October 28th, 2013

Well, hey everyone!  That's cool that it's Halloween this week.  Didn't remember.  But that's good news because it means that Día de los Muertos is also this week, and pan de muerto is so delicious.  Have fun!

We had a good week.  We've mostly got our area down now and I really like it.  This is the most beautiful city in the world and I am absolutely in love with it.  It is going to be really, really hard to say goodbye.  Luckily I won't have to for a little while.  

The V family is doing great!  They made it to church this week and we're going to go visit them soon.  They've been saying their family prayers and reading the Book of Mormon and they seem...different.  More light in their countenances.  It's been great to see.  And it's helped us gain confidence with the Bishop since he told us to go visit them.  We also met another less active member, actually, a lot, but another one that went to church.  His name is R, the assistents had been working with him, and they told us to go visit him and teach the Plan of Salvation.  We went and he asked a basketload of questions, but we were able to answer them and share a powerful message about the Atonement.  It all just worked out way to well.  Obviously it was the Spirit because we transitioned it right in to the Sacrament and invited him to church and he said yes.  It was awesome.  

I had splits with the Zone Leaders this week.  I stayed in our area with Elder C.  He's a lot of fun.  We spent a long time looking through all the drawers and closets to find all the weird things the sisters had left in the house through the years.  I could not write a hundredth of the things which were seen, but sufficeth me to say that they were strange and of curious workmanship.  Also, we found an awesome investigator that day.  We met a member from our area and she told us that the missionaries had been teaching a friend of hers that lived about 2 blocks away.  She called her right then and invited her over to listen to us, and she came!  We taught her the Restoration and put a baptismal date that she accepted!  Her name is Y, she has two kids, an 18 year old boy and a 12 year old girl.  They didn't make it to church, but we're hoping that this week she goes!  That lesson was one of the happiest moments I've had in a long time.  Yeah!

I also did splits with Elder T this week because I had to do the baptismal interview for their investigator, C, who got baptized this Saturday.  So I got to go back to E, which was fun.  We started the splits Thursday night, and when I got there, Elder T said that they still hadn't done any contacts that day.  So I said, "That's okay, we're going to contact a bus."  I had never done it before, but I felt like it needed to be done to help Elder T to get contacting.  So we asked the bus driver if we could make an announcement, and then called the attention of everyone on the bus and called them to repentance.  We gave them pass along cards and asked them if they would like a visit.  Nobody did, but it felt good and it was an awesome way to start the splits!

After contacting the bus, we had an interesting lesson with one of their investigators named B.  I connected really well with him because he studied Sound Recording Technology and also played in a band.  He basically told us he didn't want to keep listening, that he knew he would need to repent some day but he wants to live it up right now.  It was quite the lesson.  We bore our testimonies and warned him of the consequences of his sins, and left.  It was sad, but we left him a clear view of what he was choosing, so hopefully he makes a good choice.  

We also found a new investigator named E, who is 17 and has really messed up his life and wants to change.  We put a baptismal date with him also.  Afterwards, we went to lunch, and the members told us "Well, Elders, we didn't prepare anything, but we were just going to go to Sirloin Stockade for lunch.  I hope that's okay..." Obviously that's ok!!!  Delicious.  After that we had the interview with C.  He's way ready.  He's 17 and orphaned and literally lives in a one room house and sleeps on a piece of cardboard on the floor, but is so happy to have found the gospel.  He about made me cry.  Basically, they were the most epic splits of my entire mission.  It was fun to go back and see everyone in E again.

I'm feeling good in my ward.  President Wagner told me this week that sometimes a new beginning is better than trying to battle with the same situation for such a long time, so I'm confident that things will work out this way.  

Answers:  The two companionships in E divided up our area between themselves, so the sisters have been teaching M and his family, and they're actually progressing really well.  They've been to church twice now and have a baptismal date for November 23rd.  I took Elder T to his half of our old area and showed him the people we had been teaching.  He was able to bring a less active member named J to church this week that we had found our last week there.  Who knows what's going to happen to T.  

There's a part in Preach My Gospel that I came to understand better this week.  It basically says "As we repent, we recognize that we are children of God and need not make the same mistakes over and over again." I feel like if we could all realize where we come from, it would help us to become better people.  We are not from this world.  We come from a better place, from Heaven, from the presence of our Heavenly Father.  As we recognize our divine origins, it is easier to understand that we don't need to think, talk, or act like someone from this world.  It is in our nature to be something better.  In spite of the veil and other worldly influences, our Father in Heaven has provided us with the way to recover, and even improve, our spiritual nature here in this life through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Just as I feel like I have learned way more about the United States here than I ever could have if I had never left the country, we can learn more about our heavenly home by being away from it here, and we will appreciate and enjoy it more when we are allowed to return.  We need to recognize that we are spirits having mortal experiences, not mortals having spiritual experiences, and as we recognize this connection, it helps us to repent, live the commandments, and put off the natural man through the Atonement of Christ.  I am so grateful for this knowledge that we have of the Plan of Salvation, of our divine heritage and destiny.  It's something everyone needs to know.

Have a great week everyone!  I love you!

Elder Pew

October 21,2013

Friday  we had our interviews with President Wagner.  I talked to him a lot about the challenges we were having in the area-- nobody gives us referrals, the leaders don't trust in us, etc.  We were really pretty discouraged at this point, especially after Sunday when we had a meeting with our ward mission leader, bishop, and relief society president to fix the meal calendar.  We were going to try to modify it so that we could all eat in our own area separate every day so that we didn't have to waste so much time going to lunch and back.  The feedback wasn't positive.  So we told President about the situation and he said that if I felt like there wasn't enough work for 6 in that ward, to just let him know, and he'll pull some or all of us out.  I said that we still weren't to that point, that we wanted to keep trying to see what we could do to save the situation.  But later that night we got a call from the Zone Leaders telling us we had special transfers.  They closed our area and sent Elder V to the I stake, and I would be opening an area in M here across the street.  Sad news.  We came home and packed everything up and got ready to be in the offices the next morning.  It was one of the most depressing nights of my life.  I felt like we had failed, that we shouldn't have said anything and kept working.  But, it was the will of the Lord.  

My companion is Elder H.  He has about 5 months in the mission and is from Mexico.  He reminds me a lot of Elder A.  Quiet, focused, and a really hard worker.  The area we were in had sisters before, but they were also mysteriously taken out that night.  The good thing is that it's a neighbor ward to E, we meet in the same chapel here by the temple and I already kind of can get my way around here.  Also, I already knew a couple of the members of this ward.  There are also 6 missionaries in this area--the Assistants and Elder K and his companion.  I'm still Elder T's district leader but the sisters are in another district now.  It's nice only having to take one phone call every night.  The round-abouts are decorated with mayan-looking pyramids, fountains, statues, etc.  There's a lot of mansions and really, ridiculously fancy buildings.  The members are really awesome and it's a much bigger ward than E, population wise.  We have a bunch of less actives to work with, which will be a nice change.  

Our first night we did divisions with the assistents so that they could show us the area.  I went with Elder S, and after talking for a few minutes I came to find that he is Amber's cousin!  (which we knew, didn't realize he didn't know that!) The world is very small when we're Mormons.  Anyways, we were walking down a big highway at the end of the day when a car honked at us and pulled over.  We turned to see what was going on, and the guy rolled down his window and said, "Hey, this is kind of embarrassing but...could you help me tie my tie?"  He was on his way to a wedding and for the life of him could not figure out how to tie his tie.  So we helped him tie it and contacted him.  He's super cool.  His name is L, he lived in the US almost his whole life, and he gave us his address and phone number and told us to call him during the week to put an appointment.  When I was 12 and first learning to tie a tie, never in my life did I think that having this skill would lead to the salvation of some soul someday.  But hopefully everything goes well with him.  

We visited the bishop yesterday and he told us of a less active family that he wanted us to visit.  We went and they let us in.  Their names are R and S.  They're an older couple, their kids all live in different parts of Mexico and they've been members for about 5 years.   They were very, very friendly with us and we had a great lesson with them.  They said they want to come back to church but that it's going to be hard.  They can do it.  They also want to introduce us to all their neighbors--awesome!

Glad to hear everything's going well at home.  This has been a rough stretch for me, and I've noticed there's a lot of things I need to change and do better.  I was studying today about repentance and it really stuck out to me where it said that our faith and our love for the Savior are what lead us to repent.  He is our light, our hope, and our guide.  If we trust in him and learn to love Him as He loves us, we will be able to become like Him and live with Him some day.  This is his church and I know He lives, which is why I will never, ever give up.  I love you all and thank you for all your support.  Have a fantastic week!

Elder Pew

October 14, 2013

The soccer game went well.  We divided the zone into three teams: Americans, Mexicans, and Central/South Americans.  Before our first game against the Mexicans, we huddled up in a circle swaying back and forth around Elder S.  Then we sang the national anthem and the game was on.  We were just playing to one goal and then the losing team left and the other team came on.  It was a tough match, but finally after about 10 minutes they scored on us.  We walked back to the sidelines ashamed of ourselves, and Elder S said "Dang it, guys, we just let Obama down."  The South Americans destroyed Mexico, then destroyed us, then lost to Mexico.  So we had another shot at the Mexicans.  After about 5 minutes I stole a pass in the Mexican defense and scored a goal.  We went wild.  The whole team lifted me up on their shoulders like we had just won the World Cup.  It was pretty epic.  The sisters took a picture, some day I'll have to get it from them and send it to you.  My new nickname in the zone is "Landon Donovan" because I'm the only American that knows how to play soccer.  

Well, this week went about the same in E.  Other than that the one investigator we had, F, is now out.  We were teaching her  when her Grandma came down the stairs and chased us out of the house. 

M. the popsicle seller, is back in the teaching pool.  We found him in the street this week when we were going to visit a member from our area.  It was kind of weird to find him there since she lives in a gated community, but he told us he lives there too, in fact, 3 houses down from her!  We always taught him in his ice-cream shop so we didn't actually know where he lived.  But now we do and it seems like he needs a lot of help.  He told us he went to the chapel the other day to pray, but it was locked.  Sounds like he's had problems with his wife and really needs the Gospel.  He told us he's been reading the Book of Mormon and he wanted to go to church on Sunday but couldn't find anyone to cover him in the ice cream shop.  But hopefully he goes this week.  

I got the Halloween package.  Pretty dang awesome mom!  Thanks a lot! Gwen's masterpiece is now hanging on the wall above our new couch in our apartment.  Also, everyone was fascinated with the candy corn (it doesn't exist here).  And I gave everyone some Mike and Ikes also and Sister B had some kind of weird allergic reaction to it.  Her tongue swoll up and she started talking with a lisp.  We thought she was joking, but that night when I talked to her companion for the daily report, she told me that she had kept talking like that for about 2 hours after, even during the lessons!  So I guess she wasn't faking.  It was pretty funny.  

Crazy experience of the week:  Wednesday night we got home and I went to take out the keys and they were no longer in my pocket.  How that happened I will never know.  I looked to see if they were in my backpack and they weren't.  We went back to the bus stop where we were earlier to see if they had fallen out there and we couldn't find them.  So we called our Landlord to see if he could come give us the spare key, only to find out that he had been confined to a hospital bed and couldn't come over at that moment.  There was no locksmith open because it was 9:00 at night, so we had to go sleep in the offices.  The next day we got to our house at about 8:30, waited until 9:30 for the locksmith to open, waited until 10:30 for him to get to our house, only to see that he only had one arm and had a really hard time opening the door.  What?!  He ended up having to call his wife to come help him, and we finally got into our house at about 11:30.  We hadn't showered, studied, or done weekly planning yet.  It was a crazy day.  

This Saturday and Sunday we went to T.  This time I went with Elder K, who is from my generation.  It was a blast!  We visited a less active family that got baptized in Utah and moved back a few years ago.  We taught them about the sacrament and eternal families and committed them to come to church.  They came on Sunday!  The other group that went to visit people on Saturday also brought another less active family as well as an investigator, so in all there were 5 less actives and 1 investigator in church in T, and an attendance of 23 (normally there's about 10)!  It was great.  After sacrament meeting, the stake relief society presidency had come to show the Relief society general broadcast to all the women in T, and we stayed with the men and taught Gospel Principles.  It was so great!  That little branch really has so much potential and is progressing really well. Sometimes I wonder if it shouldn't be backwards, stay in T all week and every other weekend come to E to help out. 

Have happy birthdays (Gwen & Emily) this week!  I love you all!  Thanks for everything!

Elder Pew

3 Letters(sorry so behind) September 23rd & 30th and October 7th, 2013

September 23, 2013

Responding:  It rained a lot this week but no floods.  Nothing abnormal.  I don't think the rain from the east coast makes it all the way here.  We've survived.  It's actually super hot right now.  I'm kind of sweaty, in case you were wondering.  

What kind of tacos? All kinds.  Tacos de Barbacoa, de Chorizo, de Arrachera, de lengua (tongue), de cabeza (other weird parts of the head), etc.  You'll have to look up these words in English because I don't know them.

We called S and we'll have to start hopefully this week.  His friend that brought him to the activity told us that he's had problems with his wife lately, so he really needs help.  We haven't seen C in a while.  He sent us a message on Tuesday saying that he's going to be busy working all week, but his member friends have seen him and have been challenging to baptism in our absence, so that's good.  

I'm pretty sure the whole zone went to the activity mom, and yes, we all brought investigators.  It was amazing.  

It started raining again.

Before I forget to mention: I remembered this week that Madison Beardall's future mission president, President Mejorada, was Stake President here in the stake where I'm at up until he left on his mission.  I've heard lots of good things about him.  

We had a good week.  We found a few sweet new investigators.  One of them is M, who works in an ice cream shop.  One day while it was raining super hard we went in for a moment to take out our umbrella, and we started talking to him.  He lived in California for 14 years and has just been back 1 year.  He is married and has 3 kids-18, 15, and 9.  He was super interested when we taught him the restoration and when we invited him to be baptized he said "of course!"  The struggle is going to be that he works on Sundays and hasn't been able to go to church.  But he's cool and he gives us free ice cream bars every time we go over.  

We found another awesome family.  It's a single mom and her three kids.  Her name is B, and she has a 17 year old daughter named I and a 13 year old son named C and a 4 year old daughter who's name escapes me.  The kids are really great--when we told them about mutual they got really excited, so we're going to see if we can get them to go this week.  B is nice, but didn't seem so convinced when we invited her to be baptized.  It was one of those "well, let us read and pray and we'll see."  But we're confident that if her kids gain testimonies, she will too.  Just like the N family in A.  

We taught J the restoration this week and he loved it.  He is super excited for general conference and accepted a baptismal date for November 9th.  Yes!  We're going to try teaching the rest of his family this week.  His wife is awesome and has already listened to us before, and he has 2 sons who are married and live there with their wives and another son that's 10.  Potential.  

T was great.  The stake leaders didn't go with us this time, just Elder T and I working with their branch president and Brother C that went with me last time.  We split up and I went with C, without really having a plan.  We went back to visit E and B, the investigators we found last time.  They're great.  We read 3rd Nephi 11 with them and they loved it.  They're super excited to read the Book of Mormon and since that chapter talks about baptism so much, they started saying, "oh, wow, we need to get baptized!"  So I said "Oh what the heck!" and put a baptismal date with them for November 16th.  Hopefully we'll be able to go back often enough to get them ready.  We also visited a less active grandma named C, who told me that she doesn't go to church just because she's lazy. She said she would go on Sunday.  We also asked E who else listened to the missionaries before they took them out and she gave us a bunch of referrals.  We contacted a few of them and everyone seems to have a great impression of the missionaries there.  It's really great to see.  Also, the members have a really good culture of work.  When the missionaries come, everyone gets out and preaches with them, even though there's only like 6 active members.  So if we can bring more people into activity and baptize a few more while keeping that culture, this branch is going to grow super fast.  We were going to go on Sunday also, but the member of the High Council who was going to take us was sick and couldn't go.  But I think we are going to go this week again.  

Did I mention that they're branch president is blind?  I don't know how he does it, but he guided Elder T through the whole town visiting less actives.  He really is incredible.  He's got such a great, humble spirit about him and is really making a difference, despite all that's against him.  They should make a movie about him some day. 

You're probably asking yourselves what's up with the subject line of this email--A Kiss from A Rose, Sort of.  Well, Saturday night after getting back from T, we were walking back to our apartment at night and this drunk guy on a bike stopped us by the side of the road asking for money.  Elder V told him to get out of the road so they wouldn't run him over and asked him where he lived.  He said in a really drunk voice "where did you find me?"  So Elder V asked him again "where do you live?"  "Where did you find me?"  And just then he turned and saw me for the first time.  He did a double take and said "Wow, you're really handsome!" then grabbed me by the ears and pulled me in for the kiss!  He was about 3 inches from my face with his mouth wide open before I realized that yes, this is really happening and escaped as fast as I could.  His breath smelled horrible and he only had about 3 rotten teeth.  Elder V was laughing so hard he couldn't stay standing. And he kept laughing the whole bus ride home.  It was kind of funny I guess, even though it was one of the more traumatizing experiences of my entire life.  

That's it for this week.  It's the last week of the transfer, so who knows what will happen.  Probably nothing, but we'll see.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Elder Pew

September 30th 2013

Aloha!  It's been nice and sunny the last few days and its starting to look like the hurricanes have finally passed. We'll see if it's not raining when I finish this email.  I hope you're all enjoying the cold.  I know I wouldn't be.  But we can't all serve our missions in the promised land, can we?

This was a great week.  We've found a bunch of awesome investigators and we've got a few new prospects also.  Remember B?  We almost convinced her to let her son C go on a young men's campout that they had this Friday and Saturday, but it looked like it was going to rain so she said no.  But we're going to invite him to mutual this week along with his sister N.  They're awesome.  Also, while revising our area book, we found a few old sheets of future investigators.  We decided to go visit everyone on the list to see what would happen, and we found a new investigator named A.  She was a referral from the old mission president, President S.  She said the missionaries only went 1 or 2 times to visit them and she doesn't know why they stopped going.  She has 2 teenage kids and already basically lives like a Mormon--she reads the Bible and does family prayer with them as much as she can.  She is also super interested in going to church, but she couldn't go this week because she twisted her ankle and has been on crutches.  But she'll be there in General conference this Sunday!  

Also, a few weeks back we met a new member named A in church.  He's 22 and was baptized about a year ago.  He found out about the church through a friend in a different stake, so he's always gone to her ward even though he lives here in our area.  He came a few Sundays ago because he was running late and wasn't going to make it to the other church where he normally goes.  So we asked him for his address and went to visit him. It turns out that he's the only member in his family.  His sister is interested.  Her name is F, she's 18, and she's way awesome.  We taught her the restoration this week and it went really well.  The only problem is that her mom is not going to be very supportive.  Also, she works on Sundays.  But her brother's great and will help her progress.  

We still haven't been able to teach S.  He asked us to help him find a place to stay, so we've been working on that.  His member friend brought him to church this week, and he seemed to enjoy it.  Poor guy.  We're going to have a lesson with him this Thursday or Friday, and I really hope we can help him.  

Our ward mission leader got married last week and hasn't really had a whole lot of time to help us the last little while, and it really has been hard.  But he's back now and ready to go to work!  He talked to the stake president about doing the Plane Crash activity again but as a whole stake and he gave him the green light!  So we're going to start planning it.  

On Thursday I started feeling really sick.  After lunch I could barely stand up, so we went home for a little bit to rest, and it got so bad that we couldn´t go back to work for the rest of the day.  I had a fever of about 100, my nose was really runny and I just felt weak.  That night it got worse.  I couldn't sleep, and I started to cough and have congestion in my chest.  We ended up staying in the house all day Friday also.  Sister Wagner told me that it was just a virus and all I could do was treat the symptoms and wait it out.  So that's what I did.  I've been taking cold medicine (basically dayquil) and cough syrup and it seemed to help.  Saturday I was finally feeling a little better, so we went to work and everything, but I was still really weak and felt pretty awful.  But I was just glad to not be in the house anymore.  This was the first time in my mission I'd been so sick that I couldn't go out and work.  Nothing like a bad cold to make you count your blessings.  Anyways, because of all that we didn't get to go to T this week.  Sunday my fever went away but I still was feeling pretty nasty.  But don't worry, today I feel great.  Just a runny nose.  I'm excited to finally be able to give everything again.   

Today were transfers and I'm staying here with Elder V for one more at least.  We're thinking he'll probably end his mission training here in this area, and since he's only got two transfers left after this one, this is probably my last transfer here. But it's going to be a good one!  Man it has gone by so fast.  The only change in our district was that Elder M is going to V to train and open an area, and Elder T is going to be training here.  We're pumped.   

The package still hasn't made it to me but it's probably sitting in the office waiting.  Maybe I'll get it tomorrow.  

Have a great week everyone!  I love you!  

Elder Pew

October 7th, 2013

This week everyone we found last week decided to stop listening to us, other than F.  We had a nice lesson with her and she's still not convinced, but at least she listens.  She didn't make it to conference because she works on Sundays, but whatever.  We are completely out of ideas on how to find new investigators, but we're going to keep working and see what happens.  We tried straight up contacting one day but it doesn't work here.  If we contact 15 people, only one of them will live in our area, and the chances are even slimmer that they want us to come over to teach them.  The members all tell us that they've already talked to everyone they know, and they´ve all rejected.  In most of their cases I know they're telling the truth.  We've been asking ourselves why there are 6 missionaries in this ward, because the last two transfers all three areas have been about like this, but there's some inspired reason behind it.  There's hardly even work to do with less actives.  There are only 8 in our area, and only 2 let us come over.   Surprisingly, almost all the members in this ward are already active.  Which is great, but it leaves us feeling a little useless sometimes, especially when we don't have investigators.  But something's got to come around.  Just to prove that this IS the true church and that it IS the Lord's work.  Because Elder V and I couldn't turn this around alone.

Conference was great.  Favorite talks:  Pres. Uchtdorf in Priesthood session, President Monson Sunday Morning, Terence Vinson Saturday afternoon, and Elder Ballard Saturday afternoon.  It just gets better every time.  The church is so true.  

I've got to go now.  No, I haven't got that package.  Still waiting.  Sorry this letter's a little short, but what we really need is some good soccer to get us more motivated.  Just like President Uchtdorf said, "Sometimes we think that because we've fallen in the past, our destiny is to fall.  But our life isn't defined by how many times we fall, but how many times we get back up."  We're going to get up. NOW!  

Have a great week everyone!  I love you all!

Elder Pew

September 16, 2013

Happy Independence Day!  

a sign they found

The T trips start this Saturday.  Elder V is going to stay with a member in the ward.  And boy am I excited.  I'm not sure if it's fattening but I think it's a little watered down... (quote from 3 Amigos about T)

The conference with Elder Johnson went really well.  He talked about a lot of things that we really needed to hear.  He talked about planning with love, improving our relationships with the members, and serving for the right reasons.  One thing that stuck out to me was when he read Mark 12 28-31, which talks about the two greatest commandments:  Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself.  He explained why the phrase "as thyself" is part of that scripture.  If we really love ourselves, we will do everything to gain our own salvation and exaltation.  And the way to gain our own salvation and exaltation is by loving God enough to keep His commandments and losing ourselves in the service of others.  Kind of cool, huh?

We found a few new investigators this week, but they aren't really interested and we aren't planning on going back.  C told us he would be busy all week so we haven't been able to teach him, but we did stop by a few times to see how he was doing and looks like everything's going well.  He's reading his Book of Mormon and saying his prayers.  He still doesn't know when he'll have his operation, but we're going over in a second to see him so we'll see if there's more news.  

Current companion

We have made plans in district class to gain the confidence of the local leaders by visiting them and teaching them short, powerful lessons.  Wednesday, Elder Johnson's wife shared an experience that also gave us ideas. She said that the missionaries called her one day to ask if they could stop by that night.  She was annoyed all day thinking "they're going to come asking for referrals, and I don't have any to give them."  But when the missionaries got there, they opened up to the "Attribute Activity" in Preach My Gospel, told her and Elder Johnson to pick one attribute they would like to study as a couple, and then did the evaluation and read all the scriptures that went along with that attribute.  She said it was such a great experience that she felt a new desire to give referrals to those missionaries.  So we've tried it a couple times and it's worked really well. One leader told us he has had troubles finding work and that they are short on money, so he decided to study patience.  We went through the evaluation and read all the scriptures about patience, then invited him to say the closing prayer.  He asked God for patience and started crying and thanked him for sending the missionaries to his home.  It was really great.  

Also, this Sunday the Bishop got up in sacrament meeting and spoke about how missionary work is the member's responsibility, not the missionary's.  After church he thanked us for all that we do, told us he loves us and that he is ready to support us in our work.  He also asked us to help the members feel the importance of doing missionary work.  I was about to cry with joy when that happened.  We may not be teaching investigators or baptizing anyone right now, but if we can get this ward more involved in missionary work so that the next missionaries can have success, we've done our job.  Also, L and S are still active and come to church every Sunday, rain or shine, so that always makes me happy.  

His area, which he said that he loves

Speaking of rain, you may have heard there are hurricanes around here.  Even though Guadalajara is about 5 hours away from the coast, we have had nonstop rainstorms and hurricane winds for about a week now.  Last year it stopped raining at about this time, but now it's still going strong.  I have been very wet. 

Friday we had a stake activity--a Mexican Independence party.  It went SUPER well!  We visited a member from our area the day before and asked him about a referral he had given us that we still hadn't contacted.  He said he would invite his friend to the activity, and when we got there there he was with his whole family!  The guy's name is S, he has a wife and 2 or three kids.  He told us he is interested in receiving the lessons and gave us his number so that we could call him this week.  Yes!  

Little boy from last weeks letter

Today, to celebrate Independance day, we went to the Centro (Half of it is part of our zone) and found the most glorious place on earth.  It's a Taco Buffet and it only costs 75 pesos (about 6 dollars)!  I ate 8 tacos and a Torta Ahogada, along with horchata.  Someday I'll take you all there...

That's about it for this week.  Go Cougars!  Cheer extra loud for me.  I'll probably have forgotten about it by tomorrow, but I'll be excited to hear the news next Monday.  Have a great week!  I love you all!

Elder Pew

September 9th, 2013

This was the weirdest week of my mission.

Last Monday night we visited a member family.  Their grandma lives with them and she's about 90 years old and hilarious.  She started telling us that "evil spirits" have been bothering her the last few nights.  She said "One of them came in dressed in all black.  His face was white and he was missing an eye!  He came in and shook my walker and grabbed my foot and moved it over here and when I woke up my body was all purple.  I think they sucked my blood..."  That was about when we all lost it.  It sounded pretty scary until they became vampire spirits.  So anyways, we gave her a blessing and went home.  We stopped by again Tuesday and asked her how it all went the night before.  She said "they came in the house again, but I left them a note by my bed and when they saw it they left me alone."  I would love to know what that note said.  

More weird things people said to us this week.  There's this 58 year old recent convert in our area.  While we were at her house this week, she told us "I'm still waiting for a Mormon boy to marry so I can get sealed in the temple.  But not you guys, you´re still really young..."

We were with another member family and the mom asked us why we hadn't come over to wash our clothes in their washing machine that week.  We told her that we had taken them with another family, but they ended up washing it who knows where and didn't get it back to us until Tuesday, so we had to wash our clothes from Monday by hand and wear it again on Tuesday.  And she asks us "Did you wash your clothes naked?"  Why are you asking me that?!

This time from the sister missionaries.  I get a call from them during language study one day, which is normal because they usually call me with questions about English.  But what I wasn´t expecting is that they would ask me "Elder, how do you say 'you're pregnant' in English?"  

Another one from the sisters.  In the middle of weekly planning on Thursday, I get another call from them.  "Elder, we have a question.  Are we allowed to have sleep-overs as missionaries?"  When they called me as district leader, never in my life did I think I would have to answer that one.  (To clarify, they wanted to have a sleep over with the other sister missionaries in the zone. I said no.)

Saturday just got out of control.  In the morning, a member took us to an old lady's house to teach her.  We had already contacted her in the street the week before, but she didn't remember us at all.  But she let us in.  The member that went with us brought her 1 year old grandson, and he was wandering around the room during the lesson.  It turns out that he found a mostly empty beer can, and the next thing we know we look over and he's drinking the rest!  It was SO funny!  He had his two little hands around the can and the beer was running down both sides of his cheeks.  His grandma grabbed him, took away the beer, and tried to give him his bottle of milk but he just chucked it out the door.  Who ever said just once won't hurt?  Anyways, we weren't in the lesson very long before we realized that the old lady was more there than here and wasn't really going to listen to us, so we decided to invite her to say the closing prayer however she wanted and that turned out to be a mistake.  Her prayer was easily longer than the lesson!  It just went on and on and on and on...she was saying "thank you God that I could wake up today.  Look!  I can move my hand (while wiggling her hand in the air), my foot (doing the same thing with her foot..."  I was holding it in pretty good until I noticed that Elder V had already lost it.  But later I felt bad because I'm sure Heavenly Father loved that prayer and was really glad to hear her.  To top it all of, the prayer finally ended and a rat had appeared behind her!  That was another ordeal.  

In the afternoon, we had a lesson with M, who we had visited a couple weeks ago. Her mom was there who didn't seem to like us so we told M that we weren't going to be able to teach her the message we wanted to share that day and put another appointment for a day when her mom wouldn't be there. It was hysterical.  After that experience, we were thinking "What is going on?!"  I was a little scared to see what would happen next.  I think since there's not a whole lot going on in our area this week, Heavenly Father gave us all these things to laugh about to keep us sane.  

But we actually ended the day with a really good experience.  We went to teach an older less active couple, the V family.  We had been trying to visit them for about 3 transfers now but one thing or another had always kept that from happening.  But everything worked out so that we made it over Saturday night and taught them the restoration.  It was a really great experience and they committed to come to church and read the Book of Mormon.  It was a good way to end the madness.  

C is still doing great, but we had to postpone his baptism because he is going to have surgery soon.  He has an open wound in his stomach and it makes it really uncomfortable for him to go to church, so he told us that he wants us to still visit him but that he would feel better about being baptized afterwards.  So pray for him so that he can stay excited through the whole process.  We are going to try to take a lot of different members to visit him so that he knows the whole ward and so that they are all involved in his conversion process.  

J went to the woods to pray but we haven't had time to really sit down and talk to him about it.  We're going to go over there in a few minutes.  I hope it goes well.

We're hoping to find lots of new investigators this week because we got a lot of referrals last week.  Also, we have a conference with Elder Daniel Johnson of the Seventy on Wednesday, so that should be pretty sweet.  

The stake presidency met with President Wagner to make plans about T.  They've decided that started on the 21st, Elder B and I are going to go every Saturday and Sunday to teach the investigators we found the other day and to find more people.  Once there is enough work to do, they'll send their own set of missionaries there.  I'm pretty excited about that. 

I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to send, but this computer is not getting along well with my camera.  We'll try again next week. 

That's great news for BYU!  Sweet!  And my companion is fine, his pills work really well.  We've been able to work without problems this week.  What the tornado?  The weather's been pretty nutsy here too.  It's rained almost non-stop all week.  

Congrats Emily on making drama council, and Izak for scoring goals, and Micah for almost scoring goals.  And tell the Zanzibarbarian that he's a pompeeface.  As if he didn't already know.  Gwen, ¿dónde estás?  Te voy a hablar en español hasta que me escribas.  Castigada.  Te amo.

That's all for this crazy week.  Hopefully you've been entertained.  I sure was.  But anyways, the mission is great. Keep being the great people you are!   See you soon!

Elder Pew

September 2nd, 2013

I think by this point I'm about as Mexican as Benito Juarez, because I don't get nearly as excited about BYU football as I did a year ago.  I totally forgot that their first game was going to be this week until about 10 minutes ago when I read your letters.  But thanks for the updates.  ¡Arriba, pumas!

Well, the big news of the week.  Friday at about 9:30 at night we got a call from the zone leaders telling us that Elder D had special transfers and had to be in the offices at 10 am the next day.  Just like that.  He's in another ward in the city, but in a different zone.  (For your information, zone means stake in missionary language.  There are 6 stakes in Guadalajara, 3 belong to our mission, and 3 to the Guadalajara East mission.  I started in I, and now I'm in U, and Elder D got transferred to the other one, L.) He wasn't too sad to leave, but it definitely is not the same without him.  Everything's more...quiet.  Funny guy.  

Elder V and I are both senior companion.  It's basically like being zone leaders but without the extra responsibilities.  It's nice being with a companion who also has a lot of experience and is excited to work hard and have success.  We get along really well, we have a lot of fun together.  It's going to be a good transfer.  

Did I mention the new rule we got from the Quorum of the 12 apostles last week?  Now all the investigators have to go to church 5 times before they can be baptized.  Basically, they have to go every week for a whole transfer and then get baptized and confirmed the last weekend.  I think that means that we'll all be staying a very, very long time in every area to help out all the investigators in this process.  Also, all the converts from here on out are going to be a lot stronger and  it'll be a lot less likely that they go inactive.  It really has been a historic time to be part of missionary work in Mexico.  Everything has changed completely since I got here.  

Details about the activity.  It went something like this:

We started out with everyone in the cultural hall.  Once we were ready for the first group (each group consisted of about 25 people), Elder M went in and told them their flight to Hawaii was ready.  He gave them their tickets and told them they would first pass through the "market" where they could pick up 5 free items for their flight.  In the market, there were 2 tables: one full of missionary materials like Books of Mormon, pamphlets, posters, pictures of Christ, etc., and the other was full of snacks.  After selecting their 5 items, they passed by the cashier (Elder D) who marked on their ticket what they had bought.  Elder C, one of the assistants, filmed this whole process.  Then they boarded the plane (the relief society room).  When they first got on, the flight attendants (the sisters) asked them if they wanted water or wine (grape juice) to drink.  The Pilots (Elder T and Elder S, the assistant) collected their tickets.  We had made an awesome audio recording for the plane, and we played it on big, powerful speakers that made it seem pretty real.  Or so they tell me, I never actually saw.  Basically, it included take off, a warning of turbulence (during the turbulence, the flight attendants were turning the lights on and off. it was pretty intense), and the crash.  The lights stayed off and since the blinds were down, it was pretty dark.  Suddenly, a door opened and an angel, dressed in all white, walked in (Elder R from the other ward).  He announced to all the passengers that they had just died and pulled up the blinds to show them their dead bodies (Elder D, Elder C, Sister B and Sister A playing dead in the grass outside).  Then, he led them to the Spirit world (the hallway).  A curtain separated prison from paradise.  Those who had chosen water went to paradise, and those who had chosen wine went to prison.  Elder R stayed in prison and his companion Elder K was in paradise, where they explained briefly what happens in the spirit world.  The Spirit prison had the lights turned out and was full of garbage strewn all over the floor.  Paradise was bright and full of fluff (clouds).  Then they went into the next room to be judged.  Elder V was there waiting for them and explained that they had just been resurrected and that they would all be judged for their works.  Meanwhile, the pilots had put all their tickets into three piles--those who chose 4 or 5 spiritual things in the market went to the celestial kingdom, those who had chosen 2 or 3 went the the terrestrial kingdom, and those who chose 0 or 1 to the telestial.  After explaining the doctrine of judgment, Elder V showed them on a little TV screen the video of them in the market that Elder C had filmed.  Pretty genius, right?  And then three different angels (the ward mission leaders from our ward and the M ward) took them to their corresponding kingdom of glory and taught them about each one.  The ward mission leader from M had asked me to help him in the Celestial Kingdom.  The Celestial Kingdom was in the chapel, and he had me play hymns while they were walking in, and then at one other point in the presentation when he asked them to think for a minute about what is most important in their lives.  So I was there for the whole activity.  It was a great experience and everyone loved it.  Afterwards, we served them all Hawaiian pizza.  Our ward mission leader, J, was in charge of the Terrestrial kingdom, and he said that in one of the rounds a little girl started crying and asked "Why did they separate me from my family?!"  He said everyone in there started crying!  It was a very real experience for everyone who came, and a lot of them really felt a little bit of what it would be like to not end up living in an eternal family.  Overall it was a huge success, and we are going to try and do it again but as a whole stake in a few months.  Now that all the members from our ward and from M know how awesome it was, we're pretty sure they'll bring a ton of investigators if we do it again.  

What else?  We had zone conference this week on Tuesday.  It was great, as always.  President Wagner put a lot of emphasis in teaching the Restoration more centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We use the word "gospel" a lot as missionaries because it's an easy, pretty word that all the investigators have heard in the Catholic Church.  But everything is more effective when we explain to them time after time throughout the whole lesson that the Gospel is having faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.  We've been applying it and it just works better that way.  Explaining to them from the beginning that God is their Father, he loves them and wants them to return to live with him, which is why he has sent us to their home so that they can have faith, repent of their sins, be baptized by someone who has the authority, and receive the Holy Ghost.  If they learn to have faith and repent, and if they are baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, they are going to have a happier family and be able to live together for eternity.  God has always taught these principles to the family of all the earth since the beginning.  He called the first man, Adam, as a prophet and gave him authority to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to his children (Moses 6:55-62).  But Adam's children eventually rejected the Gospel and fell into apostasy.  So God called Enoch and gave him authority to teach about faith and repentance and to baptize and give the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  But the majority of the people rejected Enoch also and God took him and his people to heaven with him.  Then He called Noah and gave him authority (Moses 8:19) to warn the people that if they didn't have faith, repent, get baptized, and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, they would be destroyed in the flood (Moses 8:24).  But they rejected Noah also. The same thing happened with Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and all the prophets until Christ, who came and suffered for our sins so that we can be clean through faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.  He gave his authority to his apostles to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances of baptism and confirmation, but the people rejected and killed them also.  They fell into apostasy, and the doctrines of faith, repentance, and baptism were changed or forgotten.  The authority to baptize and give the gift of the Holy Ghost were no longer on the earth.  But in 1820, God called another prophet named Joseph Smith and restored His Gospel through him.   Joseph Smith received the authority to baptize from John the Baptist and the authority to give the Gift of the Holy Ghost from Peter, James and John.  The Book of Mormon was given as evidence that the Gospel had been restored and that through faith, repentance, baptism, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost we can be cleansed from sin and return to live with God.  When you invite the investigator to get baptized after this lesson, they are not going to be surprised.  We always talk about "finding the investigator's need" as missionaries, but really, their biggest need is to be clean from their sins.  If we explain to them through the whole lesson how to do that and that the authority to help them to that has been restored, it all just makes more sense.  Just a thought.  

We had a nice lesson on Wednesday with C.  We taught him the second half of the plan salvation, in other words, what happens after death.  We found out at the beginning of the lesson that he is a widower; his wife died 10 years ago.  So we focused the whole lesson on that and it was a really beautiful experience.  At the end of the lesson, he told us "I've always asked God that if there's a resurrection, why can't he show me my loved ones who have died or let me be with them again.  But you guys helped me answer that question today and now I know I'll be able to see them again."  I about cried at that point.  He's still super willing to get baptized, but we're going to have to move his baptismal date because he didn't make it to church this week. We went by Sunday afternoon and explained him about keeping the Sabbath day holy and he is committed to do it from here on out.  Love that guy.  

We had another cool lesson with a guy named J this week.  If you don't remember him, see my letter from July 22.  Basically, our first lesson with him was a complete disaster and he just wanted to fight, but we left him a Book of Mormon and as we all know that book does wonders.  We hadn't gone back to visit him since the first time, but the other day he invited us back over to talk to him.  We knew he had been reading the Book of Mormon because his wife had told us, and as we had expected, he had gotten to the part where the Spirit command Nephi to kill Laban and he was a little upset and confused about it.  We got there and listened to all the apostasy he started to tell us, and after trying to reason with him for a little bit and convince him that God really can command people to kill other people (which didn't work) we changed our game plan.  Before the opening prayer, we had asked him if he would like us to ask God for anything special, and he said that he wanted to be illuminated to know the truth.  So I asked him why he had such a strong desire to know the truth, and explained to him that all the knowledge he wants is knowledge that God has, and since God loves him he is willing to give it to him.  We stopped talking about Nephi and Laban and started talking about J, and we learned a lot of things about his past that helped us to know where he was coming from.  The whole spirit of the lesson changed.  We invited him to pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true, and he said that if God responded his prayer, he would believe that Nephi was commanded to kill Laban.  He even told us that he was going to say his prayer in the mountains so he could be more alone and focused.  He also committed to go to church the next Sunday (this coming Sunday).  And thus we see that the spirit does miracles when we let him into the lesson with us.  This investigator who seemingly wanted nothing but contention is now one step closer to finding the truth.  I feel like even though I have almost 15 months in the mission, I´m just barely figuring out how to do this missionary work stuff.  I'm really starting to feel love for the people I teach, feel the Spirit tell me what to teach them and see the difference it makes in their lives.  I'm finally figuring out how to teach people, not lessons, and really do things the right way.  In my personal study this week, I had a thought come to my head.  Most people, when they get more knowledge, become more prideful.  But really, if we recognize that true knowledge comes from God, the more we get, the more we should realize how much knowledge He has and it should help us actually be more HUMBLE and trust more in what HE knows. I feel like that has happened in my mission.  The more time I have, the more I realize how much I don't know and how much farther I have to go.  But that's why I've got a whole life to live and improve.  This church is true and Christ is our Savior!

I love you all!  Thanks for the letters and your prayers.  I'll try to send pictures next week because now i'm out of time.  Adios!

Elder Pew

Photos from Zone Conference