12,000+ Words!

So I've just been sending a ton of pictures but I guess I should write something too :) I just want to say that each of those apparently has the value of a thousand words so we're running at like 12,000 so far. Very long email.

Anyway. It was an awesome week! Especiallyyyyy SATURDAY! 

We've been visiting J. all week to make sure he's good for his baptism, and every time we visited him he was even happier and it was adorable. He started talking of his own free will which has NEVER happened, and the day after the baptism he made a comment in Gospel Principles class for the first time, and no one even called on him (WHOA.)

Saturday we went early to fill up the font, and in contrast to every other baptism day I've had, we had nothing to do. We had the programs done, chairs set up, and everything seemed to be working, so we just sat and listened to the water run and read scriptures. Pretty soon the L. family showed up with J. and everyone was jittering around with excitement, it was so cute. We shook J.'s hand and the first thing he said with a nervous laugh was "Feliz!" He went and changed and then we took a ton of pictures with the family and all the missionaries. A few members came, including our new Elders quorum president, which we didn't have before, and he gave a really sweet welcome and had J. stand up to come give him a welcome hug and J. pretty much flew up to him. So cute.

The only thing that wasn't normal was in the ordinance, which they had to repeat at least 8 or 9 times. They were in the water for over ten minutes, because J. kept kicking his foot out or Ruben Jr. wouldn't say the words right (his first baptism right before his mission). But they made it and it was all very sweet.

(Here’s my companion, who fell in a hole, keeping her foot elevated.)

We headed out and were able to have some good lessons and lunch before heading back to discover the water was out in the chapel. Too bad the font was already FULL, nice try! Waha.

President George and his wife showed up with their cute sister missionary companion who was on crutches for the moment. A. came and some more members and it was another great service, A. bore his testimony after and talked of how his family didn't want to come but that he had a new family now and how special it was that President George had come to baptize him and he started crying. So special.

After, we all went with President and the elders to get awesome tacos we discovered last week. It was pretty much a perfect day.

And then yesterday we had a random zone meeting for all the hermanas. Sister George said "Is that real, who gave them permission to do that?"

President: "Wait...I think I did. But I can't remember what it was for." Hahaha. But it was really nice and spiritual.

Speaking of nice and spiritual, I was reading the Bible this morning and in Mark 10 it talks of James and John asking Jesus if they can be the ones on his right and on his left. He told them that the kingdom of God is not like the power of nations--those that seek greatness don't get prestige but will be the servants of all. 

 43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
 44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
 45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

I was just thinking about that and how important it is to always be serving. Jesus, the most powerful of all, the One who created the entire Universe, didn't come to conquer as the Jews expected Him to, but to serve. The callings in the church are all different and our callings in life, our talents and circumstances, are all different, but they also don't matter. The one thing that will save us and lead us to exaltation is learning to lose ourselves, to come down into the depths of humility and put all other people before ourselves, because that's exactly what Christ did. We are here to serve and nothing else. We are not here to be served. So this week as everyone celebrates Thanksgiving and starts getting into the Christmas season, I hope we can all think about how we can do that more deeply and profoundly and make service not only an action or even habit, but a part of our nature and deepest desires. And I believe that getting to that point is better than all the glory and recognition in the world. 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

P.S. Time for lots of pictures!!!

We haven't had pillows in Coita since April so we went out and changed that. Here we are making sure they work properly.

And we've (I've) started teaching English and piano classes, which is going awesomely. I've missed teaching!

Water adventures: Buckets of water, and the secret well under our house.

YAY! We got our water RUNNING! PURE JOY!

OH!…But only for 10 minutes. Then it stopped and we don’t know why and apparently our black motor thing is broken. Boo!!

Fun with the boys we take to church every week.

10 months and 5 months.

“Ahkyaht"

(That word was a Father-of-the-Bride Martin Short accent of “aw cute”. If you didn’t get that which I don’t know how you would.)

My companion fell in a hole.

And we don't even have any pictures. You could call that a disaster. 

This week was crazy as you can imagine. First, on Tuesday we went to see J. at the L. family's house, and we taught him about tithing and everything went well for the lesson part. And then we started asking about his baptism and he went into his quiet shell and wouldn't talk the rest of the night; what made it worse was that the whole family was walking in and out of the room and talking way too much to him or about him, "We can't do it this time, we have a birthday party!" "How about tomorrow?" "J., I want to baptize you, can I baptize you?" and he got completely freaked out and then Brother Leon asked him if he even wanted to get baptized and he finally said one word: no. Brother L. thanked us for everything we'd done and said it just wasn't his time and just like that we were out the door and we were just like WAIT. Everybody just CALM DOWN. Because we had just talked to Jeremy two nights before alone outside their house and he had opened up to us at last and in his prayer prayed for his baptism and we knew he wanted it, he just got SUPER pressured. But we decided to give him some space and I knew if he felt ready he would come to church all on his own just like he's always done. 

As for K., she went from solid as solid, going to youth conferences and church on her own, friends with everyone, reading her book of Mormon every day, to a sudden not coming to church and not knowing what to do. We finally figured out that her friends are giving her a hard time about changing and she's not sure if she wants to change completely yet. Two weeks now she has promised us she'll be there and gotten all ready for her baptism, and then her friends convince her to go out with them Sunday mornings, I think on purpose. Silly girl. But one thing I've learned is that they have got to make the decision. That's the beautiful thing about God's whole plan, is that we get to make the decisions, choose everlasting happiness or misery, and we get to feel satisfied because we have done (and are doing) everything we can for her and really soon she's going to take that step and realize what's most important. So stay tuned!

So our triple baptism went back down to A., who's not going anywhere, he's got the mission president baptizing him for goodness sake. 

But THEN, it went back up because who showed up Sunday but J.! And when we were in the hall and hermana C was talking to a member I went up to him and asked him if he had made his decision yet, and he said yes. I asked him if he decided to get baptized, and he said "Saturday." Like, out loud! And then we figured out the time and I walked calmly back to my companion like nothing had happened, but I'll just tell you that it is so beautiful when people use their agency RIGHT! Because when we're dragging and dragging, nothing lasting happens. But when we back off and they come, they change because the spirit works inside them and without even knowing it, they are becoming more converted to the Lord by taking a step on their own in obedience. 

Now back to the title. We were walking along two nights ago with Hno Emanuel to go see an inactive brother. My companion was off jumping around a couple steps ahead (I don't think I've ever seen her stand still) and then she got really excited and did some half twirl-jump-thing to turn around and tell us something when she lands on a hole thing, does two more jumps backwards and then somehow lands on her back in the middle of the street with a sprained ankle. Like, WAY over there. It reminds me of something Jared would do. 

And then I'm there like, I'm in Mexico what do I even do, what's the 911 here, oh there isn't one, where are the members around here, oh there aren't any, and Emanuel is just uselessly like "I can't touch her! What do we do!" and Hermana is like "CALL SOMEONE, ON A SCALE OF 1-10 IT'S A 9!" and he goes running and comes back with three red cross workers (teenagers) in vests. Super comical, they were all march-running with a gigantic red bag ready for a huge emergency and it reminded me a little of Korean Soap Operas. And then they looked at it and said....just put ice on it, it's an inflamed tendon. We took a moto taxi to a member's house and hermana Isabela took her foot and started digging her palm into it and my companion was shouting like she was giving birth, but we were also all laughing. Yesterday I took a member out with me and she stayed home and today she's walking slowly again. So all is well, or soon to be. 

Anyway, THAT was a week. Never quiet over here :) But happy as always! 

Love you all!

Come Unto Christ

That was our theme of this week. One of the youth lent us her FSY DVD and it has a bunch of music videos and stuff and basically we watched the Youth theme "Come Unto Christ" about six times. A day. New Mormon Messages are for us what new big movies are for you. Life of a missionary. 

But honestly just with having that playing and having Christ on our mind so much has made the hugest difference in our week. There's a spirit that filled our companionship and we both came unto Christ in so many little ways, through service, always thinking of the other, ALWAYS thinking of Jesus and as a natural result of that, we become more like Him. We were so unified and had a power in all our teaching and were always on the same page. That's what Christ does for you. 

There's a lot of hype about our cute "mansion" that we live in, but I've learned this week that no matter how perfect something or someone looks from where we see it, there are always struggles underneath that we don't know about. Literally underneath. About a week and a half ago, we ran out of water--all the way. We went to the water place and asked and they said we should get some on Monday. MONDAY!? I guess we'll just not shower or use the bathroom for four days--we'll let our bodies know. So without options, we called the branch president for permission and then went to fill buckets of water at the church a block away. We did not shower in the font as the rumors say. Monday came and the water didn't. In fact it never did. Until we lifted a tile and found the secret well under our floor full of slightly gross water, so turns out we do have water, just that the black thing that sucks the water up into the pipes is broken. So right now we fetch water from the well under our house and it's only slightly nasty. We'll see what happens.

So K., our baptism for this week, decided to go crazy and not go to church yesterday so now her baptism is next week. Silly girl. She was doing so good and even went out to accompany us to visits this week, but she got scared and wanted to wait another week. One thing that never gets easier is people using their agency. Come on humans! Do we really have to let Satan in? Once we know this is the truth and that it will make us happy and have even felt a taste of that, do we really have to be scared of obeying ALL the rules? It's the same with me and all the rest of us. We just keep choosing wrong and to be less than what we can be. And that, is why we have a Savior. And that is what I have felt so strongly this week watching those videos and studying about His life. He loves us so much and has overcome all the depths of our various sins and trip-ups, and every time we wander from Him as we are prone to do, He makes the way back possible and even sends angels and friends to invite us and help us along. Sometimes our forbidden paths are big and long and sometimes they're just little decisions like giving into fear or putting your homework before going to church and your baptism, but anything that takes us away from Him will make us less happy and make it harder to get back. That is why COME unto Christ is so important. It's the little decisions we make every day when we rebel against the natural man inside of us and COME, just like each of these teenagers in the video. If you didn't already go watch it after reading my first sentence, go ahead and do that and then think about your own life and how you can COME unto Him this week. 

I love you all!!! I hope you're all enjoying getting ready for Christmas (yes, Christmas season starts the day after Halloween for many). ;) 

Have a great week! 

PS Sorry for the drought of pictures. Internet cafes are all against us, today we even gave up on the first one after 10 minute and walked 20 blocks to another and they're still not uploading. They'll get there! 

[p.s. For anyone who mails packages to missionaries in other countries, my cousin has had good luck with "My Missionary Shipping" (mymissionaryshipping.com). Arrived safely in Mexico in 3 days, with tracking and insurance, for less than “DHL” charges themselves].

When the Unthinkable Happens

That's right it's happened. The one thing we never expected or planned for when we embarked on our journey for Mexico. It. is. COLD. And I am sick. But not really I just like to cough a lot this week. It's been interesting, since between the two of us we have about 3 or 4 very light sweaters. But the goal today is find warm things they sell in Coita's limited markets. 

But anyway. Other than that things are pretty normal. Just the Day of the Dead and people play loud harmonica-wide-vibrato-Mexican party music that floats into our house all through the night. But it actually wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would be. There's some people in gross masks, a few more drunks in the streets, bread baked in shapes of people with Xs over the eyes, and a few little families who go door to door for treats, but they do it on November 2, not Halloween, and it's mostly just the Catholics. Instead of "trick or treat" they shout "Calabazita Tía!" (Zucchini aunt?) and if you say we don't have anything, they shout "Que se muera la tía!" (I hope your aunt dies...) An investigator showed us just to show us, but then she did give them treats. Anyway, it was super cute. :) So there's your taste of dead week:)

So let me tell you about C. We've been teaching his mom, M., for a while. I don't remember if I told you this story so I will real quick--a month or so ago we met her and went to visit her that night and taught her on top of her roof. But then it started getting dark, but luckily we had our flashlight that we always use to explain the priesthood (you can't make your own LIGHT) and it was just wonderfully visual as we went through the dispensations of light, and then turned it off and it was all dark and you really do feel the need of a prophet or some sort of intervention. And then right as it really got dark, we started telling the first vision and turned the light on to the picture of Joseph Smith and the first vision, and it was SO COOL. It made it so real for all of us. Hopefully your imagination made that work :) Anyway, she was having a hard time getting to church and not making excuses, so we were trying to decide whether to drop her. But then we went this week and her son was there and he was just SO excited to learn about Jesus, he devoured all the pamphlets we brought, wanted to answer every question and come to church that Sunday. The next time we came, the first thing he said was "Are you still coming for me Sunday??" and then he showed us his colored drawing of the restoration. We taught them a lesson and then we told him we had a special invitation for him. "I already said I'm going on Sunday." No, this was more special. We showed a picture of Jesus getting baptized and talked about what baptism was and before we could even get the question out of whether he wanted to prepare he was shouting "YES! Yes." And we're like, hold on first you'll need your mom's permission "Mom, give permission!" And you need to go to church 5 times first "I'll go EVERY DAY." Super cute. He reminds me of [my foster brother], even though I haven't met him. 

So there's a bit of my week, I love you all and hope you all had a happy Halloween. Something I learned this week was the importance of unconditional love. Sometimes it's hard to be a human in a world of humans because all we do is be imperfect and hurt each other. But something we all have inside of us is a piece of our Father in Heaven and the potential to do as Jesus did and turn outward when our natural tendency is to turn inward. When we are offended, hurt, or attacked, He is the only source to draw upon and He can fill us with the peace and love we need to react as He would and really make an impact on people's lives. Something I've learned here is that nothing is worth the spirit. Not being right, not being disobedient, not even our favorite sins. 

So, that! I love you all a whole lot, I'm blessed to know some of the very best humans and have them in my life. So have fun being those! :) 

Love you!