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.