17 Agosto 2015

Dear Everybody,

Well, this week was just full of hard work and not a whole lot of news. We have a few investigators that are showing interest, and hopefully I have more things to say next week.

We got a hold of Maribel this week to sing her happy birthday and she said that she'd be at Naité's house the next day to pick some things up, but she wasn't there when we passed by and Naité said that she never even came. So we'll just have to call her again. The problem is she doesn't often answer the phone...Oh well. We'll see what happens.

According to the missionaries in San Buena, a family of three they were teaching just moved to Frontera and possibly into our area and that they really want to be baptized, so we may have just inherited a couple golden investigators.

We started teaching a young woman named Monica who was super party-goer in her earlier life but since has come a long way and wants to leave her old life behind completely. She planted a kiss right on my companion's cheek before he could do anything. Well, that's what he says. To me it looked like he leaned into it, but he says he got confused and thought she was doing something else and then suddenly her cheek was on his. But oh well. She seems really awesome.

We continued teaching a lady named Areceli whose daughter died in a motorcicle accident a couple months ago. She says she feels a lot more peace in her life since we started with her. She's shown us a couple of the banners and stuff of her daughter that they put up in her funeral and the after-funeral party. They're pretty scandalous pictures, all of them selfies in rather skimpy clothes, but what ever. Areceli's interested and said she'd be baptized, even though she's pretty darn Catholic.

And we started teaching another lady who's been in a depression since her husband died 5 months ago but says that since she read the pamphlet of the Plan of Salvation, she suddenly feels better.

We'll see what happens.

And we started teaching a lady that was baptized about 5 years ago but then left because of various reasons. Basically, she just didn't like how the church was run in the ward. So now she's with the Jehovah's Witnesses, but she says she doesn't like all their rules and not all their doctrines. So then we asked her what she didn't like about the Mormons' doctrines and she mentioned prophets. This is a common doubt here, many people either don't believe in prophets after John or Jesus (depending on who you ask) or they have no problem with them ("Joseph Smith was a prophet and saw God and Jesus after praying." "Cool! That's AWESOME! My cousin is a prophet too and also started his own church!" ".......uh....Sweet.") So then we showed her Ephesians 1:10 (I think) about the dispensation of the fulfillment of times and then Amos 3:7 about how Jehovah always has a prophet on the earth and suddenly she got REALLY interested. So that was fun.

The weather has been getting nicer. As in not quite so darn hot.

Thanks for all the support! Los quiero bastante!

Elder Taylor

10 Agosto 2015

Well....

We were spoiled last transfer. We saw a ton of miracles and watched as these people changed for the better. This transfer has already proven to be harder.

In one week, Maribel suddenly moved without telling us, Maricela decided to stay in her own church for her commitments there and Antonio came out and told us that it wasn't because of work that he hasn't been coming to church, it's because he doesn't want to go without his family and that he won't be coming to church until he can bring his family with him. So this week was kinda full of disappointments like that and then a whole bunch of opposition such as with just various situations that happened, such as the plumber was going to come and then didn't show up until an hour and a half after he said he'd be there and so we ended up hardly even leaving the house last Monday. Stuff like that.

It was a REALLY good thing Mayela and her kids (who are AWESOME!) got baptized and are happy in the church. Last night she called us to go over to her house "so we could talk" and we kinda got a little panicky there because we didn't know if it was because something had happened in church or what. So we showed up and it turned out she just wanted us there to eat a cake she had made. We couldn't stay for a really long time so we ended up eating the cake and then helping with the dishes that turned into a water fight between us and the kids. So it turned out that nothing bad happened. She really just wanted us there to eat her cake.

We had a lesson with Blanca about the temple and she is so stoked to go in a little less than one year to get her endowments! She says "I have no idea what any of this means, I just want to go and feel it for myself!" I really hope she can go exactly one year from her baptism because that would mean I could go with her and it would be just about the last thing that I do before I come home.

Lucy as well is pretty excited to go to the temple; she even said that she might do baptisms again, now that she knows how it works. (Anyone who missed her funny story about her baptism, I don't remember what date I wrote about it but it was really super funny.)

And Dora went to EFY in Monterrey! But.....she's moving to Tamaulipas tomorrow morning. She was going to move to Colima in the South but she decided yesterday to go with her mom instead of her dad. Why? Because her mom is taking the missionary lessons and she wants to be there with her to help her. She's so awesome! But it's going to be sad that she's not going to be here anymore.

We found a young guy this week whose name was Julio (actually we found a lot of people this week) and he's pretty darn interested, but the problem is he's getting ready to possibly move to San Buena this week. But we said we'd call him this week to try and see him or maybe send the missionaries from San Buena to his house out there.

Elder Briggs and I are just as great as ever. We're loving this area and the ward and we're searching really hard to find new people now that Antonio, Maricela and Maribel are all pretty much gone.

Funny story: A drunk woman tried to hug me in the street this week. She was talking with us and we invited her to church on Sunday and she said "Sunday? Well that's good, that's the only day I don't drink. I'll be there." She didn't come, but whatever. At least she knows when and where. Then she said: "Dejenme les doy en abrazote!" Which is (Bad, Monclovense) Spanish for "Let me give you a BIG hug!" and threw her arms open and just about launched herself at me. So I backpedaled pretty quickly and caught her hand and turned it into a handshake. Elder Briggs thought it was hilarious.

Well, we'll see what happens this next week. We have a few references that we've got to contact and we're seeing what old investigators we can go back with. We're thinking about maybe getting back with Marta, which I would really like. I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is I'm supposed to be here for some reason. I don't know what I'm supposed to learn or who I'm supposed to meet, but God has some assignment for me here. President Rodriguez wrote me today and told me about the transfers. He'd already had me placed in a different area but then felt at the last minute to switch me back to Frontera. So that's why I'm still here.

Well, that's all I have from this week. Que les vaya super mega bien!

Elder Taylor

A bug we found in the street. I’m just glad we found it dead.

3 Agosto 2015

This last weekend I was going between super happy and super bummed. Super happy because the BALLESTEROS GARZA FAMILY GOT BAPTIZED and bummed because I was leaving. I talked with my companion about it and he said basically "Well, it's no use getting down about it." And I told him "Shut up, let me be miserable." But I knew he was right.

Then we woke up without water this morning and had to go to the house of the Bellavista elders about 15 minutes away and while Elder Briggs was in the shower, Elder Resendiz from the offices called his best friend Elder Vielma (one of the Bellavista elders) to tell him about the transfers ahead of time (no rules were technically broken). So this is what's going to happen this transfer:

I'M STAYING HERE! WOOOOOO!

I spent the last week taking my camera around to take photos with all the members and investigators that I was going to miss, but it turns out I'm not even leaving. SWEET! So now I really have no reason to get bummed. Even better, one of our troublesome elders is leaving and getting replaced by someone whose nickname is "the next bednar" because he's an awesome missionary (I knew him since the last time he was in Monclova, I haven't left yet...) and kinda looks like a really short Elder Bednar. Downside, our really troublesome companionship is not leaving and they're going for their third transfer together. One of them is just about to finish up one year in the mission, he's in his second area with his third companion. For anyone who doesn't speak mission language, that's super unusual and unfortunately his companions have not exactly been exemplary.

But oh well. We're super happy about this transfer.

So yeah, the Mayela and her kids got baptized! She, true to form, had an out-of-this-world spiritual manifestation in her baptism, came up weeping out of the water. And Pedro had to be baptized twice--something we thought he might try to do but he swears it wasn't on purpose--and Rocio only had to be dunked once--something we were worried about because she's deathly afraid of the water. I'll send pictures today of the baptism. Mayela's mother-in-law came to the baptism because she's an investigator from Guadalupe, the other zone leaders in Monclova and she's really super interested as well.

Then the next day in church was awesome, her father came and LOVED the church (he lives in our area and is just about the same as Mayela as far as temperament and openness) and then we went to their house and watched the video of the Restoration with them and he LOVED it and we gave him a book of mormon and he LOVED it and promised to read it. Basically, speaking just in terms of numbers, I think we struck a gold mine when my companion decided to knock Mayela's door. Speaking about the people, I love them so much and leaving that house last night thinking I wasn't coming back was the ugliest feeling I've had in a long time.

Maribel didn't come to church this week. We're going to have to talk really sternly to her about htat.

Also Antonio didn't come to church again, which that's going on five weeks. He's so just awesome, but if he wants to progress, he has to come. He's got to figure something out with his work to be able to come to church.

Maricela also didn't come. She had a commitment at her own church, but she is fully intending to come this week. Every time we think maybe she's not too interested, she invites friends over to listen to us and rants about just how awesome she feels in the Mormon church. She just feels committed into doing things in her programs at the other one. Interesting note, we mentioned in a lesson about the restoration that the church of Christ has been restored (go figure) but she mentioned something: this Christian church that she goes to preaches that the restoration is real, it just hasn't happened yet. They're waiting for a restoration the same way the Pharisees were waiting for the Messiah.

Funny story from the week: after the baptism we went to empty the font which included turning on an electric pump. We went, turned it on and waited for the water to start coming out. We walked back and forth a little just seeing why the water didn't start. Then Elder Briggs mentioned that he thought he remembered one like this and that we just needed to pour a little water in the little spigot on top. So we tried it. At first nothing, then just a little sputter out of the spigot (we wanted it to come out through the hose on the bottom), then it started gurgling more and then suddenly GEYSER! I was right next to it and got pretty soaked. I even tried turning the knob on the spigot one direction then the other and then back again when neither direction worked. Finally I figured out that if I put in in the middle the water stopped. Sweet, I'm wet but at least the water's going down. "Do you want to wait until it's done draining, or do you want to come back after an hour to turn it off, or do you just want to ask Bellavista to turn it off (they live right by the church)?" "Hm...I dunno." Awkward silence. "Didn't Bellavista want us to leave the font full?" "....Oh yeah." So we went back and stopped it. Oh well. It was fun.

We started teaching a lady who was kicked out of the Catholic church and left the Jehovah's Witnesses. Let me leave very clear how uncommon it is to be kicked out of the Catholic church here: I've never heard of it happening before. I didn't realize it was possible. Turns out she had too many questions and they got tired of her puzzling the priest and kicked her out. Then she was with the Jehovah's Witnesses until the woman that brought her to the church in the first place suddenly renounced God completely. So yep. She accepted the baptismal invitation and says she wants to come to church. We'll see what happens this week.

That's what I have for this week! And six more weeks to go here in Frontierrita! (that's the nickname for Frontera.)

Elder Taylor

Bautismo de la Familia Ballesteros Garza!

Mexican "in case of fire"

Maribel, her friend whose I name escapes me, my companion, and Naité. It looks awkward how my companion is standing, but we promise no rules were broken while taking this photo.

The Cathedral of San Buenaventura, a BEAUTIFUL little Mexican village outside of Frontera. The angle is kinda wonky with the sun and everything, but it couldn't be helped. If I go back I'll get a better one.

from left to right: me, Mayela's dad, Angela (the little one and she's a terror), Rocío, Pedro Alonso (they are twins), Mayela, Emiliano, Elder Briggs