Turkey or Fish

This week went by fast. They all go by fast. 

We had a meeting with the stake mission leader on Tuesday and this guy is crazy. If he were to tell me that he baptized 1000 people in his mission i would believe it. I know he had to at least baptize over 100. He's still pretty young, around 28 years old and he just knows missionary work. He gave us a ton of tips and things that we need to do to be better missionaries. He told us that we basically need to memorize chapter 10 of preach my gospel, so I've taken it to heart and that's what I've been doing. I almost didn't make it to the reunion because of some tacos I ate the night before (i was sprinting back to the house 3 minutes after leaving it), but we got there and it was a good experience.

I also finally got to the point where i was so tired my eye was twitching. It was twitching for like two days and i couldn't figure out what was going on because it didn't hurt or anything and then i realized that i was super tired and that's what happens when you get tired. I just have to get salmonella then i'll have permission to sleep in.

On Wednesday one of the ladies we are teaching (the one that has the ctr ring if you remember) presented us to all of her family that lives by here. We met her mom and 2 other sisters and we got to share a lesson with all of them. We talked about the plan of salvation and they liked it, but "don't think they want to change religion." They will just have to wait until we tell them in the next lesson that eternal families are only possible in our church.

Thanksgiving was awesome. We got to eat Turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, apple and pumpkin pie, and the gravy was to die for. No just kidding. That would never happen in Mexico. I ate fish. If you've seen the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Debra tries to replace the Thanksgiving turkey with fish you can know that i have lived that episode of tv. Next year i want a tofurkey.

On Friday i had interchanges with Elder Sue Sue. This Elder is easily one of the craziest in the whole mission. Not to go into to much detail, but basically he's been almost robbed 3 times and kidnapped in the mission, but beat up the muggers every time (he is a giant Samoan). He is just now telling president and has been talking to general authorities (the big one Elder Eyring and Elder Cook). He is super fun though and it was awesome hearing all of his stories. Don't worry mom the mission isn't as dangerous as it sounds, he just has a knack for getting into situations like that.

There is a family that goes to church every week and we found out that their daughter hasn't been baptized even though they go to church every week. We talked to her and the family and she wants to be baptized on her birthday December 25th. I'm hoping that she doesn't want to get baptized sooner because i'm really looking forward to having a baptism on Christmas.

A lady was following us for 20 minutes yesterday and we didn't even realize it. She and her two kids finally got our attention and turns out that 1. The lady is a member and they moved here two days ago 2. Her son and husband aren't baptized (giddyup) and 3. We walk really fast because she couldn't catch up to us running. 

More stuff has happened, but those are the highlights.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

After a year of searching i finally found my name written on a wall in Mexico

Happy Thanksgiving!

 The fish. To its credit it was good, it just wasn't turkey

Early Christmas presents that i bought myself. Mini scriptures are the coolest thing that exist as a missionary. Also if i'm going to be reading the birth of Christ with people i'm not going to carry around my 50 pound bible every day. 

ESTA VIVO EL POLLO?

Hello everyone

I was thinking about writing about how my comp drives me crazy and says that i'm the reason were not having success and how i don't have faith when he doesn't even follow any of the rules, but that wouldn't be a very fun email to write so ill try to focus on the positive. 

This week President and sister Barron came to our district meeting, so it was good to see them again. i spent all of the night before cleaning the house because i thought for sure sister Barron would come and check it after what happened the last time she checked my house (in short me running around trying to clean everything before she came up and her catching me in the act). However, i was severely disappointed when they didn't have time to. I asked President about calling and election (look it up in the Book of Mormon) and it's helped me to be more dedicated in this past week and it will continue helping me to keep working even when everything isn't going great.

Also it got really cold this week out of nowhere. Monday and Tuesday were normal, but then when we woke up Wednesday morning it was freezing. So now every night and morning its really cold and during the day the sun just burns without giving too much warmth. I didn't miss this time of year in mexico.

I also may have contacted someone who is gold, stay tuned. Her name is Regina and i decided to contact her in the street and she gave us her address so, we passed by to visit her. She said that she decided to talk to us because she feels like now is the time to let God into her life because she almost knows nothing about religion (which is really rare here). Hopefully she's married and her husband will let her talk to us.

Some more random things from this week. We saw the crazy member who gave me food poisoning a month back building a house this week. That house is so going to fall over. One of the ladies we are teaching was married to a hitman from a drug cartel, but he got tortured and murdered, so now she is living here. She also did the Karate Kid (the new one, which i do not support, watch the old one, its better) cup with alcohol and fire thing to my arm. Basically its to heal wounds, but all that happened was the cup suctioned onto my arm and the next day i had a bruise.

This week was the primary program in the ward. I think something must be wrong with me because i had to keep fighting back tears. Must have been the pollen in the air.

In the last two days we've had some crazy combi rides. On Sunday we were stuck in traffic for two hours and a drunk guy got onto this packed combi. We were basically 20 people in a small van. And a fight broke out and he kept falling over. Then today the driver wasn't watching where he was going and hit a speed bump way hard and a pregnant lady fell on me and some lady's chicken went flying everywhere then some guy said "¿¿ESTA VIVO EL POLLO??" Gotta love mexico.

With thanksgiving coming up all i can say is that i am grateful for salsa and tacos. Seriously some of the sisters here can make a salsa that makes me just want to drink it straight.

That's all

Adios

Elder Warburton

  

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

 I bought all natural honey in the street and greek yogurt and got my haircut. Its been an eventful Monday. I didn't take any more pictures. All i have is a video of a puppy peeing on my hand that i haven't watched yet so i don't want to send it.

Xochitecatl

Buenas tardes buenas noches señoritas y señores. 

This week went by super fast probably because i wasn't in my area for almost three days of it. On Tuesday i had intercambios so i went to the area of the zone leaders. We worked there and I got to tag along for the day. When we ended intercambios Wednesday morning the zone leaders had to watch our weekly planning session and of course they ate all of my nutella. Pray that i will be able to get more soon. 

On Wednesday afternoon we went into Puebla because on Thursday we had a conference with Elder Pingree from the seventy. So, Wednesday night we slept in the house of some missionaries who are in Puebla and it was fun to work with them and see them. We also got pizza and tacos. Two things that don't exist in my area and i miss very much. I worked with Elder Kasteler who is still in his training and he is huge. It was funny to see him try to fit into the small Mexican homes and cars. 

On Thursday we had our conference with Elder Pingree and it was super awesome. He was so full of energy and so excited to be there. He is in the process of learning Spanish, but that didn't stop him from going all out. I was able to learn a lot and him and his wife both talked about the importance of preach my gospel. So, now i'm studying it every day with more dedication. Before the conference started Elder Pingree interviewed 4 missionaries and i was chosen......... to be one if he had extra time. He didn't :(   I was almost interviewed by a 70; I guess i'll have to wait until i become a stake president or something.

We've been working in a pueblo called San Jose every Friday for the past month more or less. Lets just say every time we go, we don't really have a lot of success. The Elders Quorum president is the only member there and he wants us to keep coming and working. I guess we will keep going until we have talked with everyone who lives there (we are getting close) and when no one decides to listen to us we can write it off.

Sunday was a regional conference for the area of mexico, so we got to hear some talks designed specifically for the Mexican people and they hit where it hurts. They talked about having an active temple recommend as your passport into heaven, giving the missionaries references and working with them, and reading the Book of Mormon every day. All things that i've noticed could be improved a lot here.

Its too bad that they didn't talk about the world being round and not flat because a lot of people actually think the earth is flat. And the craziest part is that they are normal people until you start talking about the shape of the earth. 

As for the people we are teaching. We don't really have anything solid so just a lot of looking as of right now.

Today we went to some pyramids Cacaxtla and Xochitecatl. Cacaxtla was built 1500 BC (jaradites) and Xochitecatl 500 AD (lamanites). They were cool to go to and Xochitecatl was massive. They haven't even started to uncover all that is there.

That's all for this week

adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Cacaxtla

district photo that turned out bad

Human sacrifices (for fertility is what they did it for in Cacaxtla)

Raiders of the Lost Arc

Most of Xochitecatl

Podria ser  (Could Be)

Paintings that are still intact

                        Popo y la mujer dormida

Photo with Elder Pingree

Dia de los Muertos

Hello everyone. To be honest i really don't feel like writing this so we will see how it comes out.

On Tuesday morning our drainage system backed up, so that was a problem. My companion flushed the toilet and lets just say that what he ate the night before came out of the shower drain. So, i showered with a bucket outside on our patio. Luckily we have an enclosed house. Some guys came and basically dug a trench behind our house so now all the water we use for anything is just behind our house hanging out. When we got back that night i asked my comp if he was going to clean his mess up (keep in mind that i deep cleaned the house solo on Monday) and he said that he was too lazy. To my credit i didn't get too mad, i just didn't say anything and started cleaning. Then he told me i was cleaning wrong and things got a little out of hand the next day we didn't talk at all. Everything is good now, so the work moves forward.

Day of the dead was really cool here. We got to see lots of altars, parades, and people with crosses marching toward the cemetery. I definitely want to come back when i'm not a missionary so i can go to Mexico City for the big parade they have there. I think they call it day of the dead though because its the day when missionary work is literally dead. We passed by for all the appointments we had, contacted about half of the world, and knocked the doors of an entire pueblo, but got nothing. Everybody was either gone or too busy with the pachanga. But, we got really, really, really good pazole from some members. And i mean really good pazole. I had two huge bowls and was stuffed, but for real it was so good. They also started playing Beatles music and i was so happy to hear the opening chords of here comes the sun, only to be completely and utterly destroyed when somebody with a horrible voice who wasn't George Harrison started singing. The highs and lows of the mission are real.

Other than that, not much happened this week. We were able to finally make a little bit a progress with a family we are teaching. The two kids have a baptism date and the parents are now working harder on getting married. The work is a little slow. A lot of people don't understand the importance of the message we are sharing, so its hard to help them. 

There are lots of tacos de canasta here and they are really good. Basically people ride around on bikes selling tacos out of baskets for 10 pesos. 

I also have a lot of free time in the nights now, so i finished Jesus the Christ this past week. All i can say is wow. It was amazing to read it all and understand more fully the mission of Jesus Christ. I didn't understand it fully until i read the very last sentence and it tied the whole book together. After reading 750 pages more or less about everything that Christ did in his earthly ministry Elder Talmage sums it up perfectly:  The earth shall pass to its glorified and celestialized condition, an eternal abode for the exalted sons and daughters of God.^t Forever shall they reign, kings and priests to the Most High, redeemed, sanctified, and exalted through their Lord and God  Jesus the Christ. It really made me understand that everything Christ has done up to this point and everything that he continues to do is for one thing: To redeem us, sanctify us, and exalt us so we can live with him forever.  

Sorry for the short letter. That's about all the things worth mentioning that happened this week.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Ofrenda para el Dia de los Muertos

A member dressed up for day of the dead

Dressed up for Halloween with the second counselor in the bishopric. Nos llamen "Las Gordas"

Flor de los muertos and Pan de los muertos. Of which there are tons during this time of year.