Will you help us out?

Itzel's baptism

WENDY'S finally!

Wow! That’s quite a bunch of news coming there from the home front. New ward, (not gonna lie that’s a pretty gay name... hi I’m from Pegasus ward hu hu hu... even merlot ward is better, ill deal with it though). That’s sounds like a blast over there on the dive team, I can’t believe that they are already doing scrimmages already and even more that Brigg is a junior... Brighton 2 classes and one on internet? What are they? Ball room dancing and star wars 101? hahahah jk glad you’re doing something.

I never heard about grandma, why didn’t anyone tell me? I know she’s tough but she needs support still the same. Tell here I say hi and will be praying for her. So Jared Larson is Obispo? Wow that’s crazy. I can already tell you your callings. Mom, relief society pres or primary pres. Dad is going with the deacons or 11 year olds for sure. Tell him hi for me, I’ll sure miss Bishop carpenter... those boundaries sound so small to me... um... oh ya the Kelley’s moved back? That’s so awesome, where are they living? I have no idea who the kings are...

Ok, well, enough about you guys I wanna talk about ME! No not really I just thought it sounded funny. We had a decent work week some good new investigators and a sweet open house activity Saturday. The ward is so awesome all we had to do was greet the people they brought and jot down an appointment at the end! There is one recent convert that has about 5 months. His name is Ray Ramirez. He and his family are so awesome; he is executive secretary and baptized one of his friends and his whole family a while ago. Now we are teaching the mom of this friend (called Daniel Sanchez) and she’ll probably get baptized this week. And at the open house Ray brought his mom’s sister and her whole family and his kids godparents. A lot of other members brought friends and neighbors as well. It was a neat event cuz it opened up a lot of questions from the people and I love answering questions. As our President says" Mexico is a culture of don’t ask questions, since a baby parents teach their kids, don’t ask questions, if you do your stupid" and that’s the way it is! So I absolutely love it when people ask instead of saying no it’s all clear. (Just so all you kids know asking questions doesn’t make you stupid it makes you smart). Then Sunday we had ward conference. It was pretty good. I (and everyone else) didn’t understand what the Bishop was trying to say in his talk but it’s all good. The choir was made up the young single adults. And since there are more girls than guys they asked us to help them out. No one knows how to carry a tune and it’s frustrating as heck. Then the piano player just plays the same chord on left hand even when it doesn’t go (isn’t the right key). But it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, so me neither.

I want to talk a bit more about those young single adults. 5 of them are our ward missionaries and do an awesome job at that but every time a general authority or area seventy talks he just chews out all the single adults. The bishops and stake presidents are all proud but there is a serious problem here in that no one is getting married!! The majority of sealing done is converts. It’s quite a worrying problem here in Mexico. Me and Contreras play around with that a lot reading the scriptures of "ministering angels" and stuff like that. There’s even one sister who is waiting for her visa to go on a mission and has been waiting a long time, My comp straight out told her that God is saying she needs to get married hahaha, the good thing is they are all good sports and take it. At least we have an excuse hahaha.

Well as for the zone... it’s not a zone with high expectations. Bad. In these 4 weeks of august there are only 10 baptisms in the whole zone, We’ve got one week left and I put the goal of reaching 20 for the month. Its reachable cuz we have 6 people with a baptismal date for this week but we are gonna need some faith and miracles to reach it. Will you all help us out?

Today we played basketball in the morning; I’ve gotten a lot better. I’ve learned how to shoot but I am fetching tired! It was fun.

Well I’ve got 38 weeks left in the mission and I’ve been studying one of the 42 principles of doctrine every week. #38 is Eternal Families, last week was #39 Temples and family History Work and I had some pretty good experiences studying the principle. I downloaded the conference addresses and studied three of the talks. I listen to them while reading the Liahona and marked it and make comments. The temple is such an incredible awesome place. Gathering the wheat into the garners as the scriptures say. There is so much protection, and peace found there and in the covenants done. Dad wrote me about the difficulties the saints passed even after Joseph Smith died. What gave most of them the strength and power to move on was the hope and faith they received from being endowed and sealed in the Holy Temple. They knew what they had done, they knew they were keeping the commandments of the Father and had a deep understanding of the Plan of Salvation. That knowledge gives way to the faith which converts itself into the firm anchor that makes us always pressing forward no matter what. And that can also be a powerful blessing to us as well. It doesn’t come free or even at a small cost. The price to prepare, enter and return to the temple is great not to mention the cost of learning and progressing! May we all live worthy to enter the Holy Temple. Even those that still need to wait. Live worthily of a recommend that way when it is time you will be ready. That’s how you prepare. And that will make sure that our lives are in order. And we can receive the desired help from the Lord to really do and receive whatever we need.

May God bless you all. Do the best you can and don’t wear yourself out doing it. There are time and resources for everything the key is diligence. I love you all, take care.

-ELDER SOLOMON

The Lord is Boss

Hi there,

Awesome pictures, just nough to make me trunky. I didn’t even listen to the videos, your voices will make me trunky ill wait till Christmas, see if you all can understand me:) I’ve been teaching my comp English and I’, thinking about signing up for the class too!

Well, last week was (I think) the fastest week in my life. Let me tell you. Monday p-day, Tuesday was the DL council, the first half was boring for me, but the after getting back from dinner we got into some interesting stuff and we ended up setting a record: 9 in the morning to 9 at night, 12 hours of council! We all left with a super cool spirit, it was awesome! The best part was we had to come back to Tlalnepantla because there are only so many beds in the offices and we didn’t want to share. So we got home at 11 ish (disobedient I know;). The next day we had to get some stuff ready for the Zone Conference, and went to the visitors center with some investigators which ended up taking about 5 hours to do went to bed. The next morning we left the house early for the conference. I thought it went fairly well. Our zone numbers wise is really small so we had it in the high council room. We talked about diligence, patience, references, CAAR, ( CAAR is a program down here that is a committee from the ward that assigns the missionaries, in-actives, new converts, etc. to visit and then also made plans to help these people.) I talked about English and the importance of learning it, the blessings, and how to do it. It was really good. I realized how much I’ve learned on the subject by my own experience. Then my comp spoke on working with the members. Of course President talks the whole time, throwing in his comments. We never give him a set part in the program cuz we know he’ll just jump in wherever he wants. He is an awesome man. He had us al crying in the DL council and just made us all sit in awe in the conference and does a good job of exciting us to be obedient, work hard, etc., without really telling us directly. He also showed us some stats on the mission. Basically we are no. 1 in Mexico (not to brag, we are also very humble about it) but the best part is the progress the mission in the last trimester grew 5% overall. Basically that’s incredible a 1 or 2 percent increase is expected annually. I’m grateful to be here. Well Friday and Saturday blew by. We didn’t really have that successful of a workweek. Good thing we talk so much about patience and hope or else I would’ve... well gotten down and angry. The Lord is boss.

In the council there was some thing that really stuck to me. The President talked about the Lord calling people as leaders and prophets some old and some young and we looked at a case of one of these young ones. Mormon, at only 10 years old he was charged by Ammaron to take care of the plates. How many of us would trust a 10 year old with our car much less the sacred records of thousands of years? But there were two characteristics that separated Mormon from the rest. It says he was a serious boy and quick to observe. By talking about serious it means reverent. I imagine he knew when it was time to play around time to be quiet: time and a place right? Of course this doesn’t mean all the time boring and serious. Yesterday the elders quorum president walked home with us and basically told us we need to be happy and enjoy the mission, I told him that the only time he sees us is a time to be reverent (in sacrament meeting and in classes), in fact I told him I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life! I really am, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be dancing and singing in elders quorum!!! The second was the ability to observe. We have one investigator that goes crazy crazy when we walk in her house cuz I am always looking around and examining things. She says I have wondering eyes but that’s how I learn. I learn so much about a person by seeing how they live, their pictures, their beliefs, etc. Many times I learn more by looking than by listen to them babble on. However, that too can be a good way to observe. When I started the mission I prayed a lot for the gift of discernment and the ability to observe. It’s so useful being able to really know people, why they do the things they do and how to help them. I hope we all can work towards developing these talents.

God bless you all, don’t get too tan! Brighton enjoy being big buff guy cuz two months in the MTC puts a beating on that and its super hard to get back. I’ve been working out and it feels really good but its just with limited resources. Oh ya, get those girls ready cuz I want a date with them all ¿va? Hahaha

I love you all take care. Do the possible and leave the impossible to God.

-ELDER SOLOMON

Life here is good.

Hey everyone, happy August 10th.

Well, I thought this was going to be the first week I didn’t get a mail from anyone but Wayne saved you all. Your ppbably all busy and sleep all day Sunday, so ill give you a break. But only one.

Life here is good. We got a lot more busy here this week. We started passing around a list like the food list but it’s a list for Family home evenings. At first the members didn’t really like it, but yesterday a lot more signed up and those are taking up our evening and its awesome.

On Saturday we went back to Cuautepec for a baptism in the morning then our own baptism in the afternoon and 2 family home evenings after that! A long, long day. In fact, my companion got sick on Sunday but its all good. A nice little p-day to get some rest. Gosh, I don’t have anything to write!!! Ok well… I’m just working, new people just come out of nowhere and the members are awesome. We had 12 new investigators last week and didn’t knock a single door. I’m finding it’s the best way to work. I’m sorry but I’m not in the typing mood. I’ll try for a better letter next week. Love you all.

-ELDER SOLOMON

20 Questions

So, what are we playing 20 questions or what or what or what? Hey, well I’m glad your interested in my life. Let’s see. Santa Cecilia is awesome, a dream come true. Me and Elder Contreras get along super good and are sharing the load pretty equally. Let me explain how the whole leadership deal is. There are District leaders who have normal junior comps and then the Zone leaders are always the companionship but there are ZL senior comp and ZL junior comp. They have similar responsibilities. For example I was DL with Elder Valdez. Then he left and Acosta came. I was then ZL junior comp and he was ZL senior comp. As junior comp I am still in charge of a district just like a DL in addition to my ZL chores. The senior comp is the one that gets the most blame for the zone ;) ok, so with Contreras its the same. He’s the senior comp.

Ok, family Rico does have a dad, but they have a rough economic situation right now and he sells clothing he makes in the market and if he doesn’t sell on Sunday... he is a super cool guy but has to wait for the change of season when he starts selling blankets and it’ll be easier.

And the truth is they don’t really have a "cool" conversion story, all was super calm, tranquilo.

Well, it seems every other week I’m telling you about a leadership council but here we are again. ZL council was stupendous. We are now going to be teaching our companions English like Preach My Gospel says and they are really expressing work with members. And as always, the President with his awesome sermons/rants. One that hit me super hard was when he talked bout our bodies and how they were made from the dust. It was incredible how we subject ourselves so much to just a little pile of dust. We think we are so great and intelligent but we are whooped by... dust. He took off his suit coat and said this is like our bodies. While it’s on it moves and lives, but when its not, it doesn’t do anything. He threw it on the floor and said some stuff like "get up coat, talk coat, do something" and obviously it did nothing. We are from the dust but we are not dust we are children of a Loving Heavenly Father and as such we all have divine qualities and abilities. I wish I could remember more but I just remember how I felt as he gave us that lesson. Talking about the uselessness of worldly things: he pulled out 100 peso bill from his wallet, he talked about how people kill, commit crime and even prostitute for paper that doesn’t mean anything, then he ripped the bill in half then in fourths. How foolish we are sometimes. Sacrifice family time to pay the debt on the car… "its for the family" we say, but we lose what’s most important.

Another part I loved was talking about the patience. It’s true, there are trials, setbacks, disappointments, etc. In life and it’s part of life. Ask Job if righteous living means you wont suffer. All too often we forget the heavenly virtue of patience. There is no need to panic. We think that the house, the car, the pictures, the dog is all going up in flames when in 20 minutes we find out that nothing is wrong. Patience, patience, patience.

Then... at the end a certain matter came up about the changes. Why certain people were getting favored over many other while they might not necessarily merit the position but they get it on a basis of time (who has the most time in he mission). Well, the Pres laid that one out pretty hard core too. Chewed us out on humility... someday well be judged not on the positions we’ve held but on how we completed what were assigned. Everyone pushes from where they stand. That was quite and illuminating discussion.

Well, we’ve got on person with a baptismal date for this week. I’m still getting used to the area and being grateful for learning the happy routine in the mission. My old comp elder Hoyt hasn’t found it out yet. He is in this zone and for the bad decisions and more than anything the lies he’s told, he is pretty miserable. I really hope I can help him out this change. It hurts seeing a brother hurt.

I hope this letter is long enough cuz my mind just went blank. I love you all. You sound so blessed. The awesome part is I get to enjoy the blessings (like you all) for 6 years after I get home plus the ones I’m hopefully racking up now. The work is awesome and I am working like a you-know-what just so you know. Take care.

-ELDER SOLOMON