It's Raining, It's Pouring!

This week was good. It all started last Monday in the night time. 6 of us elders were getting our haircuts and as P-night was beginning, it started to rain a bit. As we headed towards a family home evening appointment it started to rain a bit harder. By the time you know it it was POURING! The streets started to flood a bit, and we were walking the streets trying not to get too wet without much luck. We started playing around a bit and my comp went to splash us all in the street, but as he lifted one foot to kick water on us, the other foot slipped from underneath him. He fell flat on his back in about 4 inches of dirty rainwater. It was quite hilarious. We were all laughing so hard. Afterwards, there was no way to get across the street, so we had to wade in up to our shins in the water. It was pretty fun. We showed up soaking wet to the noche de hogar, but we taught an awesome lesson on Christ and later ate some awesome tacos.

Trip to Victoria

Wednesday we traveled to Victoria which is about 4 hours away. It was fun traveling with the elders from the district. Normally when we travel, its only me and my companion. We had a good time. We got to Victoria and waited for the zone leaders there to come pick us up. It was raining pretty hard there too, and all the streets were flooded. We waited for a bus forever, but they weren`t coming. When a bus driver saw 12 guys standing at the bus stop he asked where we were going and said he`d drop us off at the stadium. Supposedly he dropped us off pretty far from the house and we walked once again in the rain.

Zone Conference

Thursday was the Zone Conference and it went fairly well. Elder Dr. Thomas, the psycologist came and talked to us again, but pretty much gave us the same shpiel as in January, but it was good, I love that guy, he`s so happy and taught me how to be happier here and in life. Too bad that he`s leaving though. But we didn`t have too much time to give our training after that- it went by pretty quick, we didn`t finish everything that we had planned. It went good I think- I still have some work to do to become a better teacher in front of a lot of people. I only lost my train of thought once and couldn`t really think of what I was saying. But my comp bailed me out, and everything went well. I talked about Exaltation and Obedience. Later Sister Moss shared a talk with us that Elder Holland gave in the Mexico MTC, and it was pretty much the same talk he gave to us when I was in the MTC. It`s a good talk. Later we visited a family from my comps old area in Victoria and headed off to Valles again.

Inactives and Investigators

Friday we started looking for inactives, searching from the new folders we have. We found a good number of them, it is just depressing to see them knowing the church, but willfully staying away, or falling away just cause they didn`t have the desire to go. Its interesting to see their reactions to us. We have no idea who they are at times, but they know who we are, and they feel guilty because they know what they haven`t been doing lately.

Antonia is a super investigator- she actually studies and stuff, but she is so unsure of what she wants. She is so shy and doesn`t like going out or being around a lot of people.

Elder Evans vs. Goat!

Saturday was pretty much the same story with visiting the less actives and looking for people from the list. We also visited some recent converts. The husband of a recent convert family seems excited to be a member (which is awesome) he just can`t seem to quit smoking. His interest in the church has just barely come around and we are going to work with him to see if he can join his family. Haha, that day we were going to visit them and there was a goat standing in the middle of the road. He looked like a mean goat, so I distracted him by throwing a leaf and continued walking. As I looked back, he had lowered his head and was charging after me ready to give me a head butt. It caught me off guard and I barely made it out of his reach before he didn`t have any more slack on his rope. Later I was distracting the goat with a branch while my comp passed and it got close to head butting me again. It gave me quite the scare.

Working with Less Active Members

Sunday was normal- we had 3 investigators in the Sacrament meeting- but 1 goes to Tampico all week because he`s in the Marines. The dad of the family (Jose Luis) went, and stayed all 3 hours. It was awesome! The only let down was that Antonia didn`t make it. Later in the day we had a meeting with the Stake President and all the Bishops and missionaries from the Stake. We had this meeting in Poza Rica already, but I got to hear everything again. This Stake President did a better job I think. The plan was made a lot clearer to the bishops and to us. Visiting these less actives is going to help have:
- more baptisms
- more ordinances
- more missionaries in the field
- more callings within the ward
The whole focus is that we have more and better of each one of these things.

Things are Good!

Overall things are good. We still haven`t had a lot of time to just get to work in our area, but I guess thats just part of the job description. Tomorrow we do divisions with the assistants, so my comp will go to Tampico and I will be the one that knows the area. Hopefully I don`t get us lost. Later (maybe this week or the other one), we will do divisions with all the district leaders and I will be going to their areas while they come take my spot. I can`t really remember if there`s anything else to say.

Noche Mexicano

Baptism of Karla

Ciudad Valles

It still really doesn`t feel like I`m a zone leader, but things are going well. Its just I`ve always had a lot of respect for my zone leaders and I`ve looked up to them- I just don`t feel like I`m of that caliber right now. But President Moss has a lot of faith in us and knows we can help make the mission more successful. I have been feeling great here in my new area. It`s called Loma Bonita. Valles is a pretty hot area, I think its a dryer heat though. This whole week it has been pretty cloudy and rainy so it hasn`t been hot at all. Valles isn`t too big, but isn`t that small. There are 10 elders here in the city, it only has 1 stake. There aren`t any burger kings, but it has a couple bigger grocery stores here and has a Dominoes and a Pizza Hut. My new companion is Elder Avila from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. He has one transfer more than me in the mission. We get along well, he is a funny guy. Everything is good.

Getting to Know the Area

Wednesday we went around getting to know members and visiting investigators and rescent converts. It went well, there aren`t too many investigators right now, but there are a lot of awesome recent converts. Our investigator with the most potential is Antonia. She is very intelligent and knows she needs to get baptized, she is just nervous to rush into baptism. Her whole family is catholic and she says it`ll be difficult to make the change.

Trip to Tampico

Thursday we traveled to Tampico to go to the concilio- a meeting with President Moss, the assistants and all the Zone Leaders. The Assistants give us a training on what we are going to teach in Zone Conference the next week. We got to Tampico a little early and went and visited a family from my comps old area. Later we went to the office house and slept there with about 10 other elders. It was pretty fun. Friday we ate waffles, and me and the other elder from Arizona had made a special request for peanut butter to put on our waffles. It was just like home. . . But later we had the training and got to hear from President Moss. It was good, I hope I can transfer the message well to the missionaries in the zone. I am pretty excited though, our zone has a lot of potential. We don`t really have any lazy missionaries or elders that like to cause problems, so I think it will go well. I have a lot of faith in the elders here. Later we ate Sloppy Jo`s and headed off to our area. Its about 3 hours from Tampico to Cuidad Valles, we waited an hour to leave and got back at about 9. It was a great trip.

Small World

The world is so small. A sister here said she had family in Mesa and went out to get a picture of the family. I didn`t recognize them, but she said there last name is Mho. I didn`t recognize the name at first, but she said they lived in front of the temple (which means they went to Mesa High). Later she went on to say that one of the sons died while lifting weights, but she couldn`t remember his name. Later the light bulb clicked and I remembered that he was on Trav`s wrestling team in high school, and his name was Ghandi. It was quite the coincedence. She is his aunt I think, and the ex stake president is his 1st cousin once removed or something like that. Also Elder Fisher knew a kid from the Mesa Swim Team, Bear Behrman- who left his sophomore year to Utah, but came back to swim his senior year here. Also a new elder that came in had met Preston Noble from my volleball team in the MTC.

Another Baptism

Saturday was Karla´s baptism. It was good, like always not many members showed up, but it went well. I think part of the problem was that it was kinda late and everyone was getting ready for the Independence Day for Monday. Cinco de Mayo actually isn´t the day of Mexican independence like all of the US thinks, its actually the 16th of September, but everyone gets together on the 15th at night to celebrate.