P-Day update week 36, 24/10/2022

 Hola hola!

So this week has gone by crazy fast! I don't have a lot of time but I'll try to make it interesting!

Elder Galvez and me

So this week has gone by suuuuper fast! It felt like a short week since there were a lot of things to do, but not a lot of it was teaching unfortunately. So we only had a few lessons this week, but the few lessons that we did have were great!! This week we taught one of our new friends named Carl! We found Carl about a week or two ago, we were looking for a reference we got on our phone, and had to knock on the doors of an entire neighborhood (we never ended up finding the reference :/)! And as we were knocking we came across Carl and he invited us to come back in a few days and teach him! So on Wednesday we stopped by and taught him in his workshop! We taught him the first half of the Restoration of The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we learned that he has a great understanding of The Bible and has great faith in Christ! Sometimes I think that it is a coincidence that we meet some of these amazing people, but then I remember who I'm working for. There isn't such a thing as coincidence when you're on the Lord's errand! We set an appointment to meet with Carl again this Thursday, so stay tuned! We also had the chance to teach Merida and her family this week! We arrived and sat down and then right there they started asking us questions! It was so much fun!! I love questions, especially when you think about Joseph Smith and how everything started with a question! They asked us a lot about what happens after this life, they asked us about their daughter who died shortly after she was born. These questions very easily helped us understand what the topic of our lesson should be. The plan of salvation! We began to teach and bear testimony of this wonderful plan our father has created for us! As we continued through, Elder Parker gave a wonderful testimony of this plan and how it has affected his personal family. As he did I felt the spirit bear testimony to me again, of the truthfulness of this plan, and Hermana Merida knew as well as tears streamed down her face. The spirit was so strong in that room, I know that Heavenly Father loves all his children, but the love he shares with those of his children who are passing through despair is a whole other thing! This family is truly loved by their God!! I am very excited to see where he takes them in these coming weeks, so we will see how it goes! 

Now the last big lesson we had this week was with a friend that we've been teaching for a while, her name is Dayanna. She's been receiving lessons from the missionaries since before I got here, and she has been very cold and very hot sometimes when it comes to the gospel. But we knew that right now was not her time, so we decided to visit her one last time for a while. I wish I could say that a miracle happened and she's getting baptized next week, but we went in there and told her how much we loved her, but how many people are waiting for us to knock on their door and receive Christ. And we couldn't visit often anymore, and she said okay. It was very hard to say goodbye to her, she has always treated us with kindness, but right now is not her time, and that's okay! Everyone will have their chance to accept the gospel, EVERYONE! So I'm not too worried, hopefully in a few months or years, missionaries come along and she decides to become a member of Christ's restored church!

I found some good wings in the mall the other day!!

The wing place was called "Wings Army" so of course they had to have an army guy there!

This week was the last week of the transfer, so that means it was the last district council we would have with a few people that were going! It was such a good district council! We started off with all sitting around a table, and eating some cookies! Then from there we recited a few scriptures and got right in! Elder Parker got up and told everyone that we would each go up and share something that we learned this transfer, or someway that we grew during these past few weeks. First up was me, and the only thing that came to mind was to give thanks to my companion. Elder Parker has been so awesome! He has helped me so much become a better missionary and become a better disciple of Christ! It has been truly a pleasure to be his companion! From there each person got up and gave their testimonies, we knew a few people who forsure were leaving and their testimonies were very bitter sweet, but we know that they have great things to do out there in the other parts of the mission! After we all bore our testimonies, we got into the learning part. And Elder Parker decided to teach about the teaching model we use here in the mission! I'm sure I've talked about it before and I'm sure you all know how big of a testimony I have of the teaching model, but I truly believe it is the perfect way to teach, in just about any sense inside the church, it is powerful!! Anyway he taught about the teaching model and gave everyone the chance to practice and gain a better understanding, while also making sure that everyone knew that they should be using it, if they weren't already! It was honestly perfect! I was just thinking the other day of how much I think the teaching model should be reposed and perfected with all the missionaries! Elder Parker truly is the best District Leader I've had!! And after all that we got some little caesars pizza and finished off with a little chill sesh! I love the District Alborada!!!

So like I mentioned, this week is transfer week, and oh boy did a lot of stuff happen! First things first, the transfers here are...Elder Parker will be leaving and going to the other side of the mission to a city called Tuxpan! He will be going there and will train a brand new missionary! I will be staying in Alborada, and I will finish the training of a missionary named Elder Galvez! Once we found that all out, we knew that Parker had to say goodbye to some people! So we spent about a day just going around and saying goodbye to people here in the area. Especially since he's served here for so long (5 months) it was really important to say goodbye to people and just thank them! It was cool to see how much the members care about him, there really are great people in this world!! After our day of saying goodbye a lot of stuff went down! The day after we received our transfers and said goodbye, was the day that the new missionaries were going to come in, 22 missionaries!!! With that many people they needed to find places to stick them all, and because we have a fairly big apartment, they told us that we would be holding 7 missionaries in our house!! 4 new missionaries and 3 trainers who had to come down early since they live so far away! That means that we had 9 missionaries in our house on Friday night! And when we went into the offices in the morning to do some stuff we also had another big surprise! Elder Ruiz is one of the missionaries in our district, he's been here for about 3 transfers, and I've come to become great friends with him! We've bonded over our love for the Disney parks! And about a month ago he got a package with a really cool Mickey tie in it! One of our running jokes is the fact that I always ask him to give it to me haha! But when we went to the office the other day he told me to close my eyes, that he had a gift. I opened my eyes and there was his Mickey tie!! I was so shocked, and grateful, and kinda sad that he gave up one of his favorite ties. But after he signed it I knew that every time I wore it, it would be like he was right back in Xalapa, I'm really gonna miss that guy!

Mickey tie!!

Alright as for those missionaries that stayed in our house. So that day we did a deep clean of the apartment, and we also replaced a few burned out light bulbs, We had to make sure the new guys didn't get scared off hahaha! When it was finally time to pick up the new missionaries, we went to the stake center and introduced ourselves to everyone. There are sooo many new missionaries, the majority are Americans from Utah but that's cool, if they work hard it doesn't matter!! After saying hi to everyone, we grabbed the missionaries that were staying with us, two Elders from Utah, one from Chihuahua, and one from Guanajuato! Getting them to the house was a little bit of a hassle, we first had to find a taxi, and then we had to find another one! And these past few weeks have been crazy with the taxistas, I swear they made a declaration amongst themselves that they would just raise the prices extraordinarily high from now on! And because we can only fit four in each, we had to get two taxis! After a lot of waiting we eventually all made eit home, we got their stuff all set up in the house and then I left quickly again with one of them to go order the food for dinner. As we talked on our way to the taco spot, I got to learn a lot more about this Elder. He explained some of the things he's heard about the mission, and how excited he was to get started! It's really strange meeting brand new missionaries, they always have such a drive to go out there and do good, and even though they mess up sometimes, they just keep on trucking! Anyway we ordered the food and then we picked up the trainers that were staying with us as we headed back. When we were all there it was so much fun! Having that many missionaries in our house was really cool, Especially seeing how the trainers interacted with the new missionaries! There was one trainer who didn't speak English so when one of the gringo missionaries tried to speak Spanish with him it was very entertaining, I remember when I was young like that hahaha!! And I'm not sure if I'll ever have the chance to do something like that again, where a bunch of missionaries will be in the house at the same time like that, so I tried to enjoy the experience without getting too stressed out haha!! After we got our taco dinner and we showed the new missionaries the proper way to eat tacos al pastor, we got ready for bed and called it a night! The next morning we all woke up and chatted as we got ready for the day, everyone seemed ready to get going, so we got all the suitcases and headed out the door. The Zone Leaders got here right as we were about to leave, since I would be staying with them until my new companion arrived! We found some taxis nearby and shipped everyone off to the stake center, not too bad this time around! 

Our day from when we left the missionaries to when I went to bed was also kinda crazy! The ZLs and I had a quick breakfast and then had to go to the church to grab a missionary who snuck in haha, while we were there I said hi to a few missionaries and then we booked it out of there headed for the bus station! We got to the bus station and had to end up waiting about three hours for my companion to show up! But at that time a lot of other missionaries arrived who were heading to their areas with their new kids (In the mission, when you train a missionary they call him your kid) so I got to say goodbye to quite a few of them! A sister missionary in our zone who has been here the past two transfers with me, unfortunately had to go home due to medical problems, but she also came by to say goodbye to everyone, and that was really nice! Eventually though, my companion arrived! He got here and then we very quickly grabbed his stuff and dropped them off at the house before our food appointment! From there we decided to knock some doors since we had free time, so I had the chance to hear my new companion work, he is such a good missionary, obviously he is still in his training and has a lot to learn, but he is off to a great start! From there we quickly zipped over to the stake center for the sports activity, we changed and got out there as we waited for our friends to show up! And boy did they show up! One of the kids brought 7 of his friends to the sports activity!!! It was really cool to see such a young kid go out of his way and invite someone to a church activity, but 7 was just amazing!! We made sure to say hi and get to know them, then we got into playing some basketball and some soccer, it was really cool! As the night grew on we had to go, we said goodbye to everyone and went and waited for a taxi. We waited for a while but eventually got one and headed back! 

From there our week was pretty normal, church, food, sleep, P-day things, nothing too interesting. My companion by the way is from Culiacán Sinaloa, he's my first Mexican companion! But because he's a coordinator, he speaks English haha!! But I'm excited to see what I can learn from him and how I can grow in these next couple weeks!

Pretty, incarcerated cat

Well that's all folks, a super quick week, but I feel fulfilled! I wanted to leave you all with a spiritual thought, this week I want to stress the importance of Charity and Love! As human beings we are always looking for ways to be happy, to feel filled, and sometimes it's hard to find what it is we're looking for. But I have found that as we focus on loving others we often find the piece of the puzzle that we were missing. I have often discovered that when I turn outward during times of trouble, I find the happiness I was needing, not in myself, but in my search to help those around me. The scriptures say "Charity never faileth" So I wanted to invite you all, to look for a chance this week to show true love and charity for someone. That is the secret to a happier and more fulfilling life, showing love for God and for our neighbor. I know that we are loved immensely by our Heavenly Father, so we should share that love with as many people as we can! I love you all and I hope you have a week filled with love and joy! See you all next week!!