38 Sleeping on the couch (again) - Injured Companion

This depicts the state of work within the companionship this week. Elder Morgan is injured and Bryce is hanging around without a companion. Get better soon Elder Morgan:)

Elder Morgan was passed out on the way home from the doctor. They gave him anti-inflammatory injections and he slept the whole way home. (3 hours)

This has been a super crazy week holy cow! We worked Monday night and Tuesday, and then on Wednesday we rode the bus to Chihuahua. My companions ankle was still hurting him from a few weeks ago when he sprained it so we had to have the doctor take a look at it. We were on busses all day and didn’t do anything. He was told to stay and rest. We then rode the bus back to Parral. So I’ve been staying with the zone leaders from Thursday until today. Elder Morgan had to bus back to Chihuahua on Thursday and stay in the mission offices to rest. I haven’t been able to work in my area hardly at all. We didn’t get to bring anyone to church because we couldn’t commit anyone on Saturday, and I’ve been sick all week. It’s been fun :)
We don’t really have any future investigators right now...:/ We have people that we’ve contacted, but it’s been hard to follow up with them and get in their houses. The good thing is, on Thursday we have a zone conference and I hope Morgan is coming back. I don’t know if he’s going to stay and work. Depends on what the doctor says this week about his ankle. If he does stay, I’m pretty sure we can get back to work and finish out the week well. . I’m staying with the Zone Leaders for as long as I don’t have a companion, and I haven’t been in my house since Thursday.
I’ve been sick all week and stressed trying to do everything in my area by myself, and not being able to work in my area very much. I’m feeling a lot better physically today and we are getting more members to help us and plan to do more with the members of my branch, so this week should be good.
We haven’t been able to do many visits. I did take some members on splits on Friday, but no one was home to visit. It’s really hard to do a visit in my area then go to the area of the Zone Leaders, then back to mine. I’m hoping we can take a lot more members out on splits to work more in my area like normal.
If I take a member then I can go and contact people in my area. If we don’t have a member to help, I have to go in a trio with the Zone Leaders. I have definitely learned a lot on how I can be a better leader and do more in my area by being with the Zone Leaders. But I’ve been talking with the branch president and the elders quorum president about going on visits with home teachers and visiting their less active families in hopes of reactivating them, meeting/knowing more of the branch, and finding more references and people to teach and baptize.

It’s not the house that bothers me it’s the fact that I can’t be working in my area and finding people. I think my Zone Leaders feel the same way, because we basically have 2 areas right now and it’s really hard
It’s not too far, but walking back and forth between my area and their area all day definitely wastes a lot of time. We did that a few times, but for like 30 minutes each time when we didn’t have appointments or plans. I have a suitcase there in their house right now with my clothes.

I made kettle corn!! I’m enjoying my memories of kettle corn at home! I have a video. But I won’t be able to load it up in time so I didn’t load it up. But I was making kettle corn and showed that we had everything for it in the cupboards.

Not very many spiritual experiences to note this week, but I did talk to one of my zone leaders and studied with him D&C:76 and we had a good talk about what I can do to better my area and help my district more and that helped a lot. D&C:76 1–4, The Lord is God; 5–10, The mysteries of the kingdom will be revealed to all the faithful;

37 Snow - Parral, Mexico

 New Area:  Parral, Mexico

Bryce and Elder Morgan

 You guys aren't going to believe it but last week it snowed!!! We were studying one morning and I heard rain hitting the roof or something, and I looked out the window and it was snowing! I took a video but the internet connection here is too slow to send it over. we still worked that day. It snowed for about 5 minutes and it was just cold and windy the rest of the day. I feel like his area is going to be way hotter than mine when it heats up.  

My comp is cool! His name is  Elder Morgan. He's been out for 4 months and finished his training. He's a bit quiet sometimes, but He's been opening up more the past few days. We're getting along well so that's good.  His spanish is coming along, and He still has a little trouble speaking and pronouncing the words, but he does well. My week was tiring! I felt like I hardly slept because the morning always came so fast!  I always wake up like 2 minutes before the alarm and think it's the middle of the night, and then it goes off and I cry because I want to sleep. (Good sign he's back in a busy area!) 

I asked Bryce to tell me his three favorite things about his new companion Elder Morgan.  Bryce says:  Hes obedient, likes to learn/study, and speaks english!! haahah.

It feels like I'm opening a new area all over again. But yeah I'm super excited to keep working here and finding new people to teach. We contacted a bunch this week and are still looking for new investigators. They didn't have anything basically when I arrived, but its easier work here too so that's ok we'll pick it back up in the next week or two. 

I DIDNT GET TO GO to Nain's baptism. I was so sad. President wouldn't let anyone go. I don't think he is letting anyone go anymore. Nain and his family came to the transfers last Monday and said Hi. It was so good to see them after they got baptized and to talk to them again! (Nain is an investigator Bryce found when he was companions with Elder Fowler - back in November 2016).

When asked about safety: I feel the same her as in Chihuahua, but we go home at 9pm again instead of 8pm which was kind of weird. 

OH! I forgot to tell you about the talent show the stake(actaully called a district because they are all branches not wards) but friday they had a talent show where all of the branches had people show their talents(duh) and 2 minutes before the show, my zone leader comes up and asks me if I would be willing to help with something. idk how he got involved because he's from a different branch, but some members asked me if I would be able to read a form to marry someone, but to do it in a funny way, or to be funny up on stage. So I did it! I went up and "married" two couples, and asked them funny questions like if they still wanted to be married even though he was short, or she didn't want to cook, and everyone was laughing. It was fun! I'm not sure how it happened, but yeah it was all in spanish and all super funny. No one took pics or videos though so I was sad :( I asked Bryce if he lives in this castle house:  hahaha no its just in the area and it looked cool like the castle houses we would look at back home. Oh but the church building here is huge!!!! It's  two stories and it just looks giant! Side View of the Church Front of Church THE NEW HOUSE Theres a school right next to us with a metal roof. We live where the window is above the street! Thats where we sleep. It's so nice having a closet again and a kitchen and an actual house you have no idea. We have everything to cook! There is another house up top I think but I'm not entirely sure (Possibly residents in the part with the double windows). It was nice when we moved in to the store to finally have somewhere to live in the area, but after a while it sucked. It was a room with beds. (The living arrangement in his last area was a store with two rooms in - no kitchen, cooking, closets, just empty rooms of a store). I told Bryce good thing he's colorblind because  his new house is very colorful. Hahaha yeah  the walls are pink and its tiny, but its a nice place!  I told Bryce good thing he's colorblind because  his new house is very colorful. Hahaha yeah  the walls are pink and its tiny, but its a nice place!

36 NEW AREA. NEW COMPANION. NEW ZONE. NEW HOUSE. NEW. NEW. NEW :)

These are the Missionaries in Bryce's District that he had the privilege to lead.

All packed and ready to move. Goodbye house that is a store:)

The bus trip to my new area was 2.5 hours.  I was in the offices for almost 5 hours waiting to leave!  My new area is cool.  I’m super excited to get to work here. The bus was cool it had touch screen TVs on the back of every seat. We couldn’t watch the movies or listen to the music, but I was able to read all of my emails yesterday, I just couldn’t send for some reason. 

There were seven of us that came to Parral, and some of them I knew. Harrison from Arizona (Harrison lived in the BIG HOUSE with Bryce)  that was cool to see him again. I saw Nicoll (Bryce took Nicoll’s spot in the BIG HOUSE and they were in the same zone for quite a while) and MuciñoI (This was Bryce’s very first companion) at the changes too. Nicoll is training again and Muciño is a zone leader now.

Elder Harrison (AZ), Bryce, Elder Nicoll (AZ) Not sure who the sister is

We got to the place where the busses leave from to get to the station in Parral and left at like 5ish, and didn’t get there until like 7-7:30. When we got there we had to wait for the other zone leaders to get there and call us taxis to get home. Then we left, took my bags up to the house, then went out and walked the area a little bit. Then we came home and I unpacked and got the district meeting ready for today, and yeah went to sleep!

My comp is from Wyoming and he just graduated before he left. He doesn’t really talk much, but I think that’ll change soon. His Spanish is coming along slow and steady and I think he understands well, but speaking it is coming a little slower for him. He has 4 months in the mission and just finished his training and he’s doing really well. My comp has been in this area for 3 weeks, so he’s still kind of learning the area, so we are going to learn it together. 

We live in an apartment above a member’s house and it’s kind of small, but we have a kitchen, a real bathroom and stuff like that so I’m super excited!  I couldn’t take pics of the house this week because my camera died this morning when I went to take them :(  I’m more excited about the kitchen and that I have a closet honestly

I’m soooo excited to be out of Chihuahua! I’m in a little city called Parral and its cool so far! It’s a lot quieter than Chihuahua and there aren’t as many people. And my district is huge!!! (A district is a group of missionaries that live in a specified boundary) I have two companionships of sister missionaries and the zone leaders (zone leaders watch over several districts within a specified boundary)  are in my district, which is a total of 8 people!

Yeah I’m still the district leader. That’s why I was saying my district is huge! 4 companionships! I have more than half the zone in my district!

There are 12 in the zone in total, because they split this zone in Parral and made another one, with 12 as well. The zone leaders have to be in a district because it’s the district leaders who interview their investigators for baptism, and to be involved in the district meetings more.

Fowler  was sad he didn’t get to be a zone leader somewhere else. His companion got changed so I think he was happy about that.

I know my new zone leaders a bit, and one of the sister missionaries in my district was in my district when I first got to the mission, so I know a few people. The district meeting today was fun! We were laughing the whole time it was going, and having a good time, but it was still constructive and I feel like we are going to work super hard as a district.

I feel good about working here, and the branch (a branch is an area where there aren't enough members to make a ward) seems cool. I’m excited to have another gringo comp! It’s like what happened when Fowler (Bryce’s second companion) and I were comps. I finished my training and then I got an American companion.  My comp just finished his training and now he has an American comp.

Preston Fowler and Bryce - Bye for now, friends for life!

Questions from Jenna (Bryce’s sister) Is it uncomfortable to have to keep meeting new companions? Not really. It’s the same questions, how long do you have in the mission, where are you from, what do you like to do... blah, then you get to work. You get to know each other with time and it gets better when you both get more comfortable.

Have you liked all your companions?  Yeah I haven’t had a companion that I haven’t gotten along with yet... and that’s what scares me is living with someone that I can’t get along with for 6-12 weeks. But I think I’ll be fine this time too Elder Morgan seems cool.

Corn Tamales

Bryce and Elder Garcia at dinner eating tamales

I think this was taken because there are Nuns following behind??

Bryce and Elder Garcia 

Yeah, I have no clue

Nain and his family - This is a family Bryce and Elder Fowler found when the two were companions.  They were able to teach Nain about the church.  Nain married his "wife" (girlfriend in Mexico) and decided to have his entire family baptized.  He, his wife, and his son (his daughter is too young to be baptized yet).  Nain had his good friend baptize them.

 

35 It's Cold

It has been so cold this week!  I busted out the scarf  Fowlers’ mom sent me and it was delicious!  I’ve never used one before because it’s never been cold enough and I've never had one. My nose got really cold and I looked like a Tusken Raider from Star Wars with my glasses.

This week was good!  My comp and I talked for a couple hours last Monday about what we should do to progress more, and while we were praying a thought came to my head to start over and drop everyone. We basically dropped all of our investigators and started over contacting and finding more people. We contacted a lot and brought two people to church for the first time in nine weeks! It was so exciting!  Our plan is to basically just talk to everyone and follow up more on those contacts. We’ve also been working more with the ward asking for references and teaching with members so that has been a huge help as well!

Transfers are the 12th and 13th, so we have two weeks left of this cycle

My spirits have definitely gone up with bringing people to church and them telling us they want to come back.

Oh, and Nain is getting baptized!!!!  He’s going to get married and be baptized with his wife and son! He invited Fowler and I and were going on the 11th!

34 Climbing Mountains - Literally and figuratively

Our week wasn’t very good work wise. We weren’t able to teach very much and we didn’t have anyone in church again, but we aren’t discouraged! We are still ready to work hard and keep teaching and finding. 

Standing on the washing machine in the bedroom (why??)

Mountain hike with the Zone on P-day

  

Videos of the Hike

 Soccer with the Zone on P-Day

Yeah we haven’t brought anyone to church in 9 weeks.  When I was in my other area, we never had problems bringing two or more every week. It’s been really rough.

I have no idea why. The people we contact always live somewhere else, or don’t want anything. I don’t know what president thinks about it just emailed him about it today. We’ll see what he says next week. I told him maybe he’s just there to plant seeds that grow later That’s what I was thinking too, but that stinks being a planter.  Plus I want to stay another cycle or two to keep working in our investigators and help them more. But we’ll see what happens in three weeks

We did meet up with one lady that accepted baptism and the first two lessons, but she didn’t come to church and I don’t know why. She said her son was going to take her, and when we called in the morning she didn’t answer.   We couldn’t get a hold of her after church.

I honestly feel like we are working hard.

It doesn’t bother me much that we don’t have contacts, because we can keep trying for them every day, what bums me out is when we have an investigator that after a few lessons doesn’t want anything. That’s been a big issue here too.

33 Birthday Song, investigators, broken toenail :)

  

Bryce bought Elder Garcia a cake and sang Happy Birthday to him.  Of course he had to use trick candles.  It wouldn't be Bryce otherwise!

It’s cool being a district leader! Not really much different from being a regular missionary, aside from giving capacitacions(lessons to the district) every district meeting, and passing the numbers of the district to the zone leaders. This week we are going to work, walk, eat, study, go to church, and teach... the norm. But hopefully with more results this week! It’s been two cycles in a row that I’ve gotten one of these calls (to be a leader). We’ll see how being a District Leader goes and I’m actually excited to give it a shot! The zone changed a ton and these changes were Locas! So yeah, crazy day. The responsibility keeps building and we’ll see where it goes from here! I’m excited for my capacitacion tomorrow! I’m going to use the bean boozled jelly beans as an example. My lesson is about finding people to teach and the Holy Ghost. I teach a lesson every Tuesday. I can assign the others to teach too part of the time If I want. 4. I'm using the jelly beans that taste bad but look like the ones that taste good. The point is you can’t tell the difference and I’m going to talk about how we can't know the difference between good contacts and investigators and the bad that don’t want anything from the beginning. You can’t tell until you try them and taste the good or bad. But the Holy Ghost can help us know before we teach them and who we should talk to and help us find the good ones.

Oh! I forgot to tell you I did my first baptismal interview this week! The sister missionaries have an 8 year old of a family that got baptized a few months ago and I interviewed him to be baptized on Saturday. He is going to be baptized by his Dad.

We have everything hooked up for it to stove to work, but we need to buy gas still. I’m still waiting for the reimbursement from the water heater soo....

I’m super tired from last week honestly. We worked our butts off! But we had a fun week and I’m excited for this week as well. Did you see the pics of my toe? Yeah I almost ripped half of the nail off. It doesn’t look as bad as it did in the photos. We were playing soccer today and I kicked the ball, and it hurt. I felt it was bleeding because it was sticking to my sock, and went to check my nail, and found it all crunched and crinkled. I thought it had just ripped, but then I looked closer, and it hadn’t ripped in the middle, but separated from underneath the nail and forced backwards. The picture is after we cleaned it and someone flattened it again. It hurt a ton! But after cutting it and disinfecting it feels a lot better. 

Journal excerpt from January 10, 2017

Such a cool spiritual experience we had today! We had zone conference today, ate and started visiting. We first visited an old lady named Josefina. A bunch of her kids and grandkids have been baptized and when we contacted her she straight up told us she wants to be baptized. We are doing everything we can to help her. We talked and ended up teaching all of lesson 3 but mostly focused on baptism. We hadn’t talked about what we would teach when we went. It just kind of came (THE SPIRIT). It went pretty well and we will be going back Thursday to teach more about the restoration. Then we went to look for an investigator named Pedro who we haven’t seen in over a week. He has a really hard time with the Word of Wisdom and we’ve been trying to help him but he hasn’t been home. He was out front but with his “wife” and he told us to go on back behind a few houses to the houses in which he lives with his Mom and Brother. We went back and sat outside and his mom came out and started talking to us. She told us she had a long day at work and was sick. We sat and talked to her a bit but not too long so she could get some rest. She didn’t go up so my companion asked if we could share a scripture with her. At that exact moment a scripture popped into my head, Alma 34:40 which basically says to be patient in all afflictions we will eventually have rest from these things. I asked her what she understood about it and she answered to have patience to have rest. Then I started to talk and bear my testimony to her about his scripture and I honestly can’t remember what I said to her. Not a single word. All I remember is that I had tears in my eyes as I bore my testimony with the spirit’s guidance to her and she began to cry as well. The spirit was so strong in that moment. I don’t think I’ve ever felt it like that in my entire mission. It was so powerful. I really felt guidance in that moment and I want to be ready and able and strive to be guided like that always to do well. Man the mission is great!!