Hermana Jones

Hermana Jones

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

I am not really sure what health benefits come from eating solidified cow blood but I feel fine!

¿Que onda cuates? Todavia estoy aquì en Neza York disfrutando la vida misional. Some fun new adventures and exciting news from this past week. So our beloved Elders abandoned us Friday morning due to special changes and the mission shrinking (there are only 71 companionships now, bien poquitos!). One of them found out late Wednesday night and the other one Friday morning so they had to pack up their things and go to new areas, leaving my little companion and I with the other area book and the whole other half of the Ward. So now we are looking forward to meeting with all of the investigators and recent converts from the other side of Ward this week in addition to our own! As Matthew mentioned in regards to being Seminary student council president, I don't even know what I am doing hahaha there are always new things to learn but one of my favorite things about missionary life is the fact that I am just here to do the best I can in the time that has been given to me. This is my little corner of the world for what I hope will be the last 3ish months of my mission. We don't even have a map but we have lots of fe y oraciòn! :D I think this will be really good for the Ward here, too. For years they had four companionships of elders working here and now are down to one companionship of hermanas. The members are great and very willing to work with us and move things along. There are many people here ready to be baptized who just need love and encouragement so that is our plan for the next few weeks. Seriously, Neza is one of the most prepared places on earth. Sure, there is a lot of drug dealing action and borrachitos in the streets but also many who are looking to come unto Christ. Last week we met a woman named V who is 22 and has been here about 1 month. She dealt with some pretty difficult family tragedies and decided to start a new life for herself here, living with her grandma and aunts. She started working for a family in our Ward about two weeks ago when the Elders met her and was introduced to the gospel. When we started teaching her she really opened up and the three of us have grown to be great friends in a short amount of time. When we visited her on Wednesday and Saturday we were able to share the incredible message of the Plan de Salvación with her, testifying of the reality of familias eternas y nuevos comienzos, thanks to La Expiación de Jesu Cristo. It is one of my favorite lessons that we teach as missionaries because it provides us with a very clear road-map of what we need. It was one of the hardest things for me to learn in Spanish but it brings me so much joy to share this with people who, until this point, did not understand that they will be reunited with loved ones again after this life. As we finishing the lesson on Saturday we invited her to be baptized on el 8 de Octubre and she accepted :) She is really excited to attend Church with us and we are planning on taking her to El Centro para Visitantes with her employers (family in our Ward) and their family this Saturday. It should be great fun :) During these past 14ish months as a missionary I have come to more fully understand and appreciate that incredible reassuring feeling I had in my heart when I opened my mission call and read that I would be serving in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission. I felt in my heart that day, and several occasions during my mission, that this is where I am supposed to be and that there are certain people I needed to meet and teach here, as well as people who have taught me things that I need to learn that will help me throughout my entire life. Another example of this is my dear friend H who was baptized last September. He is the only Church member in his family but they went to the Temple open house last year and his wife remembers me helping her and their 6 year old daughter find the bathroom -- now I live a few doors down from them! Small small world! These past few weeks we have been visiting this dear friend helping him set goals to stop drinking and he is doing such a great job. He came to Church this last Sunday for all three hours with one of his 9 children who is not currently a Church member. He is so sweet and makes sure that we are well fed and taken care of haha which leads me to another adventure of this last week. We enjoyed getting roped into eating molleja or rellena tacos a few days ago. We were sitting outside of H's tire and car mechanic business enjoying a good chat with him when one of his pals passed by with a container full of hot fresh rellena that he was selling. He cut me slice right then and there to eat and H bought a bag of it and invited us in to eat. His wife fried it up with tortillas. Rellena is basically congealed solidified cow blood with chunks of fat and a few spices encased in a thin layer of cow intestine. It looks like grayish black sausage. I had actually eaten it once before back in the little pueblos in the mountains but after eating a nice hefty plate of it this last week something tells me that the preparation process here in the city may be a little bit different than back in the mountains. I was able to eat all of mine but my poor little doe of a companion asked to take her's in a container to the house after getting a little bit of it down. (She sends a big hello to you all by the way :) We then enjoyed eating our normal lunch with one of the hermanas after that. Not getting any slimmer over here haha oh boy anywho life continues to fly here. I am loving my day to day routine of walking and talking. It really hit me the other day after talking with someone just how much I love talking about the Gospel and finding different ways to relay it to the many different people we meet here. Also, President and Sister Stutznegger are such great people who really care about their missionaries individually. I love them. I am excited about the invitation the stake received at home last week because it helps the missionaries so much, and more than anything it is just good healthy clean fun to share something so special with people we love! :) Keep up the great work everybody. Love you all. And enjoy your first week back in school!

Saludos, Hermana Jonesie



This is what my companion brought home for dinner in the evening. I am not really sure what health benefits come from eating solidified cow blood but I feel fine!



It was fun seeing my old companion, Hermana Martinez, on Friday during a meeting. She goes home in two weeks, along with my trainer Hermana Llaguarima! The bottom pic is Elder Labra who was an assistant to the president and one of my zone leaders for a little bit. Such an incredible person. He goes home to Chile next week. I really hate goodbyes. That is one of the worst parts of the mission and I will never be good at them!


My companion, Hermana Torres, really is a little doe and I love her to death! The plan is for her to finish out the mission with me and when she gets her visa in December to go to her mission in Utah.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Without this essential key, we are stuck and unable to progress.

Greetings everyone! Here I am again, one week more in the mission. It honestly felt like two days. I wake up, work, do missionary service, eat, and go to bed again. Two minutes later I wake up and blast into another day. Everything is just flying and blending together and I don't know how I feel about that haha it's plum loco I tell you. We had a fun week full of adventures as always. On Tuesday Hermana Herlinda in our Ward helped get a few recent converts started on family history in one of their homes. It was fun to see how excited these people were to do this work and to focus on the Temple...one of my favorite things about the gospel. We will be doing the same thing this Tuesday as well. Saturday was fun. We took a group of people to El Centro para Visitantes (Temple visitor’s center). It was fun getting jam packed into a combi again -- haven't done that for awhile. It always amazes me just how many people manage to squish themselves into public transportation. The majority of them were investigators of the Elders (Elder Perez, our district leader, who is training Elder Revolorio from Guatemala City) but we brought along one of the most precious old men I have ever met named Jose. He is coming back to Church again and we visit him about once a week. He has the biggest most precious toothless smile and laugh ever and he enjoyed the visit. We met up with our investigator Ana and her little girl Isabela. Ana is the daughter of a recent convert named Leticia who I taught during the activity we had with the jovenes, and was baptized the weekend before we got here. Ana is an amazing person who does all of her tarea (homework) and comes ready with really good questions. She is preparing to be baptized at the end of September. She mentioned to us a few times during the visit how excited she is to come back but this time to be able to enter the Temple. She told us that she now has hope of seeing her father again who passed away seven years ago thanks to the Savior’s gift of resurrection. The Savior’s Restored Gospel is what brings us that kind of hope. Later in the afternoon Juan Carlos was baptized! He is the brother and uncle of a few recent converts who had been listening and attending Church for awhile but eventually came to a standstill due to the pressure of others to be baptized. I think he pushed a little reset button when we arrived and felt reanimado to be baptized. It was a very nice little service. The Bishop baptized him (didn't get a picture with him sorry) and his sister Magdalena who was baptized in April spoke. My companion and I also shared short little messages and the other missionaries in the district were able to bring investigators as well. I took the opportunity to relate a fun little experience my companion and I had a few days ago with the principle of baptism. What happened was we had just closed the door when my companion asked me if I had the keys. I made a "doh!"sound in my head as a I realized that they were still inside the house. We cannot enter our apartment nor leave the main entrance below without these keys. We were literally stuck...unable to progress. Fortunately, the Bishop lives right above us and his wife was home and provided us with a screw driver which we used to successfully removed a window, and then stuck our hand in to open the door haha my handy man skills/eagle powers are developing quite nicely. The point is that baptism is a necessary ordinance and covenant that we need in order to progress back to our Heavenly Father. It opens the door for us to journey through this life en el camino de Cristo (the path of Christ) and eventually return to live with our Heavenly Father. Without this essential key, we are stuck and unable to progress. The baptism went very well and on Sunday he was confirmed by the Bishopric second counselor Hermana Arellano. This Ward is really great. Last night we had a very cool experience with an investigator named Victor. Remember the hermana I told you about a couple of weeks ago who met by accident in the rain and turns out they are a less active family who came to the ward again? Well, Victor is the "husband" (not actually married yet) of the daughter of this woman. It has been very neat teaching him. It has been slow progress but last night something miraculous happened. They had invited us to cenar (dinner) and during the whole thing I was wondering "how are we going to approach this lesson tonight? how exactly are we going to teach it?" because, until last night, it had been difficult even getting to a discussion about the restoration of the gospel. As I sat there waiting for an answer I heard in the back of my mind that we needed to teach him about the restoration because he would listen tonight. Honestly I had my doubts but we waited for the right moment and eventually Victor started asking the right questions and basically served everything to us on a silver platter. I wish I could tell you the whole experience but honestly could not if I tried because it was the Spirit talking, not me. It was so perfect and so powerful how everything just fell into place. I do remember that he asked me directly where he would be able to find all the because's to all of the why's that he has, what scripture references I could give him to understand more clearly and receive all of the answers he is looking for. I paused for a moment, took a breath, and then told him that I could refer him to many different books, internet sights, historians and all sorts of things that would give him a human, imperfect knowledge of what he is looking for, but that if he wants real answers, untainted by human error and perspective, the only source that he could turn to and the only person that he could ask is God. I had him read Santiago (James) 1:5 in the Bible and he sat there and just nodded his head. He understood so clearly. We talked to him about how to conquer fear by exercising faith and many other things I can't remember. It is so incredible being an instrument and saying things in another language that don't come from me. I don't share this to brag or anything like that and I hope it is not taken that way. I simply share this because it was a very special, reaffirming experience for me. Hermana Torres and I are so excited to continue teaching him. Things are great here and I am happy :)

Love,

Hermana Friendita Juanita -- another nickname from Elder Perez and Elder Revolorio



Baptism of Juan Carlos.

 

More from the baptism of Juan Carlos. We really struggle to take nice group pictures haha :) good old memories. The woman in the purple is Juan Carlos's sister Magdalena. The woman in black to my left is Dalia who will be baptized in September and her mom Veronica who is below her was baptized in January. The woman next to Magdalena is Leticia who is Ana's mom and was just baptized. The woman in pink is Martha and she will be baptized at the end of September. So many amazing people here. Martha and Dalia are also people who have been listening for a very loooooooong time and are now overcoming their fear and making the decision to be baptized. Speaking of baptisms, Julio who I was teaching in my old area was baptized on Saturday as well. Hermana Martinez told me that two other people who we taught together will be baptized in the next two weeks. I love that casa de oración and am so happy to hear that it is growing. It was such a privilege to serve and work there and I feel grateful to be a small part of such a huge and wonderful work. It is a blessing now being one of the people who gets to see the culmination of many seeds that missionaries planted before me in my current area. Many of the people we are teaching right now are what we call "eternal investigators" who are now finally making the decision to be baptized. It feels good being on both sides of the story and to realize that what matters most is that people are coming unto Christ, regardless of what part of the journey we are there to witness.


Breaking into our house :)


Our trip to the Mexico City Temple Visitor’s Center.


One More :)






Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Many greetings from Neza!

Many greetings from Neza! Lots happened this last week. We continue to meet new members, all of whom seem determined to fatten up mi compa and me. They say that we look medio delgaditas and need to eat more. My bubble face just keeps getting bubblier. I have a master plan to get a membership at the gym down the street here pretty soon and go early in the mornings if possible. My futile attempts to decline food are just not working. I pulled a Nacho Libre this past week and swallowed a raw egg yolk. We were teaching a man named G at his natural juices stand and I made the mistake of pointing out what looked to be quail eggs he had sitting out. He cracked one into a glass, squeezed some lime juice on it, and handed it over to me. I downed the thing and it was actually pretty tasty. Still waiting for my eagle powers and nutrients to come so I can call upon them in time of need....or possibly land in the hospital with salmonila. Whichever comes first :) My comp and I navigated the ever exciting Metro Train when I took her to Cami Hospital to check her wrist. This time it was not my fault! She sprained it playing volleyball in the CCM long before she became my companion. There are always Church members who say hi to us in the Metro or who help us find our way. I love the Metro! Everybody makes fun of me for it but I think it is just the coolest thing ever -- takes me back to train rides into Chicago as a little kid. So guess what? We have a baptism this Saturday! J C, the brother of a recent convert, has finally made the decision to be baptized after months of going to the Church and receiving las platicas. He has been working on quitting smoking, too. Finally I decided to just invite him to be baptized as we were getting ready to walk out the door and, after a pause, he firmly said yes. I was delightedly surprised. We were able to visit him yesterday after Church with the Bishop and the second counselor. The Ward here is great and so willing to help. So we will be planning that this coming week. Also, I received word from my old compa Hermana Martinez that a cute 9 year old boy named J who we taught together will be baptized this Saturday as well! I sure did love that casa de oracion. Tomorrow, we will be having a little class with the recent converts, and soon to be baptized investigadores, about la historia familiar (family history). Two hermanas from the Ward who work in the family history center will be helping them set up their own accounts. I am excited to show them the family tree and pedigree chart I packed with me and will be fondly thinking of my grandparents from both sides of my family who have put so much time into this.  Que mas les puedo decir? I am having a hard time remembering much of what happened this last week. All I know is that it was a good one. Oh, we had interviews and some great capacitactiones from the asistentes and los lideres de zona. Hermana Gonzalez and I were able to help out as well. We trained about the three compromisos we always extend -- praying, reading the Book of Mormon, and coming to Church. One of the examples we used was giving two missionaries each an apple. One of them was allowed to eat it, the other one no. They each shared their "experience" with us concerning the apple. Obviously they were very different; one was able to truly enjoy the goodness of the apple and the other one was not. We then read in 1 Nefi 8:10-12 about when Lehi partook of the fruit of the arbol de la vida (Tree of Life) and knew that it was most desirable above any other thing. The fruit represents the love of God and our Savior. El Libro de Mormon es otro testamento de Él (The Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ). It is something tangible that the people we teach, and each one of us, can read and experimentar and come to know. I do love that book. That's all I have for now. Saludos!

Hermana Jones



Gelatinas are a very popular dessert here. These have flowers inside. They were gifts from a guy who contacted us on the street. We didn't eat them. The Church members have told us to not eat anything that strangers give us. They have even gone so far as to give us a can of pepper-spray I keep stowed in my bag for protection. I feel that this area is safer than my first one in Oriental but we still need to keep alert.


My eagle egg haha :) 



Always fun to see my hermana friends, especially the crippled ones ;) haha everyone is giving me a hard time for this!


A very popular thing here is the moto-taxis. You sit in a little metal and plastic cart pulled by a guy on a motorcycle and pay 15 pesos to go from one place to another if you are in a rush.


My little study space :)


These are the stairs outside our front door that I run up and down in the mornings.


Part of our bedroom. I will try to send pics of my last apartment next week. Speaking of which, I am getting permission to go with Hermana Martinez and our companions to Chapultepec next week so I may write another day...not really sure yet. This is her last cycle and this is something that we have been talking about since last cycle :) Talk to you next week! Love you!

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

What a week it has been

Happy Monday! Wow what a week it has been. I once again find myself in a maze of concrete and buildings, unable to see the horizon but LOVING being here in Neza. For one thing, the streets are all lined up where they should be as found on the map, they have names, they have street signs with the corresponding names, and the houses have numbers all lined up neat and tidy in numerical order where they should be. That makes my life MUCH easier. A little less adventurous but more efficient time haha no more "the red house next to the tienda with two windows by the people who own a brown dog on the third street from the top of the hill with a bush that sings" hehehe anyhoo, life is good here :) I feel no stress whatsoever and am just happy to be here! I am in el barrio J E where many legendary missionaries have gone before me. It is an awesome Ward -- the capilla (chapel) was full to the brim yesterday. I love my companion! Her name is Hermana Torres and she is from Campeche by the coast. She is so tiny and so precious! She is here until her visa is finalized and them she will be serving a Spanish speaking mission in St. George and working in the visitor's center there. It is so much fun working with her and I am grateful for the opportunity to train again. The first time training I stressed too much. It is amazing how much I have changed in just 8 months. The Lord has given me so many opportunities and experiences to grow and become better. Right now I feel completely happy and stress free opening an area and training. I also feel like I can help my companion a lot more than I did with Hermana Carrasco. I just feel much more confident in my abilities. The Ward is divided into two areas. A companionship of Elders are on the south side and we are on the North side. It is a much smaller area than what I have been used to the last eight months but it is bigger than my first area. We are working on finding less active families, following lists and registros, as well as following referencias from the Ward members. The members are angels here. LOVE them. We live in what is called the "edificio mormona" because of the five families who live there, only one are not Church members. We are also picking up on where the Elders who were here before us left off in terms of investigators. Almost all of them are family members of recent converts which is great. We are also working off of the old lists of investigadores futuros -- basically lists of names of people who other missionaries contacted awhile ago and may have interest. Yesterday we had a really cool experience thanks to that. We decided to look for a man named Oliver on one of these lists. We knocked his door and he looked out from his top window. When we told him that we are missionaries and that we were looking for Oliver, he got a huge grin on his face and came down to meet us. He is a really big guy with a huge beard. He had a Sixers jersey and flat-brim on. The missionaries contacted him a few months ago but wasn't there when they went back and they never talked again. He told us that he wants to make changes in his life and feel peace again. We taught him La Restauración right there in the street outside his front door. He loved everything we taught and is so excited to come to Church this next Sunday. I felt a really good vibe from him and am confident that he will progress. It was so much fun to talk with him; my companion and I walked away from that lesson fist pumping the air and such :) Another cool experience -- we were walking in the rain last week when we crossed paths with a nice lady who invited us into her house. We began talking with her and realized that she is a Church member. We shared a scripture with her and then her husband who had been listening from the other room came in. We asked them if we would be seeing them on Sunday in Church and, after looking at each other for a moment, they said yes. They came yesterday along with their daughter and granddaughter. The daughter got up and shared her testimony, shedding tears and saying that even though she had not been in a long time she knew the Church is true and could feel the Spirit there. Later on we were called out of the second hour class by the Bishopric first counselor to meet with this family. Turns out they have been inactive or going to another ward or something for a long time and the ward does not have there records. They want to take care of that so they can be in this ward and set things right. Also, the daughter told us about her husband who is not a member and has not wanted to accept visits from anybody but now that we are here she wants us to visit him. We went last night and had a great experience. He is a military man who has been through a lot of tough stuff and does not have interest in religion but has a firm belief in God. Honestly I don't remember much of what my companion and I said but all I know is that we all felt the Spirit and he wants to learn more. His heart was definitely softened by the end. There have been other people like that who we met this week. It helps confirm to me that I am in the place where I need to be in the right time with the right people. One other experience this last week...because I am training we do more practicing during study time in the mornings. I put a picture of you four with me -- us as a family -- in front of us and we began "teaching" the Jones Family about the restoration of the Gospel to the earth. From the moment we started with Dios es nuestro amoroso Padre Celestial, I felt the Spirit so strongly there in our apartment. When I taught about the First Vision, and when my companion talked about the Book of Mormon and its role as a second witness of Jesus Christ, tears welled up in my eyes as I felt it all confirmed to me that this is true. I felt so grateful to know that we are an eternal family who has the restored gospel in our lives. It made me realize all over again why I am here and that this message is so important to share with as many families as possible. I want them to have the same reassurance and peace that we have as a family. I love you all so much :) Have a great week!

Love Hermana Jones



La Familia Matías Olivares - Dulce and Luis were just baptized and mom and dad will be following their examples. They made tamales for the Elders and us on our last night in the area. Love them so much! They had a huge impact on my life! Hermana Villalobos from Honduras is now with my old companion in the area.


Hermana T and her two adorable grandkids, E A and U. She made us delicious bean-filled homemade corn tortillas with all kids of yummy delights to put on top. She also made me a bag :) This was last Monday as well. She is the one who introduced us to Abigail and her kids. She is a top notch member missionary and I love her and her family a lot too :)




A few pics of the casa de oración in my old area. It is the house of the family S P. The green room is where we try to stuff as many people as possible for Sacrament Meeting and where we also have held Relief Society for the last couple weeks. The bottom-two pictures show the front part where you walk in; it also serves as space for Sacrament Meeting overflow. We put a speaker out there so that attendees can hear the person speaking (although you can't see them very well). Above are two empty cinder block rooms where we have other classes. Every week the Elders and we took turns teaching the jovenes/principios del evangelio. I loved being in this place.


This is F and he is one of my most favorite people EVER.


Hermana Lambert and Elder Miller. Hermana Lambert came running to me when she saw me and we had a big hug. Hermana Lambert está en Ayotla in a trio with Hermana Wong and Hermana Jones. Also, I am still serving as sister training leader with Hermana Gonzalez who is also training another missionary. We get to work with the hermanas in Neza and Oriental. Hermana Martinez (my old companion) and Hermana Villalobos work with the hermanas in Ixtapaluca.




These are pics of our apartment. I bought light bulbs today to brighten up the space (it is a bit cave-like) and when I installed them my companion called me a genius because I know how to change light bulbs haha it is now a little brighter and more cheerful :) I kind of feel like Buddy the Elf in the shower but otherwise it is a nice little place :) We also have couches. That is a first for me!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

NEZA YORK HERE I COME

Guess what?! Two wonderful people were baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday :) The first new members to be baptized and confirmed in the casa de oración -- the future Rama Tlalpizahuac. It was such a special experience :) A little hectic getting everything ready but it all turned out so well. We held the baptism at 5:30 Saturday afternoon in the Izcalli/Ayotla Church building. All day beforehand my companion and I were making programs, buying stuff, and running around like crazy. About an hour before the servicio is when life got stressful. We get a call from Elder Olson and Elder Camarillo (they work in the Branch with us) who were going to perform the baptism, and help us with a musical number, saying that the Temple session they had entered with a person they taught started an hour and a half late...and they were just leaving. I contacted our zone leader Elder Rodriguez who came to the rescue and said he would baptize them for us (they were planning on coming anyways). Then we stopped by the house of a few Church members who helped us make hot chocolate and were going to go with us to buy a cake and plates etc. The four of us got in a taxi and my companion had the big pot of chocolate on her lap. About four minutes into the drive it started splashing all down her skirt. We got to the store and we did emergency divisions -- I went with one of the hermanas into the store and we set a record pace of grocery store shopping while my companion and the other hermana stayed outside with the blasted pot of hot chocolate. We got into another taxi, made it to the church, and found that the hermano who was going to help us with the TV and video, and officially welcome Luis and Dulce to the Branch, was not there. Also our ward mission leader informed us that the font was still filling up. Thankfully Luis and Miranda were there with their white clothes -- that was the most important part. Hermana Wolferts and Hermana Jonapa were there and they helped us out with the musical number. After some more running around, and phone calls, everything was ready. We took pics and started the servicio. It was so wonderful! The room was full of people there to support the family. Two youth spoke about baptism and the Holy Ghost, and right before the baptism ordinance we watched a two minute video from the Mormon Channel of the baptism of Jesus. The feeling in the room was amazing. Then Luis Antonio (12 years old) and Dulce Miranda (14 years old) were baptized. Their mom Abigail who has been with them during every lesson, and knows that this is all true, was there in the front row. At the end the Luis and Dulce shared their testimonies and their mom, choking on tears, gave the closing prayer. It was such a beautiful experience and the Spirit was there. It hit me that they were truly following the Savior in this moment. Yesterday they were confirmed members of the Church and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Both of their parents came for the first time and loved it. I am very excited for my companion to continue teaching them this next cycle and hopefully see them baptized as well. La Familia Matías Olivares has become so special to me. I have written their story in my journal. Tonight we are going to eat tamales with them :D It amazes me how much a missionary can come to care so much about somebody they have only known for 2 or 3 months. It is hard to fully describe all that has happened and how I have felt but, but I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. It is such a privilege and blessing to be here. Tomorrow I go to Neza. Super excited! :D

Love,

Hermana Jones

The pictures below are from the baptism of Luis and Dulce Miranda.






The couple on the right, Hermana Teo and Hermano Ernesto, put us in contact with the Matias Family. Their grandson, who is a friend of Luis, gave a talk and taught about the importance of the Holy Ghost.


This is us after district meeting (not everyone there) and with part of La Familia Mendoza Ramirez who feeds all eight of us every Sunday afternoon. It has been fun, also a little chaotic you could say, eating with six 20ish year old young men, but it's a good time. Awesome memories. Back from left to right -- Elder Vite from here in the D.F. who is one of my zone leaders, Elder Olson from Utah who will be at Utah State in 3 weeks who worked as an office secretary for almost a year of his mission, my companion, Elder Lynch from California who is my district leader, Elder Rodriguez from Argentina who is my other zone leader. Bottom row from left to right -- Elder Onofre from Ecuador who I started with in Oriental, Elder Camarillo who has lived in different parts of Mexico who was President Stutz's assistant for awhile and will be going to BYU this January, me, Hermana Angelica, and a few of her kids (they were baptized a little over a year ago).


Eating two minutes before it rained and we rushed everything inside. 


Every Thursday night at 7 we have our coordination meeting with Hermano Juan, our ward mission leader, and a few other hermanos from the ward and sometimes a member from the bishopric. We always eat afterwards and take turns bringing the food. These last week, because Elder Olson and Elder Camarillo are finishing the mission and Elder Onofre and I have changes, we shared our testimonies and how we have felt working in this area. I have learned so much being here, mainly how to listen to the Spirit and follow it no matter what, especially when you don't understand why. It was very special.




My amazing district after a district meeting earlier in July.


P-day last week when we made carne asada and all that. I have realized that I need to learn how to cook. All of the Elders can cook better than me. Some of them worked as chefs. I burned water in President's house when I tried making spaghetti. I am pathetic.