Big Week!

Monday, November 12, 2012 12:57 PM

So to start off, thank you for all of your amazing emails this week, really, they all mean a lot and have helped ´´rekindled´´ my fire so to speak. So I don't really have a lot of time this week because there were so many really good emails (which is totally fine, I´ll still get the good stuff in, so don't worry about writing long emails).

So this week, as you can see by the pictures, was a really amazing week! The first picture is the family that just showed up to church this past Sunday, and boy are they a miracle and a half. So to start the story, we were contacting in this one Pueblo Xalaclaco, and we knocked on this little some-what old ladies door and taught her about the restoration. She seemed really interested, but the only problem was that she works on Sundays all day, so we dropped off a pamphlet (in Spanish folleto, i forgot how to spell it in English haha) with the information of the church and told her where it was and at what time, and then left without thinking that something was going to happen because of her job. Well it turns out that the sister who was baptized, Catolina, is the sister of this lady that we met, and the lady that we met told her about the church and so Catolina went with her son! So after that miracle  happened, finding their house was another one haha. They lived off a tiny little cerrada, or private lane like ours, but the entrance to this cerrada is smaller than the area in between our house and that the brick wall (where we back the boat up), its about the size of the concrete that we have and it winds around, so after looking for almost 45 mins, we finally found it. After we taught them one lesson, they wanted to be baptized, the only problem was that they weren't married......another couple in Xalaclaco that isn't married, what a surprise. So we taught them on Tuesday, then on Wednesday we had our district leader come and interview them, they still wanted to get baptized, so on Friday my district leader and I went to the one place, Tequisquiac, which is 6 hours from our house, but, they can marry people that same day, so obviously we went. We did all of the paper work, and got back in our area around 8:30 that night, and we baptized the mom and her son right after we had a ´´marriage ceremony´´ in a room in the chapel with all of their family and what not, it was so awesome!! They were both so happy, and it was so amazing to be a part of helping them one get married and 2 be baptized. We are going to hopefully baptize the dad this week or next, the only problem is he wasn't at church this last week and he has weird hours for work, but we are going to get him baptized with the other members of their family (a total of about 18 that all live in one house) baptized before I leave this area! :)

So the second picture with the three kids. So these three kids are family friends of the huge family that was baptized last week, which really is the reason why they were baptized. We are currently with their mom to get her baptized as well, but she had no problem with her 3 oldest kids getting baptized, we just need to talk to her to baptized her and one more kid that she has that is 8 years old. Cool story with them, the oldest one, Betzi, I got to confirm, and it was my first confirmation. The last change I didn't do any blessings or confirmations, pretty much because I just wasn't comfortable enough with my Spanish to give someone a blessing, but this change I have already given like 2 or 3 blessings, but the confirmation was totally different. The spirit seriously was so strong during it, and the words really just flowed out of my mouth. I didn't have to think about what I was going to say before hand or anything like that, I just talked, and I knew it was the spirit cause it was things personal to her that I would have never been able to think of on my own, so that was really really special. 

So some info on the missionary life. So today we had to go back to Tequisquiac to finalize this marriage, so that is where we are at now, making sure that we get our letters out before 6, because we probably aren't going to get back home until 8ish....yay, but at least I get a long nap :) We just had tortas, which are basically the equivalent of burgers here (but honestly probably better) and I had this HUGE one! Honestly, it would put tanner to shame ;) it was 1.1 kilos, which is about 2.5 lbs almost all meat, with eggs, pineapple, and goodness haha. Along with that I had a 1 litre coca-cola, so I am a happy missionary haha :) I honestly cant believe that this change is already over, we really only have 2 more weeks together, and time has seriously just flown by! I guess it is true, the harder you work as a missionary the faster the time goes by. ;) So to answer the questions, I shower just like a normal person Taylor, thank you very much. I use soap and shampoo, hopefully just like you  ;) haha jk, I know what you meant. So we have a ´´normal´´ shower head, it it basically a pipe with a shower head to disperse the water, so it really isn't much different, there just isn't as much water pressure. We also have really hot water, which is soooo nice haha. We also do have a cell phone, one for each companionship, but it is blocked so we can only call/text other mission phones, but, our investigators can call/text us, we just have to use a public phone to call them back. Also, today I am going to pick up my shoes for soccer, so next week you will be able to see them, I had to get them ordered cause they don't carry my size of shoe here haha, but they are sick! They are this bright blue with orange at the top, so I am pretty excited about that. Also with the scripture cases, the Brother who is making them is going to start on them, but it is going to take 3-4 changes to make them, so I will have those in a little bit (btw, thanks for putting in the Christmas gift). I still haven't gotten any letter from mom yet, we didn't get pouch for some reason last week, but I should get it tomorrow. I have found out that if you send it on a Tuesday, I will get it 2 weeks after that (if we get pouch), but if it is after that it will add on another Tuesday, so just an fyi.

Again, thank you for all of your support and letters, they really help out and are answers to prayers!! I wrote letters last week, but I totally forgot to send them off, so ya. I love you all so much, you really are the best family that anyone could ask for!! You have taught me so much, even if I didn't recognize it before, you really were meant to be my parents to teach me the things that I needed to learn to help these people here in Mexico. Thank you for all of the amazing letters that you sent me in the mtc tambien, I read them over last night and there were a lot that really touched me and were an answer to prayers, especially the hand written one from you mom and the poem that Siera Sudburry sent me, so thank you! 

Con amor,

Elder Noel