Baptism at waterfall

Howdy family,

Wow it is so hot! It’s the best when we get into houses so we are not dying the heat. At least it’s not cold! Sorry family! So this week was a mas o menos week.

We did interchanges on Tuesday with Elder Jex. We went and visited these two people. One is named Selene and she is so good. She speaks a bit of English. She lived in Oregon for 2 years. We explained the Restoration to her really well and the next day when we went to visit her she said she didn’t sleep because she was up all night thinking about it. Her grandma was studying with the Testigos de Jehova so we had to clear up a bunch of doubts. But she is really good. She came to church yesterday even though she had to work at10:30. She stayed for the opening song and prayer and then had to leave. She said hopefully the next week she can stay longer. We later visited this lady name Angeles. She is really nice and likes to talk a lot. Her mom is a less active member and Testigo de Jehova so she is really mixed up. Also, she was Catholic...Anyway, Angeles is good and came to church. She has 3 boys. This week we just need to win her husband over. Most of (if not all) the husbands are not the best or respectful of their wives (sadly). Here the culture is that the women don’t really have any say in things. The husband always has the control whether or not it’s fair.   We are going to try to gain the dad’s confidence.

Anyway, kind of funny. We went to pick up Selene and then we went to pick up Angeles to bring them to church. Turns out that Angeles is Selene’s aunt. It all made sense with the pieces of Testigos de Jehova in their family. They also think pretty similarly. Valle is VERY small.

We had to drop some other investigators because they weren’t progressing and they didn’t really have the interest, even if they say they do. They just don’t show it.

We had the activity, Viaje Hawaii. It was kind of a disappointment. We had prepared a ton. We got a ton of members involved and invited all of Valle. Then when it came, only like 30 people came. A lot of members never showed up who had responsibilities. We never got light in the church to work. There is a house right next to the house of prayer that is unoccupied so we just took a bunch of extension cords and borrowed that power. haha. It was still fun though. The people that went had a good time. I was the captain of the plane. Then Elder Johnson and I did a mini MTC experience and taught people how to pray in English. They really liked that. It was fun, just not what we were hoping.

 

So Sunday arrived. We had to go early in the morning to the church to clean up from the activity the night before.  The girl I mentioned before was baptized yesterday - if she was baptized before they couldn't find her records so it was required to do it again. We went in the morning yesterday to start the font. Unfortunately the hose to fill it up didn’t work and we couldn't fill it with buckets. I called Elder Jex to ask what we should do and he said that we have permission to go where we need to go to baptize her. He said maybe the lake. The thing with the lake is that it is very contaminated and all the places to go swimming are private. So we ended up going to the waterfalls. Remember those cool pictures of the waterfalls. That’s where she was baptized. It was a pretty cool experience and a fun memory for us as well as this young girl. We did the devotional at the church of the importance and reason for baptism and then about 14 of us went to the falls for the ordinance. 

Not much else happened this past week. On Saturday, the people who signed up to give us food asked what we wanted. We said pizza and cookies. :-) People don’t use their ovens here. They just use them as cabinets, so this family tried making pizza and cookies. They turned out alright. 

Also, Saturday night we found out we had to give talks. We never really have time to prepare, so we just rely on the Spirit to guide us. I felt like my talk went well. My companion’s as well. However,  it was pretty funny because he was talking about Isaac and how he had to sacrifice su hijo (his son). but instead of saying his son he kept saying tú hijo (your son). It was pretty funny. The family behind me was laughing a bit too. Asi es el español mi familia.

Pues mi imagino que está semana es mi ultimo semana aqui in Valle de Bravo. (I imagine that this week is my last week in Valle). We have changes this Saturday. The time sure has flown by. I love Valle, but I really feel ready to leave. I don’t know if I made the biggest impact here as I would have hoped, but I feel like I tried my hardest and that is what the Lord asks of me. I have learned so much here. If anything, I believe I have planted many seeds here in the people to accept the Gospel. I have given them the opportunity to come to Christ and learn more about the great plan that God has given us. Thank you for all you love and support.  I miss you all! Hope all is well.

-Elder Thomas

traditions more than beliefs, planning a mission activity to Hawaii.

Well howdy family,

There is not a lot to share from this week unfortunately. This week was pretty rough in terms of work. So the thing with Valle is that people are VERY Catholic (more so than other areas) and they are Catholic more because of tradition than actual beliefs, which I find frustrating.  People have a hard time changing. I am sure you’ve realized that from the past letters. haha. I try to not let it get in my head, but sometimes it does. 

But anyway, we have had a lot of people go to church for the first time here. Almost every week I have had about 3-4 people go for the first time, but then for the second time, no one wants to go back, or something comes up.  It is super frustrating. So this week we really tried to focus on the people returning for a second time. By Sunday, we had 4 people ready to go to church for the second time, but they all flaked out. We were super bummed. So this week, we are trying to rethink our strategy to find really good people who may be interested.

The same thing also happened in the hermanas’ area that are in my district. However, they have been working with this one girl who might get baptized this next week. She is the sister of the crazy boy from 2 transfers ago who had to get rebaptized.  The church also lost her paper work. A that time she didn’t want to get baptized and is a bit goth. But, the hermana’s have been working hard with her and now she wants to be baptized! She even came to church yesterday on her own even though her mom was out of town (her mom is relief society president).  She is only 15. The branch is slowly coming together. We don’t have a youth group, but it is coming. We have a few young women who are starting to come back, but they all come back at different weeks so it is hard to have consistency. The thing with a lot of the members here is they don’t realize the church is EVERY week. haha. It’s hard to see the growth because they are different members every week.  It’s something I think we are going to focus on with the members. 

One thing that is exciting is that Elder Johnson and the hermanas in my district and I are planning a mission activity for this Saturday. We are doing Viaje Hawaii.  We’ll pretend to board a "plane" and then get out in "Hawaii" and have games and stations of things. There are “good” stations and stations “of the world.”  So we will have a disco, clowns (Bruno), board games and a fortune teller. And then we will have stations such as a mini-MTC, a family home evening booth, scripture study area and stuff like that. Everyone will get tickets and they can spend their tickets at the worldly stuff and gain tickets at the spiritual stuff. We then reboard the plane and come back, but in the plane we get in a crash and everyone dies. Then everyone gets placed in one of the 3 kingdoms of glory, depending on how many tickets they have. So that is our activity we have been planning. The biggest thing right now is we need electricity for the house of prayer. We haven’t had power for the past month. Hopefully we get it back this week. Please pray for lights! 

We have been getting the members pretty excited for the activity and telling them to invite friends. I made the tickets. Hopefully it makes you proud, Mom. Some people have never seen plane tickets here before and so they actually think we are going to Hawaii. Whatever gets them to the church I guess! haha no we tell them we aren’t actually going. 

Oh and Valentine’s day here is wack. If you think it’s cheesy in the states, you should come to Mexico. Everyone buys their girlfriends the HUGE teddy bears, flowers and chocolate. I probably only thought that because I can’t have a girlfriend, but I just saw too many couples making out. haha.

So that has been our week. On Wednesday we had a meeting in Metepec for the trainers and new missionaries. It was pretty good and I learned how I can be a better trainer for Elder Johnson. He is doing pretty well. He learns quickly and has good Spanish, especially for how much time he has. 

The mission is great. I don’t think it will ever be easy, but no one said it would be. I can always pray for the strength and help to carry on. I just need to be patient and wait upon the Lord’s answers from the challenges I have.

Thank you all for your love and support and prayers. I miss and love you all!

-Elder Thomas

PS - Enjoy my 9 month mark selfie. I think I look really tired. 

Happy B-day Mom! Zone meeting. Ups and Downs. I saw a miracle. :)

Hey Fam,

So a quick recap on my week. I got a cool backpack. Super shnazzyyy. We had our zone meeting. And we had some ups and downs throughout the week and saw a miracle.

So Tuesday, we had our zone conference. It was pretty good. The mission is so young though. Out of all the elders, Elder Jex is about to go home, his companion (the other zone leader) has a year, and then me. All the others are "younger" than me. What?? 

How has the time flown by so fast. This Saturday I complete 9 months in the mission. I should do something special. Also because... It’s MOM’S BIRTHDAY! Happy Birthday mom! Hope you enjoy the picture. I was super worried about being close to the water because they say it’s dangerous for missionaries. Something like that. haha. But I survived. Notice the boat in the background. hehe. 

So about the work. Because of P-day and then the zone conference is about 2.5 hours away, we didn’t get to work till Wednesday. I was pretty excited to get to work, but then Wednesday was awful. We would enter into houses and we would be teaching about the Restoration and they would say one of my least favorite phrases,"soy catolica." It’s just their way of saying that they don’t want to listen anymore and they don’t know how to say no. haha. I have learned to accept it, but it is still frustrating. So I was super down on Wednesday. We did visit the driver who drove the convey [bus] to the temple a few weeks ago who went to church the last week. He really liked it and he liked the idea of baptism. He said he would go to church on Sunday, but then fell when Sunday came.

The week slowly got better. By Saturday night, we had a bunch of other people committed to come to church. Of course though, a bunch of them fell through.

However, we have been working for 2 weeks to get this lady who is from Arizona to church. Her name is Isamar. She is married and has a little baby. The husband doesn’t have interest. We have been teaching her in English. My companion likes teaching in English even though his Spanish is really good for how long he has been here. Anyway, she came her to church this week and she loved it! The branch was so nice and loved holding the baby. I was so happy.

We also were able to get the cousin of Venancio to go to church this week with her family and they really liked it as well. 

It was nice to have some success yesterday.

So I don’t know if I have said much about the branch. It is really small. Everyone are recent converts. The branch president is 28 years old with his wife and baby. He was a convert 12 years ago. The branch is 4 years old and is slow to be growing. People haven’t been staying.  As missionaries, we have been working to get everyone excited about the work and people are starting to share the Gospel more with their friends.

One really cool thing about yesterday, was Venancio and Bruno just received the priesthood. I was able to help pass the sacrament with them. What a neat experience to see that with my converts. 

So the miracle. On Saturday we went to visit this family 20 minutes from Centro. The family said they would go to church, but ended up not going. Anyway, so on Sunday night we were in Centro contacting and this woman comes up to me with lots of confidence and presented themselves to us. I was thinking "great members from D.F". There are always tourists from D.F. that come who are members. They are members from D.F. and have a lot of time in the church. Apparently they just moved here a week ago and thought the closest ward is 2 hours away in Metepec. They didn’t know there was a branch here, but the daughter thought she saw us in their little pueblo 20 minutes from Valle on Saturday getting into a taxi. They were looking all over for us to find out information about where the church is at. They have 3 kids, a 20 year old, 17 year old, and 11 year old. We plan to go out to visit them this week at their house. If they are as good as they seem, the dad could be the new mission leader. We don’t have one! Their family could really be an answer to Valle’s prayers. It is so nice to see the miracles here in the mission. Even though the other family didn’t go to church, we were suppose to be out there so the daughter could see us.

So there’s my week. Thanks for all your love and support! Miss you all!

-Elder Thomas

Groundhog Day is a weird holiday

Hi Family, 

Hopefully you get this letter deep in the snow. Haha it is hot here. That is so crazy your weather. snow snow and more snow. Here it is warm and sunny. People in swim suits and lots of sweating. Haha but I do actually miss the snow. You always miss what you can’t have.

So last P-day before we started working we went down to the lake and took some cool pictures. I know I am obsessed with putting my nametag in pictures, but this is a cool one. 

So on Monday, Concepcion calls us and tells us she has some people over for us to meet. They are so good. They wanted us to teach them so we started teaching the Restoration. The people though were super rude! They just started attacking us. We couldn’t even get a word in. They were super Christians and just attacked. Concepcion and Bruno stayed pretty positive the entire time though, but I got a little frustrated. Because they kept interrupting us, I decided to just sing Joseph Smith’s First Prayer to get the message. Then after the song, they started attacking us again. I just was like, "okay we are going to end here, but I just want to leave my testimony". I shared my testimony with them about how this is the church of Christ and after they were silent. They didn’t know what to do, and they were like "okay we are going to go now". It’s kind of ironic, but I gained a testimony of the power of a testimony. When it’s all we can do, the Spirit will testify to the people.

On Wednesday, we started the day off helping a lady do service. A member from D.F. called us and gave us some names of his family here in Valle. We visited his mom and helped her paint her department she will rent. She said she would go to church and she came yesterday! Service is such a good way to open people’s hearts.

Later that day we went up this mountain to meet this one guy for a cita we had. We went up and up and up. We were so tired and then we came to this dirt road. There was this dog that wouldn’t let us pass. He didn’t have a lot of hair and looked sick. With a rock in hand, we eventually made it past (all the dogs are scared of rocks). We went to this house and knocked on the door to find this guy’s house. I said "buenas tardes!" and they said "sorry! we can’t open the door. We don’t have keys". That is the lamest excuse haha. I said that we didn’t want to get bit by this dog. They said "Oh don’t worry. His name is Tomas. He doesn’t do anything" haha. We started laughing. We went ahead on the road and still couldn’t find the house. We went back to the house with the dog and guess what, the people were out of their house. Looks like they found the keys. hahaha. They showed us where the house was. It was even higher up. The path was just dirt and was falling from under us, but we eventually made it. After all of that adventure... he wasn’t home.  Good memory though.

On Friday we had a meeting with the other district leaders. It was pretty good. The advice they gave us to be better leaders will definitely come in handy. When we got back that night we went to visit the family that went to the temple and to church this past Sunday. We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited them to be baptized. They all said yes. We invited them to church and they said they would go and we would meet them in the main street (the house of prayer is super secluded and hard to find. Harder to find than ours in Maine). Sunday came and they didn’t answer their phone or come to church. I was super bummed because we missed the sacrament waiting for them... The thing is, is baptism makes sense to people logically here. They understand that they need to have a knowledge from right and wrong (to be older than a baby), have someone with the authority (John the Baptist), and be completely submerged in the water. People just don’t realize the commitment or the promise that we make with God, or the importance of it. I think that is something I need to improve in my teaching. So that was this past week with them.

We are working with this one girl who has a kid and is from Arizona. We are teaching her in English. She wants all these changes in her life that I KNOW the Gospel can bring. She was going to come to church yesterday, but she just started a new job cooking in a house. Hopefully we can get her to church this next week. I know it will help.

Bruno and Concepcion are doing well. I was kind of bummed yesterday because I saw Bruno going to work. People have such a hard time keeping the Sabbath Day holy. He said he needs the money to pay rent from last month. I promised him that he could receive even more blessings for not working on Sundays, but he went to work anyway. Such a bummer, but hopefully we can help him understand the importance of following God’s commandments. The thing is, is that they aren’t just things we have to follow, but they are things to help us live happier.

So today is the 2nd of February. And Mom, if you think Groundhog Day is a weird holiday, you should see here. This past week, they literally set up a big fair with rides and games outside of our house. We live in front of a Catholic church so it’s for that. Last night they had fireworks (their fireworks don’t have lights, they are just the big boom) and music playing ALL NIGHT. I think it is to celebrate the virgin or Christ being born. I don’t have Wikipedia so who knows. This is the odd part. Everyone carries little baby Jesus dolls with them. They are dressed up and some have little cribs. They bring them to the church and the priest or someone changes them or something. I don’t know. It is a bit odd. Even the adults all do it. (see picture). I know I need to respect the traditions, but still. I have been studying about loving people. I read today that even if people are sinning, we should still love them as Christ did. If we are to be disciples of Christ we need to love our brothers and sisters. My patriarcal blessing talks about loving the people so that’s what I am trying to do. It will come as I practice patience. 

So there is my weekly letter. Hopefully as you sit at the dinner table and read this, you can laugh a little, cry a little and maybe all come together for a family hug. haha. I miss you! Hope you can dig your way to school, work and seminary! Love ya!

-Elder Thomas