Adios 2018....

The final Christmas in the mission was a success. We ate so much food. Literally 10 kilos of food. We went from one house to the next eating food. It was all so good though. I miss Christmas food from the states, but next year i'm going to miss Christmas food from Mexico. In the annual reenactment of Christ's birth i was the angel Gabriel and i must say that i played the part perfectly. On Christmas morning we opened our presents and ate an awesome breakfast, pictures attached.

On Christmas day we had the baptism of Abril and everything went perfectly. Not much can go wrong in the baptisms of little kids. They are basically the best converts in the whole world because they start young. We had a Christmas miracle and the font was filled with hot water, her only wish. I don't think ill ever have the chance to baptize on Christmas day again, so i'm glad that we were able to do it.

Other than that, a pretty normal week. My comp had to rest (doctors orders), so on Thursday he went to Puebla to hang out for a couple of days and i brought the assistant elder Cowley back to work with me. We came to the mission together, so it was so much fun working with him on Friday. We went crazy. We contacted everyone we saw and lets just say that our numbers for one day were better than most peoples numbers for one week (i'm not bragging about my own strength (Alma 29) just bragging about how cool it was that the Lord decided to help us have an amazing day after not being able to work for almost a week). We talked about movies, deep doctrine, and everything else you might expect. Then on Saturday we went back to Puebla and i picked up my comp and we came back to the area. The sad news is though that Elder Sue Sue ended up having to go home for his knee and back problems. If you ever need protection in Rose Park you know who to call. 

The best part of this week though was getting my hands on Ven Sigume. Come follow me in English. For those of us in Mexico who don't even have the internet, its been a long wait to see what this manual would be like. I had to fight our ward leaders to get me and my companion one (i wasn't about to share my manual that thing is already covered with my personal notes) because i think the church leaders still don't understand that its for individual use and not just another lesson manual that belongs to the ward. I started it last night and let me just say wow. That thing is 100% pure revelation. I only got to page 2 and i already received a ton of revelation and felt the spirit. I think its similar to Preach my Gospel: Written behind the veil and published here on the earth. If you haven't started on this booklet yet, get on it. 

That's about all for this week. Oh i cut my foot on either glass or ceramic this morning while i was burning our trash (welcome to mexico) so now my shoe is full of blood and it hurts to walk. Maybe we will be in the house another week. Long sigh.

Adios ¡Feliz Año!

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Elder Cowley and i. The question is: What are we looking at?

Santa was good

 Breakfast Christmas morning

 ABRIL, she knows more about the gospel than i do

Merry Christmas Building and Loan!

 MVI_0197[1].MOV

First off if you don't know what movie i just quoted in the title you need to stop what you're doing, sit yourself down, and watch the best Christmas movie ever made: Its a Wonderful Life.

This week went by really fast. On Tuesday i went to Puebla with Elder Sue Sue for his knee and wow his whole body is destroyed. Right now he is in physical therapy, but he has problems with both his knees and his spine. I also bought Krispy Kream and we had really good tacos de carnitas so that was a highlight. We also slept the night over in their house because of how late it was when we got back, so in mission tradition, we bought tacos. It was my comps first time trying tacos arabe and he was in love. 

This week we found Marla and her sister. They didn't come to church because they both got really sick. We gave Marla a blessing (her sister wasn't there) and the next day we saw them both and Marla was like 100% better. Not a coincidence. We were also able to help Marla make some plans so she can live the word of wisdom. After a rocky start to the lesson (even us pros who have more than a year make mistakes in the lesson. I basically was reading in 1 Corinthians 6 where it talks about the body being a temple and the drunk people don't go to heaven and i accidentally started reading the verse about not fornicating, so that was fun), but she was able to understand the doctrine behind the word of wisdom and was excited to live it. We also watched the Elder Holland video about his broken down car (a personal favorite) and she liked that too.

On Thursday we had our ward Christmas party and we showed up 5 o'clock sharp with the people we had invited. Lets just say i totally forgot to adjust for the Mexican Mormon Standard Time (sorry for using the word Mormon). We were literally the first people to show up and the party didn't start until 6:30. It was a fun time though and we got to eat some good food. I also saw a 60 year old lady in a green sequin dress (not church appropriate i might add). Lip syncing to Spanish Christmas songs, so that was a first and something that you will only find in the boonies of Tlaxcala.

On Friday we had our zone conference and it was a really fun time. I remember last year i was super bummed at the Christmas zone conference, but this year i had a blast. We played games, learned from the President Barron, and ate some good food. We also broke piñatas, but that lasted all of 5 seconds.

Now for the sad news. Elder Bucio hurt his sciatic nerve and the doctor told him he needs to rest and walk as little as possible for the next 10 days. For those of you who don't know the sciatic nerve is basically right where his pompi is, so just the act of him walking is really funny. On the bright side we've had a lot of time to study.

In this Christmas season i cant help but feel extremely grateful for the gift of Jesus Christ. I have come to realize throughout my mission, and especially now that the birth of Christ wasn't the beginning of our salvation and it wasn't the end of it either. I would invite you all to read and meditate about the entry of Jesus Christ in the guide for the study of the scriptures. Jesus Christ was ordained to be our savior before he came to the Earth. He had all of the glory of Father as Jehovah, but decided to come down and live a mortal life. He was born in the humblest of circumstances and then lived a sinless life to perform a perfect atonement and save us all from our sins. Now everyday he is watching over us and cheering us on so that we can one day return to him and the father and become like them. We read a quote in our zone conference (I cant remember from who right now it was a prophet, but i promise its not apostasy) that if we put anything before Christ in our lives, whatever it may be, in the end it doesn't matter. Christ is the life and the light of the world and we all need to work on putting him first in our lives.

Les amo muchisimo y les extraño bastante, pero por la proxima ya voy a estar con todos ustedes. ¡Feliz Navidad! Rompen algunas piñatas

Elder Warburton

 

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals 

The presents are wrapped

Christmas is almost here

Hello everyone. I am back after another week in mexico.

This week lots of stuff happened, but it all went by fast. On Tuesday we had a conference with just our zone and the stake mission leader. He knows a lot, but basically everyone left feeling like the worst missionary in the whole world, so we will see if he does another one of these meetings or not. All of the hermanas were crying and we all just wanted to not do anything after. So, pretty motivational if you ask me. 

The next day we had our district council, and the zone leadres told everyone to foraget about athe meeting and that we are all awesome missionaries so that was good. It was also the day of the virgin of Guadalupe or something like that so everyone was literally going crazy. I saw at least 20 huge semi trucks decked out with pictures of the virgin, flowers, and who knows what else. Everyone was drunk in the street and lighting off fireworks so i thought for sure we were going to die. We had to be in the house by 7, so i think that's why we are still alive. We also had inaterchanges that day and the elder i was with has a ton of baptism dates in his area and we dont have too many, so i told him that he was going to inviate a girl we contacated to baptism to see how he did it. I thought for sure she wasn't going to accept, but he just did a normal baptismal inviate and she accepted and i just sat there opened mouthed. 

wow this keyaboard is basically aborken no idea how i am typing all of this with so little errors.

The next day i had interchanges with elder sue sue and when we went to eat, he broke the chair he was sitting in. He twisted his knee when he fell so he was out for the rest of the day and he is going to see if he has to go home. It was pretty funny the way he fell and we were boath laughing, but now that his knee might be done for its not so funny.

On Saturday we contacted a catholic guy who invited us to go watch the parade they were about to have and i didn't want to give him the satisfaction of saying no, so we went. It was pretty weird to be honest and then they invitaed us to go and visit houses with them and that's where i had to draw the line because we couldn't proselyte for other churches. 

We found out that Marla (one of the twins) has a pretty big problem with the world of wisdom. They said they were going to come to church on Sunday, but when Sunday came around tahey were nowhere to be found. It was a depressing day after that. We are hoping that we will be able to talk with them tonight and hope that everything is still good for their baptismal dates, but if not well there goes all of my Christmas joy.

On the bright side today my comp and i bought Christmas gifts for the district, each other, and ourselves. You will have to wait until next week when i unwrap them on Christmas day, but spoilers there will be lots of star wars action figures. I don't know how i'm ever going to get married after the mission if i keep buying star wars action figures. Oh well.

I would write more, but this keyboard isn't working

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD! watch some Christmas movies for me

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

the district

The chair elder sue sue broke

 Our Christmas tree. soon to have gifts 

¿Perros o Testigos? ¡Pazole!

Lets get the most important thing out of the way first. I bought a mini Christmas tree last week, so now it is officially Christmas. I was going to take a picture of it, but i forgot. Next week.

This first week training has been really great. We have had too many miracles to count. I think my kid must have been really good in the preexistence or something because we are finding people like crazy. On Tuesday, the first day we got out to work we visited a part member family that just barely moved here. The husband is in the military and if looks could kill we would all be dead. We started talking to him though and he really opened up to us. We shared with him the Restoration and when i bore my testimony about the first vision i could have sworn he started tearing up. Then after that lesson we went to give blessings to a family. My comp did the 3 anointings and i did the three blessings. It was honestly just a really good day and i went home happy that i could use my priesthood power to help out a family that is going through some problems. They also gave us cake, so i don't think it could have gotten any better.

My companion is learning what the mission really is: Lots of food. On Wednesday we had just finished eating a bunch of quesadillas and we went to visit another part member family and the wife was so happy we came to visit her husband that she sat us down to eat. What she gave us was probably one of the least appealing things I've eaten here. I'm not going to even try to describe it. I was so full i had to wait like 3 minutes between each bite. We had to eat it because we didn't want to offend her. And of course when it was time to share the message the husband all of the sudden became super busy. 

We got a reference from some members. A lady about 60 years old named Maria Elena. We taught her two weeks ago and left her a pamphlet for the restoration. When we went back last week she had read the whole pamphlet and answered all of the additional study questions in the back. That. Never. Happens. She is the second person i have seen in my whole mission answer those questions. The first was baptized and was pure gold. We invited her to baptism, but she wants to wait a little bit because she is scared of change (one of the easiest excuses to overcome).

We are also teaching 27 year old twins that are progressing super fast too. They came to church on Sunday and they have told us that in these last two weeks just reading the pamphlets and praying they have seen a big change in their lives. This stuff works i'm telling you. They have a baptismal date for the 29th and i'm praying and fasting so much so that they can get baptized. For one they are super great and the gospel has helped them a lot and i also really really really want to baptize twins. Baptismo de gemelas. It doesn't get cooler than that.

On Saturday we ate some really good pazole. I've mentioned the pazole of this hermano before in one of my letters, but its so good every time i eat it, it needs to be mentioned. I didn't take a picture, so hopefully he makes it again soon so i can take one. 

Training is really fun. i think its fun because i got a really good companion. Like i said he must have done something in the preexistence. He reminds me a lot of when i got here. He is in a lot of pain from walking all day and has blisters. However, he hasn't complained once and he is always studying and asking me to teach him how to be a better missionary. I think Elder Adair said it right when he said that we shouldn't be surprised if our kids become better than us. 

Eso es todo.

"Lean la Biblia jovenes" (every Jehovah witness we have found this week). We've also had to throw a lot of rocks at a lot of dogs. Satan is trying to stop our success.

Adios

Elder Warburton

1. Taco de carnitas. I took a bite out of it then took the picture

2. My comp made Chinese food for us.

3. The middle of nowhere

4. A dog that lives outside of our house that we are buds with had puppies and we gave her some chicken and ham.

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Taco de carnitas. I took a bite out of it then took the picture

My comp made Chinese food for us.

The middle of nowhere

A dog that lives outside of our house that we are buds with had puppies and we gave her some chicken and ham.

Mama Life Had Just Begun.....

Hello everyone. This week a lot of stuff happened, but its late at night and i am tired, so we will stick to the highlights.

An old Jehovah witness lady i contacted a couple weeks ago in the street ended up being in the same combi as us, so for 30 minutes i had to listen to her talk as she imparted upon me all of her knowledge. I guess now i know what its like to be some random person in the street who doesn't want to listen to us at all because that was 30 minutes of pure torture that i was going to spend napping.

I tried my first elote this week, so that was definitely a highlight. More than a year and i had never tried an elote. If you don't know what an elote is just refer yourself to nacho libre and the Mexican who is always eating the corn on a stick. It was good and now i can truly say that i am a Mexican. We also ate a lot of quesadillas this week. They are a different here than in the states, blue corn tortilla, different meat, different cheese, but they are super good, so i cant complain about the food from this week. 

Its been rainy and cold and i got a cold this week, but that is just like any other day in Utah, so not a big deal.

In another combi we took this week there was a super drunk guy. At one point during the ride he threw all of his pesos up in the air and started speaking gibberish. Then whenever the driver braked he would hit his head on something, so it was pretty hard not to laugh, but i think if i would have laughed he probably would have killed me. 

Saturday was one of the weirdest days i have ever had as a missionary. It was the worldwide day of service, so we went to a different area to help out some other elders do service. We did divisions and i went with elder Sue Sue (the guy who has been kidnapped and almost robbed. pictures of him this week) to help a guy move. I jinxed us by saying that we would probably only be moving furniture and boy was i wrong. We ended up moving some heavy sewing machinery up and down stairs for like 5 hours. It was also all super greasy so i was dying the whole time. I was also told that that day was going to be a test more or less for my companion to see how he worked with the other Elder in the area when all of the plans got changed. So, after doing service, my companion was still working with the companion of Elder Sue Sue and we had no way of going back to the house and changing. So, we had to walk around in the streets for a bit with our greasy, dirty clothes. We basically felt like we weren't missionaries because of how we looked (pictures attached).

Last, but not least we also had changes. president called us on Sunday night and said that me and my companion would both be training. My companion, Elder Goico, went to a different area and i am staying in Tule with my new companion i'm training. We went to Puebla today and got our new comps and we got back super late, but luckily we have p-day until 2 pm tomorrow. My new comps name is Elder Bucio and he is from the state of Tamalipas city Victoria. Basically one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico. He is easy going though and we have the same interests (he loves star wars and the last movie he saw before leaving on the mission was bohemian rhapsody). We will have a good time together. 

Espero que mi carta tenga sentido por todos ustedes

Adios

Elder Warburton 

Elder Warburton

México Puebla Norte

Me and Elder Sue Sue

My first elote

Elder Sue Sue and i after doing service

My comp saying goodbye to fam Flores, basically the best family here in mexico

ELDER BUCIO AND I. Wish me luck. Hopefully i train him good