Baptism decisions, 4th of July suit

Hey family,

Well who knows what will happen with me. I could be here another 6 weeks or this could be my last week in Madereros. I think I am ready to leave this small area, but whatever God has in store for me, I will do it.

This week was interesting. Most of the week was focused on Nancy and Maria del Pilar. On Tuesday they told us they didn’t want to get baptized. We talked to them for some time and at the end they said they would get baptized. Then Wednesday Elder Alegre Soto came to do their interviews and they said they didn’t want to get baptized. It was super sad. On Friday we visited them and still said no. They said they weren’t sure about going to church. Nancy’s family is Catholic and she doesn’t think she can change. She doesn’t really follow the Catholic religion, but she says it’s her traditions. So anyway, Bellavista had a baptism, so we invited them to it. Nancy also told us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon the past few days. She later asked if she could get baptized and asked if she could get baptized during the week! We are probably going to wait till Sunday to have the baptism, but right now she seems the most sure of a baptism. We will see how it goes this week. I think that when it comes to important decisions, we always have doubts. But that is the faith. We have to do what we feel is right and trust that it works out in the end.

So I don’t know if you remember that practically deaf guy Elder Bird and I found a few weeks ago when we were on interchanges, but he is such a good guy and super prepared. He told the missionaries that he was waiting for us to come for years. He has prayed and received a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith. You have to yell to talk to him, as he is pretty deaf. Anyway, he got baptized yesterday. I was super happy to see him be baptized.

Elder Roca and I found a family a while ago and they were never there for their appointment. However, a week ago, we found the mom again and she asked us why we never passed by (even though we past by like 8 times). We set up another appointment for Saturday and when we went, no one was home. It was in a department like building and we got locked in. We asked some neighbor to open he door for us and she said she was busy and couldn’t open it for us. Muchas gracias mujer... We waited for someone to open the locked door and like 10 minutes later, the family got home! It’s a single mom and she has 4 kids. 2 twins that live in my old area of Plateros and then 2 other kids. The mom and 3 other kids came with us to church yesterday. I am pretty excited about them because they are pretty normal and good people.

Other than that, that was pretty much my week. I wish I had some cool story to share. We went to Santa Fe and I bought a new gray suit. It was 70% off so I also bought a tie. It looks nice. Hopefully that’s okay... I needed to give myself a 4th of July gift. I hate being away for the 4th. I think it is as bad as Christmas. I have decided I am going to make my companion sing the American songs in the English hymnal I have. 

Have a good week. I love you all. Share the Gospel and work hard. 

-Elder Thomas

Father's Day 2015

Buenos tardes mi familia!

Still here... in Madereros. Haha. This change is flying by, but I feel like I have been here in Madereros forever. We only have 2 weeks left of this change. It will be weird to have another companion next change because Elder Roca and I are so use to working together. We have a lot of fun in Madereros. It is a pretty crazy area. Drunks, druggies, and fights. Haha. I will share some stories when I get home just because they are better to tell in person. Elder Roca and I have a million impressions of the people that we do because there are so many characters. We are always laughing.

This past week wasn’t super eventful. We had a surprise zone meeting on Tuesday (see picture). On Wednesday it rained A TON! Then hail. It was hard to work because we were staying under coverage for a time and then just gave up and just got wet. I find myself switching pairs of shoes so one night one can dry while I use the others. We were supposed to have a noche de barrio and we were in charge of it, but then it got cancelled for the rain. The thing with Mexico, is people don’t have cars in the states, so when it rains, everyone treats it like it’s a snow day pretty much haha.

So I guess I will share about 2 of our investigators, Nancy and Maria. Nancy is 30 years old and then her Mom. Nancy has a 2 year old boy who makes a TON of noise. We had a FHE with our mission leader and his wife and a member with Nancy and Maria. We have been helping them prepare prepare for baptism on the 28th. We started talking about it at the FHE and she exploded. She said she didn’t know if she should get baptized. The next day we went to visit them and I had a feeling that they really should hear about the Plan of Salvation and the reason they are here and why baptism is important. We taught them super clearly about the plan. We ended up acting out the kingdoms so she would understand. We had a member with us, who has darker skin. So the member was the telestial kingdom, Elder Roca was the Terrestial kingdom and the gûero (the white guy) was the celestial kingdom. It was pretty funny. Anyway, after she understood the plan of happiness, she accepted to be baptized this week. She understands the Plan that God has for us. We are super excited for her and Maria and hope all goes well this week!

Today we had interviews with President. They were pretty good. He explained to me about conditional love and unconditional love. We need to have unconditional love where there are no conditions about our love. We love the people no matter what. That is one thing I am trying to always work on. 

Shout out to Dad yesterday! Happy Father’s Day! You are the best! 

This next week I think even more about our plan here on earth as it is the 6th anniversary of Clayton’s death. I miss him so much. I think one of the reasons it is the Plan of Salvation is because it literally SAVES us from the feelings of loss. I am so grateful for this Gospel and for our family. I know that we can all be together again one day.  I love you all!

-Elder Thomas

PS – Separate note to Dad that deserves posting:

Hey Dad! I know it was yesterday, but today is closer to father’s day than last week...HAPPY FATHERS DAY! You are the best. I am so grateful for you! You are the best. Even though I am in a different country I still feel like you are taking care of me and I can feel your love. I miss you so much. I could not ask for a better dad. Thanks for everything. You are such an example to me and I am so happy you are my Dad! Love you!

Visitor's Center, teaching, baptisms, visa

Hey Family,

How’s everyone doing? Hope you are enjoying the boat. I imagine this week you are going to go a bunch. And you are probably planning on going tonight for FHE if the weather is nice, but it’s going to rain, so instead you are going to be reading this at the dinner table.

A quick recap of the past week. On Tuesday we had our district meeting. The zone leaders ended up coming and I literally had no idea what to teach. Luckily the night before I had a good idea and did a game of how to teach with the object of the investigator understanding. It went pretty well and I think it was fun. Hopefully I can think of something good to do for tomorrow!

Later that day we found this member who just moved into our area and speaks English (his mom is American). It was pretty weird to be speaking with someone else in English about the Gospel. It’s pretty hard to do. This guy lives in this super nice area. It reminds me of Italy. They also had this funny dog that reminded me of Peppy a bit. I decided to take a picture with him.

On Wednesday I had to go do an interview for some hermanas in the zone. This guy was super funny and kept bringing more and more food. We were trying to get started on the interview and he just kept bringing a buffet of food. He was a nice guy and I am excited for him to get baptized this next week.

On Friday, Elder Roca’s brother was in town and he dropped off a package at the offices. Elder Roca got permission to go see him for 30 minutes which was nice for him.   Saturday was Elder Bird’s (an elder in my district) birthday.  My companion decided to go over to their house and decorate the door. Birthdays aren’t very exciting on the mission, so I tried to make it a little exciting. :)

Later, we were able to get permission to bring some investigators to the visitor’s center at the temple. It was super nice. I love the Spirit there. The open house is in two months and they rededicate it in three. I don’t think though we will be able to go through. The trip was nice though because Elder Huber and Alegre Soto brought a big group of people and we brought another 2 cars full. We saw Conozco a los Mormones. It really helped clear some of the doubts of some of our investigators. I think they thought that everyone had to serve full time missions like us. They really felt the Spirit.

Right now, we are working with a few investigators. Unfortunately, I think that the people we found in the beginning of the change, don’t really have interest in the church. But we do have some people that are progressing. That lady named Nancy and her mom Maria went to the temple and accepted baptism! We are planning for the 28th of June! How cool would that be to have baptisms that day! We also have another family that we are working with who like the Church a lot, but work all the time. We are trying to see if we can help prepare themselves for the 28th as well, but we will see this week. 

So today, I went to renew my visa! I have almost been here in Mexico a year! Crazy stuff. I remember thinking a year ago that the time we have to renew our visas is forever away and then here I am again. I was able to see Elder Olvera and Huber from the MTC and also Elder Whatcott. They are all super funny guys. It was a good reunion.

My companion and I had an interesting contact yesterday. This lady started telling us that she “wanted to take advantage of this moment to talk to us and advise us of the wrong we are doing.”  She told us the Book of Mormon is fantasy and that it is all made up and that Joseph Smith was crazy. She told us we need to come closer to Christ through the Bible. It obviously bothered me that she couldn’t understand the truth of the message we have, but I really thought about how grateful I am for my testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the Church. We don’t need physical evidence to show that the Book of Mormon is true, but we can gain a PERSONAL testimony through the Spirit. I am so grateful for the joy and happiness this Gospel brings. I love you guys! Hope all is well!

A calm week...Marco was baptized

Hey there fam,

So it sounds like it is practically summer there. I can’t believe it is summer again. Summer I think is the hardest time to be away from all you because it is when the most things happen, but I did it one time and I can do it again.

This past week was pretty calm. On Wednesday and Thursday I did interchanges with Elder Bird in my district. He and his companion are opening the area so I went with Elder Bird to work a little with him. Elder Bird is actually from Grand Junction, Colorado. I said something about the McClures and I found out that he was in the MTC with Riley. Small world. When we were on interchanges we went to visit this member. We asked if she knew anybody to visit and she told us of this one guy. We went to visit him, and come to find out that he is almost completely deaf. He is such a nice guy though. We had to shout for him to hear. Imagine me shouting and singing I am a Child of God. I then decided to write out what to say and it seemed to work. It was a neat experience and new way to teach. He even went to church yesterday. Even though he can’t hear anything in church, I am sure he can still feel the Spirit.

While on interchanges, we decided to go to Burger King. I don’t think the Mexican American food does well in my stomach, but I am doing better now.

Elder Roca and I are really enjoying are time together. We have gotten along super well this past week and are always laughing at how crazy our area is.  Just the amount of crazies there are here. So many personalities...

We had a ton of people to church last week, but this week for some reason no one was home when we went to invite them. We had two people to church for the 2nd time yesterday. Their names are Maria and Nancy. Yup her names Nancy, Mom. But she is NOTHING like you, don’t worry. haha. We are trying to help resolve their doubts about the Restoration and invite them to be baptized. We will see this week. Nancy’s little 2 year old makes a ton of noise so it’s hard to teach them. They also have a dog that makes a lot of noise as well, so we have been taking them to the church to teach them which is nice to do.

Marco and Relief Society president's family

We were also able to have the baptism of Marco. He is such a good guy. He progressed so quickly and I am super happy and excited for his progress in the church. It was a nice service and his girlfriend also bore her testimony and then he did. He will be such a good member.

So yesterday were elections for governor. So here in Mexico, the elections are super cheated and can be dangerous. After the services, we had to go back to our house and stay there. We just chilled all day and night. We slept, made bunk-beds, cleaned a bit, wrote letters. It was pretty nice. Who knows if anything happened outside. We came out this morning and went to Santa Fe. I love that plaza. Super nice.

So that is pretty much my week. This week we are hoping to go to the temple and bring investigators and some recent converts, so that should be nice. It should be a good week here in Madereros!

Love and miss you all!

-Elder Thomas

Another working week...contacting and teaching.

Another week here in the cyber writing the fam. How ya’ll doin’? Here are the highlights of the week:

On Wednesday, Elder Alegre Soto came to work with Elder Roca and I, so we were three missionaries walking in the street from Argentina, Mexico, and America. Pretty cool. We had a noche de barrio on Wednesday. The Young Men were supposed to be in charge, but that organization isn’t very active right now so we ended up being in charge of it.  It went super well. It really was just the Relief Society and 2 guys and the bishop, but it was fun. We taught people how they can share the Gospel very casually and did some practices of contacting. We then played a bunch of games that my companion knew about. After, we went to the bishop’s house.  We are making a missionary plan for the ward. This next week, the bishop is going to call 16 ward missionaries and 2 couples to be in charge of areas in the boundaries. I am pretty excited to get this going. I might not be here to see it, but it’ll be good to leave something in this area.

On Monday, we had a goal to contact 8 families. It was 9:20pm and I told my companion that we have to finish our goal. We saw a mom and her daughter. He went over and contacted her and she is golden! She went to the activity on Wednesday and church on Sunday. She is so excited to learn. She has even started to share the Gospel with other people in the street! She is planning her baptism for the 28th of June. Her daughter is only 7, but I am sure she’ll get baptized in the future as well.

On Tuesday, this lady contacted us and told us she is a member. She just moved here but says she was baptized 3 months ago. We were a bit skeptical if she was a member or not, so we asked the offices to look up her info and it turns out she isn’t. But she told us about her baptism and even showed us a picture. So, since we don’t have her papers, she has to be baptized again. She is pretty excited about it. We are planning on this Sunday or the next. She also has 2 kids who have gone to church but never have been baptized. We are going to try to find and teach them and see if we can help this whole family. 

We have been continuing working with Marco. He will have his interview this week and his baptism will beon sunday. He is a really sharp guy and really nice. I am excited for him and also for his future.

On Thursday, we went to Lerma to get some people married civilly. So many people here live in "union libres" and aren’t married legally. So, some elders in the zone needed to perform the marriages for some people before they can be baptized. They needed witnesses so we went with them to Lerma. It is very much a pueblo. I miss the pueblos... We got lost and ended up walking a ton. Lots of farms and small shack houses. It was a fun little adventure. 

We were able to have a good amount of investigators in church yesterday and we will see which of them really has long term interest.

This week I am really going to focus on helping out my district.  Two of them are opening an area and have very little time in the mission. I am excited to work with them and I hope we can have lots of success.

It’s rained every day this week. Pouring.  I keep alternating shoes to let one pair dry. It has even hailed a few times. I love the lightning storms as well.

I have finally found a place to print the pictures of Elder Stanley (a member did it for me at a Costco) and I am hoping to get it sent off this week or the next. Sorry it’s taken so long.

So there ya have it. A quick summary of my week. Love ya guys. Have fun, be safe and share the Gospel.

-Elder Thomas

Zone with Elder and Sister Nash, and Pres. and Sister Whitehead