What a great week!! A family we are teaching had a birthday this week!! Christian turned 13 this week. Me and my companion went to the store and got some candy for him to give him a present and then went over to their house later in the evening. They fed us dinner and we had hot dogs. This family is so amazing!! They are so humble, They have very very little but were still willing to get a nice cake for their son and have dinner with us. They are so strong and so close together. I have learned from this experience that after everything they have gone through, family is what is important and matters the most and it's so true. We sang happy birthday to him and they did the Mexican tradition of shoving the cake in his face. It was super cool to see the tradition and be a part of it. This family is so amazing and prepared! When it came time to leave it was hard to let them let us go. They said we will be partying all night and the 7 year old, Carlos, even said "you guys can spend the night" I'll include a video below!! It was super fun to go celebrate with them and see the traditions and spend time with them. That family has definitely been the highlight of the week! They are progressing a lot and working towards baptism soon!! It's incredible how the Lord prepares people and makes them open and willing to the gospel. Sunday church is at 9 am so we messaged the family and no one answered. We decided to go to their house and make sure they were getting ready and had a ride to church and it's a good thing we did. No one was awake but they soon were 😂. And they came to church for all 3 hours!! I haven't even been as excited and happy as I was for someone to come to church as I was when they walked in the door and sat down in the chapel. I went to class with Christian and they talked about families. I was able to understand mostly everything which is super cool. Another thing that happened is we had a staring contest with a pit bull for 10 minutes. I have grown to like dogs less and less in the past weeks. Especially when the tiny ones chase you on the bike. (Sorry all you dog lovers out there; a mission isn't very dog friendly.) My Spanish has been getting much better and it's been really cool to meet everyone here in the valley. Hope you all are doing well with the start of school.
Hola everybody! It's been another great week in Texas!! One thing that happened this week that's cool was my companion's bike got a flat tire!! It was late in the evening and we only had an hour left to be out and about. So there was only one thing we could do knock doors! We found this really amazing family and have already taught the kids twice because of this! Their parents know lots about missionaries from taking lessons in Mexico a while back. They have four kids living with them and the oldest is 12 and the youngest is 7.I know that God works in mysterious ways! Always look on the bright side of things because a bad thing could be for a good reason and almost always is! Monday in the evening there was a ward activity that we went to at the church. We had nachos and played volleyball and had a little spiritual message. It was a lot of fun to hangout with some people in the ward and get to know them! Tuesday we saw one of the people we teach, a 14 year old boy outside his house playing basketball so we stopped and played with him for a little bit and shared a quick little message with him. We also talked to a lot of people and met someone named Rosa and taught her the restoration. She has a lot of faith and I'm excited to teach her again this upcoming week. I am realizing that I am learning Spanish so quickly. I was able to understand and participate in the discussions at church Sunday entirely in Spanish. It's still hard but the hard work and blessings from God are coming!
I think I am starting to get used to the missionary thing and get used to speaking two languages. It's always hard to know whether to speak English or Spanish but you just pick and go with it until the person you're talking to switches languages. I have included pictures of our neighbors below!
First week in Texas!! It's great here. There are palm trees everywhere and it isn't as bad as everyone made it sound as far as the heat and humidity goes.
Monday- We got up at 3:30 to pack our last minute things and check out of the MTC. Then we got on a bus and went to the Front Runner to the Trax to the airport. When we were standing in line at the airport a nice man bought us breakfast. After that we were on the plane and flying on our way to Texas. When we arrived to Texas the assistants to the president came and picked us up. We went to the mission home and had a little training meeting then we went to the president's house for dinner. Then we went and had more training then we went and all of us stayed at the house where the assistants to the mission president live.
Tuesday- In the morning we got up and went to presidents house for breakfast. Then we went to the mission home and got assigned our area and our companion. My companion is Elder Jones. He is from Idaho Falls. He is a super good guy and always working hard. I have learned a lot and look forward to learning more as time goes on. I am currently working in the city of Harlingen. I am assigned to the Spanish ward! A lot of the people here speak Spanish and it is a very poor area but the people are very nice. It's really cool to be able to practice my Spanish and start talking with natives. In the evening we did a few lessons. It was hard but I was able to say a little bit and share my testimony with them. Wednesday- We started the normal missionary schedule. Arise, eat, study, plan, proselyte. During the day we ended up biking around and knocking doors. We meet this one lady named Angie. She was super excited to learn more and wanted us to come back and teach her! In the process of biking around I did get sprayed by someone watering their garden with a hose but it's all good. It felt nice because it was super hot at the time. Saturday- We taught Angie the restoration and she was so amazed at everything. She is ready to learn more and I am super excited to continue to teach her. Sunday- First time going to church in Spanish! It was hard to understand the messages that were taught but it was cool to experience it in a different language. After church we went to lunch at a member's house and she made us a traditional Mexican dish. It's the first time I have had a Mexican meal made with stuff straight from Mexico. It was super good. And the salsa they had bought in Mexico and is hotter then any salsa I have ever had but it is super good. Everyday my Spanish is improving and I am learning so much more. People here all have friends and family that live in Mexico and go to visit all the time. I am in a bike area which I am very grateful for. It's super easy to talk to everyone when your on a bike because you can stop and talk to everyone you see.
Boarding the plane
Plane ride into McAllen
At the Mission Home with Pres. and Sis. Torres
The missionaries that arrived in the Texas McAllen Mission Aug. 6th
Me and my companion
When it rains it pours
Elder Jones' mom bought us pizza and had it delivered to our apartment.
Last P day in the MTC. I am headed to Texas this Monday. Even though I know very little Spanish I still feel ready to go to the field. I have learned so many things in the MTC.
Last Wednesday was our service project at the temple. They were redoing all of the carpet and wall paper in the temple. What we did was move all the benches back in place in the chapel. The benches were 21 feet long and took all 10 of us to move one bench. It was really cool to see the temple like it was and to see how much work everyone puts into the temple. Another thing we did for the last hour was scrape carpet glue off the cement outside. That was the hardest thing I have done in the MTC. IT was super hot outside and it was hard work to scrape the glue off the cement using a razor blade. One thing I realized is that the temple is not what we want; it is what the Lord wants. Someone asked why they couldn't just do tile on the cement and one of the workers said, "If the Lord says he wants carpet then the Lord gets carpet." This made me think about the real reason we were scraping the glue off of the ground. It was not for ourselves but for the Lord. How easy it is for us to become self centered. We always need to strive to have an outwards attitude and think of other people and not ourselves. As we do this we can be more effective missionaries, workers, helpers, and just a more effective kind person in general.
Sunday I had the opportunity to bless the sacrament in Spanish! It is way cool to see that the gospel is universal and exactly the same no matter what part of the world you are in or what language you are speaking.
A picture of our zone after Tuesday night devotional.
It happens to the best of us. It's honestly kind of surprising how tiring the MTC can be even though we get a great amount of sleep every night.
Cereal Saturday!! As a zone we ate an entire tower of cereal in the cafeteria. everyone had at least 2 bowls of cereal.
