32 Happy Birthday to Elder Garcia

Did you watch the video I sent? That was a part of my meeting that I did with my district and part of another, because the whole district wasn’t there,so they came in with me. The point was to be diligent, and the balloons represent many things in our lives and as missionaries. we have to be constantly juggling them and running one to the other, or they fall and are forgotten. For example, if one was an investigator family and we let them drop, they won’t progress. So we have to be diligent in keeping up all of our balloons. Even if it is only 1-2 at a time.

One thing this week was after we were talking to some people about our beliefs and everything, they didn’t want to listen or give us the time of day, and in church I was sitting and thinking about it, and I realized and wrote down in my agenda, that not even Christ Himself could convince everyone, and that really helped me.

It’s my comps bday today and he said he wanted to go to KFC to eat, so we went and ate.

  

The coke glass came for 20 more pesos at KFC so I had to buy it.

Speaking of temple trips, I was thinking this week if when I got back and we did a temple trip, but in Spanish? you guys could have headsets to listen in English and I would do it in Spanish? that would be really cool!

Contacting has been good, but we are still struggling right now with people to teach. It always falls through for some reason. The ward is super cool and they actually support and help us. The Bishop here is new so he is working hard right now to get everything together. so it’s been good!

We walked a ton again, and everything went crazy because gas prices went up. it was  nuts hahaha because the prices of everything went way up, and people in southern  Mexico were robbing stores and raiding. I have no idea why it went crazy but it did!  Everyone was freaking out and asking more and more about trump.

EVERYONE asks! Anyone that sees I’m white asks. It’s quite bothersome because I don’t know anything going on with Trump.

We got hot water finally! that was fantastic!

Love you all tons.

31 District Leader, I have an accent

Hey everybody!!! I’m sorry I haven’t been writing as much but things have been crazy! Training, opening area, hills, hills, hills... Christmas was fantastic huge thank you to everyone who sent packages and Christmas wishes! We had a good time passing Christmas and New Year here and it was soooooo good to talk to the fam again after 6 months!! But like the title says apparently I have an accent now... I don’t know what accent it might be, but to them I talk weird hahaha.

This past Sunday was crazy too for sure! So we pass by for our investigators and no one is home AGAIN, so we walk to church and get in kind of late and sit down. right as the meeting is starting the ward secretary comes up to me and says, "Elder, can you take some of the time and speak today?" so in 20 minutes I prepared a 15 minute talk on obedience from the scriptures and gave the talk. I never thought that would have happened in my mission...

 Then yesterday was transfer Sunday, which is always craaaaaaaazy! My Zone leader Elder Fowler called me at like 7 to ask me if we locked up the church after our zone party, and I told him yes, then out of nowhere he tells me he knows the changes, but he can’t tell yet. That to me meant that I or my comp had changes, so we were freaking out a bit hahaha. But after we got home we waited for a little bit, then I get a call from president! Freak out time! The last time I got a call from president was when he gave me the assignment to train, so I had no idea what this would be about. Then he tells me I have a change in assignment, and that I’m the new District Leader, and that most of my district got changed! So we’ll see how that goes in the next couple of weeks! 

But other than that everything is going well here. We are working hard, talking to everyone, and we`re slowly building up the area! Hope everything is good back home and that everyone has a great 2017!!

Week 30 Starring the tall blonde kid, Christmas Skype, Christmas with the President

Bryce's zone performed a musical number at the Christmas dinner with President Montoya and his Wife.   He had a few little starring moments (He never said anything so the video was a fun surprise).  Of course he had his snowman flashing tie on.  (We sent it to him in his Christmas package)  I could watch this over and over.  Love hearing my boy!

We were able to Skype for one hour on Christmas day.  He has an accent which is odd.  Dad cried.  Mom held it together until the goodbye:)  He needs a haircut!

Elder Fowler and Bryce had a small duet (so happy they are still in the same zone)

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!!!