Valle de Bravo -- Goodbye Elder Pyne. Hello Elder Whatcott

Oh boy! Well, first I will tell you about my week.

This past week we were working hard for the baptisms we were planning. The mother of the two girls went out of town to get some credentials for her work and so we couldn’t find her. She gave permission Saturday night that we could baptize her girls even if she wasn’t there.  So, yesterday they were baptized! The little girl, Tamara (the one I had to sing Disney to) was a little scared to do it, so I explained how we do it and how simple it is. Then I baptized her and after she was like, “that was fun!”  She is so funny. (I hope she understand the importance of it and has support from church members.)  She always tries giving me hugs, but they say we need to be careful with children, so I never know if I let her or not.  She calls me her amigo and always says “rosito” because my face is red from the sun.  

Another miracle we had this week was when we were with one of the zone leaders. We had no idea where to go so we said a prayer to find where we should go. As we were walking, we went up to contact this lady sitting down with her friend. This lady has almost 80 years. She was super interested and so the next day, Saturday, we went to her house. She even brought her friend! Her friend was even more interested. We taught them for 2.5 hours answering all of their questions. They plan to get baptized Nov. 16th. They came to church this Sunday. When the bishopric counselor welcomed them, one of the ladies stood up and thanked everyone for inviting her. haha It was really funny. What an answer to our prayers for putting these ladies in our path.

So that is the basics of what has happened from this past week.  Elder Pyne and I have been enjoying our nice palace. But of course, my luxuries can’t last forever in Mexico. We got the call Saturday. Elder Pyne will be the district leader in the area and I am sent to Valle de Bravo, as district leader...Yeah.  So that’s my life now. We had changes this morning. I was dropped off at the observatorio and went to the terminal in Toluca. I went past my old area of Toluca and took a 2.5 hour bus ride to Valle de Bravo. Lots of switchbacks. Made me a little sick. Haha  My companion said his first time to Valle de Bravo his luggage fell out the bus and he had to get out and go get it down a hill. haha Luckily that didn’t happen to me. This area is one of the most touristic areas in central Mexico. It is right next to a big lake. Pretty humid and the mold grows like none other in our apartment. haha. Of course.

It’s pretty, but there is A LOT of work to do here. It is a branch that meets in a house of prayer. The attendance yesterday was 23.  Eeeeek.  My companion is Elder Whatcott. He is from Saint George and has one less change than me, so this is his third change in Mexico (week 13 here). Yeah, I really am worried. Your prayers will help. I am now district leader with one companionship of hermanas in my district. They each only have 12 weeks here in Mexico. So I only have one more change then them all. I guess the Lord has trust in me, but I feel like I am really going to be relying on Him and the Spirit. This will definitely be a growing experience for me as I now take the lead. I still don’t know exactly what I am doing or how to do stuff, but I don’t know if I will every feel really ready. I miss you all. Thanks for everything!

-Elder Thomas

P.S. - This week is Day of the Dead! I think they kinda celebrate Halloween. They take the traditions of the States. Day of the Dead is the 1st and 2nd of November and people believe that those who have died will come back sooner if they celebrate them. They make altars for those that have died with their favorite candy and stuff and they say that the flavor of the candy will be gone after the 2 days or something like that. Who knows if anything will happen here.  I’ll let you know next week. Love you!

Mold no-mo! Fasting and work works.

Family!

Well this week hasn’t been super eventful, but I will share a few things that have happened.

Well the biggest thing was about our house. Elder Pyne and I have been looking for a new house for the past week and a half. The one we were living in was falling apart. There was mold everywhere (see picture), the ceiling was falling apart, and we apparently have a ghost that lives with us haha. We never saw or heard anything though. The members would say other missionaries saw the little 8 year old girl in our place. I decided to give her a name, so I named her Shelly! haha. Also it is in a really busy street and it sounds like you are sleeping in the road. Also, there is no cell signal, which we need to have to call from in the house.

Anyway, so we looked for forever for a house. On Tuesday to Wednesday, we decided to fast to find a house because we really need to get out of there. It was such a hard fast because we were walking everywhere and had no energy. On Tuesday night we found a house. It was $2,600 pesos which is our limit. It was like 15 minutes walking outside of our area. I just had a bad feeling about the house, so we decided not to take it. The next day, at 2:00pm we were about to go to food and break our fast. We had 13 contacts for the day and we needed 14 to complete our goal. I told Elder Pyne we should just contact one more to finish before the food. We went around the corner from where we were eating was and I saw a family. I started the contact asking if they knew anyone renting. They said no and that they were in a hurry and they ran off. Then another guy came up to us and asked if we needed a place to rent and he said there was a guy right in this street renting. Anyway, we saw the house. It was perfect. It is actually huge. 2 bedrooms, a big kitchen. A big main room, a nice bathroom, and a porch thingy with a washing machine! He said it was $3,500. We said that we only have $2600. He said he could do $3000. Then we said the other missionaries lived in the other place for like 10-20 years and he agreed to $2600! Wahoo we have a new house! We moved in on Friday and it is super clean and nice. (You probably can tell which house it is in the pictures). 

It was such a testimony builder to me that fasting does really work. What a miracle :) Now of course this next week is changes and one of us will probably have to leave. We both really want to stay together, but who knows...

That was probably the biggest thing. There is one elder who got an infection so he had to have surgery and has been in the hospital for the past few days. We have had to go stay with him a few times while he gets better (picture of view from hospital).

We have been having a hard time here finding new people to teach here because the people don’t really want to listen. However, this next week we are hoping to baptize this family of 2 girls and their mom. I am really excited. The 2 girls participated in the primary program yesterday. They seem so much happier and have progressed so much. I can’t wait for them to be baptized. 

That is pretty much the week. It’s rained a bunch. I love my shoe cover things. At first I thought they were silly, but they are great. I feel the need to step in every puddle with them on :)

I miss you all! You are the best family! Hope you are all well!

-Elder Thomas

No longer a teenager

Hey there family!

I told my companion yesterday that there is never a dull moment in Mexico, but at the same time we get so use to these things that every day feels the same. Haha.

I had a great birthday!  This whole week we have been looking for a new house because our house has a ton of mold, little ventilation and no cell service. We keep getting sick in this house. I am sick again. bleh. So on my birthday, we walked around everywhere to find a house, but couldn’t find much.  For food we went to this family that always gives us food and sells gorditas and quesadillas. We had chicken sandwiches. yum :) Then they brought out a cake. It was really good, but the song they sing is a minute and a half. Haha.  At the end they sing that you have to put your face in the cake. So I sort of did…as much as I could without ruining the cake. It was really nice of them to do. 

Later we went to the family with the two little girls who like Disney. When we got there they told me to cover my eyes. Elder Pyne guided me in and they were all there singing with another cake! Haha. Luckily didn’t have to put my face in this one. It was so nice people thought of me. It made my day so much better. Then at night, we ordered pizza and Victor came over. We had pizza and I opened my packages. I loved them :) Thanks so much for putting them together. I love the shoes and all the things in there. You are the best mom and dad! 

So yeah now I am 20! Crazy! But I still will remain a kid at heart.

So in terms of teaching we had a baptism this week. The lady (Bestebé) who was brought by a member and knew everything was true was baptized yesterday!  It was a nice service and I am really happy for her.

The two girls are still on track to get baptized. The mom had some problems happen in her life that has made her reevaluate her life. We are now teaching her as well! She wants to get baptized on the 26^th. We are either going to have the 2 girls baptized this week or the 26th with their mom. Yay! We had a really good lesson with the mom and the Spirit was so strong. It is so cool to see how God prepares people to accept the Gospel. Before she didn’t want much to do with us and now she is very interested. I am excited for her.

Haha everytime we go over there though they make me sing Frozen or something. I also love it because the little girl always goes "somos amigos". It makes me happy :) 

This change is flying by. We only have 2 more weeks left. I hope we both stay here another change, but who knows. So that’s my week. Nothing else really has happened. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. I love and miss you all!

-Elder Thomas

Making friends and even using my Disney knowledge to soften hearts.

Hey there family!

Here I am back on the computer! So some interesting crazy things this week.

First of all, Mom you would be happy to know I made friends with the old 80 year old lady who walks around with a broom and yells bad words at us. Well, I like to think of us as friends. We started the day on Thursday by going to the phone.  Elder Pyne was calling someone and I saw the lady.  Everyone has told us about her.  Her name is Raquel.  I told Elder Pyne I was going to talk to her, but I told him I wanted to make sure I was in sight of him in case she started whacking me with her broom.  I went up to her and told her I was a representative of Jesus Christ.  She asked why I was here and I said I was here to learn a new culture and help people develop their faith in Christ.  I asked what her name was and she asked why.  I said because I want to know more people here. She asked if I was a gringo and I said “yeah.”  She asked again why I was here. I told her because I am trying to help people come to Christ and also to learn a new culture and Spanish.  She told me to go to Spain to learn Spanish.  I asked her what she spoke and she said Mexicano.  What a nice lady... Elder Pyne was laughing really heard and so were the people in their taco stand behind us. They were signaling that this lady is crazy. That was probably the highlight of my week.  I would say we are friends now.

Another thing that happened this week was there is this member named Pebbles. She is older (in her 30s) and has 2 cousins one is 8 and one is 13.  The two little girls hadn’t been baptized.  The 13 year old said she would get baptized, but the 8 year old was scared of water and of us.  Elder Pyne said I needed to gain her confidence because I am better with kids.  I started off showing her pictures of Oscar and Eddie (thanks so much for the photo book, Mom! I love it). Then I showed some pictures of temples and then of baptism.  She still said no to getting baptized.  Then Pebbles said something about princesses.  Jackpot. FINALLY, all my Disney knowledge was really coming into use. I talked about Tangled (Enredados-learned that word from Those girls from MIT whose dad was with Dad in school), Frozen, Lion King, Aladdin.  Everything. And I pretty much had to put on a show for them.  I sang so many Disney songs. Kinda awkward, but at the end she said she warmed up to me and said she would get baptized. We were planning on them getting baptized this Sunday but the mom wouldn’t let them go to church this week. We’ll see this next Sunday what happens.  Young kids really need their parents support.

We are also working with this one lady named Betsebe.  She is sooooo ready and has such faith! She was going to get baptized yesterday, but she wants her parents to be there. She wants them to become members too.  She had no problems with anything we taught her. When we told her we can´t drink coffee she was like “NOOOO!”  It was so funny, but she agreed to get rid of it and she hasn´t had it yet! She is going to be baptized by her friend this Sunday! It’ll be great!

We also found this other lady who is 22 and has a little girl. She lives with her parents. She accepted to be baptized in a few weeks, but later she told us she couldn’t because her parents said if she was to live in their house, she had to be Catholic.  It’s hard when family members have such strong biases and influences.  This would the best decision she would ever make and I feel she can make her own decisions! I think we are going to try to talk to the parents this week.

Another little 10 year old who is friends with a member wants to get baptized.  Her mom doesn’t believe in God and thinks people only believe in God when they are weak. We are trying to teacher her such good principles so she can be baptized. Darn! Some parents here... Thank you Mom and Dad for the good parents you are! :)

We went to the temple last Wednesday! It was really pretty. I wanted to go inside, but it’s still closed. The visitor’s center is open, but we didn´t go in because we had to get back to our area and work.

Conference was really good. I think...I couldn’t really understand it. I was really looking forward to it. I could maybe get the topic of the talk, but they use vocabulary I haven´t really heard. I was frustrated watching it and just wanted to watch it in English. The music was so good though! I saw some of my friends from BYU in the Priesthood session and Michele Scott. So much fun to see them :) I was glad the music was at least in English.  It was kinda cool to hear some talks from other languages. Hopefully when we get the Liahona I can read the talks. They are a lot better hearing them though. The speakers have a lot more emotion than the translators.

So there is my week! I am excited for my birthday this Friday, but I shouldn´t be expecting too much because we still have to work. I am SOOO excited to open my packages. They are right next to my desk.

Miss you all! Thanks for your prayers and support.

-Elder Thomas