Transfer 17 Week 5 January 11 2016

This week was sweet. A couple families went to church with us yesterday. It was really cool. If you want more details you can ask me in like 9 days! I have to go!

Transfer 17 Week 4 January 4 2016

well this week was super cool as well. And aparently it is 2016 now! that means that i am going home this year! this month actually! in like two weeks!

Anyway we got a lot of work done this week. It was a little bit tougher this week. Because it was actually really cold. And because of the holidays most people are pretty busy. But despite of that. We still had a lot of success! 

New years was really great! We had a lot of food that day! the sister that we ate with really spoiled us. The day was super fun, but night time kind of sucked. Fireworks are super popular here. But here if it doesnt explode and make the loudest noise possible then it is NOT a firework. And they keep setting them off basically all night long. So it was basically impossible to sleep that night, but i guess it was just part of the mexico missionary experience.

So yesterday we changed schedules for church. We are going at 9 in the morning now. Which is great for us because we have more time to work afterwards. But it is aparently a lot worse for the investigadors. Especially since it is cold in the mornings, because they didnt go to church yesterday. Except for one. Our investigator Ricardo went with us. It was cool because durring the services he told me that he wanted to share his testimony in sacrament meeting but that he wanted me to do it first. So i bore my testimony in sacrament meeting for the last time as a missionary and then my investigator shared his right after me, and it was a very beautiful testimony. 

Well i guess that is about it. Happy New Years! and everything

Elder Earl

Transfer 17 Week 3 December 28 2015

Well my last transfer is halfway over. and the week was super awesome! I guess that one of the most exciting things that happened this week was Christmas! On Christmas eve we were invited over by one of our investigators to eat dinner. We had one of my favorite mexican foods! Tacos de Pastor. Which is just tacos made from pig meat, It was awesome! That night they also let us use their computer to talk with our families which was super nice of them! It was great to see the family! but it will be even greater to see them in person in just a few more weeks!

This week was super sweet because we had a bunch of lessons with investigators. And a lot of them are progressing a lot! But the absolutely best christmas gift that i possibly could have recieved i got Yesterday! Two families that we are teaching went to church with us! It was an awesome day! there names are the Reyna Guzman family and the Luna Zapata family. They are super sweet! and hopefully we will be able to get them baptized before i leave. But if not i will be fine because i am possitive that they will be baptized. Obvioulsy they have problems and weaknesses just like all of us. But their faith and testimonies are super strong. And thanks to social media. Even when i am not here. i will still be in contact with all of them.

I didnt write much today because my keyboard is broken. so dont judge me for the mistakes found therein (does that make sense?)

Elder Earl

Hope everyone has a great new years!

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Transfer 17 Week 1 December 14 2015

Well my last transfer has officially started, and i have already finished the first week! super crazy! On tuesday i went to the mission offices in the morning. They fed us breakfast there and then we had a few meetings before they told us who our companions were going to be. My trainee is super cool! his name is Elder Norton. He is from South Jordan, Utah and he is 18 years old. I would send pictures, but i dont have a way to send them, so you will have to wait until next week. So my new companion is really cool, we have been getting along really well. He is brand new, so he doesnt really speak spanish, but he is learning little by little every day.

I remember when i had just gotten to the mission i felt like the time went by really slowly. I was hoping that that would happen again as a trainer, but sadly the time is going by even faster than the last couple of transfers. I am not sure if i am going to be ready to leave in 5 weeks! But i guess i have to be, right?

We had a really successfull week this week. It was really cool. Probably the best part of the week was on Saturday. We went to visit an investigator named Blanca. We got there, and her entire family was there! We taught the Restoration to all of them! there was a total of 8 people there listening to us! It was a really cool and very spiritual lesson. They seemed to be really excited about the lesson and they all said that they wanted to go to church with us yesterday! But unfortunately they weren´t able to because yesterday we watched the dedication of the Tijuana Mexico Temple. So we had to emplain to them how the temple is a very sacred place and in order to watch the dedication we have to prepare ourselves by being baptized, confirmed, and by obeying the commandments of God. They seemed to understand really well, and they agreed to go to church with us this coming sunday.

My companion tried doing his first contact this week! It was a little funny. He tried to knock a door, and when the person opened the door he litterally just closed the door in his face! It was kind of funny, because that almost never happens here, and it was just super unlucky to have that happen your first time! But it was okay, because my companion is a super good sport. So he is fine. 

So ya i am doing great!

Elder Earl

Transfer 16 Week 6 December 7 2015

Well, the tranfer is officially over so i am going to start my last transfer (My last 6 weeks) tomorrow! I am super excited! we have the new transfers, it should be a really good last transfer.

This week was really cool. The most interesting this that happened this week was the Christmas Conference. It was really cool. On friday all of the missionaries here in saltillo got together for the conference. So there was about 80 of us as well as the mission president and his wife. It was a lot of fun. We had a gift exchange! we ate tamales! and we just chatted for a while. I got to see a lot of Elders that i hadnt seen in quite a while, so it was super cool. For the gift exchange i got a newton´s cradle, a pen and a journal from an Elder named Elder Gallegos. But unfortunately i already broke the Newton´s cradle. It was cool while it lasted...

Then later on we all went to a park here in saltillo calle La Alameda. It is a really nice park. There we did a contacting activity. And we showed the new church christmas video A Savior is Born with a projector there in the park. There were also some Elders and sisters singing chritmas hymns in another part of the park. It was a really good activity and we had a lot of success doing it.

Anyway, that is about everything for this week. So i am staying here in my same area, which means that I am ending here! My companion Elder Hopper is being changed to Acuña. Which is super sweet, but really far away. So he has to catch an 8 hour bus ride tomorrow to get there. I dont know who my new companion is, because i am going to be training a greenie for my last 6 weeks! It should be fun. I am going to meet him tomorrow. Well i guess that is it.

Elder Earl

Transfer 16 Week 5 November 30 2015

Well this week was really great. We have had a lot of success lately with finding new families to teach. So that has been great. We have been really busy lately which has been awesome! So nowadays we have a few dates set with our investigators for baptisms. So this next week we have transfers, and if i stay here i should have a few baptisms next transfer which is also going to be my last transfer! So i am pretty sure that i am going to be staying here for my last transfer. But we will see.

So this week we had thanksgiving! I hope all of you had a great Turkey Day! There aren´t many people here that celebrate thanksgiving, but luckily the stake president here does and he invited all of the missionaries from my zone to his house on t\Thursday to eat a thanksgiving meal! It was really good! we had turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, roles, and even pumpkin pie! there are 25 missionaries in my zone right now, so all of us were in his house as well as the Mission president and his wife, and the family of the stake president. Fun fact! the son of my stake president here is in the Torreon mission and Elder Bryan Earl knows him. Then in the night time we had one of our investigadors invite us over to eat a thanksgiving dinner as well! We ate a lot that day. Hopefully i will be sending some pics next week.

This next week we are going to have a chrismas activity for the mission. We are going to have a contacting/caroling activity in a park here in Saltillo on Friday, and then on Saturday we are going to have a white elephant gift exchange and do some other activities. today we went downtown to buy the gifts for the exchange. It should be pretty fun.

Elder Earl

Transfer 16 Week 4 November 23 2015

Well this week was really good. We had a lot more lessons this week than we usually do. So that was exciting.

We have an investigator named Daniel who is really cool. He has gone to church many times before with his cousin who is a member of the church. We had a lesson with him and his mom this week and we set a goal for his baptismal date! so if everything goes well we will be baptizing on the 5th of December. He is really cool, and his mom invites us to eat dinner with them like once a week, so that is always nice as well.

This Sunday was the primary program in my ward. It was really good. On Saturday in the morning we went to the chapel to practice with the primary children because we sang a song with them yesterday during the program. It was a lot of fun. I have always really liked going to the primary program (except for when I was still in primary) because all of them are still so innocent, and sometimes kids can just be hilarious. I feel like I haven´t sent pictures in a while...I´ll see what I can do about that next week...

Elder Earl

(From left to right) Elder Merrill (Kennewick, WA), Elder Mera (Hidalgo, MX), Elder Bedoya (Colombia), Me (Moses Lake, WA), Elder Fernandez (Bolivia), Elder Hopper (Atlanta, Georgia)

Then all of the kids