Today was like the funnest day ever. We just got back from the VOLCANO!!!! It was sweet, we had to stand in the back of a truck for an hour and a half to get there, but it was totally worth it and it was SO cool!!!
I took the funniest pictures too, and one AWESOME one hahah it’s sick I’ll send them!! We went with a less active member we are trying to reactivate and his two sons. We took some awesome frolicking pictures...well I did... in this huge field in front of the volcano that we mayyyyyybe had to duck under some barb wire hah, they are SWEET though :P and I dedicate my awesome frolicking-in front-of-the-volcano picture to Erica :) haha cause you would totally do it too :P We also hiked up to this SWEET waterfall, and there was ice everywhere, it was awesome. It was like when Sean and I hiked Bridleveil falls at the end of fall, but just not as cool BUT it was still cool! I made a boat and floated it down, then it hit a rapid and capsized and all my imaginary people that were on it died cause the water was too cold. Then we went fishing in this stream that we weren’t suppose to fish in, I wasn’t fishing, the guy and his two sons were, hah none of the fish were biting though ehh. But after, we went to a bigger pond with fish and it was suuuuper cool and we ate the sandwiches that we made there and then journeyed back to Atexcoc. The ride back was gnarly. We stood the WHOLE time and there was tons of dust and it was FREEEEZING!!! But it’s gooooorgeous here!! We drove back though these hills of corn fields with the huge mountains and the volcano in the back...ahhh it was so cool...oh and when we were up next to the volcano, we couldn’t go any higher, like usual...you can’t go all the way up but you can go pretty close, but today we couldn’t go up cause the gates were closed because it’s been smoking alot....mayyyyybe it'll BLOW UP again!!! That would be super cool I think. hah The rest of this week was super awesome too, especially the end! I got to go on exchanges with the other English Elder from Huejo. He came up here, so that meant that I was the senior comp and we were able to go at my pace and I got to plan everything, which was AWESOME!!! We got SO much done!!! I had to speak allllllllot of Spanish because Elder Blanchard has been out for 10 months, but his first two comps were American and the one he has now is crazy....so I think I’m a little better at Spanish than him, AND it’s my area, so I had to speak ALOT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLOT of Spanish!!! And it was AWESOME!!! I totally had huge full on conversations with people and the gift of tongues was working that day for reeeeals!! We knocked a bunch of doors, but that didn’t really do anything, but I talked with everyone I saw on the street and I found some AWESOME people. We were walking up the road and this guy asked me what the "manera de dios" was. ...so we started talking to him, but it was pretty much me the whole time cause Blanchard’s kinda shy, and I explained what the ways of God were and what we needed to do… like faith, repentance, baptism.....and all that, and then the conversation went off and we talked about prophets and I testified a bunch about the restoration and how we have a prophet on the earth today The spirit was so strong there on the side of the road when we testified, you could just see in the mans face that he knew something was different about us and our message. It was amazing, then I gave him a pamphlet and he said he would read it. We were gonna pass by the next day, and we did, but he wasn’t home, so we'll probably go by tonight and see him :)
On our way back to Huejo, it was like a miracle kinda... the taxi guy wanted us to go with him but a kombi (bus) passed at the same time and kombis are cheaper so I was like let’s go with this guy, so we were walking to the kombi then Blanchard said nahh let’s just take this, cause it was kinda awkward cause we said before we would go with taxi guy, so we ended up taking the taxi, and he started talking to us about his work in the US in Philli and he was telling us about how nice the Americans were to him there and it lead into religion. It ends up that his girlfriend is a member and he has all the pamphlets and has studied them but he’s unsure about some stuff and we just talked all about religion. He wanted us to pass by last night too but his mom was outside and said go talk to people who don’t know Christ hah but he’s 32 ... so that’s kinda weird, so we'll go back. He was asleep she said, or we would have just talked to him... but wow it was great, for 30 minutes we just talked about the gospel and the bible and everything.... alllllllllll in Spanish, I’m almost there I think hah....I’m getting better :) OH AND I FINISHED ALMA THIS WEEK!!! On like Wednesday!!! I got up super early and started reading under my sleeping bag and elder Palafox was a little ahead of me and I think he thought he was going to finish before me...haaaaaaaaah wrong....I read the last like 20 pages of it and then did other stuff and he finished it later that morning and told me. I was like...casually "oh ya I finished it this morning" hahahah it was great :) so now I’m in Helaman. I’m excited.
Oh, and also on the exchanges with the American we talked to the mission leader and there is a lady that wants to get baptized. After we talk to the mission leader I went and visited Susanna, which I didn’t know how it was going to go without Palafox, but it went great and I just shared 1 Nephi 3:7 and told her how it applied to her and how the Lord will help us and then I invited her to come to church again and testified about how important church is, and the blessings that are there, and the spirit that can be felt, and just the importance of it. And she wants her daughter to be baptized in 2 weeks. They need to come to church, and she said she was going to come...but yesterday she didn’t come and we visited her after and shared how important it was again and she started crying and we kinnnnda totally figured out that it’s her husband that’s not letting her come, which is weird cause he doesn’t do anything, he’s in a wheel chair and doesn’t want to try to fix himself by exercising and walking, and just sits there all day, doesn’t work, and sews....and she just broke down and said she’s going to come next time, and we told her that the Lord will help her if she just asks. We testified about that a lot, cause that’s what she really needs right now.
Blanchard and I also visited Francisco (my first baptism) and taught him the 2nd lesson again; because new members need to be taught the lessons over after they are baptized....Francisco is the BEST convert EVER. He is seriously so awesome! He got a calling. He’s going to teach New Testament, which he knows a TON about because he used to be a preacher at some other church, and also he’s the secretary in the primary. After our lesson with him, and by the way, he knows everything about the plan of salvation, it’s awesome, he asked about who we were going to go visit, and it was Susanna and her mom, and he was telling US that if we just pray and fast for them that they will change haha HOW AWESOME is that!! He is so strong and was so excited that he got the priesthood, and he knows so much and he has the strongest testimony ever, it’s amazing the change, he is so happy now. I also asked him if he wanted to come with us to Dom Arenas on Sunday cause we had been contacting and knocking doors down there and we met some people who wanted us to come back, and he came with us...awesome...and we needed a ride down there so that was awesome too. To bad that NOBODY was home hah lame. But talking to him is great cause he’s super smart and knows a ton!!!
Yesterday...best meal EVER!!! they had asked me what I wanted the other day and what I liked and I was like...I looooooooooove quesadillas so they made the BEST chicken quesadillas EVER and she showed me how to make them...they are awesome, the chicken was so good, it was mixed with like onions and chilies, tomatoes and the cheese was superrrrr good ahhhhhhhhhh BEST meal ever...I ate 6...yup 6. We met this super old lady this week. In the U.S. she would be probably 100 but here she’s probably 70 or 80 cause people here look WAYYY older than they are, and she had this stick to help her walk and she talked to us and invited us to her house which was down this alley. She had like 20 dogs...really 20.. and then she gave us all these nuts and was throwing them on the ground to show us how to open them so we were throwing these nuts on the ground and it probably looked like the funniest thing ever. They were sooooooooo good! She told us how her husband had died and how much she missed him, she had a huge picture up in her 1 small concrete room house and kept showing us. We gave her the plan of salvation pamphlet, but she can’t read, so we told her to have her sons read it to her, and I felt prompted to tell her that if she read it, or had her son read it to her, that she would know it was true. I think she would totally get baptized, really. She kissed the pamphlet with the Christ picture on it and invited us to eat more hah :) I put the chicken that she gave me in my pocket cause it looked a liiiiiittle weird hah but she was awesome. Oh, she had one tooth and was probably 3’ 6” hah she was the cutest little lady though and we'll go back and see her this week :) I hope she gets baptized, I told her she could be with her husband again and she was so happy :)
I also have been reading my journal notes some more and found some more good stuff I’ll share with y’all...super good quotes... liiiiiiiike……. "Be the success you want" if we want to be successful, we need to work hard and get work dooooooooooone....so true, we need to be the success we want. The other quote was "Develop the attitude that there are more reasons you should succeed than you should fail" I love this one, it’s totally true...cause any way you look at it, there are a bazzzzzillion more reasons we should succeed as missionaries, and the most important is...we are on the Lords side...He’s going to help us, and that I think is the biggest reason we should have the attitude we will succeed, cause the Lord is helping us the ENTIRE time, and I’ve totally seen that here!!! It’s awesome!! I love it!
Oh and I just remembered another awesome contact and newbe that we had. Last night we talked to this guy who had worked in the US for 7 years and he talked to me the whole time in broken English but he was pretty good hah, and after like 10 minutes of explaining why I’m here and hearing about New York, Palafox introduced the pamphlet in English haaaaaah it was funny, awesome. But we are going to start teaching him and he wants me to do it in English for practice for him and it’s good practice for Palafox too!! After that we went back to our house and I helped Palafox on his companion English workbook thing. He has to learn English, and I was like his "tutor” in the book and graded him on his pronunciation and stuff....I love teaching Mexicans English, it’s super fun, and I really want him to learn cause I knoooooooow how much it would make his life better, cause here, it is WAY better if you can speak both. There are way more opportunities out there. When he finishes the Book of Mormon in English he'll be fluent, so I’m excited for that :) The last thing I’d love to share was another thing in my journal notes. Ether 12;14-15...read it :) Through our faith, we are able to convert people and bring them unto Christ...I love how it says how Ammon and his brothers, through their faith, brought a change among the Lamanites. We can directly apply that to our missionary work. If we have enough faith, we will be able to baptize. We’ll be able to find, teach, and do ANYTHING. I think that’s so amazing, and I hope I can develop that kind of faith to be able to change and soften the hearts of people to bring them unto Christ! I am SO happy to be out here right now, I LOVE it!! I get mail tomorrow for the first time in 2 weeks. YAY! Thanks a tonnnnn for all the love and support and just everything. I feel so loved with all the cards and packages I get from everyone. I have the best family and friend ever :) Love you all!!!
Love, Elder Bertha
