Christmas Throwup

This week started out good when we found a new investigator Monday night. His name is Aldolfo and he has been studying religion and philosophy for his whole life. He is Catholic, but he accepted everything we taught him and he liked how everything we said all made sense. At the end he said something really cool. He said that he has read a philosophy that "If you study, teachers will come." He remarked how hes been studying his whole life and then two teachers finally showed up at his door.

I also got my first planch this week. A planch is basically like being chewed out. Luckily, the planch wasn't really for me and more for the other missionaries in my surrounding area, so everything is good. Glad that I got my first planch out of the way.

On Friday, we had a Christmas party with half of the mission in Puebla. Before the festivities though I was given a challenge. On Thursday night, my companion ate a bunch of potato chips and Friday morning, before we left he wasn't feeling that good. When we woke up, I went to do my morning business as usual (Keep in mind we only have one functioning toilet, the other doesn't work). As I came out of the bathroom of my companion with the working toilet, I heard a disturbing noise coming from my bathroom. My thoughts were along the lines of "What in the world is my companion doing in my bathroom?" Come to find out, he was throwing up in the not working toilet. So, he cleaned it up a little bit, but as my luck would have it, it fell to me to clean up a majority of the toilet and my sink (I have no idea how he got throw up in my sink). After we went to the Christmas party.

The Christmas party was fun and I was selected to be one of the people who got to take some swings at the pinata. My first Mexican Christmas and my first Mexican pinata, i'm basically one with the culture at this point.

On Saturday we went with the ward mission leader to kill a turkey. Hopefully ill be able to attach the pictures, if not you'll have to check back next week. We killed the turkey, then brought it back to his house where we cleaned it. We will be eating it a little later today for our Christmas dinner.

Adios 

Elder Warburton 

Danger (and The Last Jedi) In the Streets of Morelos

Hola everyone.

 This week I got to see the more dangerous side of Mexico. Monday night we were in one of the smaller Pueblas around our city walking in the dark and we heard a man call out "elders" behind us. When its dark and you're walking alone and a man calls out elders in the street its a good idea not to stop. Luckily we didn't stop and we had an investigators house pretty close by, so we knocked on the door and luckily the guy kept walking and didn't rob us. On the bright side, we got a baptismal date with this investigator. Then last night (Sunday) we got kind of robbed. We were waiting for the bus and this guy came up and gave us high fives. I was busy trying to figure out if I was supposed to know him or not when my companion handed him 10 pesos and I realized he was there to take our money. Lucky for me I ran out of money that day, so I had none to give and the bus pulled up and we hopped on. Then on the walk home back to our apartment last night, we took off our jackets and ties, so we would be less of a target to rob.

This week I made some new friends with the kids of our investigators. The kids cant talk in Spanish very well and I cant either, so we get along pretty well. My companion will teach some stuff, and while he is teaching ill entertain the kids for a bit until its my turn to say something. Lets just say there are some wild kids here in Mexico.

We met an inactive family this week and they have a boy that just turned 17. We went to their house to celebrate his birthday and we got some good bread/cake stuff. Hopefully we will be able to reactivate him and his mom and convert his dad. We got four dates for baptisms this week. It would have been six, but a lot of people here aren't married. They'll happily accept a baptism date, then we find out they're not married and have to backtrack and help plan their wedding.

We went to a neighboring area on Saturday, Humantla, and sang carols in the park. It was a good time and we contacted a lot of people.

Pirated movies is a big business here in Mexico and I wondered how long it would take before The Last Jedi hit the streets, well I got my answer today. Now every time we walk past a pirated movie shop, The Last Jedi is staring me in the face. Hopefully I can remain strong with this daily temptation.

We also played soccer today for p-day and attached is a picture of the winning team.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Two Months as a Jehovah's Witness

I've made it two months into the mission and every day people think we are Jehovah's Witnesses. There are a lot of JWs around here, but I think our message is a little bit better.

This week while we were contacting, we encountered an old man who really didn't want to hear our message. He started yelling at us, something about money and how religion is a scam, but he had a picture of Jesus on his wall, so I don't know what he was trying to get at. On the flip side, we had lunch on Wednesday with a really cool old man. When we walked into his house he had Glenn Miller playing and he has a huge collection of jazz records and CDs. He also has a bunch of old church books and regular books. He had a box of old pesos and he gave Elder Tarrega and I one each.

We had some good lessons, but those aren't as interesting as the crazy ones. We have an investigator named Noberto Carmona and lets just say he is totally crazy. He yelled cash for about 5 straight minutes to make sure I knew what he was saying and the whole time we taught him, he had a rip in his pants in the part no one ever wants to see. 

Its getting even colder here, but I found a portable heater in our house and plugged it in. We used it for one morning of study, then when I went to unplug it, one of the prongs stayed in the outlet. Dying of an electrical fire here is very likely. 

Adios

Elder Warburton

P.S. The Last Jedi comes out this week and I would appreciate it very much if nobody sent me any spoilers. Thank you.

Tacos

Hola. This week was the week of tacos. We had tacos everyday except for Tuesday and I can easily say they are much better here than they are in the states. 

Everything is also really cheap here too. I try not to think about the conversion rate and just go by pesos. When something is $20 pesos I usually think that its expensive, but then I realize it is only a little more than a dollar in US currency. I got a pair of fake ray-bans for a little more than $3 US dollars, so now the streets of Morelos will see how good I look in sunglasses.

This week we had a really cool experience with an investigator. We were knocking doors and we knocked the door of a man name Roberto Martinez and he said he was busy, so we kept knocking doors on that street. About three minutes later he came outside and called us back to his house. He said that when he sat down after opening the door and rejecting us he heard a voice say "Escuche" or "Listen." So, he called us back and we shared the first lesson with him and the Light the World video and he accepted it all. We invited him to baptism and he didn't say yes, because he wants to learn more first. 

This week we had intercambios, so I went to a different area that was even colder than mine, so now in the mornings I don't complain as much.

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This week we also performed our play we have been working on. I don't know if i've said anything about this, but we've been practicing a play for members and investigators since I got here and this week we finally performed it. I had the part of Jehovah and luckily it was only one set of lines.

I also gave my first full priesthood blessing that wasn't an anointing with oil. It was about as good as it gets with a little under two months of Spanish training. There was another member there with us and she started crying so I'm going to think it was because she felt the spirit and not because I was talking complete gibberish.

I also had my first encounter with a drunk guy this week who was trying to follow us home, but luckily we walk so fast its impossible to keep up with us even if you're not inebriated.

P.S. I also heard some really good classic music throughout this week, so God really does bless us.

Adios

Elder Warburton