Is it I?

So today I was reading President Uchtdorf's talk, "Lord, is it I?" and man that is amazing stuff. Every single talk given by those men is just filled with doctrine that is so true and pure and nothing that the earth has. I'm not sure if I've said this before but HOLY RELIGION MEXICO it is a party down here with a hundred million different ideas of who God is and pictures or quotes of him on every corner or bus, but nobody knows who He really is. There is such a difference between reading every page of the Bible your whole entire life and understanding something so simple like God looks like us, loves us, and talks to us now. An old Catholic man knows one, a 4 year old primary kid knows the other. Just really interesting.

But anyway, back to this talk. President Uchtdorf talks about who we are looking at -- when the Lord identifies a problem, as He did with his disciples (One of you will betray me), do we look around and make guesses, or do we search inside and reflectively ask, "Lord, is it I?" This is something I've been missing a little bit as a companion, and let's be honest, as a person, and it made me reflect a lot. If we want to change ourselves, we can but we have to look at our weaknesses and ask Him, Lord, is it I? And then if the answer is "Yes child, you have some things you need to change and I can help you overcome," we need to accept that answer. So that was definitely an answer to many questions I've had this week of how to be the missionary and companion I want to be and wanted to share that.

Now I'm sure you're all wondering what happened to all the junk before the spiritual stuff? Worry not, here cometh the junk!

This week we made banana bread with the primary. It was so fun. Oh shoot I love those kids, we have the best primary ever. I don't know if I told you I'm teaching piano and english classes, and yesterday we went to primary instead of RS to help them out and now I'm wondering if we can get away with going there every week. I shared with them my first experience with reading the Book of Mormon and challenged them all to open it up today, and then we played a guessing game where I played a few notes of a primary song and they had to guess which it was, etc.

Also this week we had a 70 come, Elder Valenzuela, which turned out great. They sort of told us off a lot but sometimes you need a little of that. But we talked about the new area plan of Mexico, which includes helping the active members to pay their tithing, getting our recent converts progressing faster and more effectively, and especially getting our members sending names to the temple. Woohoo! I've had a plan cooking in my head for a while in that aspect and this week we'll be planning really well and working with ward council and I'll give you the juice next week. I'm super excited.

Well we had transfers today but we're staying here! But, Hermana Pugh is leaving and for the first time since day uno in the mission we will not be together. It had to happen sometime, might as well be after a year. We had really awesome divisions this week in which she helped me a LOT with my new situation. We did them for two days, all four of us working in Tuxtla on Tuesday and then going to the temple ANNNND (get readyyyy...) I consumed a hot dog of my own free will. And I liked it. I actually craved it. The mission does such weird things to you. But then the next morning I couldn't touch them again so there's that. The next day the four of us went to Coita and split up to conquer there for a day.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

I love you all and wish you the best week!! 

Banana bread with the kids, mashing with their hands. The primary president thought that's how we do it in the U.S. and that this would be a fun cultural experience. I didn't have the heart to tell her about mashers or forks...and let's be honest, it was funner this way.