February 9, 2015

The answer is in 1st Nephi 11: 16-17. I do not know what it says in English, as I only use Spanish scriptures now, but basically an angel asks Nephi if he knows the condescension of God (after he has been showed what will happen) and Nephi responds, Yeah, I know god loves all his children, but I still have no idea. I know not.

I can buy balloons here here super cheap, 70 pesos for 100 (5 and a half dollars). The ones I use are size 260. Ballon figure packets always have a number on them, the first digit represents thickness of balloon fully inflated (2 inches), and the other represents size fully inflated longitudily (60 inches). I figured out how to make missionaries (elders and sisters) with balloons. It takes 4 balloons to make an elder, and 6 to make a sister. They are super duper popular with the members. I have pictures, but I cannot send them because I do not know where the cord I use to transport pictures went, and all of the computers we can use have viruses that delete all content if you connect a memory to them. Going to have to wait for pics, sorry.

We spent more time working with less actives this week, and due to our efforts 3 families returned to church. Woo! Of our investigators, well... We had a ride planned for Diana. Our Mission Leader promised to pick her up and drive her to church, but he forgot. So she cannot be baptized on the 21st, and she could not attend. Sadness. The number of people who came this week was pretty great; we jumped from 140 to 180. The members helped us invite less actives, you see. Pretty awesome. The stake president came and asked the members to help us more. :) Happy!

We do not use English unless my companion doesn´t understand something someone said. It isn´t really all that different to have an gringo for a companion.

I do not really have anything else to send this week. Love you guys. Stay well. Don´t die.


Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,
Elder Scott

February 2, 2015 -- Candelaria

Today is Candelaria. Please permit me to explain. One month ago, we had the day of the Rosca de Reyes. Rosca de Reyes = Baby bread day (a charming tradition where people use a russian roulette type pastry to force their friends to do various things, including but not limited to buying or making tamales, paying the rent, spending one day only saying compliments, etc.). You know you are at your friends´ mercy if you get a little plastic baby wise man in your bread. Supposedly it is a reminder of the wise men who visited baby Jesus, but I do not see a connection. I did not get a ´´mono´´ (little figurine), but one of my investigators gave me hers. It is malformed, with one arm and the legs only, which I think is better anyways. One month after the Rosca de Reyes, we have a day named Candelaria. Candelaria = Tamale Night (an excuse to not work and also an excuse to force your friends to buy you tamales if you got one of the wise men from the giant donut on baby bread day). No matter what day this should be it is celebrated Monday so that the workforce doesn´t take the entire week off. They do no do anything else this day. Mexican traditions are great, don´t you think?

So anyways, we are doing work here.

1. Diana, one of our investigators who we have yet to teach, accepted a baptismal date, came to church, and is super excited to be baptized on the 21st. I find that a little incredible since we have yet to teach her, but she told us she asked god in prayer what she needed to do with her life and we showed up at her door. She is going through a difficult divorce right now because her husband took the kids and ran. She prayed for help and we arrived. :)

2. Evalyn is another investigator. We have been teaching her a little, and she also will be baptized on the 21st. She comes to church every week, asks a lot of questions, and really understands when we explain things, which is really nice. She has a good testimony, and she is already in Jacob! Wooh!

3. The Paz Martinez family (other investigators) bought a van so they can all go to church every week now. We are working to get the parents married on the 14th so that they can get baptized the 21st.

So, the zone is doing an activity, and there are 20+ baptisms scheduled for the 21st. Can you imagine every missionary and their investigators in white on the same day? How great would that be! Half of the people who attend would be dressed in white. We just have to get more clothing for all of these people. We have high hopes for the 21st.

So, I would like to share a question that someone asked me in church this week that is doctrinally profound, and I did not know the answer. I was shown the answer afterward in the Book of Mormon. It is the following:
Gog is a god of order. Our world is established by order, and everything that happens happens for prescribed and logic reasons. Earthquakes because tectonic plates move. Tornadoes because certain weather patterns naturally create them. Sin because with knowledge comes responsibility. Due to the fall of Adam, we have the knowledge to be able to create progeny. There are rules in this world. We cannot defy the law of gravity. All of the natural laws, we must follow, and God also is bound by these laws. So we are told by the scriptures. We know that for God, all laws are spiritual laws. He has not given us any purely physical laws. But in this life, for us, many of the laws are physical: Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, Law of Moses, you name it. Like us, God follows these laws. He would not ask us to do anything that he himself does not do. And we still do not live the highest laws. For reference to this, please see your nearest person who knows about the law of consecration and why we observe the law of the tithe instead. So, here is the question... The law of sexual interaction is the only way to have children here on the earth. A father and a mother are unable to have children if they do not have interaction. Their has to be a physical connection and interaction. Two men cannot have a child. Two women cannot have a child. (That is, without some major alteration) So, the question is this: how was Jesus conceived? Please keep in mind that God cannot possibly have broken the law of chastity. So, how? A Book of Mormon prophet answers this question. Lets see if any of you can answer it, you have until I write next week. Good Luck!

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,
Elder Scott

January 26, 2015 -- Anda con cien ojos.

Literally, that means go with 100 eyes. It is apparently a saying that originated who knows where, but it means go with caution. There are lots of sayings that I have started using, and almost all of them end up meaning different things than what the book I am currently studying told me they meant. One that did work, though, was "paso a paso andamos lejos," which means "step by step we go far away." Also, I have to explain lots of things to the people here because my companion has a really gringo accent, and a lot of the time no one understands him. But it is all right.

The new area is really strange. Almost all of the families we teach (yeah, families, not people) the parents are not married. Legally. It is incredibly common to live in "free union" here. Almost all of these families have more then 10 years together, but they do not see a need for marriage. They are not married legally. The reasoning is that for them, they are married, and God knows their hearts, so obviously for him they are married, too. Interestingly, almost everyone we talk to accepts a baptismal date and goes to church here even though the church is in another town and you have to hire a taxi in order to get there. But when we explain that marriage is something they have to do before they can be baptized and that they cannot be baptized due to the nature of living with someone you are not married to, they refuse to understand because it doesnt fit their life style. But on the 14th (go figure, valentines day) there are free marriages, so if the excuse is lack of money that one goes out the window. But, a family of 6 we were waiting to baptize accepted a marriage date (that is very strange to say, that we challenged them to get married) will be getting married and then baptized.

Oh, at this point I would like to explain a little about the ward. They are really great. Of the 600 (more or less) members in the directories only 140 (more or less) go to church The active members are incredibly active. They all want to help us all the time, and there are always activities planned. In addition, the list that says which members are going to feed the missionaries goes out once a year. You have to plan a year ahead if you want to feed us. That is absolutely ridiculous. All of the contacts we do end well. We get invited back to every house and person. About 1/3 of the people we talk to end up being less active members, who invite us to their house, we eat and share a message, and some of them come to church afterward. Everyone accepts the challenges we set and almost all of them do what we ask.

I am afraid I have to write about this. One of the investigators who came to church with us spent the entire time nursing her 4 year old kid--without a cover or anything, which I found rather strange, and I am sure it was distracting for the bishopric. Apparently it wasn´t all that strange because noone did anything about it or even deigned to notice. And when I say the entire time, it was the entire time--sacrament, the gospel principles class, and during the joined class we had the last hour to talk about goals in the reactivation of less active members. It was very strange.

This area is gigantic. It includes 4 townships, which are all part of one big city. But it takes about an hour and a half to walk to the farthest one, and a half hour to walk to the nearest one. We take taxis a lot.
I have started using balloons more in my teaching (why not? they are fun.) and I do figures to illustrate points in lessons--how we pray, what is effective study, the works. For example, the Book of Mormon is like an uninflated balloon. When we pray before reading, we put air into said balloon. Then reading chapters are twists, pondering things that we don´t understand are folds, and studying references are bear´s ears, which is one way to fold a balloon that I like a lot. If we do not do all these things, we cannot arrive at the figure at the end, because we did it wrong. That is how we get the spirit to testify, if we put in the work. But I am running out of balloons. Kids come up to me in the middle of the street and demand random animals (like ducks, for example). The favorites are a chihuahua and a monkey, although I end up doing other strange things. It is fun, though, and it makes their day, so there is no reason not to do it. And..... 

I finally weighed myself Wednesday, and I was very pleased to note that I dropped (how fat did you think I was? A lot, or a little?) 40 pounds, from 230 (yup, pretty fat) to 190. I still got some room to drop, though, so I will continue to work on that. And my clothes look just fine. If you do not know that they are gigantic, than they appear to be perfectly normal. Suit pants and white shirts are nice like that.

That is all I have for right now. it is good here.
Yup. Love ya.

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,
Elder Scott

January 19, 2015 -- Wizardry!

So, here I am in Matamoros. It is another city, and my old area is about one fourth of the size of this one. I got moved here today, which means I have basically no time to do the things I normally do on Monday.

I will relate a story entonces.

First off, my final day in the area we were able to get permission from the father of two of the girls we were teaching to baptize them. And their cousin decided to get baptized, too. So I get to miss their baptisms, unfortunately. We strapped down, and got some work done this last week. I do not get to see the fruits, but hey, seeds are great, too (especially sunflower seeds...no, pumpkin--pumpkin is the best!).

We were unable to visit the Ramirez Cruz family (which I considered crying about but decided not to) due to various gunfights that broke out near their house. That stunk.

On the bright side, exchanges are the times when the weirdest things ever can happen. I had two days of exchanges this week. In the first we knocked on a door, and the man invited us in. We had a short talk, and then the man took the coat of my companion for the day and proceeded to practice white magic on him. It was incredibly strange. He touched his heart, diagnosed him with a disease of the heart, and lightened his load by pressing many times on his big toe, feeling his heart (chest), and reading his aura--VERY strange. The following exchange, with his companion, we ended up visiting a practitioner of black magic. He did not put a death curse or anything on us (I think), but his shrine to saint death was super super creepy; and I am pretty sure the skull he had was not a fake. The sad part was both of them were really accepting and wanted to get baptized. But we cannot visit people when they believe and practice their magic on us. That could become dangerous.

Here I am with Elder Phelps, an Elder from Utah. He has the Utah accent when he talks in Spanish. Did you know there is an accent of Spanish that most Utahans speak? I didn't, but I have found that they speak the same (here at least). I'm super excited about the new area, although we have to take taxis every day. And guess what? They eat flour tortillas here! How amazing is that? I spent a long time with corn tortillas, but nothing beats flour. Mmmm.

I did not have a camera the entire week (do not ask, please) so I am unable to send pictures of dead animals. But don`t worry; I will have some next week, I hope. Have a good week!

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,

Elder Scott

January 12, 2015 -- This...kind of stunk.

This week was stinky. We were told we couldn't work one of the days due to the continuous cold and rain; but it wasn't really all that cold, and I like rain, so I didn't think it a viable reason to not work.

Some of the people we are working with dropped us and told us not to come back. That was pretty hard. Others that we are visiting all live in the same general area. Our district leader told us we couldn't visit over there for a good long while due to the presence of some Narcs in the area that were following us around.

We contacted a lot of people, but mostly they ended up being testigos and telling us not to come back. We ended up attending a Rosca de Reyes activity for another ward because the Ramirez Cruz family wanted to go. It was very fun, and I got a little figurine that is misformed. That was pretty nice.

We visited our investigators, but almost no one was home this week. It's kind of hard to believe since it was cold and rainy all week, but yeah. We met some new people, and did some work. No one came to church that we invited (once again due to cold rain and other circumstances that they explained to us), and we were able to accomplish very little "statistically".

But, I found out the reason why. I had the (surprise) opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting Sunday. I had absolutely no idea what I should talk about. So I prayed, and I prepared two talks. When I walked into sacrament meeting I knew which I had to share. I ended up talking about the unity that should exist between members or the church. The two following talks were about the same thing. All three discourses planchó (I do not know this word in English) all of the membership. But during my talk the members were all dead silent. Even the babies and little kids stopped messing around and talking. The spirit was very strong, and I talked about my experience with bullying when I was a kid in Sunday school and how that affected me, how our actions can put the souls of other people in danger, and that we need to live what we say. I pleaded that they change the things that they are doing in order to reflect the people they are, each a child of god. I also got the answer I had been praying for about what I should do with my zone leaders during my talk. When we find ourselves in a position like mine right now, it is because we allow other people to walk all over us. You may remember that I am very patient, even to the point of being docile. I decided I am going to change that. I am going to change myself so that I can better serve.

You might be asking why I decided to share this. It doesn't make me sound good. But here is the point, I think I figured out what I was supposed to learn in this area--that is to take a stand. Up to this point, the zone leaders have been fighting a one sided war against us with the members and our area. I don´t like conflict, as you well know. Actually, I think abhor is a better word. And so I allowed them to do whatever they want. But as a result of their actions and my indifference, as missionaries of the same ward, we are not accomplishing much. We do not have the familial bond that the scriptures talk about. And I am unable to force them to change. That would be a violation of their free will.

So the answer I came to with much prayer and thought is that the best option would be to talk to president about the problem. I am waiting for his response, and as a designated representative of God in this mission, and the supervisor of this part of the vineyard, he will know what best to do. At this time, I wait. That is what we do. For it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I'm pretty sure that was Abraham Lincoln. And in order to serve better, we all need to subject ourselves to the will of God, whatever that may be.

I realize that I will probably end up getting reprimanded, demoted, and maybe other unpleasant things. But if we are willing to live, we need to learn to be men and not mice. The difference is very finite I have learned.

We shall see where things stand next Monday. I do hope that things improve.

Well, love you guys. Have a nice week, and fingers crossed, ok?

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,

Elder Scott

January 5, 2015

Well, happy new year.

This week was pretty difficult, too, because I learned that until the 7th, almost everyone will not have returned from vacations.

But, really great news! The inactive guy we talked with about serving a mission came back to church and stayed for the whole thing! He is talking to the bishop about changing his life, and everything is going phenomenally with him. He invited us to come to his house on Tuesday for Rosca de Reyes, which is when you get together with your friends and eat a really huge donut--at least I am pretty sure that is what it is. We shall see.

Unfortunately our investigators felt they could not come due to: 1st, their visitors and needing to attend to their needs; 2nd, the amount of work they had due to the malos threatening their lives if they did not have this many tables made by monday; and 3rd, arrived home from vacations in the morning and were extremely tired.

Oh, before I forget, we had a really fun lesson yesterday. We were walking down a street and a car stops and the driver yells out at us, Hey! What are you guys doing? (This is approximate because it was Spanish.) So we went to talk to him; it is so much easier when people take an interest in you after all. When we looked over, it is a car with tinted windows and 4 men inside smoking marijuana and staring at us. Well, we walk over, and at this point we can see that they are packing. The driver and the person at his side had grenade launchers. Can you imagine this? I did not know what to do. But you know what? The driver wanted to hear what we had to say. We taught him the lesson of who God is, the trinity, and how they work together. They asked when we had services so that they could come. We did not try to give them baptismal dates, because we did not feel it would be right. Also, they would probably not be able to pass the baptismal interview. But we shall see. Very interesting that. Also turns out they know some of the members that we are helping right now. We are praying to know what to do about them. Because I was pretty much dumbstruck when they talked to us.

In other news, people have started coming back from their vacations. That is really great, because that means that we can talk to more people! We did quite a bit of contacting this week, but due to the season almost all of them were visiting family, and as a result we passed their information to the elders that pertain to their area.

My first comp is on probation because he had movies. I never saw said movies. That astounded me. How can you hide things from someone you spend all day with everyday? Or maybe I am just really obstinately oblivious. I do not know.

I am pretty happy about the new year. This should be exciting.

Well, next week.

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,

Elder Scott

December 29, 2014

Well. Hello again. This week was very very relaxing. It's hard to imagine, but during the holidays, people go on holiday! I know, weird, but please bear with me. Your incredulity will wear off; please allow me to explain. Apparently during the Christmas season, people want to see their families (I know, weird right?) and the majority actually leave town to visit them and spend time with them! How very strange! Well anyway, to give you an idea of how many members went on vacation, of the nearly 150 that go to church every week, we had a whopping 68 show up, including the six missionaries who went. Citywide, only roughly 1/3-1/2 of the people are home. And if someone was in their house, they were getting ready for a party later that night. It made doing missionary work really difficult. I had no idea how hard it is to preach during Christmastime. Nobody wanted to invite a gringo and his companion into their house to preach to them; they wanted to spend time with their families. And I can respect that, but they do not know they are missing! With this gospel they will be able to spend eternity with their families! Argh.

I learned something new this week. Apparently, when there is a light on outside of your house that means the people who live there are not home. I found that strange because in the states I am pretty sure it is the opposite. It is almost like it is a different country or something. :)

Also, I learned something about the smurfs. Do you know how to say smurf here? I am guessing not. Well I do. It is..... pitufu! And the name gets longer depending which pitufu you are talking about. Smurfette, for example is pitufita. Baby smurf is pitufufito. Their names are really fun to say, although I cannot remember them.

Talking to my family was awesome. My favorite part was when I asked Jessica about Alex :) It was really nice talking to them.

This week we spent trying to visit less active members because Christmas is a good time to invite them back to church and to learn about Jesus and all that his gospel has to offer. We spent a lot of time with the young women´s president trying to find houses of less actives. One of the houses didn´t even exist--just a ruin where a house used to be. We had a little succeeds this week. We found the Ramirez Cruz family, of whom there are eight. The mom is awesome, the kids are great, the father is a cool guy. We haven´t met the oldest son yet, but everyone is is really cool. They enjoy when we come and visit them, and the little girls just want me to sing to them the whole time. Unfortunately, no investigators came to church this week due to vacations, and in the case of one older couple, the extreme cold.

We visited a less active member with some very specific challenges, and we managed to, once again, animate him for the possibility of serving a mission. We warned him that it would not be easy. He has some very great obstacles to overcome, but I know he can do it.

On Christmas eve, I went to a feast-type dinner with some ward members. We ate a lot of posolli (a heavenly soup of chicken, lettuce, corn, pepper, pig, radish, and lemon). You eat it with tostadas. YUM.

All things considered I am doing better. This isn´t easy, but it is worth it. Love it here.

Happy after Christmas!

Saludos, Amor, y Todo que puedo ofrecer a tí,
(Salutations, Love, and All that I have to offer you,)
Elder Scott

[More dead things--ack!!!]