29 Pinata's, Paintball, and Christmas dinner with the President

Hey mom. So we can’t really write today because we talked yesterday so... that sucks. But everything is good since yesterday, the post call-home depression is gone and we are getting back into the swing of things. I didn’t realize how much I missed you guys until we got to talk again, so that was interesting to feel after such a long time. Today was fun we had a secret Santa party, played games in the church, then went and played paintball! It was super fun, but it hurt like heck at times! (Photos next week when I get home to take them) but yeah other than that nothing really happened. Ill check the camera lens and takes more photos to make up for the lack of writing this week ok? :) But I love you tons and can’t wait to write you guys next week! Talk to you later bye!!!! 

Santa!!  I know him.  Elf paper and Bryce's favorite saying

Tree and presents

December 22, Pre-Christmas dinner with President Montoya

Presents
 

Making Tamales

Paintball 

28

 So I got the package today and holy cow it’s huge!!! You weren’t kidding when you said you sent a bunch of stuff hahah! It was super fun to open up and set out the tree and everything! Thank you so much!!!

I’m going to give Fowler his present  tomorrow at district meeting. We have all of the packages that the offices had for our zone so we have a lot to take to the church tomorrow! 

We went and bought stuff after we opened the package and and I bought Elder Garcia some stuff and have some wrapping to do tonight!  I got him a sweater, a couple of long sleeve shirts, two ties and a belt. And maybe more to come is not sure yet well see?

But I have to spend some time in the bathroom wrapping it all tonight so he doesn’t see them and has presents to put under the tree.

   
we had a training meeting at the offices today with the assistants so we were there from 11 to about 3ish and then we went home, opened the package, shopped, and now were here! It was a pretty fast pday. A super fast week actually! 

Yeah I'm feeling fine! Sure finding people is frustrating at times but I’m loving my life right now!  I’m happy, and working hard and am right where the Lord wants me! There are people just not many members.

Fowler lives far but they’re always at the church by our house for zone meetings and the stuff in their ward, so we see each other a lot during the week!

The Zone sang a Happy Birthday song for Jenna (not sure why it's blurry)

The song is called Lass Amanitas, it’s the Mexican Happy Birthday! It was easier for everyone to sing that then happy birthday in English, and that one is more fun honestly!

Question from Jenna: Is that big box of presents tempting you? I know I would be dying to open this presents if I were you

Response from Bryce:  Yeah I don’t know if all of them are going to make it to Christmas.... because some of them are already open, and to be fair to my companion on Christmas morning.   What a stinker, he’s always been such a snoop at Christmas.  Now Mom isn’t there to keep him out of them!

Question:  Do you have a stove or hot water yet?  Neither! But we are surviving! It doesn’t make that big of a difference honestly! The house is good! Its feeling more lived in as time goes on and things are going well! 

My comp is awesome! He is learning super-fast and is contacting people on his own and really wants to learn and improve every day.

Question:  Have you been able to find ward members to take you in? Not really no. We have almost nobody that lives in our area since we’re in an industrial area.

Oh! We found a super cool investigator this week named Maria! she was hosing down her driveway when we met her, and I asked if she needed help and she said no, but asked what we were doing, and told her how we are missionaries. Then I asked her if we could share our message with her and she dropped the hose and said yeah come on in! Then we taught the restoration and it was so awesome the spirit was so strong in that lesson! We were exhausted the whole day after because of the spiritual high basically!

So we’ll see how it goes with her this week. We gave her a Book of Mormon and committed her to baptism and she accepted them both like that. She didn’t come to church for some reason though so we’ll find out why soon

Have an amazing week and I can’t wait to see you on Sunday! Love you pieces and I’ll see you soon! Bye!

27. Six Months

This little guy just made it six months in Mexico!!

No Pictures this week because the internet cafe doesn't have memory card readers. I put a reader in his Christmas box so hopefully next week we get double pictures.

We got a call one night last week to head home immediately and we went home. Now we go home an hour earlier every night and have to be extra careful after dark. There are areas we shouldn’t go at night, but we have already been staying away from those places. We should be fine as long as we do what we are supposed to and listen to the spirit!

We went to our ward mission leader’s house because he was the one feeding us that day. We bought the stuff to make Peanut Butter Cookies with Hershey's kisses on top. It was my idea and I was so happy after we made the. It was just like Christmas at home!!!

We still need a water heater and don't have any tools or supplies to get the stove working. Yes. VERY cold showers hahah. But on the bright side it helps us take short showers and get ready faster in the morning!

This week was boring because we still don’t have anyone to teach, so we just walked and no one opened their doors.

My comp is good! He is trying to learn English so I have been helping him a lot with translations and stuff and how to say sentences. He really wants to learn and speak English by the end of his mission so I hope I can help him a lot now. I bought him his Christmas present today too! He has been wanting a speaker so bad to play his own music and practice listening to English and just to have his own. So today after we ate we went and did splits and I bought him one! I’m so excited to give it to him on Christmas! I told him in the beginning he should save up a certain amount of money every week and by the end of January he could buy one, so this will be an awesome surprise!!

I’m doing great here! A little discouraged that we still haven’t been able to find people to consistently teach, but we are trying to change that every day. I don't like having to start over just like in the beginning but we have the house; we have the teachings and the spirit, now we just need the people.

We haven’t stopped praying to find people all week and we have a few appointments planned, but so far who knows? I've settled into the new area, actually kind of know my way around and have hope for more investigators this week. That’s the main thing. When we have people and are teaching time goes super-fast, but when we don’t have anyone, it kind of drags on.

I completed 6 months this week, that was a happy moment!

26. We finally have a house

This week was good! A lot faster than last week. The apartment we were going to rent fell through, but we found another house, which I sent pics of. Now we can really get to work here and not have to worry about waiting for busses and stuff to get to the area.

The landlord wasn’t even the landlord of the house we thought we were moving into. The other person who actually owned the building didn’t want to rent.

We moved Saturday so this is our third day in the house. It’s more like a commercial building that we are using as a house.

This is the toilet and sink. The only sink. This would be where we wash dishes etc. We don't have any dishes so we haven't needed to use the sink for dishes yet.

Our Shower

The orange building below is ours. It has two rooms plus a bathroom.

ROOM 1

This is the kitchen and living room. There is a stove sitting on the table but we don't have the correct connector to make it work yet. The kitchen area also serves as a place to shave, comb our hair, and iron our clothes.

THE OPPOSITE VIEW OF ROOM 1

Refrigerator and wall for drying clothes 

ROOM 2

Tables for desk. A washing machine between the desks and beds 

We need to go buy dishes and pans, utensils, etc. Hopefully we can go buy some of those things soon. We also need to buy everything to clean with. Mop, broom, cleaner, etc.

OTHER VIEW OF ROOM 2

Clothes racks, beds and the other side of the wall used to dry clothes 

This is at a members house. I'm a little tall for their ceiling.

This was taken in El Centro last Friday

We went up a big hill and looked out at the city and hung out for a little bit after our move got cancelled on Tuesday.

Have you seen the alumina al undo campaign the church is doing for Christmas? (It's called #lighttheworld in the United States) https://www.mormon.org/ On Thursday, when it started we had those sweaters made and went and helped out at a care home for old people. We were there for 6 hours cleaning, hanging out with the people, and doing whatever they told us to. It was super cool! The pic with only a few of us and 2 ladies was our little group we were assigned. We were the kitchen staff cooking and cleaning and all of that. The lady who is always in the kitchen loved us! It was to give service on the world day of service.

As a zone we are singing Oh Holy Night and Little Drummer Boy for the Christmas dinner that President is having so we have been learning those both the past couple weeks and they are really fun! Little drummer boy is the version that pentatonic did, so if you want to see it you can look it up on YouTube.

Sorry I don't have more to report.  It's been really hard to train or have anything be normal because we haven't had a house.  It's finally easier to get my companion out of bed in the morning.  Hopefully this week will get back to normal since we won't be floating anymore.

I asked Bryce if he had a spiritual message or a quote he'd like to share. This was his great inspirational response....Quote. WE FINALLY HAVE A HOUSE!!!

Climbing Mountains and Finding a House

So today was awesome and super exhausting!!! We woke up this morning and went and climbed a hill. More like mountain. Then we came back to get stuff to go play at the church and eat in Centro. We were there from 1-4:30. As we were walking to write home, the secretaries called me and asked me where our apartment is, because they had stuff to bring to us for it. So we booked it to the house, and the landlord wasn’t there. So I called him and he isn’t going to have the keys to the apartment until tomorrow, so we have to wait to move the stuff.  Then we went and helped the assistants and secretaries take other stuff to other elder’s houses.  We took took a bunch of stuff. Washers, fridges, desks, heaters, beds, and all the stuff a house needs basically. Then we took our stuff to the zone leader’s house, where we left it all and we will move it out to our house tomorrow. So yeah, now we're here to email.

We will be sleeping at the zone leader’s house again tonight. The mission wasn’t split it was a big area made into smaller areas. A bunch of new areas were opened, so a lot of new houses were bought and needed furnishings in each area.

We wanted to do something as a zone so we climbed a BIG hill.  It’s very hilly. 

We’ve been at Fowler’s all week looking for a house and living out of our suitcases.  We will be living in an apartment above a store named Aborrotes Gely. We went inside and checked it out first to make sure it was livable. It’s big for an apartment and I'm excited to finally move and get settled in.  It’s basically a gated community! And it’s close to the church so I’m happy :)  Fowler lives super far from my area, so we’ll be seeing him like three times a week I think.

Bryce, Elder Garcia, Sister Missionaries

Elder Garcia and Bryce (New Companions)

It hasn’t been hard to train yet because we just kind of do the same thing that I did with my other comps, I just have to explain a lot more things. We contacted a bit, but not much more than that. Just a little bit. We’ve been more focused on learning the area, and finding a place to live in our area. My companion is super cool and is ready to work hard! He’s had a

tough time adjusting to the schedule, but it’s getting better. I’m just excited to get the stress of finding a house out of the way and finally move on and get to work with him here.

Q. Are you sad to leave Fowler?

No I’m sick of living out of my suitcase.

Our house isn't super close to Fowler, but with how big my area is, it’s relatively close.

I’ve been spoiled for the rest of my mission with my mansion house that I lived in in the Villas.

Q.  How do you get to the mission home?

By taxi. But we don’t go unless we have an interview with president or if there is something going on at the offices. Hopefully someone from our zone will be there to check soon though!

Q.  How are you doing? How are your spirits?

I’m doing great! I was a little homesick for villas and my friends I had there, but it’s getting better here now. 

Q. So you were homesick for Mexico?  That's kind of funny actually.

My first home in Mexico ha-ha

(funny he’s not homesick for his American home, he’s homesick for his Mexico house and his friends –more like brothers- he left behind) (I think it’s just that he’s been floating for a week without a house so once he’s settled in his own house, he’ll not miss the old.  I think what he’s really missing is the constant of day to day life and a set schedule)

But yes enjoy the pics and I’ll talk to you hopefully earlier next week! Bye mama love you pieces!!