It seems like this week we've done SOOO much stuff. Last Tuesday we had a zone conference in Puebla...but we didn't know that, we thought it was somewhere else. So, after taking a bunch of busses and walking a bunch we got to the church and there was noooooooobody there so we were like an hour late to that, but we just missed the part for the district leaders and zone leaders, which I'm not, so it really didnt matter, but the zone meeting was aweseme!!! We did all these cool trainings and I understood most of it. Then we had this big christmas dinner that was SUPER good!!! It was potatoes, bread and ham and it was just wonderful, but the best part was at the end when they gave us HUUUUUUUGE apple pie slices...like ginormous. I met some Americans too and spoke some English...it was just fantastic, God bless America. I made some super awesome buddies and hoooooopefully we'll be comps sometime. It was way fun though. After dinner Sister Rex showed us some clips from the movie "fighting giants" and related it back to misisonary work and stuff. The zone conference was super long though. We left at 7:30 from our house and got back at 9 at night, so it killed the day, but it was a WONDERFUL day.
Monday night, the night before the conference, Elder Palafox made pizza at the Bishop's house, the good hawaiin pizza he always makes, it was sweet, soooooo good. It's getting way colder here!! But I got this aweomse reindeer beanie so I'm goooooooooooooood. Oh, I saw a mexican midget too!!! This whole entire week we've been having to walk, no TREK to the colonies, which takes like an hour and we usually take the shortcut where we DIVE down the mountain pretty much into this valley and hike this steep slope back up. It's super fun though. We sprint down the mountain and usually run back up. I'm suprised that neither of us has eaten it yet hahah it's way sketch, and I usually run with my dog killin stick too, WHICH I have totally upgraded to a 4 foot aluminum rod (the lightness makes it easier to swing back and forth at close range) sometimes I also carry my 4 foot wood one too or the huge ax that Palafox has. I think God has definitely blessed us though cause the dogs haven't really bothered us as much this week, and I ALWAYS pray that they won't haha :) In the colonies this week we've eaten a lot of chicken, actually every day we have. The chicken in the spicy chicken blood stuff, and it's gettin better...only cause I always pray that I'll be able to eat it and that it will taste somewhat decent. We also get weird spaghetti stuff too, which is pretty good actually, and we eat EVERYTHING with tortillas, and they are gooooooooood, We usually eat prob 7 tortillas every time we have a meal and everyone here makes their own tortillas, its awesome. I also grabbed a cow by its horns this week....like a champ. and got a picture, but it's on Palafox's camera. I'll get it off sometime. It was at our investigator Franciscos house, who is getting baptized!!! YAY we were at his house talking to his family when I grabbed the bull...or cow actually, and he wanted to do everything to get baptized, so we've taught him every day. We had the most powerful lesson on Thursday with him. We watched The Testaments, the movie about when Jesus appears to the Americas, it's an AWESOME movie. We watched that and his sister was crying and he was almost crying and the spirit was so strong and we asked them how they felt after and when his sister was talking about it she started crying again and then he said a prayer and he almost cried. He's so ready to be baptized. I think it's not the first time he's thought about it, but this time it's for sure. He went off the other night about how important the Book of Mormon is in our lives and stuff, he's a great guy. When we were planning his baptisimal program and asking him who he wanted to do what, gueeeeeeeeessss who he asked to baptize him!? ME!!? yay wonderful it'll be my first time in the water! He worked in DC or Delaware or somewhere on the east coast for 10 years so he knows a little English so we have fun trying to speak to each other in English haha, and the other night we helped him cut down all these plants...and I got to FINALLY use a machette, and it was the funnest thing of my life. I'm totally gonna get one for the dogs, they're like 5 bucks here. But those things work soooo welll!! It's like an ax but better!! but I'm way amped to baptize him this Saturday!! :) Oh something super random about this place....everyone loves the Flinstones!! WEIRD RIGHT!!! totally weird. Lately, after we've eaten at the colonies this week, we have been singings for spiritual thoughts hah, oh and funny...when people sing in church...its like the funniest thing ever...not to sound mean or anything, but everyone is terrible at singing here hahahahah its hilarious, I feel like I can sing as loud as I want now and just blend in with everyone else :)
This one morning I did a backflip outside....just yaknow, to see if i still had it in me, but I don't know if that was such a good idea cause now Elder Palafox wants to do one. He can't even do one on the tramp or anything. I spent like 10 minutes finally convinincing him that I needed to spot him if he tried cause he pulled a mattress outside and was going to do it on that and I kinda wouldn't let him cause that's the dummest idea ever and he'd probably die hahah. So, after a while he finnally chickened out and said that THIS week he's going to do it, but i'm def gonna spot him if he does, but, I dont know if he really will and of COURSE I'll get it on videotape hahah. He's been doing jumps every day and doing my diving thing when you're on the ground and like tuck. He watches my flip movie he took of me all the time, ahhhh its hilarious. It would be way cool, but I don't know if it's gonna happen. I'm gonna try to talk him out of it I think. Oh another funny thing about music, so one morning Elder Palafox wanted to sing a song before comp study so I picked page 160, shortest song in the book, super simple, one sentence right. Well, I didn't know the tune and he said, you don't know the tune? And I was like, YAAA I do...so I sang it for him with some tune from like one of those little kid rhymes that you learn when you're super young and it totally WORKED!!! hahahahahahahhahah so we sang it like that and it was sooooo funny, and it was in English cause he wanted to sing an english song :P
Beans ARE the magical fruit. We've visited alot of menos activos this week. We watched The Testaments again with one of them last night and it went SUPER well The guy is awesome. He just needs to come back to church and won't cause he doesn't like the leaders, but I think we're gonna fix that. Remember that movie "On the way Home" that I always used to watch, we talked about that the other day with some member...that movie was awesome. We taught this one kid this week who's brother is on a mission and he's been having a lot of problems with friends lately, and his bro being away, and he totally opened up to us and was bawling and it was super sad. We talked about a bunch of stuff and read with him the story of Alma the younger and had him close his eyes while we read it to him. It was super powerful and I think we helped him a lot.
We also are on track, I think, for another baptism of Omar. He's been in the city a lot. He's our investigator we taught with his wife and little kid. He's doing great though and we've had a bunch of great lessons with him too. On Friday we went to "tacos charley" this place like 30 minutes away in a car. This less active that loves us took us. We've been working with him a lot lately trying to reactivate him. He has two girls and his wife died a couple years ago, and that's one of the reasons he hasn't been super active lately, but he's the nicest guy in the world. He's the guy I was in the picture with last week, it was him. I think he was holding a baby. He took us to Tacos Charley....greatest place ever...usually I don't eat a lot yaknow, but I ate 13 tacos...13!! That's a TON!!! and I put this super hot stuff on them, didnt know at the time it was hot, but my tongue was on FIRE the rest of the night. It's the greatest place ever though. I would try to take you back there sometime but it's on this alley in the city and it'd be impossible to find. We walked into this one house the other day and I couldn't stand up and had to crouch the whole time to Elder Palafox and the rest of the people's level cause they were making something and the smoke was hitting me perfectly in the face but everyone else was below it haha.
I got 103 juggles with the soccer ball!!! I was so happy!!!
I think God has also blessed us with rides, because like half of the time coming back from the colonies on the other road there have been cars that have been giving us rides and NODODY ever drives there...hahah its a mirrrrrrrracle!! I've seen alot of miracles here actually, can't remember them all but there are a bunch hah, prayer is key I've realized. I pray a TONNNNNNNNNNNN hah it really works, evvvvvvvvery time :) I love it. I love this place too, it's aweosme :) and about mail, I haven't gotten any mail yet, except for dearelders from JUNE AND AUGUST hahah so i'm sooooooooooo sorry that I didn't write you people back that I got dearelders from. I got like 12 pages and they were all from june hah :P but ya, hopefully mail comes, it's what I look forward to :) Well thats my week. I'm so excited to baptize Francisco on Saturday :) Oh and I really didn't gain 30 pounds :) and these crazy mexicans were having a bottle rocket war outside my house last night!!! and then they rang our gate and i kneeeeeew what they were doing, so we didn't come out then BAM a huge m80 thing went off.. hah too bad I already used all mine earlier that night...whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?
Elder Bertha
Elder Bertha
