Avatar. I helped paint the face of an Avatar for this carnival contest then after I accomplished my BIGGEST goal of my mission YEEEEEEA!!! SOOOO good I can’t even tell you what it was!!
They have these huge carnivals here in Mexico at this time of year and it different in every place. Here they had this parade in the Centro and everyone was dressed up in masks and stuff. It was super funny, then they had a contest and people with legit costumes danced. These gay guys came out dressed as girls in these huge costumes and were dancing in front of everyone -- kinda a little disturbing -- but the people seemed to like it..... ANNNYWAY our Avatar didn’t win cause there were some way crazier ones, but he was TOTALLY blue, it was super funny. A member painted this guy who was this big fat very feminine guy who is funny but sometimes a little over the top...kinda like a little girl. But that’s why we were there and I helped paint his face cause they didn’t know how to do it.
They have these huge carnivals here in Mexico at this time of year and it different in every place. Here they had this parade in the Centro and everyone was dressed up in masks and stuff. It was super funny, then they had a contest and people with legit costumes danced. These gay guys came out dressed as girls in these huge costumes and were dancing in front of everyone -- kinda a little disturbing -- but the people seemed to like it..... ANNNYWAY our Avatar didn’t win cause there were some way crazier ones, but he was TOTALLY blue, it was super funny. A member painted this guy who was this big fat very feminine guy who is funny but sometimes a little over the top...kinda like a little girl. But that’s why we were there and I helped paint his face cause they didn’t know how to do it.
The first night I got to Tetela I went to a noche de hogar, which is like a family home evening I guess, with like 2 of the families in the branch, so half the branch hah, it was really awesome. They shared a message and we ate and stuff. We’ve been talking to this family that has a Tortilleria next to our house. They are great. We went one morning to eat there for breakfast - she puts eggs INSIDE the tortilla and cooks it, kinda cool---totally don’t get how it works, but we started talking with them and then it lead in to gospel discussion and pretty much every day this week we’ve gone over there to talk with them. They are both older, like in their 50’s ,60’s and live with their two grandkids who are cousins. Their parents are in Mexico City. The hermano is really receptive but the hermana is VERY...closed kinda, I don’t know how to describe it - duro. VERY catholic. So we’ve had some like Catholic/Mormon discussions. Pretty much all her questions we have an answer for. I learned a bunch about the Catholics in this book I’ve had this week and I shared some of that with them too, like the sprinkling of the water started from a bishop to help those that couldn’t enter the water because of physical disabilities and after a while it just became generalized, and in the NT, COL 2:8 another one for all the people who say it’s a tradition and they’ll never change haaaaaaaaaah, seriously it’s so fun talking to these people cause many know nothing about the bible then they say all this stuff that’s "in the bible" but really no.......and my comp knows the bible so he nicely shows them -- we don’t get in bible bashes though... but with the Tortilleria family, we had like a 3 hour lesson with them one day, seriously talking the whole time, and at the end we challenged her to pray and we were all on our knees -- for total probably 20 mins-- and she wouldn’t pray--ahhh so frustrating -- I told her "hermana, I know that YOU know that YOU’ll receive an answer if you pray but I know that YOU don’t want that answer cause you are afraid to change" haaah so true, when I said that she just gave me one of her smiles like "yup, pretty much” She kneeeeeeeeew that I knew that she was afraid to receive an answer. I said that to her like 3 times in different ways but in the end she didn’t end up praying. She’s super stubborn and just doesn’t want to accept anything --- but I think she knows what we’re saying is true, but just doesn’t want to change, but I love her- she’s awesome- She always asks me when we’re getting married and I always say RIGHT NOW LETS GO -- but I dunno---she just never comes---then we were gonna do it Sunday but I was like "HERMANA, hoooooow are we going to do it Sunday if you’re going to go worship. Come to our church at 10 and then we can get married after" :) but it didn’t work... DANGIT!!
I had a banana with peanut butter for breakfast...SOOOOOOOO good!!! Erica Hawkins LOOOOOOOOVES bananas, it reminded me of her.
Oh, first day --- totally helped this lady with her homework -- felt like a champ. She was studying the human body and didn’t understand this question about the senses and stuff and I read the question and helped her answer it. It felt so funny reading a Spanish question and answering it …owned it. Started Jesus the Christ, I’m only like 70 pages into it though --good so far though. I’m highlighting all the big words so I can use them in the futureJ
One of the pictures [which you can see on Alex’s blog] is of my FAVORITE person here, Alejandro. He’s about 50 and is separated from his wife, little Mexican guy ---seriously I have not met a person here I have liked more than him -- he jokes around so much---it is so funny when we’re together, I just make faces at him all the time and he makes fun of my "hairs of gold” Seriously, he’s so funny, I get him with the "hey what’s that on your shirt" and then point and then when he looks down whaaaaap in the face --- its great---I do that a lot to people here -- they think it’s hilarious. I’m having so much fun it’s been such a great week. We fought Alejandro’s chicken this week too. Everyone has gallos and fights them---its awesome---I’m starting it in Encinitas when I get back. Gosh this guy’s hilarious though and the picture of him and his chicken on the leash …hahahah I played with the chicken for a while too. It’s fun.
So we knocked doors a bunch this week--like a BUNCH!!! This area’s kinda like Atexcac, lots of people have heard and just don’t want it BUT were gonna FIND SOME!!!! And we did!!! We knocked this family of 4 and challenged them to baptism last night after the second visit and they said they will---but we still got to set a date, and I think the parents need to get married, but the mom--or grandma---can get baptized...we had such a fantastic lesson with them though. We went over Alma 7, which we assigned them to read but they didn’t---and all that reading lead into baptism (everyone should read it by the way--great chapter) and then we challenged them to baptism--SO AWESOME!! The spirit was so strong!! They live suuuuper far away too, but its ok. I’m so glad we knocked there!!! Then the tortilla people, we straight up told her that we KNOW that one day she’ll be baptized and she didn’t deny it. Then I told her I wanted to baptize her so she needs to get baptized before I leave hahaha, then we laughed. But really, some great chats with that family. We are also teaching this other family that is close to baptism, they just can’t really get baptized right now cause they are living in the wife’s brother’s house and they’re scared he’ll kick them out if they get baptized--but we might get to baptize the kids!!! So that should be great! but still it’s time...we need to wait.
GUESS WHAT!!!? I gave a 15 MINUTE talk in church this week!!! And I didn’t even write it out, I just took notes and used scriptures and totally filled the time. I think I even went way over 15, but I spoke SPANISH!!! I’m getting it tooooooootally, it was awesome!!! Felt so good. I’ll share with you the scriptures I used but I don’t have time to explain my whole talk, but it was about missionary work and using the members, and what, as members, they need to do to mejorar en la obra misional de dios. It wasn’t really a planch, because I thought there were going to be investigators there, but it was way good and I think they learned a lot. So I used Alma 29:8,9,10, and 15 to start out, and applied it to ourselves, missionaries and members, then 1 Nephi 13:37, D&C 4:3,4, D&C 88:81, then told the premortal existence story and talked a lot about missionary work and how I’ve seen on my mission that the members really make the biggest difference, like in Tucson knocking doors for HOURS and hours but then one reference lead to a baptism. Talked about every member a missionary and yup a ton of other stuff to fill up the rest of that 15 plus minutes. It really went well though. Elder Fox, or hermano Fox now, was visiting---he OPENED this area 15 years ago!!! How cool is that!! His accent is TERRIBLE now. I better not lose mine, seriously, I was freaking out about that yesterday. So after church was over --pshhhh went 45 MINUTES OVER!!! -- the pres was like can you guys come to my house at 6 tonight and didn’t tell us what it was for but said something about a blessing or something, so we thought he was like super sick or something, but we show up late, cause we were at an appointment super far away, and they are talking to us about something and after we go into the kitchen and the WHOLE rama was there!!! cause its my comps birthday!!!! They tricked us and totally surprised us!!! Oh and there were 23 people at church---that’s SUPER good cause it’s usually like 16 --- but ya they surprised us and it was so awesome and he was so happy and they made cakes and we had a feast of cake and played games. The games were super fun, we all sat in this huge circle and one person is in the middle and they say like if you have brown shoes change and then everyone has to change or switch chairs. then we played this hot potato game and if you loose you have to do something, like people had to dance or sing opera or eat a chili (haaaaaah I thought of that one--it was great) but I lost right....so guess what I had to do, they were like sing something in English, then one guy was like "sing the barney song in English, the I love you one!" soooooooooooo in front of everyone in this circle I did it with this cute little smile and with the hand motions rocking back and forth turning around...then they all clapped---and I bowed---and I have never felt more like a rockstar in all of my life.. it was a great night.
I’m lovin it here, this place is gorgeous, I love the members---they are awesome---hope I stay here for like 6 months, gonna baptize---we WILL baptize. Gonna knock a BUNCH of doors tomorrow- so amped and excited---loving my mission.... read your scriptures--they are awesome. The mish is the greatest thing ever, I’m enjoying every sec! LOVE YOU ALLL!!!!! Won’t get mail for the next 3 weeks probably cause the secretaries only come every 15 days and we go to district meetings every two weeks so it’s just confusing, but know I love you all and wish I could write EVERYONE!!!....keeeeep it real back there in the wonderful United States of America.
AB
