The "Gus" I've been waiting for?

Feliz Navidad mi gran familia!

My Valle de Bravo district

Well to start off, I will tell you about changes. We found out Saturday morning that Elder Whatcott is leaving. So that means I am staying here in Valle de Bravo. It’s so cold in Toluca where the terminal is. We went this morning and I couldn’t stop shivering. Good thing I am here in Valle haha.

My new companion is Elder Medina. Yup, my first Latino companion. This will be interesting. I can get my self around in Spanish, but I still lack a lot.  Hopefully I can still bond with him. It’s been pretty quiet the past 5 hours we’ve had together. He seems nice. This is his 3rd or 4th change. He is from the Dominican Republic.  So it’s just this white guy and black guy walking around in white shirts and ties. Maybe he’s really funny and is the "Gus" friend I’ve been looking for.

Some things that have happened this week:

We had a zone meeting on Tuesday. President has a goal for the mission to baptize 500 people in both March and April. A TON! But we can do it. We are getting all pumped up for that time. It is when the mission is going to have the most experience during all of president’s time. What a blessing that would be to have all these areas grow.

Another thing we learned was about are “He is the Gift” cards (or El es la Dádiva).  They are so great to use.  So easy to talk to people about it. And it has the Virgin Mary on it, so I am sure that helps. haha. But the cards remind me all the time that Christ really is the gift of all gifts.

So with Juan... We fasted with him this past week and he talked to his wife later. She still didn’t want anything to do with us so we then went with some members to their house on Thursday. We taught some and talked to his wife. She said she would go to church and see what it was like and if it was okay then she would let her husband get baptized. He wants it so bad! We said we would even pay for her taxi to go. We left some money for her and Juan’s mom for the taxi, and they said they would go. Well Friday we talked with Juan outside of his restaurant and he told us his wife wasn’t going to go!  He said his wife does not want him to get baptized. We talked a good two hours with him. He said his wife wants him to talk to the Catholic priest but the priest keeps telling her lies about the Mormon Church.  We really wanted him to get baptized this Sunday. We had the zone leaders come talk to him on Saturday, but the same thing happened. We can’t really do anything with him now because he won’t progress. We wanted him to set the example for his wife, but until his wife is okay, we can’t do much. :(  Hopefully in the future he can be baptized.

Elder Whatcott manning the pinata

On Friday we had a branch party. There were more people there than in church. haha.  They did a talent show thing. Not the best, but it was okay.  In a year and half I’ll show some videos. We four missionaries sang Silent Night in English.  Elder Whatcott said I kinda sang with a Spanish accent.  Great... After, we had a piñata. Elder Whatcott moved it around while the kids hopelessly tried swinging at it. 

Funny story. We went to visit this inactive lady and while looking for her this little white dog came up to Elder Whatcott. He bent down to pet it and it bit him! haha We went to a member’s house to wash it so it didn’t get infected. The lady was so concerned that it would get infected. She kept saying we need to go to the doctor even though it was the smallest bite. She and her daughter were worried he would get "the rabbies" haha. Super funny.

So on Monday Elder Whatcott and I did a family home evening with this one family. We planned it out in the morning and turned out so good! We talked about how Christ’s life was all service for us. We talked about the Atonement and the suffering he went through and then right after the pain he went through, he went and healed an enemy’s ear. He was always serving. We had then think about times when people served them and how they felt with that. It’s interesting because the people here don’t really serve one another outside their family like in the states. Their examples were like when their daughter helped do their laundry haha. But they got the point. We then invited them to do a service for another friend. We explained the Christmas in a box where you fill a box with little toys and candies. We told them to get it together in the week and we would go with them to deliver it. The Spirit was so strong during the lesson. Saturday came and we were held up and weren’t able to go with them. They went and did it by themselves. We saw them later in the night in the street and asked them how it went. They told us that the lady they gave it to started crying because she was so happy. Then the family that did it started crying. It made me feel so good to be able to encourage others to do service. 

Sorry this letter is all over. At least I’ve got a few pictures this week. Merry Christmas all!  I love you and miss you! Only about 2 more weeks and we can talk (unfortunately only for 40 minutes max :( )!  Get your Skype ready folks.

-Elder Thomas

The government was using water for energy and they needed a place to put the water. This town on the way to Juans was chosen as the place for the water like 40 years ago. The rebuilt the town up higher exactly the same up on this cliff and filled the town with water. That in the center is the top of a church.