved that umbrella. We tried to find one today but they are all so cheap.

So today on this p-day we went to Wal-Mart and I got a bunch of food. Yay! We then went shopping for Elder Wanner and he got a new suit. We also got me a new backpack. The shoulder bags just aren’t the best for Mexico for how much walking we do. All the missionaries have a backpack so I decided I will use my shoulder bag when I go to church on Sunday. For lunch today, we went and got Dominoes! WAHOO! I was so excited and it was super yummy. All the food here is always Mexican. In America we have variety, but here it is always Mexican so it was nice to have something else. 

That’s my week! Sorry it’s super random, but this week kinda felt random and super crazy. I hope you are all doing well. I miss and love you!

-Elder Thomas

PS - Hey Dallin and Dad and Aaron! Wow your backpacking trip looks awesome! I am super jealous! Hope you are having fun in aine! I miss you! Aaron, tell me about your summer and EFY. Sorry I don´t have more time. You are awesome!  

Here are some pictures in case you missed my face. Elder Jex took pictures while playing with my camera:

Staying in same area, new companion...Ruth's baptism.

Family!

Can you believe I have already been in Mexico for 6 weeks?!  Well my first change has happened. I am staying here in Toluca Centro, but Elder Dahlin left. I have another American thankfully! He is from Cedar City, Utah and named Elder Wanner. He has been out here for 8 months and I just met him today so I don’t know him very well. All I know is he is a big football player. He is a big kid so hopefully I don’t get physically overshadowed by him :P. I literally I am so worried with this change because know I am in charge of the area. Although he is senior companion, I have to lead him around and plan for at least the next week. Super stressful.

Today with changes we went to the terminal and I saw Elder Olvera from the MTC. It’s so nice to see a familiar face. We also took a picture of our district. We also got hoodies because our zone had the most baptisms in the mission (Bautizona!)

  

This past p-day we went to the Cosmovitral which is a botanical garden here in centro. (see some pics). They had some bonsai exhibit. Super exciting! haha.  We also had these amazing churros. The food is soooo good here! The pan (bread) is amazing. I have it more than I should. I was feeling pretty good about everything and then in our last appointment the zone leader calls me and told me to really get to know the area for changes this week. Ugh. It stressed me out this entire week thinking about who I was going to get and what I have to do. In a way it’ll kinda be good for me because now I will really have to talk to the members. My Spanish is slowly coming. Not sure. People say my Spanish is good and I’ve learned fast, but I still don’t know how to say things half the time. 

This Tuesday we had a great baptism with Ruth (see picture). I baptized her. She is so great. I don’t think I ever told you but she met with the missionaries 15 years ago, but her parents wouldn’t let her join. But her parents have both passed away now so she was finally baptized and confirmed. It was such a nice baptism with only her friends (familia Barrera). Elder Dahlin said she is the best convert his whole mission.

We also had a baptism of Moises yesterday who is only 8 (see pic). His mom isn’t a member but her boyfriend is. They have been having a hard time with the others kids in the family, but I am sure that if they continue going to church they will be blessed.

We did have a bad experience with this one lady’s boyfriend. We have been teaching her and she had gone to church once. This one day her boyfriend came and just chewed us out. He was like "you give that Book of Mormon back or I will throw it in the trash can." He also said if she joins he will leave her because he is the head of the house. That turd... Poor lady. She should be the one that leaves him.

Unfortunately we didn’t have success yesterday in the chapel, so hopefully this next week we can get the whole town to go to church. It was cool to see how many people Elder Dahlin has affected. Yesterday we went to say bye to some people and everyone was so sad to see him go. Hopefully I can some how connect with people as much as him.

So that’s my week. Enjoy the pictures! I miss you all!

-Elder Thomas