DIA DE GRACIAS!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!! I had a good Thanksgiving here in Mexico! Its not a holiday here, so pretty much nothing happened. I am not complaining when I say this but I am just going to say that I am thankful for all the Thanksgivings I have had at home and I am thankful for all the Thanksgivings I will have at home. It was different without turkey, taters, gravy, oh and my love that I have missed so very much...Pumpkin pie!!!!! haha but really I had a great week, and I am very thankful for the things that I learned this week. We had an awesome experience to have Elder Tenorio of the Quorum of the 70 come and have a conference with us. He gave a great talk. He told a lot of stories which I love. His wife read us the ¨giving tree¨ and we were all in tears. Man that book is good!!! After the conference he came to the offices with us and we got to sit down and talk with him for a while. I was so grateful for that opportunity! He is a very powerful man and there is no doubt that I knew he was a man of God the moment he walked in to the room. We are getting ready for Christmas here! We have a tree set up. I helped President with the lights. We have Christmas music playing all the time here. Its great. Next week are changes so this means I don't get to sleep. I am 99 percent sure that I am going to stay here in the offices for another change, but who knows. We found a few new investigators. We are changing things up a bit, and really focusing on the youth because 1.we are frustrated with the old people here. They will listen to us but they don't do anything and sadly that's 90 percent of the population. But I won't lose my faith!!! 2. is because my companion and I, we think we are kinda cool but who knows??? But I imagine we could get along with some teenagers and young adults. and 3. this ward has less than 5 people under the age of 22. not counting the 4 kids in the primary. WE NEED TO SAVE THE WARD!!!! I am having a great time here in Mexico, I am learning a lot from my struggles and challenges here. I have a lot to learn! I am thankful to serve a mission and to be here in Mexico! I am thankful for all of your prayers. I am thankful for this Church, and being a part of it. I am thankful for Christ, he did a lot for me, and continues to do a lot for me everyday. I am thankful for my Mom and Dad and all my brothers I love them all.

Surprise Baptism!

Hola! Well this week was great! We have been visiting members a lot to find some references and we found out that one of the girls in the primary isn't baptized. Her name is Alondra. Her grandma is a temple worker and she goes to church with her. Her mom is a little less active and her dad lives in a different city and is inactive. She just barely turned nine and her grandma asked if we could baptize her. It was a special experience getting to teach a little kid. Of course we just had to teach the basics but she still had an interview and everything. She was pretty excited about it up until she poked a toe in the freezing water. The boiler didn't work so the water was ice cold. She started to cry and her dad came to the rescue, with jeans on and everything. He jumped in the water and helped ease her into the ice cold water. Elder Moguel baptized her and right after, she gave her dad a huge hug and there were a lot of tears. It was a cool experience. We have been working pretty hard lately, but we are still having problems finding new people. I swear 99 percent of the people that live here are over the age of 70! But I will not lose my faith!!! THERE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD THAT ARE READY TO BE BAPTIZED HERE!!!!!!!!!  We just gotta find em. We had divisions one day this week and I went with Elder Escamilla and we found this guy that looked like Phil Collins only with a bigger beard. After I presented myself and shared my testimony he started talking to me in another language. I told him I didn't understand, then he told me he was from something called Opis diem. I didn't really understand, but he got really upset and yelled at me a lot. Well it turns out Elder Escamilla, before he was baptized, was studying to be a Catholic Father. He told me that he was speaking in latin, and Opis Diem were the assassins for the catholic church. It was weird but it was kinda cool too. Well I had a good week. I love the mission. I love the church. This week is going to be awesome! Elder Tenorio of the Seventy is coming, he actually will arrive tonight. I think I will get to spend a lot time with a General Authority this week!!!! I am pretty stoked about it.

 Elder Mogul

Yep! Thats right! I drove the President's car today and it was real great! I don't know that I have ever driven a new car before. Not the highlight of my week, but it is most defs going in the journal. This week was rough. We worked a lot with the President to get the mission in order and we have a lot of things that we need to change. Hermano Manuel fell into temptation for the first time in almost 5 weeks!!! We were devastated! I wanted to cry. But I know why he fell. He has been a little sick for two weeks, and he missed church two times in a row. He wasn't at full spiritual strength. I hope this strengthens his testimony of the power of attending church. It was a sad day! We were going to take him to a baptism service of our buddy's in a neighboring ward but he was in no condition to attend a Baptism service. So we decided to go contact instead. While walking to the colony we decided to contact my companion and I needed to use the restroom. There was a store that had bathrooms and the church, both about the same distance from where we were.We decided to choose the church (always decide to choose church!!!) While we were there a young man shows up on his motorcycle wondering about English classes (a few elders a few months back gave English classes here). Anyways a member told him about them and he showed up! Have I ever taught English before? Nope! But it will work out. I do speak English! We talked about English for like 2 seconds and the rest we talked about the plan of salvation. He was way interested and came to church yesterday! It was real great. Hermano Daniel is a great guy. I know that wasn't a just a coincidence(help me with that one mom, I know you probably spell check me and take out words you don't like, like poopy or sucky and stuff like that before you forward this stuff, haha) God is blessing us for our hard work. We found a Chilis in our area and maybe one of these days I will get an awesome blossom. I love you all! Read the Book of Mormon, I wish I had more time to read it. Really you all have time to read it. I love it! thanks for all your support and prayers.

Basketball Again!

Well this week was alright -nothing too exciting happened. We have alot of work to do in the offices and in the field. I finally played basketball again for the first time since my first area. It felt great!  I am still doing work down low. They call me the mexican Dwight Howard. When I entered the offices, we were in the middle of a huge visa mess! Elder Gonzalez and I fixed a lot but right now we are finially getting out of the woods. This means I get to sleep a little more and also I HAVE MORE TIME FOR THE FIELD!!!!! We are really grateful that it is almost cleaned up. A lot of miracles happened. This week was alright. Hermano Manuel was sick so he couldn't go to church, but after sacrament meeting Elder Moguel and I visited him, His mom is way Catholic but way nice. She has watched him go through all of his problems and now she is definitely noticing that he hasn't been drunk for over a month and asked him if we could do anything for his flu. We explained to him about blessings and  then we gave him one.. We all felt the spirit really strong, I loved it. He is an awesome guy and we are pretty tight. He was a big tennis player back in the day. We are hoping he will be baptized next week. He has to wait a little longer because of his addiction and he wants to be sure that this is the true church. But I know he can be baptized the next week. We have alot of work to do. A lot of finding. Well I am tired and I am going to the temple tomorrow!!!! Super excited! love you all!!!!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone is willing to share half their stash ofcandy with me! Well we had some transfers in the offices, Elder Gonzalez left and Elder Moguel came back. I don't know if you guys remember, but he was in a trio with us for a couple of days - he is a pretty cool guy  from the Yucatan. Transfers as a secretary of the mission are pretty rough! We didn't sleep, we didn't eat. I drove EVERYWHERE!!! But it was awesome!!! I got to see a ton of my old buddies like Elder Esquivel! And I also got to see a ton of Guadalajara that I haven't seen before, like a ton of crazy art buildings and bridges. It was a good experience. 4 new Americans arrived this weekend. Its crazy to think I was in their situation not too long ago. None of them speak spanish and we had to train them in all spanish. I remember giving that wide-eyed gaze and nodding my head like I understood, far to well! It felt so good to get out in the field and work again this week. I was craving it. We found a couple of new people that look like they have potential to be escogidos. Yesterday was a great day.We got to church and the Bishop told us that we were giving the talks! I wrote a few things that I wanted to talk about, said alot of prayers and it turned out great! I felt the spirit and half way through I had the strongest impression to say I promise all of you that you all have a friend or family member that can be baptized. I then stood there, gave it a nice pause, and I think it really sunk in. I didn't know why I needed to say that really until after church a girl came to me and gave us a reference that she had a lot of faith in. The time I have been in this ward we have received only one reference so they are a huge deal!!! I was very happy and very gratefull! Hermano Octavio got the Priesthood yesterday! I was very happy about that. This ward is in desperate need of priesthood holders. We have a couple but the majority of them are over 70 years old. The closing ceremony of the Panamericanos was last night and we could see and hear the fireworks. It was pretty awesome. Well I am getting ready for the Christmas season and I would love some Christmas cds if you want to send them this way.