30 Noviembre 2015

30 Noviembre 2015

Que rapido se va el tiempo, volando!

This week was the most hectic week of the mission, but we survived and kept a cool head the whole time.

1. We had to plan the Christmas activity for the 3 zones of the north (Nueva Rosita, Piedras Negras, Acuña/Zaragoza) and carry it out. As it was decided that it was going to be here in Piedras, we were placed in charge of everything and even though we tried to delegate what we could, there was only so much the other leaders could do. It turned out really nicely, though, even though we had to end it early because we were outside preaching and showing the "He is the Gift" video by the plaza by the international bridge when suddenly a freezing rainstorm came in and got us all wet. But oh well. Everything else went well, and only one borrowed extension cord went missing.

2. We're training Elder Goeckeritz, but we've been trying to get him out to his own area as much as possible, so we've been doing all the logistics involved in getting a ward full of people that don't have cars and have little or no sense of the hour, that work all the time and whose young men and young single adults are not too enthused about missionary work to cooperate to be with Elder Goeckeritz. Good news: he had two confirmations this weekend despite it all. Also good news: a missionary just barely got back from his mission and says he's basically open all week to go with Elder Goeckeritz. I think we're going to take advantage.

3. Baptism for Gilberto and Yocelin, and all the chaos with that. But as well, everything turned out very well. Gilberto went down and came up weeping and saying "Thank you, Lord, Thank you Lord." Mayte snapped us a pretty cool photo of us hugging in the font. It was a very special moment. (Actually, we asked if to send it to you, mom, so if you get an email one of these days from someone you don't know that has an attachment of a photo, that's it. If you could then send that to me, that'd be awesome, please :)) Yocelin's baptism I'm sure was special as well, but I was already changing when she went under.

Mayra Rocha is progressing really well. She's still coming to church and sometimes bringing her second son, Leo. Her older son, Carlos, is already baptized. Next time we see her, we're going to try and put a baptismal date with her.

We found Yarik this week! Actually, we found him last week, but this week was cool. One Saturday, we had a little time before going to lunch and so we decided to pass by and see him and his family. He's a twelve-year-old kid of an all LDS family. His grandpa's brother is the stake president, his parents are both members, but they say they've never taken him to church. His uncle died a few years ago in a car accident and the whole family got angry at God and hasn't been back since. But on Saturday, we showed up and his grandpa said, "Come on in!" Super excitedly, he told us they were planning on coming to church on Sunday, that they wanted his grandson to be baptized and if we could come back for dinner on Tuesday to teach him. We taught a little about baptism and then asked him if he'd like to be baptized on the 26 of December, and he said yes. And then they came to church on Sunday! WOO!

Supposedly Leopoldo has his date for this Saturday, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. He still really hasn't demostrated that he understands the difference between God and Joseph Smith and he keeps asking us every time we go why we don't drink coffee. It doesn't matter what or how we tell him, he just doesn't get it. And so he hasn't stopped drinking coffee. But oh well. We'll figure out how to do it.

We've got one week before transfers. We'll find out on Monday, or Sunday if I'm training, if I'm leaving or I'm staying. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty darn pleased with everything that's been going on here.

Today, if we have time, we're going to go to the Plaza de las Culturas, which is a cool place where there's a bunch of Maya and Aztec temples in miniature and now they're surrounded by Christmas decorations, so it should be fun.

I'll talk to you all in a couple weeks!

Elder Taylor