The work must go on!

Hey Family!

Wow, this week has been crazy! Exhausting. Monday night I started feeling a little sick. It just got worse. The whole shibang. They call it the gripa here. I think of death from the grim reaper. haha. I got a fever of 99.5 and unfortunately in order to be allowed to stay in the house to rest it needs to be 100.4. I was secretly hoping it would go up. haha But the WORK MUST GO ON!

On Tuesday we went with Victor on the bus up to the top of our area. We contacted the bus. You pretty much tell everyone we are representative of Jesus Christ and we have a message that blesses everyone’s life. We then give pamphlets out to those that want one. Of course the first lady I contacted was a Jehovah’s Witness who unfortunately just wanted to Bible Bash.

Wednesday we met up with one of the zone leaders for an interview with this lady who has enough assitantances [attendances at church] for baptism and her husband is an inactive member.  They need to go to church enough for us to see they are truly committed.  The zone leaders told us she had gone to church 4 or 5 times but this time she said she had only been one time.  She is 75 years old and has trouble staying focused. We asked if we could call her husband to check with him. She can’t be baptized without having at least 3 or 4 assitances. We asked for her husband’s number and she gave it to us. We called the number and then her house phone started ringing. We all just looked at each other like "you’ve got to be kidding". She then picked up the phone and said "¡bueno?" She then realized it was us.  It was so funny!!!  Poor lady. Anyway, she was baptized yesterday.

Thursday we went to our zone conference with President Whitehead. It was really good. We learned more about how we can teach better and with the Spirit! A lot of missionaries just get in the habit of teaching the same thing in the same method. A lot of times it doesn’t fufill people’s needs. It was a really good conference!

On the way to conference I took the metro. It was crazy! Everyone just smushes on. After, my tie was pulled down and some lady and guy were fighting haha. Oh Mexico.

We are also teaching this lady named Betsabeth. She is awesome! She was brought by a member to church last week. We gave her two homework assignments to choose from and she did both! I suspect she’ll desire to be baptized soon.

Today we went to the center of Mexico! Zocalo. It was super fun. We went with Victor. We saw the golden angel hich is like the statue of liberty (but smaller), a big catholic church. 

The church was really interesting because it has so much history. It is like seeing all the history of the Great Apostacy. They hardly have any thing to do with Christ and if they do, it’s of him on a cross or dead and bloody. Not super uplifting. Anyway, today was really fun and I’ll share a few photos.

Wahoo! this week is General Conference! I am so excited! We can bring investigators to Saturday and Sunday.  I really am excited to hear what our leaders of the church has to say! It’ll be so good.

Oh guess what I got....My PACKAGES! I am giving me something to look forward to so I haven’t opened them. Even though I know what’s in them because of the paper on the front...haha. I am so excited. Thank you so much for that!

This week on Wednesday my companion needs to go visit the doctor for some problems he’s had on the mission. The doctor is right next to the temple so we get to go to the temple! I am so excited!  It’s closed, but the visitor’s center is open. I might get some supplies there. :)

Oh! We made friends with our deaf friend. She told us we are allowed to pet her dog and he doesn’t bite.

Anyway, I think that is mostly my week. CrAzY. Sorry it’s so random, but this mission is really random. Love you all!

-Elder Thomas

In the world there are nice people. And then really odd ones...

Hey family!

Well, another week. We've officially opened the area! And we started off well! We had a baptism for this week. His name was Ruben. I didn't know him super well but he was ready for baptism from the last change. Unfortunately I didn't get to see it because as we were about to get ready for the service, this member brought his friend to church and she wanted to know more about the Church. The Assistants were here because he was baptizing Ruben. The other Assistant and I taught this lady. I was so nervous having to teach with him, but it went pretty well!  

We have another appointment with her later this week, which I am pretty excited about. In terms of teaching, nothing other than that happened this past week. As we opened the area, we have a lot of contacting and learning the area. We got a HUGE map for our place. Our place is slowly coming together, but I have lost a lot of sleep with the loud traffic next to our place. Nonetheless, here's some information about my area:

The first few days were a bit of a shock. The people are so different than Toluca. In Toluca, they would always listen to you whether they are interested or not. Here, they will say they aren't interested or they are Catholic and then walk away. It´s kinda frustrating, but at least they don't waste our time if they aren´t interested.

In this ward, we are working a ton with them. They have about 400 in their ward but only about 80 come. That is crazy! Hopefully we can get it up to at least 100.

There are mainly apartments in my area. The houses are nicer than my last area, but they all look the same. I am right next to the city. You can see it when up a little higher. It´s like being outside of New York City.  Also, all day planes fly over head. They are super close so I assume we are near the airport.

We have a ward mission leader and we work with him as well as the bishop. The Bishop´s son, Victor just got his mission call to Fresno, CA, but he doesn't leave till January. He comes with us almost 4 of the nights. He is awesome. He also knows English so that´s super cool. He is way nice. His family is the most American family I've met while here. They all eat meals together and they have carpet in their house. You really miss those little things. haha My companion and I get along pretty well to, so that´s a blessing

The members here are awesome. This one family one by one was baptized within the past year. They are so nice. We eat with them every Monday and she is such a good cook. They own a gorditas truck and work just up the road from us every day except Tuesday. Every night we can go to their truck and they will make us gorditas and quesadillas! They are so good! It makes this area awesome :) We don´t go every night though because we don´t want to abuse it haha. Surprisingly a lot of people in this ward know English which is awesome. This week on Saturday we are teaching an English class to whoever wants to come. I think some are excited. We will see how it goes.

So there´s the first half.  There are some awesome people here. Now the other part. There are some odd ones.

some guy with an iguana on his head.

• There is this one guy who sells sushi. We entered this apartment building and we were waiting for someone to answer the door. This guy walked by and started yelling at how we are trespassing, breaking the law and we need to respect the law. He threatened to get the police. What a wonderful guy.
•  The lady who lives right next to our apartment is deaf and mute. She has this dog and is always barking at nothing. The lady always is telling us to not do something but we don´t know what it is.
• This guy at the grocery store who I think is mentally handicapped always asks us for a card so he can have our number. We were told not to give him one
• The girl in our house. All the members have told us that there is some spirit that lives in our house. There is a little girl. Kinda creepy. Apparently our place use to be where a cemetery was. We haven´t heard or seen anything, but if we do we are moving. We blessed the house when we got there so hopefully nothing happens.

Yeah, so pretty interesting stuff here. My life here in Mexico is crazy, but that´s the mission. Thanks for your prayers and support! I love and miss you all!

- Elder Thomas

Going to a new area, Elder Pyne from Logan

Well changes have come and I am gone. I was really hoping to stay another change because there is fun stuff going on in Centro Toluca. Today is Independence Day and they have a bunch of stuff going on in centro. Also, in October all presidents of north and south america are coming to Toluca or something like that. That’s what I heard. Also it’s my birthday...It’s okay. I will just celebrate here. Where am I you ask? Well I am here in D.F. It’s a small area called Los Plateros. And I am again with another American companion! haha Elder Pyne. He is from Logan, Utah. So far all 3 are from Utah. He is really nice and I think this will be a good change. The area is a lot smaller and more crowded. Very different. Our house is bigger but more moldy. Haha we keepy sneezing and I probably won’t feel 100% healthy here. But nonetheless, the work must go on.

 It’s not as quite as hilly as my last area. Also, we are "opening" it because the other missionary went home and the other one was waiting for his visa to go to Provo for his mission. So this will be an interesting week. We have to find a lot of people to teach and both learn the area. It’ll be an adventure.

This past week wasn’t super succesful unfortunately, but it was still good. We had a lot of interchanges. Tuesday with Elder Jex. Wednesday with his companion Elder Buchanon. And Thursday with Elder Gomez. We had a surprise meeting and Elder Jex announced everyone would be switching companions for the day. It went pretty well. They also reenacted a story called The Donut Master. Look it up! It’s really good. Elder Wanner was the person who did the push ups. It really makes you grateful for the Atonement. Anyway, the whole week led up to Friday where our ward had a Mexican night. We invited so many people and were sure they were all going to go. Unfortunately, NONE of our investigators came. It was a huge bummer. It was still fun though. They had games, food, and dancing. Elder Wanner and I bought sombreros for the cause and some members got us Mexican ties.

Saturday was also frustrating because it was our last real day working together and no one was home. We were super discouraged and then finally at our last appointment, this couple we are teaching were home. They said they promised they are going to church. We talked about the Atonement and Christ to them and at the end I asked them if they had any questions and the husband just said that he only wanted to give thanks to us. He said we were sent from God to them. Also many other companionships have come by them, but none of them gained their trust. It was such a good way to end a hard day. ¡Gracias por milagros!

Sunday, we had 4 investigators in church. Later in the night I went to say goodbye to a few families. I went to Julio’s and his family. Julio wrote me a really nice note about us being good friends. Then we went to Ruth’s. I started crying saying by to her and her nephew Jhersson. I bore my testimony to them and thanked them for their friendship and the opportunity to help her come closer to Christ. She is such a good lady and I hope she continues in the Church and Jhersson gets baptized when his Mom allows him to. 

We then went to the family Mejia. They are such a nice family. They gave me advice about continuing on in a new area. They gave me some treats and drove us home. I really am going to miss this ward. I packed until 1 in the morning and then went to the terminal in the morning. I am tired! But what else is new on the mission. Haha I also saw Elder Blevins and Olvera at the terminal. So fun to see them!

Anyway, thanks for all your support. Pray for me this week in this new area, with a new companion. I miss you all!

-Elder Thomas

This past change has flown by...

This past change has flown by! 

Some events of this past week:

On Tuesday we had our zone meeting. Also it was Elder Wanner’s birthday. The sad news was that his package didn´t arrive. I think his parents sent it like 2 months ago. I will probably get mine by Christmas. haha but that´s okay. I still will look forward to it :) I heard Fedex is the safest to travel, but who knows. Anyway some of the hermanas brought him a cake, which was nice. They do some weird tradition here where you put your face in the cake. I think it´s a waste of a cake, but we ate it anyway. 

We found out later Elder Jex wanted to do interchanges so we had to switch at around 4:00. I wanted to buy him pizza or something to celebrate, so that was kind of a bummer because I slept at the Zone leader´s house. Oh well, we will still have to celebrate.

Fortunately, we went to some member’s house on Wednesday for food and we made pizza for his birthday, so that was fun.

We also are working with this one guy who likes talking in English to us which I like. He was living with his girlfriend but they have been having problems. We went over there and talked to them. Elder Wanner listened to both sides of their stories and then told them that to comply with the Laws of God, he thinks it would be best if they split up for a bit and lived in separate houses. It was pretty much like Dr. Phil haha.  Hopefully he will get baptized.

One thing that was kind of sad was on Friday. We went to this house with this girl we baptized a few months ago.  We haven’t been able to get a hold of their family for weeks. The parents have had a bunch of economic problems and they told us that they don´t believe in God anymore. It was so sad because all of their faith was gone and they didn´t want anything else to do with us. It was a bummer because I worked a bunch with them last change...

Later that night we went to Almoloya for an interview. The lady had just accepted a job but she would have to work on Sunday. We told her that working on Sunday is not something God would give her. She ended up accepting to be baptized. We were so excited, but the next day when we went to interview her, she wasn’t there. I think it’s because she accepted the job. :(

Yesterday we only had 2 people in the chapel, but hopefully this next week we have more. It´s just frustrating because the people say they will come and we have members go for their house and they aren’t there or say they have to do something else to do.

Today was pretty good. We went with this guy named Charley to the university gym here and played basketball. It was fun, but I stink! Ni modos. Later we went to Carl’s Junior which was super good. We came back to our place and relaxed for a bit. Then we went and got me a soccer jersey! I am super excited! I got "Thomas" on the back too.  We wanted to go to these pyramids that are somewhere around here, but we don´t know where. Who knows.

This next week is changes. I hope I stay, but we will see.

Anyway, that´s my week! Hope everything is going great in the USA!

-Elder Thomas

This next Monday is Independence Day in Mexico! They have decorations up and everything! This Friday we have our Mexican party with the ward!