Chambiando

Hello.

So this week we had transfers. I’m here in Melchor Ocampo still but I got a new comp. He’s Elder Gonzalez. He’s already my favorite companion I’ve had. He likes to work, but I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much either with a companion I’ve had. 

Anyways. 

Tuesday there ain’t much to say, we had district council and I got us lost on the way. Later we had a lesson with Víctor on the phone and with Elizabeth and she drank Coffee again. I finally used D&C 89 to explain it, and guess what? She understood it better then she ever had before 😱😱.

Wednesday we went over to teach Jesús, he’s the blind recent convert, he’s a great dude, but during the lesson we realized he didn’t even know how to pray or anything yet the last missionaries still baptized the guy. He has a super fat dog. We asked what its name was and he said he didn't really know, he said he just calls it "dog" sometimes. We also taught this guy Moisés who was in teaching previously but I guess the baptismal interview wasn’t great. But Moisés is a good dude. He is super sad his girlfriend left him and I had no idea what to say to comfort him.

Thursday we had some good lessons too. We took about a 50 minute trek to Víctors house. It obviously wasn’t a fun walk and he lives right on the border of the area and I'm absolutely terrified he lives in another area. We entered his house. Víctor’s a clean well dressed balding man likely in his 50s. His wife and daughter were there too but Víctor said they were Catholic and even though they were nice, they left the house and it was just us and him. We asked him how he was doing and he just started crying really hard. He said his dad was in the hospital with covid. When he started crying I literally felt so useless and had 0 clue of what to say so I literally just started to pray hoping something of use would come out of my dumb old mouth. We ended up having a really good lesson. I’ll be so sad if we find out Víctor lives in another area. At the end of the lesson we gave him a blessing and a Book of Mormon, he had been reading it on his Phone and he said when he reads it he can picture everything like a movie. When we gave the physical copy he was so happy, that when he touched the cover he started crying and started praying. He’s a good guy. After the lesson we were waiting for a member to take us to our next lesson and there was this dog by us acting really dumb and so we named it after my old companion. Our next lesson was with the two recent convert we taught last week who don’t want to come to church cause they got offended. I thought we had a pretty dang good lesson, but alas they didn’t show up to church. I thought at least the mom would come (her 14 year old daughters gone a  little crazy so I didn’t expect her to come). After that lesson we went to go teach Moisés but this time in person. He lives in this place that helps people with alcoholism and mental health issues and stuff. Its obviously a good idea to have places like it, but I'm not sure this place had it down. We walked in and it was a really narrow space with junk and trash piled up everywhere and very little light. We walked up to the top floor to victors room. We started talking to him and he’s a super nice guy. He’s got some problems, he’s very sad his girlfriend left him and he's always nervous cause he has like shkitzofrenia (I didn’t even want to attempt to spell it correctly) or something. We gave him a blessing and taught some basic principals and yeah.

Friday we had exchanges with our district leader Elder Larson. Elder Larson is literally one of the funniest missionaries I've ever met. I went with his companion Elder Cervantes. He’s 22 years old but he looks 15. He’s the only member of the church in his family and he actually has less time than I do. He's super small and super loud, and I know a lot of missionaries think he's annoying but I think he's a pretty good missionary. He loves to talk to people and loves contacting in the street (I don't always) he knocked on a door and asked for a drink of water then he contacted them and it actually worked. Then he decided to randomly walk into a random shop and contact the guy. It was a small wood shop and the guy was listening to loud classical music. He was making chairs and so we started talking to him, it turns out that before he did that, he played the classical guitar for years. We asked him to show us his guitar and it was super nice. He played a song and he was freaking good. We then taught him a lesson. He doesn't live in our area so i'll never see him again, and even though street contacting sometimes isn't the best, you sure get stories and meet interesting people that way. In the morning elder Larson locked the keys in the house and started freaking out. I was trying to calm him down by telling him every missionary of all time has at one point locked the keys in the house. Meanwhile my comp and his comp were just laughing at him for being so dramatic (he was being pretty dramatic). We ended up shoving Elder Cervantes through the bars on the window and it worked and he was able to go get the keys. Anyway yeah. That companionship is pretty dang funny.

Later that day we taught Elizabeth again and it was a pretty dang good lesson. We’ve been trying the "be nice and be their friends" approach in place of the "direct and blunt" approach and it worked well.

Sunday we went to church and literally only one investigator showed up. (Moisés) I guess the others were busy, but it was a little disappointing. At least blind Jesús was there. After church we went to eat with the Stake Pres and his family, and on the walk back we almost broke one of the 10 commandments (Sabbath day) cause on the walk back to the church we had to cross through the tianguis (the large outdoor markets) and we passed this guy selling the coolest custom lego minifigures we’d ever seen in our lives. We wanted to buy them SO bad, but luckily we resisted the temptation. (also I had no money on me) they have the tianguis again on thursday and I think we might casually pass by there to buy some. Anyway. After we returned to the church and we passed some very drunk men and they started yelling at us, but they were actually super nice saying like "buenas tardes" and "buen camino" and stuff. So i guess drunk dudes can be quite civil. At the church there was a meeting for new members teaching them how to do a family home evening. For me and my comp, it went on for WAY too Long, but I hope it wasn't a bore for everyone else. We left early to go teach a lesson. It was a video call with a guy we didn't know cause it was a reference from Facebook. The guys named Mario. We started talking to him, and at first I was afraid he might be the bashing type ‘cause he said he likes to "discuss" religion with different types of people, but that wasn't the case at all. We started talking and sharing about faith and forgiveness and a bit about the Book of Mormon, and he was literally SO happy when we started telling him all that and he said he’s never met anyone from any religion thats made him so happy. The guy was practically crying and was super excited to come to church next Sunday.

Sometimes Mexicans are pretty cool

Bye 

Picz 

Our neighbor dog Chocoleta attacking me

Me 'n Elder Eervantes