Spies and Angry Farmers

Hello. Let me explain the title a little bit

So, on Wednesday, we went out to visit Vanessa and her grandma, they live on a ranch a little far from where we live, Vanessa is 16 and her grandma is pretty sick. Vanessa’s mom lives in a little town called San Lorenzo, about 10 minutes up the road. Basically her mom lives with this extremely abusive guy, who completely controls her, the way Vanessa and everyone describes it, its basically like she’s kidnapped. The members heard about the situation and decided to help. I guess they contacted some sort of place that could help rescue Vanessa’s mom. I’m not sure exactly what they did or who they contacted, but they said to be able to help, they needed to get the location of the house. So a member took us up to the little town, basically just for pure farmers and stuff, and Vanessa showed us what house it was. The house was a bit down a dirt walking path. We decided that the “safest” option would to send the missionaries to go up to the house to get the location, so that if anyone caught us we could just say we were out there preachin’, the Word. (Hence the 'spies' title) The member dropped us off and we walked a bit of a ways in and reached the house. The first thing I saw that alarmed me as we arrived, were the 2 dogs sitting outside. Those things ALWAYS bark. We had some luck (or some other celestial source) on our side, cause these dogs didn’t do a thing. There was also a young boy just sitting outside in the ground doing seemingly nothing, but he was sitting the other way, and also didn’t see us. We hid behind a large nopal (a cactus pretty much) took the location on the phone and got out with any incident. The next problem we faced that the member who has dropped us off about 1 minute earlier, was no longer in his parking spot where he’d let us out, and we had no clue where he’d gone, and he wasn’t answering the phone. We were pretty anxious to get out of there after what we’d just done, so we started walking up, and then down the street looking for the member. As we walked down the street, there was some farmers about 50-100 yards down the road. There was probably around 5 give or take. Since wed arrived to the little town, the farmers had literally been staring us down from a far. Im really not sure if they thought we were feds or something, but as we got closer they started yelling at us stuff. I really don’t know what, but as we turned back to walk the opposite direction they started to yell that we were “running away”. I was honestly a bit shaken up and felt as if we’d been in the small little town a little too long. Then a few of the farmers got into an old orange pickup truck with sheep in the back (if I remember correctly) and started driving up towards us. I was nervous cause I thought they were gonna stop and do something, but they just literally drove past and kind of stared and laughed at us a little and kept driving. Finally the member appeared in his red car and picked us up and we got out of there. It turns out the member had gone to a nearby convenience store and bought some chips and stuff to eat while were in getting the location of the house. Then we returned to Vanessa’s house and we ate chicken and some rice her grandma had made. Her grandma is a super nice woman. I think she’s 74 years old, but looks a lot older for her failing health. Every time we go to her house and we shake her hand, she takes our hand and kisses it. She is always super grateful when we come and she’s also super funny. (Also the rice she made was pretty dang good)

On Thursday we were able visit Alejandro and Yaritzel. Their two kids who’s mom is a member but the dad isn’t, and for the longest time the dad wouldn’t allow them to be baptized. The mom, Deysi had battled a ton with so many things but finally the dad said they could get baptized and they were super excited. So we finished the lessons and gave them the interview questions so they could get ready for a baptism on Saturday. Then we went to an internet cafe and literally spent almost 3 hours trying to make and print a baptism program. 

Friday we had exchanges in Tepeji. I went with Elder De la Cruz. He’s a super great dude from the Dominican Republic. I had a great time being with him and talking. Layer that night we went with a family to eat dinner. The guys named Ramferi but we call him ‘the bishop’ (I suppose because at one point in his life he was indeed a bishop) he’s a very large man, but he’s super funny. I think I’ve mentioned the guy before but he could literally be a comedian. 

Saturday we had the baptism of Alejandro and Yarexel. It was a really good service. A lot of members came. I wish I could say all baptism services were as good and spiritual as this one was, but they really aren’t. After that we went to go help with  a move. A guy was moving about 1 block down the street. He only needed help for about 20 minutes it seemed, and then we left.

Sunday was a dull one, we confirmed the two kids and then 2 people who we'd never met and who weren't members showed up other then that though, nothing worth mentioning happened. 

Anyway, bye. 

1-3. The baptism

4. Me ’n, De la Cruz