February 24, 2014

 Familia,

Well thank you everybody for telling me that you had nachos this Sunday. I am sure they were delicious and just so you know I have not had nachos since I got to Mexico. I don’t think that’s even Mexican food, but you will be happy to know that I ate elote(Mexican corn on the cob) today, which is that corn on the stick that they eat in nacho libre, so I am pretty sure I won.

Well this week has been pretty interesting. We have realized that we have not had a whole lot of success in the area of investigadores but we are doing great with the in-actives. This week we were working with a young man from this ward whose name is victor.  He is 16 years old and is more or less in active and plays professional soccer here in Mexico. The sad thing is, he started drinking and doing drugs when he was 14 with the team and had problems with the law of chastity, but had started to change with some of the other elders who had passed by and that he thought he had never felt the spirit but he realized that he had, and he does, every time that the elders go to his house and that he wants to be better. He has already talked to the bishop and is starting to prepare for the mission and wants to go on splits with us. He is an amazing kid who has had a lot of challenges but I know that he will be a great missionary and I am excited to work with him more this next week.

We had been teaching a few new ones this week and are starting to have more work, but it is still pretty hard to find people, but one day when we hadn’t had a whole lot of success, we went to a ward activity a little early to help set up and to talk to some of the members.  We got there and there was a member whose name is Joel. He is an amazing guy and had brought with him his nephew who is not a member. We were able to talk with him for about 15 minutes and committed him to come to church that Sunday, but ran out of time before we could put a fecha (date) with him; but don’t worry, he showed up at church with his uncle and we have another appointment with him. His name is Carlos and he is pretty freaking sweet.

I don’t have a whole lot of stories from this week. I will work better on writing them down and send you some more interesting stories, but something that I really loved about this week was my study.  I decided to study virtue this week, I don’t know why but I felt like I needed to study it. Well I really liked the story that it uses in there of Jesus when the woman touches his clothes and he says virtue left him and at the bottom in the footnotes it says that virtue is power and strength, I guess that’s when I started to study more in depth and realized how important virtue is and how important it is to let virtue garnish your thoughts always. In one of the other scriptures, not sure where in doctrine and covenants, it says virtue leads to virtue. So I figure if I am virtuous, I will be lead to virtuous people.

 I have started to memorize scriptures in Spanish and English everyday. It used to be only every once in awhile, but now it is everyday, and it has helped me a lot. So my words of advice this week- study up on your virtue and memorize some scriptures. I wanna hear about it.

Gaby, happy sweet 16 and I don’t know why you all still think I have typhoid. that happened like three months ago!

 Love you all thanks for your prayers and your help in this time. 

Elder Monsivais

February 17, 2014

Familia,

Wow this week has been crazy, well not really, but I am still trying my best to find people to teach and to baptize and bring someone to the gospel of Christ.

Well this week one of the people we were teaching, Miguel, told us that he had been in jail and that he is moving..... we had been working with him for awhile and well when this came up it was a little tough. The next day he told us that he would not be moving but that he would wait and stay and be baptized so that he could find the church easier in the place where he will be going. Then we called the president to see if he could be baptized he said no that he could not be baptized until he had been active for three months and then president could talk to him. Well that was a little hard for us, but we are going to do our best to help Miguel out.

This transfer has been one of the hardest ones that I have had in my mission. We have tried all we can to find people to teach and to prepare to be baptized but with little success. I am, at times, a little frustrated.

Then one day we decided (because we did not have a lot of appointments.) to visit inactive families who we had not been able to get a hold of since day one. We passed by with one of them and they all happened to be there! I thought wow what luck. Then the next family who had never been there- well, they were there too! Every single family we had not been able to visit for weeks, we were able to visit all in one day.

Then well, we're still a little disappointed, because we had only found a couple of new people to teach. We went to go visit an active member to see if she had any references. She gave us 15 references without asking for them and she put an appointment with us to visit all of them..... She told us that the ward had been in a really bad position for a long time and told us a bunch of the bad and sad things that had happened. She told us that maybe we would not have a whole lot of success, but that we were helping clear some of the power of Satan out of the way so that others could find the light. So that made me feel a little better.

The next thing that happened is I found out the real story about the chupacabras it was all just a joke. It is not a legend. A Governor here in Mexico wanted to change the price of the peso to make himself a lot richer, so he made up a story to distract the people and while they were distracted he made the change. haha Wow! and I thought I was dumb.

I, also this week, was sitting in a family home evening with a member and his two sons when all of the sudden I got the impression to challenge them to learn the first vision and the purpose as a missionary. I later challenged other teens who are preparing for the mission. I am happy to report that they have all memorized the first vision and the purpose and now I have to buy pizza! Dont know how I am going to do it but I am sure it will all work out somehow.

I have learned a lot here in the mission, like how amazing the church is and how amazing it is in Utah. I don't think we know how blessed we are. I am really regretting not doing my home teaching. I never realized how important that was and what a gift it is. So sorry about that dad, but I want you to know that even through members, the Lord touches the hearts of so many. Please don't let a chance to serve or to share your testimony pass by even if it is with a friend or a member or in a church class; it is so important it will bless and change lives, even if it is only yours.

Love you all. I will try and get more interesting stories for this next week. 

Elder Monsivais

February 10, 2014

Hola familia y los demas(Hello Family and others) (las personas quien todavia no me escriben – The people who still do not write to me)

Well this week has been pretty much the same we have been trying to visit people but it has been pretty hard to find people to teach. Alot of people tell us that our area is the worst and that we are not going to find many people and what makes it worse is we are opening the area so it has been a little tough but eh, we are going to baptize at least four this change I hope. haha.

One thing that was pretty sweet is that right after we finished emailing, my comp received an email from his friend saying that his aunt lives in Xalapa and that maybe one day we could go and visit her on p-day. Well, I asked him where it was and he said that street and then our map just flashed in my eyes and I yelled HEY ESTA EN NUESTRA AREA!!(Hey! It is in our area!!) It was just barely in our area, so we went and we were not able to put fechas (dates)with them but they are accepting the lessons right now and we are suppose to stop by and teach them a couple times this week.

We also have an investigator, Miguel, he was -well we found him in kind of a bad situation, but we are helping him right now and he is progressing a lot and has already been to church so we are hoping to baptize him before the end of the month which would be great. He has really shown a desire to change and we hope that it is real, but he has told us several times yo dejare cual quier cosas para ser bautisado (I would give up everything to be baptized), so I hope he is telling the truth. 

I learned a couple of new phrases this week the first quiere partir pan which means you wanna part the bread -but it means to fight here- and the other is quieres ver Mexico en la noche which means wanna see Mexico in the night- which also means wanna fight or wanna black eye so, it has been pretty awesome.

There is a sister in our ward and she has a dog that likes to eat yellow apples and hates people. Well, I have now changed her heart(the dog) and she is pretty much my best friend. She was kissing my face. Now I just need to do that with my investigators, and I mean change their hearts, not get them to kiss my face. (Dave she went 100 percent in I didn’t even move).

We met a sweet hermana(siter) this week. She has a non-member husband and we are going to do our best to help them become a full member family. They are really awesome people and they even invited me to their daughters birthday party and fed us a bunch of homemade pizza and water of jamaica no not jamaica like bob marley it is a fruit or something I think.

We have been working hard to find new people but we are getting really frustrated. We have noticed that even though we get mad sometimes, we still have the best companionship because other people have been talking behind their companions back, but we talk to each other and have been super happy together. haha He is pretty funny and a great guy, but he eats a lot and I mean a lot.

Well sorry, not a whole lot has happened this week but I just want you to know that the Lord is aware of everyone of us and like it says in Alma 7, I think it is 11, he suffered every affliction, pain, temptation, everything he could have succored us by the power of revelation but chose to suffer every single pain to help us know we are not alone. He is there for us and will help us. I have had some struggles this transfers. It has been really hard on me, but I know that he loves me and he helps me with every step and for that I am grateful.

Love you all and Hope that you have a great week. y si quieres partir pan o ver mexico en la noche digasme y pues voy a ensenarte jaja (and if you want to break bread or see Mexico in the night, let me know because I am going to teach you. haha).

Elder Monsivais.

February 3, 2014

Familia

Wow and I thought I had a bad week sorry to hear that Mara is going to return home and that Jen’s granpa died and I hope Dave didn’t make any bets on the game.

Well this week, I guess, has been a little hard for everybody, but I know that everything happens for a reason even if we can’t see the plan right away you just got to wait for the whole picture to play out then you will see the love of God and his hand in your life.

Well This last week we worked really, really hard and we finally got our first fecha(baptismal date) here in Xalapa Mexico!!!! but it came with a lot of trials.

The first part of the week we had absolutely nothing and it was killing me, then we had a conference with Elder Valenzuela and he helped us get really motivated. We learned what we needed to change and how we needed to change it and we worked really hard to get it all done.  We also got in a lot of trouble for not doing a good job in our language study in the mornings I know that I have not been the best with that because well, usually we have an appointment or something else comes up, but he told us that right now is the time that we need to learn the language and that the Mexicans too need to learn English while they have this chance to do so. They are pretty lucky President always puts one Mexican with an American -it is how the system works in this mission.

Well we had been working all week we had been doing things that I have never done before to try and find people to teach and nothing was happening so we decided it would be better if we left our house to work cause we didn’t have a whole lot of success waiting inside. I am just kidding, but the truth is we even started to knock on some doors which is something that we don’t do in this mission. We are told to work by references, but we were contacting everyone in the street, the stores, the neighbors, the dogs, everybody and nothing was happening. I was starting to get a little stressed.

Then one day we were walking in the street and my comp looked really worried and I asked him why he looked so worried and he said “I feel like we need to contact this guy I saw in the street back there” then he said “nah lets keep going” Well I couldn’t let that happen, so we went back and contacted him and the lady he was talking to and we placed appointments to teach them more; so that was pretty awesome.

Then one day we were teaching an old man in his house and the lady that cleans his house, she started to listen. We got a little excited but then it turns out she is a Jehovah’s witness and she wanted to bible bash with us and preach to us and give us folletos (literature). We did not contend, even though my comp wanted to, but we smiled, answered her questions with what we know and she left, but it was pretty interesting.

Now the good story. Well we taught a gay one day but then didn’t plan on returning cause well, he is gay and it didn’t really look like he wanted to change, but then he talked to a member in the ward and she told us that he was waiting for us to return so we went back. Turns out, him and his boyfriend just wanted to hit on me. My companion started to get a little angry and  I felt very, very uncomfortable and they were making some weird faces at me. Man, it was the worst feeling I have ever had in my life. Needless to say we are never going back there again.

Then Sunday morning came and we had no one. We had no dates for baptisms. We had only 3 new people to teach all week and one of them was gay. Well, 1 hour and 30 minutes before church, I called one of our investigators who works on the corner as a security guard of a construction site. He told me he wanted to talk and I was the one that called him. Well, an hour later, he had a baptismal date and was sitting in church while my comp and another elder watched the construction site. I don’t know if that is allowed, all I know is that finally we had a progressing investigator after days of fasting and praying. We finally got our first investigator with a date.

Also we made a sweet chocolate cake because there is an hermana (sister)here and man she cooks so good, so we made some cake with her. Well I guess that is all for this week I am praying for you all and appreciate your prayers and hope that everything picks up this week and we don’t have any other unwanted surprises love you all
Elder Monsivais

January 27, 2014

Familia,

Holy cow it has been a super crazy week here in Xalapa let me tell ya. I got here last Tuesday in the afternoon and it is freezing cold here all day long. I was cold and was wearing a long sleeved shirt and my jacket- it was ridiculous.

I met my companion his name is Elder Galaviz and he is so cool.  He only has a year as a member and I asked him about his conversion story, so he told me.....

He was converted by South Park, yep the tv show. He was watching it a lot one week and a whole season was about the Mormons and the first vision and a real goody goody kid who was a Mormon. So he asked one of his inactive friends at a party once to know more about what we believe and from him he met a less active return missionary and was taking the lessons and was baptized in two weeks. He has a real big testimony of Jesus Christ and his atonement and he is a pretty funny guy.

Well I don’t know if I told you this, but we are white washing, but not only are we white washing we are also opening up an area! It has been really hard and we have not had a whole lot of success. This last week we contacted over 30 families and we are only teaching three people and well, one of them is gay. It has been a very interesting week.

Well Xalapa is the celestial kingdom that’s what everybody says and now I know why. The members are amazing! We have everything. Well, now we have everything! We arrived to our new house and did not even have beds, so I ended up sleeping in a hammock that I bought in Tuxpan and my comp on a nasty looking mattress that we had; but our stuff arrived really fast and it has been a great week.

The members here always give a lot of food and they are always trying to help us with investigators and with the less active and with, well, everything! Even one member

washes all of our clothes it is crazy.

I remember in my last area the members did not help a lot and they wouldn’t even help us contact their neighbors, friends or FAMILY! But here, holy cow, it is totally different. The members make the appointments and we are just going to show up this week. haha. The ward is not really big yet and we are in a house of prayer but they are some of the greatest people I have ever met in my life.

Well it has been pretty tough here and I started to get a little tired and discouraged but then I was reading one day in the Liahona from conference- yep we only get Liahonas-  the talk from president Uchtdorf and it says in there it doesn’t matter how many times you fall or how many times you fail, but how many times you are willing to get back up on your feet. I put that into practice this week. We contacted 15 people one day and everyone sent us away and some faster than others, but then the next day we got up, went to the church to drop some stuff off before we went back pass all those people who all rejected us in the end. But at the church there was a visitor and he talked to us and told us his brother just died and that is why he was visiting. Then he asked if we had a Book of Mormon he could have to give to his sister in law and then told us we could go contact her after the services. Well, like it says in preach my gospel, sometimes the Lord directs you by the spirit to the people and sometimes he directs the people to you. Personally, I like it when he leads them to us! haha.

Well it has been a pretty tough week but we are stoked and I am loving Xalapa and my area. Everything is awesome. Hope you all have a great week.

Elder Monsivais

P.S. Peter my district leader looks like you and does that some frown thing I am going to send a picture.

January 20, 2014

Familia,

 Well I have some bad news.... I am going home....... To Xalapa!

We got our changes this morning and they are opening up a new area in X alapa. I told everybody that I was going to go there and nobody believed me but yep, I am going to Xalapa tomorrow at 7 in the morning. It is, more or less, a 6 hour bus ride so yeah I am pretty stoked for that. I will be senor companion with an elder; I do not remember his name though.

Well this week was the end of the change and I blanked out. I did not baptize, which was a little hard and I felt pretty down because we had worked so hard. We had put 20 dates for baptisms with twenty different persons, and we had about 5 or 6 investigators in the church every week, but one by one they had all fallen this week.

We were going to have two baptisms, but then Clara could not make a decision on whether to marry or dump her husband and so she did not get baptized. Then her brother Lalo, who was going to be baptized, well his mom changed her mind and chased us away with a broom two times and kicked her daughter and her husband out of the house and would not let Lalo go with them. That was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever seen, this poor kid was crying. He only is eleven years old but has always had a problem with reading. I challenged him to read chapter 11 of 3 Nephi. Well he read all of it, just one verse a day, and he read all of it. He told us he wanted to be baptized to have a clean life and because God had helped him to read, but sadly not everyone can see the blessings of God in their lives and make decisions like the little children who have such strong faith. So that happened this week.

 Also we had a conference which was good, but other than that not much has happened.

 Well this part is for mom because she has been freaking out really bad. I had typhoid this week but I think that I have had it since the beginning of the transfer because there was one day where I just could not work and my whole body hurt and I wanted to throw up and had well the ‘d’ word. Then this last Sunday I threw up in the street after we had been helping people dig a well and then I was just really sick all week until my comp finally called Sister Lopez and she told me I had to go get my blood checked out and well yep, I have typhoid and it was a lot of typhoid. Luckily I have already started to feel better so I was able to work, well more or less, without problems. So that mom, has been my week, but don’t worry I still eat like the fat kid I am inside so don’t worry.

OH! Also the pictures. That is my friend Pancho the donkey. He contacted us in the street and well, we are working on his baptismal date but his Spanish is awful and I think he has a drinking problem. His face is always droopy and long and his eyes are always glazed. 

Elder Monsivais

January 13, 2014

Familia (Family)

bueno pues alguien me dijo que debo escribir todo todo de me carta en espanol..... (Well then, someone told me that I should write all all of my letter in Spanish . . . But don’t worry, I’m not going to do it.)...pero no se preocupe por que no voy hacerlo(but don't worry I won't do it.).

Alright well this week has been pretty good, we have been working together and even though we have not had a whole lot of success in this area we are still working really hard together.

Well a really funny story from this week or at least I think that it is pretty funny is that we were going to have a noche de hogar (FHE)with a inactive mother and her family. Well when we showed up, her son was playing outside with a sling so we started to talk to him and to play with him then he said well I have to go buy the tortillas I will be right back but my family is inside and so we said alright we are going to go ahead and talk to them. Well when we knocked on their door they turned off the lights inside the house..... so we said buenos tardes(Good Afternoon) again and they turned of the tv..... so we said buenos tardes (Good Afternoon)and you could hear from inside the mom say to one of the kids -tell them we are not here...... haha. I thought it was pretty funny. What people do to  try and trick you, but that’s alrigh,t all three of her kids still came to church this week and we are going to get her this week without fail.

We have been working a lot with a girl that needs to obey the law of chastity and either needs to leave her husband (the guy she lives with) who she says she does not love or want to marry him. Wow. This has got to be one of the weirdest positions I have ever been put in, is what I thought the first couple times it happened, but now that just seems like a normal problem which is really sad. The law in Mexico is if you get married you will get divorced or at least that is what they continue to say to us.

Well not a whole lot has happened this week but something that I have noticed is that it is amazing what people are prepared for this message and those who are not. There are people who accept so quickly all of the blessings we promise and there are others who don’t want to even listen.

This week I got to talk in church and I was impressed to say to the members no podemos esperar a compartir este mensaje estan muchas personas quien esta esperando este mensaje pero no estan esperando mis palabras o las palabras y mensaje de ustedes por que son sus amigos familia vecinos. (Dad might be able to translate~We cannot wait to share this message.  There are a lot of people who are waiting for the message, but they are not waiting for my words, but rather the words and message from you, because they are your friends and families, and neighbors). The point is that there are people waiting to hear this message but they just don’t know it yet, but they are waiting.

Well today and yesterday I had five really roudy investigators in the church. The other day four kids and three adults and I sat in on the primary lesson and Dave, all I can say is I hope your primary kids show you more respect.

Well today we went to the beach. It was a lot of fun. Played some football and some soccer and don’t worry mom I did not get sunburned- I hope. Oh and no mom I definitely avoid playing in church, still can’t do it.

Love Elder Monsivais

January 6, 2014

Familia

Well this week not a whole lot has happened, just been working and walking a lot. We have placed a lot of baptism dates but there are not a whole lot of people ready. It has been kind of a bummer. They seem to be dropping like flies, but at least we are planting the seed and doing all that we can to help them.

We have been doing a lot of service in the area lately. Well, the funniest story of this week:  one night we were walking and we passed by an old lady and she said “hey, why have you not been passing by my house” and so I asked her if she was a member she said “yes and that her husband was sick and that he had been wetting the bed and things like that and that her son was not baptized”. So we decided that we would pass by the next day and talk with her to help her son get baptized and give her husband a blessing..... well it didn’t really happen like that , what happened though is, that we stopped by and she was rushing around and asked if we would like some coffee.  My comp straight up told her no hermana (sister) that is bad, we cannot drink that, it is a sin; and well she just laughed.  Turns out she is a little crazy. Well we asked her if there is something that we could do to help her and without hesitation she said yeah you can wash those blankets over there...... she then said that those were the blankets that her husband had peed in and that they needed to be washed.... she didn’t have a washer...... we washed them by hand....... the water splashed a lot... a lot.. Well in this two hour period we were washing her blankets we were also talking to her. Turns out she is not a member. She is a little crazy and her husband has a chronic mental illness. While we washed the blankets we asked her if she would like to listen to us. She said she didn’t have time. We talked about baptism, shared a scripture and asked if she wanted to be baptized. She said no.  So later we passed by a members’ house to see if they could tell us about her.  Well turns out that we are not supposed to go there because she is crazy and she accuses people of robbing her or sometimes she robs them! Haha. That was a very interesting day.

We have been working a lot with a women named Clara she needs to dumb(?) her husband to get baptized. They are not legally married and she does not love him, but she has been so emotionally bullied by her mom and her husband that she feels like she is not strong enough to do it(get baptized). We gave her a blessing of peace and comfort to help her out and we hope that she makes the right decision because this week is her baptismal date, so we will have to wait and see, and maybe wait till next week.

We are also working with a family. Two sons listen to us a lot but the rest, not a whole lot, and the mom well she just likes to give us food. The other day she gave us pig skin tacos: fried pig skin, beans and tortillas except well it was only warmed pig skin. Haha. I thought it was pure fat. Well we ate it two plates of it. I don’t know how I am not sick, But it was something that I will be sure to cook when I get back- no worries.

I have got a lot of compliments on my Spanish this week!  It is making me feel pretty good. Haha. Even one of the white elders in my area was asking me for advice. I told him Eat more Chile and Pig fat it seems to work.

It has been freezing here in Mexico. This last week it rained almost everyday except for Sunday and Saturday;  those were freaking hot and once again I sweated all of my fat out.

The coolest story from this week, we went to visit an investigator, his future wife and her son and her daughter- in -law because they are members, inactive, and well we only talked for a minute but then they all showed up to church the next day. When I arrived late and saw them they were all seated together and I got the chills. I honestly think it was one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen, especially since the church starts at nine  but I am glad they could be there as a family.

Well new years was not too exciting; ate little Ceasers and then watched Charly with my comp. haha. He cried a little but it is his new favorite movie. Then our neighbor lit of a bunch of fireworks, but all it was is gun powder in newspaper, not very exciting here.

Well I think everyone told me Peter broke the pipe and then said it was a leak, but hey put those blankets in storage I will wash them when I get back- no worries.

Love you all!  Hope you are doing well.

Until next week, love you.

Elder Monsivais