Carnita Asadita

This week was a little more hectic than others.

On Monday i bought super glue to repair my shoes. Best idea i've ever had because now its like i basically have new shoes on the outside. Couldn't figure out how to super glue the holes in the bottom, but ill figure it out. I super glued my fingers together, so that was an experience i haven't had before. 

This whole week it rained super hard and i got wet a bunch of times. We had the correlación misional on Tuesday and of course right when we had to go to the church it started raining a ton so we got wet.

On Tuesday night the zone leaders said that we were going to have interchanges the next day without preparing anything. I could say a million things about why you're not supposed to do that, but its ok at the end of it all it was just a waste of time. I was with one of the zone leaders in my area and we contacted for about 3 hours in the rain. Then the sun came out when we went to eat lunch and i got sunburned in like half an hour. Then after we ate we contacted for like another 5 hours in the rain again. We went to another pueblo and i wish i would have had my camera to take a video of my experience. It was 9 at night and pitch black and we had to walk through a rain-made swamp that also serves as a dump for trash that was literally filled with dogs. Easily 200 dogs there. It was pretty cool to be honest.

On Friday we had interviews with President. We had to wake up at 4:30 to be in the offices by 7:30 and when we got there of course nobody was there. It basically took up the whole day, so not too much more to say.

The stake is having an EFY right now with all the jovenes (young boys) and on Saturday they had the whole zone go to the church so we could go out and contact with the jovenes. I went with 2 joevens a 14 and 17 year old and we basically contacted for 2 hours. We got to teach a couple of lessons, we got rejected, we got doors in the face, so i think they now know what to expect in the mission. It was pretty funny watching them get all nervous contacting people because for me its basically just become the routine.

On Saturday the zone leaders invited us to a tipo noche de hogar and we made carne asada. Then on Sunday we got a super sweet reference of somebody's mother in law who has been coming to church for two months (we thought she was a member) and wants to get baptized. She doesn't live in our area, but for her situation President said that we are most likely going to get permission to baptize her in our ward.

That's all for this week

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

  México Puebla Norte

Going to interviews at 4:30 in the morning and hoping that my feet weren't going to get wet from the rain. They got wet.

 Carne asada 

our conference with Elder Valenzuela that we had like a month ago

La vida Poblana

Another week gone by.

I'll try to hit the most interesting stuff, but there's not much. On Tuesday we had a training for district leaders and zone leaders. It was literally the same thing that they have done for the past 6 transfers. So, at least now i've been trained on how to do a fake baptismal interview and how to give correction a thousand times now. 

Tuesday night i had a baptismal interview with somebody who didn't even know that she had a baptismal date to be baptized and was missing several lessons. However, an hour and half later she wanted to get baptized more than anything else. Moral of the story: teach your people everything and make sure that they are ready to be baptized before the interview, if not make sure your leader knows what he's doing. 

We went to visit a part member family in a part of our area that is far away and a dog bit my companion. The lesson was good, but they didn't come to church. 

In our district council Thursday, one of the zone leaders and one of the sisters decided to fight after it was over. Pages from the missionary handbook were read, tears were shed, people were called "orgulloso y necio." And at the end of it all nothing happened. I think they started fighting because the zone leader was singing a song that wasn't a hymn and the sister wanted to correct him. Who knows, but it was change of pace to see some drama.

We had some lessons with basically the only people that are progressing, but they didn't come to church either. At this point we are probably going to give them one more chance and after that leave them. They always read, but they never pray to know if its true, so if they never ask they will never receive. 

On Saturday we helped another family in the ward move. We got it done pretty fast, but we were all sore after from moving so much stuff. Nobody knew who the family was because they were inactive, but hopefully after helping them move they will want to go to the church wherever they are going to live now.

Its chiles en nogada season again here in Puebla and yesterday they gave us some for the first time in a year and they were so good it was like a taste of heaven. Then after it started to rain super hard and the zone leaders and the other elders came to our area to help us find some new people to teach and we found 8 in total, so we ended the week good.

And by some miracle we somehow amazingly got permission to go to the center of Puebla, so we got to go to some sweet stores and walk around downtown and eat at the fanciest McDonalds i've ever been at.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

  México Puebla Norte

 Elder Dos Nacimientos (that's not really his name, but that's what the ward leaders call him)

Before contacting in the rain

After contacting in the rain and we all look the same

Fountain in the center of Puebla

 da church

The view from McDonalds

De mi no te Escapas

This week was interesting.

On Monday the other elders in our area had a baptism, so we went to their baptism and after went to the house of the converts. We ordered 5 pizzas and between us 6 we ate them in like 10 minutes. That's what happens when you don't have any food on Mondays.

Tuesday we had the zone conference and it was pretty boring to be honest. We are now only 2 zones in the conferences and they basically took the most boring part which is 30 minutes of training by the zone leaders and made it 2 hours, basically all of the conference. It was weird because everyone was either really old in the mission or really young. Lots of blank faces the whole time.

On Wednesday we did divisions with the zone leaders and i went to a family group in the area of the zone leaders to do a baptismal interview. It went good and it was cool to see another area in the mission. Then when we got back it started raining super hard and we had to go to an appointment. I hate getting wet, so normally when it rains i camp out for 10-15 minutes and then keep going, but we didn't have time that day and i got 100% soaked. There were puddles in my shoes and for some reason my rain jacket didn't do anything (dad i told you the 

arkteryx one was worth it) so, when we got there i basically created a pool of water in their house. However, they did give us tamales, so it was worth it. We finished everything super late, so the zone leaders slept in our house and it was a good time.

The next day we did an attack in our area, so everyone in the district came to our area and we contacted for an hour and a half. We were able to find some new people and get some future news, so it went good. Then we took a bus to get to the food and it broke down in the middle of the road, so that was exciting.

What else... we had a ward missionary activity Saturday and not counting the people in charge of the activity or ward leaders, only 5 people showed up. There is a lot of work to be done here in the ward. Then i gave a talk on Sunday with a couple of hours of notice and it went pretty good, so slowly but surly we will get there.

Other than that not much happened.

Adios 
Elder Warburton

--

Elder Warburton

  México Puebla Norte

Brazilian Life

Ok this week went by really fast without much to write about.

My new area is ok. Could be better, could be worse. The Elders weren't really teaching anybody before i got here, so we don't have a lot to work with. They were teaching a family of three and we visited them 2 times this past week and they came to church, so hopefully they can keep progressing and we can see some miracles with them.

We also did divisions 2 times with the zone leaders. My comp and one of the zone leaders lived in the same ward, and the ZL doens't really want to be with his comp, so i think that had a little bit to do with it. 

I have two companionship's of sisters in my district. I went from never having sisters in my whole mission to now having 4 of them in my district. They are all pretty crazy to be honest and verifying takes forever, but they are going to baptize, so that is good.

Our ward has 4 missionaries in it and the other companionship is my trainer with another new missionary that he is training. The new missionary is from Brazil and he is hilarious. Whenever he talks he has a super strong accent and normally just ends up yelling at us in Portuguese. Portuguese and Spanish are pretty similar, so i can understand pretty well what he is saying. 

Other than that, not a lot has happened. We have been running around like crazy and this week it will basically be the same, but hopefully i will have more to report next week.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

  México Puebla Norte

My district. Far left (my right) is the brasileñan. Far right (my left) is my comp and next to him is my trainer.

Hallmark Christmas in June

Hello

This week was something crazy. On Monday we visited the couple pictured below who had a date in the past, but it fell through for the doubts. When we went they said they wanted to be baptized so we said "how about Wednesday" and they said "sounds good." So, we organized everything and had their baptism on Wednesday. It went smoothly and everyone was super happy afterwards. 

Then we had another baptism on Saturday and it went super well also. The whole baptismal room was full of members and family members who came to support him. He had his uncle baptize him and on the third attempt he finally went under. It was super awesome and we and he was so happy afterwards. Its crazy how far we have seen him progress. Before he was just kind of turned off, but now he is super happy and smiling all the time. He always invites us over to eat with his family and the Thursday before his baptism he said he wanted to go out and visit with us, so we took him to visit the couple mentioned above. 

Then to top it all off, the hermanas from the other ward (Almecatla 1) also baptized a mother and daughter. For some reason nobody from their ward could come, so after we finished baptizing Oliver, i got to baptize the two people from the other ward. I don't have any pictures, the hermanas said that they would send them to me, but who knows. 

It was a good way to end it all, because we all got transferred out of there. I'm in Torres which is like 20 minutes from my last area (Alamos). Not to excited to be here, they haven't baptized in forever and apparently people get shot here. Also, nobody told me i was district leader until this morning, and the district isn't doing too awesome either. And to top it all off the elders from the south mission who went to Almecatla are probably the most disobedient missionaries i've ever met. Good thing that this is the Lords work and he decides what happens. It reminds me of the Elder Holland talk i listened to a few days ago before my flash drive broke (another tragic incident of the week) where he says that God has always had to work with imperfect people and it must be terribly frustrating for him.

The work goes on.

Adios

Elder Warburton

Elder Warburton

  México Puebla Norte

Baptism! 

the guy on my right is who we baptized on Saturday