27 Abril 2015

Hey! it's time to start talking about mother's day! We'll get out of church around 3:00 Coahuila time. When would be a good time to talk? And by the way, Mother's day in Mexico is always May 10. Luckily, it's the same day in mexico and the US this year, so that makes things a little easier.

Things that happened this week: We started teaching a less active and mentally handicapped member. His name is Salvador. He's about 65 years old mas o menos and really super sweet. We sat down outside his house and talked about the sacrament and what it means and everything. He told us about how when he doesn't go to church, he takes a piece of bread and a cup of water and eats and drinks so that he's taking the sacrament. That posed an odd dilemma for us: Do we let apostasy, even innocent apostasy go, or do we correct it to someone that probably won't understand and might be emotionally hurt? After a quick internal prayer, this is what we said: "How great that you want to show the Lord that you remember him always by doing this. It would be better if you came to church with us so we can all do it together." He smiled and said, Then I will go. He didn't go, but i feel like we settled that well.

We went on divisions (i think they're called Splits in english) with two mexican missionaries, one from Veracruz and the other from Mexico State (even though he tells everyone he's from Cancun because he thinks people will hate him if he admits he's from Mexico. To be fair, a common motto among people from the whole country is "mata a un chilango, haz patria.") I went with the veracruzano and at one point we were walking through the street and I was talking to him and he stopped me and basically said: "Stop talking, your accent is too Northern." So that was cool, another confirmation that while you couldn't really say my language skills are improving, my ability to speak the native tongue is.

And then while i was with him the president called and told him that a man that he baptized a year ago was going to the temple to be sealed to his wife and son on Saturday and so it was obligatory for him to go as well. But his own companion doesn't have a temple recommend and so he asked Elder Stensrud to go with him. So they left on Saturday and were gone until night. It made me very excited for November when the Familia Alvarez will be able to go. And also April when the familias Sanchez and Moreno Cantu will be able to go. I realized that this week: all my converts up to this point will be candidates to go to the temple to be endowed and sealed. I might be spending a lot of time in the temple next year.

It was a very international week: We found two new investigators, one named America and another named Kenya and the same day we went to visit a less active member named Argentina. Then the golden investigator of the other missionaries in the ward (he's from Honduras) told them that he's been here for too long (two weeks) and so he's going to canada. yep. so he's gone.

And then Marta came to church! she'd just barely gotten a new job that would require her to work on Sundays for about a month and then supposedly would be able to have Sundays off forever after. We fasted together last week so that she would be able to come to church, but it was looking like it wasn't going to happen. But then suddenly she and Dora showed up right before the sacrament! We asked her about it afterward. She giggled and said "I slept in and thought, Well, everything happens for something. So I came." She'll probably be baptized this next week.

And Baptisms!

I got a call on Friday inviting me to a baptism in Aeropuerto, my last area (and just across the street, I see old investigators and members from the other ward every day). It was the baptism of Rodrigo! Apparently he finally decided it was time (he'd said earlier "yeah, i'll be baptized, but it'll happen when I say. Punk 12 year old.) and then his mom told me some AWESOME news. They never localized her records, so she had to be baptized again. And her husband got to do it! So Carlos baptized his wife. I told her I bet she never even imagined that would happen and she said, no, never in her wildest dreams did that even cross her mind as a possibility. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to the baptism, but in one year when they go to be sealed for time and all eternity, it will be obligatory for me to go.

And Lucy's going to be baptized on Sunday! And so is Dora! YAY! That's super exciting.

Okay, I'm out of time. Que les vaya muy muy bien, que Dios los bendiga y que los ayude.

Elder taylor

20 Abril 2015

This has also been a very, very strange week. Very strange.

We met an ancient lady this week. Her name is Beatriz and I think she's senile. We taught her a lesson and while we were just getting to know her a little bit she started complaining about how she can't see very well. Keep in mind that this happens as I'm sitting directly in front of her, about 3 feet from her and that we've been talking rather normally for several minutes. She says "I can't see without my miralejos (telescope). Look!" and she curves her fingers to make a "telescope", closes one eye and puts the telescope up to her other eye and starts searching for me, saying "I can't see him, where'd he go?" My companion says later that's about when he almost lost it. Then she tells us about how she knows that god watches over her in her sleep because when she wakes up she looks down and sees the baby angels in her arms. So then her daughter rather sarcastically says "You say you can't even see in a lit room, how are you going to see these baby angels in the dark?" To which the Beatriz responds: "Shut up, I see them, Okay?" It was a fun lesson. And then she offered to sing to us. I must admit, I was surprised. She sang really beautifully, besides pausing every once in a while to explain what the words meant.

We met a Cuban this week. His accent was super cool, super, super slow (I understood every word) and my companion says humble. I think he might have been high. But anyways he says that he and his friend had been going to church with the Mormons earlier and just were never baptized. Unfortunately he lives in the other area, so we sent the other missionaries to his house. We'll see what happens. 

Speaking of Cuba, supposedly Cuba and the US are officially friends now? That's what everyone has been saying. So then, of course, the speculations started. Cuba open to the US, it should only be a matter of time before the Church sends missionaries. And then, to make things more exciting, the President Rodriguez had to postpone the date of the zone conference because he's going to Mexico (the state) to have a meeting with the apostles. The logical and speculative (and likely wrong) conclusion: they're organizing a Cuban mission. Where are they going to pull missionaries from? Well, probably spanish-speaking US and Caribbean and Mexico. At least that would make sense.

This week was a tough week. It's always tough when they're all in vacations because nobody's home. But I think it's harder after vacations because everybody's busy getting their lives back in order. So we had one day this week (the week after a two week vacation) where we only had one lesson the whole day. It was rough. But then this Sunday, we ended up getting 4. Which is really weird. Normally, we get 1 or 2 if we're lucky. I'm hoping things start picking up.

We were going to have a baptism this week for Dora, but she didn't come to church this week because she slept over at a friends' house after a quinceñera. But she fasted during the party (we had just taught her about the law of the fast and were all fasting together, her, her gramma and her friend who is a member of the church). So that's good. But no baptisms until next week. We should be baptizing Dora and Lucy.

Some weird things about Frontera: The numbers in the streets and the taxi drivers.

First the Taxistas. We've run into some nutties. One told us all about his three wives that he has in three different parts of the city. Then one told us about a vision his cousin had where she was taken up to heaven (and by his description, it was pretty darn accurate and detailed to what LDS doctrine is). One recited to us the Lord's Prayer or Padrenuestro in Old Aramaic. There's one that I've ridden with two or three times that talks so fast my native-speaking companions don't understand him. We rode with one this week who is a traveling Jehovah's Witness preacher and some sort of church authority ("You guys just do the mission for 2 years? I've been at this for 15!"). It's always an adventure getting into the taxis here.

And then the numbers. I'll start this one with a story from another missionary when he was in a house of a new investigator. They ask the investigator if they can write down the address and he says "Sure, we just don't have a number on the house yet, but we're going to get one later on today. Let me ask my wife about this. Hey, honey! What number do want for the house?" "I don't know, whatever you like." "Let's go with 40. That's a good number. So yeah, write down 40, we'll put it up later today." So that's basically the numbering system here in Frontera. It's almost impossible to track down new contacts that we've made. We had one that we thought was really interested but went to find her house, number 414. We find the street, easy. We find number 120, 123, 127, okay, we just need to keep going in this direction. 230, still on track. 320, okay, closer. 1145, what happened? We keep going, 84. WHAT?! the numbers start coming in completely randomly. We gave up. There's another street in our area, this is how the numbers go and I invent not: "15, 17, 16, 1108-B." By the way, there is no 1108-A. Another instance, looking for Juan that lives in number 218. "Excuse me, señora, we're looking for Juan." Nope, doesn't live there, try further down. We find the other 218 on the street. "Excuse me, señora, we're looking for Juan." Nope, try next door, that's also 218. "Excuse me, señora, we're looking for Juan." Yep, he lives here, but we want nothing with your church. Yeah....This town is tough, not necessarily always for the people.

My companion told me about a game his family always plays and it sounds like something we would like. It’s called "Balderdash."

And I found a great quote in my study today from Elder Holland: "It is crucial to remember that we are living--and chose to live--in a fallen world where for divine purposes our pursuit of godliness will be tested and tried again and again."

Our purpose here is to be tested and to learn. Another quote, paraphrased from Elder Oaks is that the judgment will not be a sum total of everything good and bad that we've done with a list of wrongs and rights. We will be judged according to the person that we've become. Basically, if we're ready to live in a celestial way, we will live with God in the celestial kingdom. If not, we will also be happy in the Terrestrial or Telestial, but we won't be with God. What we do influences in who we are and how we're judged, but it's not the end result. And so when we get trials, even really hard ones, we should just remain firm and faithful in the gospel, knowing that when we come out of it, we will be a better person and closer to what we need to be.

That's it for this week.

Que les vaya muy muy bien!

Elder Taylor

13 Abril 2015

This week has been awesome.

We didn't have to experience the 115 degree weather, which was awesome for one. We were in Saltillo on Thursday, the day it was supposed to be super hot. Then the next day it rained.

First, Saltillo: We went the conference of leaders with all the zone leaders and the sister training leaders and assistants. it was great to be able to see and talk with some friends that I hadn't seen for a long time. I hadn't seen Elder Ninataype since we got here (we were in the mtc together) and his companion Elder Montero I haven't seen for two transfers since he was my Zone Leader in Monclova. He's speaking English really well now. Like super well.

But the best part was being able to talk to Elder Alcala. And actually understand what he was saying. He told me that our 3 months together was the hardest part of his mission, but that he came out of that a whole lot better. I told him I felt the same. We talked about the people that we knew (he's now zone leader over that same area, so he sees the Alvarez family every week in church; apparently Wendy wants to go on a mission (!!!!!!) and the aunt Carla FINALLY got baptized!) and about the area and everything. It was nice to just be able to understand what he was telling me! Because when we were together I didn't understand hardly anything.

Speaking of that, a kid in the ward told me today that my accent is really Coahuilense and not as American as the other Americans. But that was one day after Lucy told me that I don't speak very well. So yeah.

And then the rainstorm! They say that it rained harder than it had for many years. Martha said that she'd never seen it rain that hard in 20 years that she's been living here. We got soaked. We ended up running from house to house, singing "Hark all ye nations" at the top of our voice trying to find ANYONE that would open up. It was a daunting task just crossing the street when I was looking at the water and thinking "I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a class 3 rapid." Part of the experience was contacting whatever person we ended up sheltered with before dashing out into the rain again, looking for all the world like participants in a local wet-shirt-and-garment contest. One guy was a winner. We were under the awning of his shop and started talking to him and he just laid out exactly what he thought of our religion, the little that he'd gathered from other sources. "Jesus and God appearing to a small boy in Chicago? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Jesus is still on the cross, look (he shows us a cross with Jesus on it). God doesn't talk to people and Jesus is sort of unavailable. But the Virgin Mary, she communicates with us. Let me tell you about Juan Diego and the Virgin of Guadalupe." Yeah...that was a fun experience.

Then we went and had a lesson with Blanca about Adam and Eve. Her 2 year old granddaughter is INSANE and kept running around without her shirt on trying her best to distract us. But that's jsut the missionary work sometimes. Best quote from the lesson: Elder Stensrud: "What would have happened if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten the fruit?" Blanca: "Well, the scripture says that Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they might have joy. I suppose that means that men wouldn't have ever been born: we'd all just be women."

And then we went and taught Martha the same lesson. That was a spiritual experience. And it all started with when we sang "Oh Mi Padre" but to the tune of "Come Thou Fount" because we didn't like the tune of Oh my father. After we sang, she sat looking at the page for a few seconds and then looked up and said: "This is now my favorite hymn forever." So I think we'll be singing it again. She's awesome.

And as far as Elder Stensrud: we're getting along just fine. To answer a few of the questions that some of you made me: Yes, we are both Zone Leaders. He is senior companion. He's from dallas, texas and proud of it. And when we're not in the lessons we tend to be having very lively conversations about ethics and how to live your life. He's got some strange ideas. But last night we ended the day by singing "Loathing" from WICKED at each other. I'd say we're doing fine.

And we started teaching a witch this week! AAAAHH! We got in and he had a lit candle on the table, which I didn't think anything of it at first. Then He explained what he was doing. Oh goodness. It was a spell. Talismans and stuff above the windows and in the corners all around the house, and every time we said "In the name of Jesus Christ" as in the prayer, he reacted and said he felt like someone was throwing cold water in his face. He was hooky spooky. But he also said that he wanted to stop, that he knew it was wrong and that he would be baptized if he felt ready after studying with us. We'll see how it goes.

That's all I have for this week.

Que Dios los bendiga y que les vaya bien!

Elder taylor

6 Abril 2015

This week was very, very good.

I really like our new area. It's definitely the nicest area I've been in and is remarkably clean in the streets. If you want to get a feel for how it is, go to downtown Nampa or Caldwell. It's more or less the same and about the same ratio of English to Spanish speakers. It's weird though, because I literally just crossed the street from my old area. I see old investigators every day on their way to work or home, or in their work. I saw Carlos Moreno on Saturday with his wife driving and they waved at me. It's almost as if I never left. Also, all the members have family members in Aeropuerto ward. 

The Ward Mission Leader is awesome. He's in a wheelchair after an accident and he told us about a conversation that he had with another missionary the first time he met him. (warning, this is going to be in spanish because it's a play on words that won't make sense in english. I'll try to translate it and make it make sense afterward.) "Hola, como estado?" "pues, sentado." "No, digo como anda?" "No, ya no ando." and that's when the missionary turns beet red and the Ward Mission Leader busts up laughing. Okay, basically what it means (but it won't be as funny): "Hey, how have you been?" "Sitting down." "No, I mean how are you (or literally, how do you walk)?" "No, I don't walk anymore." And he's always making fun of his situation like that. Like in General Conference when they announced that everyone was going to stand up and sing, he turned, made eye contact, and shook his head sadly. Then laughed.

Elder Stensrud is my first American companion. He's from Dallas, he's about 6 foot 3, and can be pretty goofy. And works really hard. So we've been getting along just swimmingly.

Investigators: it's SO nice to be transferred into an area that's already doing well. We have several investigators that are progressing very nicely and are determined to be baptized. First Martha and Dora, an abuela and her nieta who are super smart. Martha has always wanted to be baptized but her husband never let her. But now he says it's fine. Dora just about memorizes the Book of Mormon chapters we give her to read and then recites it back to us with analysis. If only her brother, Mario, were so bright. Funny story about him: Martha wants us to talk to her grandchildren in english because she thinks they should learn. "Wassup" is a social networking site here in Mexico. So then when my companion walks into the kitchen and asks Mario "Hey, What's up?" Mario doesn't even look up from his cell phone and says "no, facebook." martha just about died laughing. Then later in the lesson when we were talking about how Jesus was baptized, suddenly Mario shouts out "The bird!" and sits back obviously proud of himself. We all just kind of look at him expecting an explanation. After a couple seconds of him thinking that an explanation obviously wasn't necessary, we started trying to guess what he meant by that. Then we eventually figured out it was about the Holy Ghost descending in form of a dove. He just rolled his eyes and said "Yeah, I said that." So yeah. It's been fun with him.

Marco Antonio, is a lawyer and he technically lives in Aeropuerto's boundaries but he wants us to teach him in his office. Which is a problem because when it's 100 degrees outside (by the way, it's supposed to get up to 115 this week, Monclova is supposedly the third hottest city in Mexico) and we step into his 60 degree office, it's like hitting a wall of chloroform. And then he talks and talks and talks about his analysis of what he read and his experience with life and whatever concept we're talking about. But it's all good stuff, it just should be better in a conference talk and not in a missionary discussion.

Blanca and Javier, a lady and her husband. She apparently just showed up to church one day and asked to be baptized. Apparently she had been going to church before and couldn't get baptized because she was living without being legally married to her husband. But they got that cleared up, so then she showed up to church. The only problem now is the smoking, but she says she's down to one cigarette a day, if that. So we'll be having a baptism soon.

And then my favorite: Her name is Lucy, but I'm pretty sure that's not her real name, i've just been forgetting to ask her. She is from Oaxaca, she is a Mixteca (or Mizteca) indian and didn't speak any spanish when she moved here to Coahuila. The missionaries had been struggling to teach her because she was really hard of understanding the lessons. After the first lesson with her, I felt like we were teaching her wrong. I had remembered reading in an article once about how sometimes these people from isolated tribes that never go to school have a hard time learning in the standard western form of teaching, namely lists, processes, reading, studying, just because it's not part of the culture to learn like that. So I suggested that we try some kinesthetic movement and abandon the idea of trying to teach her lists. In the first lesson we had tried to teach her the purpose of life: "To learn, to progress, to obtain a body." And she struggled to learn that list. But then in the second lesson we taught her Adam and Eve and we acted it out and presented her two choices. "You can stay here in this room forever, you will never be happy but you will never be sad, you won't have children, you won't progress and learn, but you will never die. Or you can eat this tortilla (we didn't have a fruit but we sure had tortillas because it's Mexico), you will die, you will have to work, you will have to leave the presence of God, you will be able to have children, you will be able to be sad but you will also be able to be happy." She looked at us and said: "that's a hard decision." "Well, which would you choose?" She thought. "I'll take the tortilla." "But if you do that you'll be breaking the commandment of God." "I know." "Then why would you take the tortilla?" "Because I want to be happy." That's when the Spirit hit me over the head and I thought: "I am doing my job right." Basically she understood perfectly the lesson.

But yeah, that's all I have for this week.

Que les vaya muy muy bien!

Elder Taylor

30 Marzo 2015

Everybody but mom read this: There was another man-hunt this week in our area. But this time the subject was us.

Apparently what happened was that the other missionary that I was with when we met the two teenage girls decided it was a good idea to call one of them at 11 at night and ask her for all her information, such as her age, when she would be at home, etc. When he explained to me what was going on, it made a LITTLE more sense. He was thinking that he was calling a different investigator and was just trying to figure out who he was talking to. Unfortunately, he told her that "the missionaries" had called her apparently without explaining that it was him and not us. Anyway, she mentioned it to her mom, that the missionaries had called her asking for all that information at 11 at night. And rightly, the mom freaked out, called us super angrily demanding why we would do that. And so at 11:20 at night I crawl out of bed to answer the phone and just hear all these accusasions. and So I say basically, I have no idea what you're talking about, we don't call at that hour, I was in bed, I have no idea who that might have been but it wasn't the missionaries. So then she said that it was fine and reminded us about the appointment we had with her the next day.

Well the next day I went to do splits with another area, so Elder Tamo and Elder Medina were walking around in our area going to the appointment when Hermana Claudia, the mom of the ex-boyfriend of the teenage girl and we had supposedly called, called to tell them that she had something urgent to tell them. So they went running to her house and she told them that the police were there at the appointment waiting for them. And of course they didn't think to call me and tell me. Or the assistants. Or the president.

Basically I didn't find out till the next morning and then spent the whole morning calling people trying to figure out what was going on, who had called whom, who had done what....etc. And basically yeah, the police were looking for us. But it turned out to just be a misunderstanding. BUT I am going to be a WHOLE lot more careful around teenage girls from now on out because IF it hadn't turned out so nicely that we had evidence, that Claudia hadn't called, etc...it could have turned out a WHOLE lot messier.

Other crazy story from today: it's the end of the month: we have no money. So when my companion said let's go to the bank to take out money before going to eat with Irma at the Floreria, I said awesome, possibly our reimbursements will have arrived. But Let's check to make sure first, because I don't want to get stranded out there without money to be able to get back. Then, in true latin fashion: "Don’t worry, it'll all be fine." So we get there to the bank and of course there's no money in the account. We're stuck downtown with a grand total of 3 pesos, needing to be able to get back and then be able to pay for the internet (about 45 pesos total). So I prayed very hard.

We get to the flower shop and we eat with them and we ask them if maybe Hector Jr. can drive us back to the area. They say, no because he's got class, but that they'll pay for a taxi to get us back home. Okay, that's fine. But we still have to worry about how to pay the internet. So I keep praying. Suddenly Hector Jr. comes in and says he's about ready to go home (and would need to pass right by our house to get there). "Hey, buddy, you wanna give us a lift?" "Yeah, sure." So then we going back and suddenly I remember that I have some dollars from the states in my bags at home so we stop in the Oxxo (basically Maverick) by our house and I ask if they change dollars for pesos and they lady says no, but then a guy standing in line asks how much and then offers to change, just to find him in a few minutes at the gas station (he's a filler-upper or whatever they're called). So we come back in 5 minutes and he waves us over and I change my 12 dollars for the 150 pesos (more or less the exact-ish change, he wanted to give me more, but I said it was fine, the 6 extra pesos didn't matter) and so no I have enough to pay the internet to write you guys. Lessons learned: the Lord provides in odd, odd ways sometimes. Also, Mexican filler-uppers change dollars for pesos. So all is great.

ANOTHER BAPTISM! Carlos FINALLY got baptized! So that's two weeks in a row, and Irma will get baptized this week. That'll be three in a row, one step closer to the goal of every week. One missionary just went home a couple months ago. He baptized every week for 5 weeks straight and almost all of them families, not just individuals. That's the goal and promise that the Area Seventy gave to all the missionaries in Mexico: baptize every week. So I'm getting closer.

But the important thing is the people. I am SO SO happy for Carlos and his family and I know how much this will mean to them in the future. The only thing is Rodrigo decided not to get baptized this week. He says "I'll get baptized. I'll just decide when." He's twelve and an only child and can be a punk sometimes. But it's fine. He'll get there.

The sad part: I won't be here to see Irma get baptized. I was called last night as Zone Leader. I will be traveling for a REALLY long time to my new area tomorrow, a whole, oh, 10 minutes. Literally, I'll just be crossing the road. But it's another stake. My companion will be Elder Stensrud, my first American companion. It's going to be weird to be able to speak English in the house. Maybe I'll recover a little bit of it.

Okay, sorry that's all I have time for! Elder Tamo got sick AGAIN and so we're going to the hospital right now and after that I've got a few people to say good-bye to.

I'm not sad to be leaving. I cried the first time I got transferred. I loved the people so much and did NOT want to leave. But going from here, well, I love the people the same. I even like the area more. But it has been too much stress. Elder Tamo largely, but also the Ward Council, the Bishop, the police, the companions getting sick, being district leader and watching out for a bunch of renegade missionaries (5 of them turned up in the park across the city on Tuesday and were recognized by the stake president's counselor. They didn't have permission.) So as much as I love the people, the area and all the work that we've done here, I feel relieved to be leaving. But I'm still glad to be able to look back and say that I did my best. Of course I made mistakes but I also learned from them. I am taking no regrets with me. And I'm also taking a huge stack of addresses with me of people that I love here.

The only bad thing: going to Frontera. I was hoping to get out of the 100 degree weather by going to Saltillo or Allende in the north. But no such luck. Nope, I don't believe in luck in missionary work. No such will of God. It is God's will that I melt here in Mexico.

I will send fotos with this email i believe. We'll see if it lets me.

Elder Taylor

The familia Moreno Cantu 

AHMSA, the monster of Monclova, the reason it is loving called "Monclovita la Fea" instead of "Monclovita la Bella" which is the city slogan. Also the reason why so many missionaries get sick. THey make iron for trains there. And they employ about half the city and give them all weird hours, so it's also the reason why it's so hard to find new investigators that can keep going to church.