Baptisms and Cheez-Its

Hey there family!

I am doing super well here in Mexico. Not going to lie, but sometimes when you talk about Whitney coming out or going to New York to see some plays, I get SO EXCITED to see you! Stay focused Elder. Stay focused Elder!

Everyone says “Oh wow!  You’ve finished your mission.” But no! I still have 2 weeks. I try to not let it get in my head.

We are continuing trying to find people and help people progress. Juan and Rebeca love church and want to get baptized. They don’t have a lot of money and still aren’t married. We have really been struggling on getting their paper work together so they can get married. Juan of them has to get a paper that shows he is divorced from his ex-wife. It is so frustrating and stressful. It is weird because as missionaries, we get stressed for the needs of other people more than ourselves. It makes me laugh a bit. This week I am really trying on just trusting that God will help it work out if it is their time, but if I am not able to see them get baptized, I know they will get baptized in the near future.

We also have an investigator that we finally found who we are picking up. Her name is Margarita. She has gone to church a few times and has had a rough life. We have been looking for her forever and we finally found her on Sunday morning and she came with us to church. We hope that she can progress!

We have been working with this one member who has been helping us a lot in the work. She gave us a reference of a couple she contacted in the convey. The couple went to church yesterday. They are older people and it’s hard for them to understand a lot of things, but they seem interested.  Working with members is the best.

We had interchanges this past week. Elder Veazey and I worked in our area. It was pretty fun and we get along well. He is going to BYU in the fall so it’ll be fun to hang out after the mission.

We also had some baptisms in the district. Two of the companionships baptized and both of them wanted me to baptize them, so that was cool.

One great thing happened this week was a bit of a miracle. Made me cry a bit. There is this one American family in our ward. A few weeks ago we ate with them. I told them that I really miss cheez-itz. They apparently went back to the states for vacation and they saw a wall full of cheez-itz. The mom of Isaac (the joven) said that they had to buy a box for me. Yesterday at church, Isaac gave us the box. Luckily my companion didn’t like them so a box full of BIG cheez-itz is all mine. It’s the little things in the mission...

I honestly love the mission. Obviously there are things that I am excited to do and see when I get home, but for now I need to focus and love every minute of my time here in Mexico. Yes there are many times when the food gives you diarrhea or you have “mal de Puerco” (a phrase they use when the food makes you tired), or when it is super hot and you aren’t getting into anyone’s houses.  But the feeling when people get baptized, go to church for the first time, start praying, or accept an appointment makes it worth it. I am tired, but I shall endure to the end.