Que trampita Familita. Este semana fue tan padre, chambiamos bastante y tuvimos mucho exito. ohh yeahhh im supposed to speak english. just joking ( What's up family. This week we had changes and we had lots of success)...... We had an excellent week, it started out a little rough with a dropped baptism. Like I told you guys last week, our family that was going to get baptized had a huge problem with their family ( drunk husband) and their daughter left to xochimilco, a couple hours away. We had her last lesson and just to make sure that she would be able to come and finish everything, we fasted. We fasted and prayed so hard, calling her every night to make sure that she was going to arrive for her interview, but when push came to shove, she never came......so her baptism dropped and we had another month without baptisms...it was really hard to accept that lost, because this area is "super hard to baptism in" there hasn't been baptisms here for a while. Everyone says that talpan is the hardest area in the mission to baptize, but I won't accept that. We later found out that she's been drinking every other night and breaking the law of castidad (Chastity)..... we were surprised, but I felt a lot better that I didn't baptize someone like that and she doesn't even answer our calls anymore. That won't be the last time that happens to me in the mission. It's already happened 3 times. We continue teaching the family though.
Speaking of which...We were looking for families on really rough day. Walking in the maze half of my area, in the blistering heat, we stumbled across a beautiful girl...we talked to her for a little and we asked her if we could share a lesson with her and her family. We had to have a lesson outside because there wasn't any men in the house; but it was the best lesson We've ever taught. They are soo cool and it made the whole day turn around. they gave us apple soda (which is the most delicious soda in the world) and we chatted. We had another excellent lesson with them this week and I know that they are going to progress super fast. Finding families is gold in the mission. It's only 3 people, but, their parents are married and so we don't have to worry about that. We had a super super super hard day after that. Super hot and in the night we got caught in pouring with our suits. Here in this mission, we wear our suits every other day, especially if your comp is a district leader.
I was so sad. People dropping us and freaking catholics ruining my life again but then once again, the Lord came through and blessed us tremendously the next day, we were running from lesson to lesson and having a lot of success. We have a new mission rule now, its that you need to have at least 30 lessons set for the upcoming week, before me and Elder Perez are dominating this area, not quite as much as my first area, but we have a good love in our work and for our investigators. The area is difficult, but it has twice the potential of our my last area. I love reading the letters from Tyler, Eric, and Christian. They make me work even harder, knowing that I'm serving my Lord and Master with my friends, like everyone here, party night, until 6 in the morning, music is blasting from all sides... We've been drinking a lot more mate than normal, and now all the Elders in the house love their mate, so when we return to the house, plan, we write in journals and drink mate.
Today Elder Perez wanted so badly to go to some argentinian store to buy super expensive argentinian food. So we went across the city and we entered in. It was full of wine, but Elder Perez spoke to the owner ( who is super super rich, like Mr. Burns rich) and they started speaking in Argentinian(super accented spanish) and 10 minutes later, he was giving us free argentinian food. Like 30 bucks of dessert and drinks, he later gave us his number and told us to call him if we needed anything. I've got to give it to Elder Perez for working his magic but then we got lost. in the third biggest city in the world, We had no idea how to get home, we didn't even think about it when we were coming to the store. Elder Perez has less time in the city that I do, so I was figuring it out, a couple hours later, we arrived home and relaxed. We talked with some guy in the street and told him we could help him drop smoking and so he gave us his cigarettes. I can't explain it either, but the missionary work here is accelerating like no other. There is no room for imperfection and disobedience. I've never been so busy and calling zone leaders and the president and making plans and going out and working hard. It feels great. I love being a missionary and I feel like I see the world from a mountains view. I can't wait to get back to work. and put my shoulder to the wheel.
I love you guys and I hope everyone is happy, if not I would love to here about it.
Love Elder Ordway!!!
Hey Everybody!!
How is the normal life going?? Just Joking. Elder Holland when we were in the ccm chewed us out for thinking that the mission wasn't real life. This week was good and bad. Numbers, just alright we got dropped by a couple of people and some people were never home. We didn't have good numbers but numbers don't mean anything in the missionary work. We had a baptism lined up for this week but...at 3 in the morning we received a call from an investigator.
A girl of 17 saying that her dad was drunk and was beating her family and her.... It was one of the more scary moments in the mission. We knelt down at 3 in the morning and said a prayer. I didn't have a full understanding of what was going on but, we have strict rules that we do not go outside in mexico at night. I wanted to go really bad, but I knew that is not worth being a white boy running around mexico at night. We visited her at 7 when we woke up and ran to her house to see that her. Her dad was passed out on the bed fully clothed and the t.v. was on and the whole house was trashed. Hairs flipped over, stoves all trashed, beds and everything was knocked over and no one else was to be seen. This same day we had intercambios (exchanges), for one day Elder Perez left and I showed Elder Larios around. We found them walking in the street with bruises on her neck and told us that in two hours she was going to Xochimilco. Which is really far away. I can't go into a lot of detail about the situation, it's a bit confidential, but we are going to see if we can baptize her. She is super stoked for her baptism and that's about it for her.
Elder Perez is a super humble and super awesome guy. His Argentinian spanish is a bit hard to understand at times but I'm learing a lot of spanish. The other Elders in our house are really immature and that puts a lot of pressure on Elder Perez and I. One Elder's parents divorced during the mission and his dad hooked up with a 14 year old who is now having a baby, like seriously this country is so messed up. His step mom is 14 and he's 21!! but I'm sure things will turn out ok.
We are working hard and I have never been so burnt in my life. All day it beats down sun and is super hot and then at around 7 rain and rain and rain!! for hours with the heaviest thunder and lighting I've ever seen. It's the weirdest thing. When we returned to the house, we watched thunder for about an hour while I wrote in my journal and we drank mate. That's the life right there. I bought 9 mangos and a coconut, and chile pequin, and I have some special plans for all that. I've never eaten a coconut before, but I'm stoked. This area is super nice so the food here is really nice, like America nice. Instead of the classic chicken, (that we have every day here) it's tostadas and pasta and tacos de res and it's super delicious. We went to a super chafa baptism, were we arrived 30 minutes late and the bishop then called on me and my comp to give a talk at the baptism. So I talked on faith and repentence and how we were witnesses to the baptism. If we didn't arrive, I don't know what they would have done. There was only 3 people that showed up.
I did something really stupid but really awesome this week. We were teaching an investigator and his sister who is a member came home from school. She is a medical nurse or something like that and is super cool. We were joking aorund at first about donating blood in the mission. She said that she couldn't take out blood but she could give us a sample of our blood to take home and see the color and everything. So there we were in her house and she drew our blood.....Elder Perez and I have samples in our house..... everything was safe and she has a license to do it, plus it's something awesome to write in the old journal. I tried a really weird fruit the other day called a chinese granade. (granada chino) you have to pour salt inside the fruit, shake it around and then suck it all out and it looks like brains.
That's great to hear that mom returned home from China and that everything is all good at home.
I hope to hear from you all soon.
Love Elder Ordway
Hey family!!
We were walking a lot this week. I can feel it in the old thighs... I don't climb mountains anymore, but I also don't take public transportation. That's the real difference between these two areas but I love it all the same. I feel super focused in this area and my new investigators. We are completely out on Libros de Mormon (Book of Mormons) with 4 elderes in the house and we are out... along with the restoration and the Plan of Salvation. So we have been teaching a lot of the gospel to people and we have like 500 law of chastity pamphlets in the house hahah.
We are in a district of 6 elderes and one speaks terrible Spanish. Even I can't understand him and I always have to translate for him... haha he's being trained by an Elder who has 4 weeks left in the mission and is super frito (fried). He just wants to go home and so they don't have any success or work. I feel really bad. Last p-day we all went out as a district and bought tacos al pastor. They were super good and I didn't get sick. Like I said before, I'm a lot better acustomed to the food here now and especially in this rich area. The food is a lot cleaner. ..like in my last area our investigators always insisted on giving us potato chips she fried in her bedroom.... with the same grease from weeks ago......they were good, but she said she cooks it in her room to heat the room up...haha. We went and bought a lot of food and cereal for the week. My comp is so funny because he only wants Argentinian food. We went around and he bought really expensive salami and cheese and I was blown away with how much he spent, but I think he has a personal account. So it doesn't matter to him.
My hair is actually super long right now because I've missed the last two weeks getting it cut, but for sure today its getting chopped. Our investigators are progressing super nicely. There is a rule now that we can't baptize anyone that is 11 years old without having their parents baptized too.. which means that we are going to lose a baptism this saturday, but she turns 12 in june so I'm not too worried. It's an 11 year old that's brilliant. She can answer the hard missionary questions like a boss and knows the doctrine super well. Like adults get all stubborn and ignorant when it comes to ¨all churches bring people to Christ" I can be saved in anyone of them.... dahhhh but the kids are soo smart. Rarely do we have to teach something twice. My comp had to go to a meeting so I did intercambios (exchanges) with two americas, We were in a trio, and one only has 1 week in Mexico and the other doesn't speak Spanish with his 6 weeks here. So we went around and I had to do all the talking and translating- I felt like a I had a purpose in that trio being the only one that could talk haha, but they are super cool. Of course there all from Utah and two of them are bull riders...so they just talked about bull riding and roping and all that stuff, which was super boring for me, because I've never even seen a rodeo before.
Elder Perez this week also had to go to immigrations and fix something with his visa and whenever an Elder has to do that, his comp goes to the offices with the assistants. So I went with like 3 other elders and we watched mormon's messages for like 5 hours. I think I've watched them all now. haha. We went to an activity where we go room to room as if we were living the plan of salvation. It was cool until we got to the spirit prision, where there was a video of apostasy, all the missionaries were blown away with the video of what hell would be like, with naked people and scary music and people acted dead on the ground. We left that room all laughing and we were going to say something to the bishop, because it was complete apostasy. They should have never shown that video to investigators. Oh well, happens all that time.
We had a busy day...and to end it we went to our ward activity which was awesome!!! Mother's day here is a huge deal so the passed the church up and people danced and sang and we ate carnitas and tacos and I recorded as much as I could before we had to go. There was some people in the street the other day yelling at us. They said that we weren't prophets and that we should leave and stop preaching, but no pasa nada (nothing happens) they got nothing on the church. The Elders in our house are out of control crazy. One is 18 and the other is kind of frito. They run around and don't take anything seriously, but the Zone Leaders are going to talk to them, and my comp talked to his parents, and they wanted to talk to me a bit too, so I talked to his family for like a minute.
We have a super cool member that's been a member for ever and gives us milk and cereal every week. She has her own milk factory and gives us all we can drink milk. That was super cool, we had two investigators show up out of nowhere at church and they stayed all thee hours. We visited a couple and ran to the members house to talk with you guys. They told me that you guys had just called so I called you guys back and I really enjoyed that time talking to you guys and talk in english too. I was sad that mom wasn't home, but I was feeling a bit sad after the call, I wanted to go home haha, but after the delicious food I was good.
An investigators gave us a huge bag full of fruit and mangos. A really nasty berry that only exists here and 4 mangos. We were walking when a lady came up to us and told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon and was in alma 53, she wants to visit with us but doesn't live anywhere near us, in some other state. It was a miracle but she didn't know her address nor had a phone, so we had no choice but to give her mormon.org and the time and place of our church if she's ever in our part of town again. I really wanted to visit with her and ask her how she had a Libro de Mormon (Book of Mormon), but we let her go. it was like throwing a fish back into the water, a really big fish. We finished the week and I felt like I had a lot of success but it turned out our number weren't has high as I thought. We also had a lady tell us that she got baptized years ago and wants her two kids baptized. Free baptism ahh yeah. just joking, baptisms are never free. We listened to christmas music on a cd we have and studied.. We're going to eat pizza now at dominos,!!! I'm way excited.
I loved talking to the family and I can't wait till christmas to do it again. Keep staying happy everyone. I know that God lives, and I have no doubt on earth that with faith obedience and diligence we can work miracles. I have more faith in the Lord that I do my abilities to teach and be friend people. I just hope when this change ends I don't go. I want to have another long time in an area.
See you later, sorry about the bad spelling and speedy typing .
Love Elder Ordway
Wow another super eventfull week!!! I ended my last area with 4 baptisms and it was super hard to leave. Every single person I visited balled their eyes out when I told them we were leaving. It was just as hard as leaving home because these are people that I'm so close to. I'm probably never going to see them again. It was really hard to accept the fact, and in the morning we throw everything into the back of a taxi and left. We left the house completely empty. No food, No toilet paper (sorry) No nothing. But I met my new comp Elder Perez.
I've known him for a litte bit before. I've seen him at some of the zone meetings. The things about Elder Perez is that his visa was stalled for a whole year, so he was stuck in Argentina serving there for a year before finally he got his visa. He's from Argentina and he is so argentinian. He hates mexican food, and loves mate. He has a ton of mate in the house and we drink it all the time!! Elder Perez is a super good elder. We call him a fereseo. or fagicee (from the bible) because he is super obedient and doesn't do anything wrong. He is like a robot with rules, they can't be broken under his watch. Elder Perez also......has a disformed hand....yeah when he was a little kid he grabbed a super hot metal rob and it like melted his hand and threw the whole growth abilitly off road. I won't go too much into his hand, but it's weird. I've gotten used to it now, but people in the street just stare at it and the moment that they shake his hand, they are turned off. It actually makes it really hard to contact because people get scared and don't want anything. It seems like before contacting was soo easy. Everyone was interested in the two white boys walking around, but it's all good. I'm not complaining. He's super funny and works hard.
This area that I'm in now is dead. There is hardly any work here compared to what my last area was like. I've never taught so many members asking for references and contacted in the street to find new investigators. I also get sent to a huge area and is... I think... the nicest in all of the mission, like super rich. All the members here are loaded and everyone else is too. It's nothing like my old poor area where the people were humble and needed the gospel all in their lives. Here it's like trying to preach the gospel in the south hills. Everyone has had their religions for years. The oldest member in our ward, his grandpa was a member from birth. That's sooo long ago. The church building is super nice, is actually the stake center and is huge.
We share a house with two other elders!!! Finally. I've always wanted that. After I saw the movie "The Best Two Years". I've wanted to be in a house with 4 and I can tell you that is awesome. It's wild and fun and can barely feel the spirit during studies, but it makes me love being a missionary. Is a nice house too, well kinda. Finally we have water pressure again. My whole mission I didn't have water pressure but because we are so low, it's not a problem. I haven't climbed a mountain in the last week, so I'm barley ever tired. The members give us food and one member has her own milk factory, so we get milk free and cereal. We have Elder Perez from Argentina, another Elder Perez from mexico (Chiapas, and Elder Mathis trained him!!) and Elder Valenzuela from Chile. All in the house. so there is a ton of spanish. which is not a problem anymore. My mind thinks in Spanish and English now. Actually the president made a rule now, that we have to pray, read the mission manual and sing in English, so that all the natives can learn English. No one likes to pray in English, so they always make me do it. I now carry a little book with me so that I can write down all the words I'm learning in the house. It sucks because Spanish is completely different in each country. We'll really different. So I'm learning Argentinian Spanish now, which is cool because I will be able to talk with Ellie. For example; in Argentina they speak in vos instead of tu, which is kind of similar, but very different, so I have to learn spanish all over again. It's like trying to switch to driving stick after so many years of driving automatic.
My comp doesn't believe in bringing his camera around with him or writing in a journal. I don't know what he's thinking. Honestly. He's going to regret that for the rest of his life, but he just doesn't like mexican food. I called the Elders that are in my old area and they baptized my investigators 3 days after I left. We worked super hard with Jose and I was a bit sad to see someone else take all the credit, but he's going to be a great addition to the church. He receives the priesthood this sunday. Turns out, that people here just eat the left over sacrament bread....that's so wrong. This is the second week in a row now that I've had to teach the gospel principles class, but it's not even hard now that I'm a missionary.
We went to a mini Wal-mart and bought some food. I also need to cut my hair again. It's getting long. I've also learned more cuss words that ever before, in 3 different countries. I'm super stoked to call home and talk with you guys. I don't think it will be this sunday, but I'm pretty sure saturday. I will send another message to inform you guys how it should go down. I don't know if i'll be calling or if I give you guys a number and a time, but once I figure it out, I will let you guys know and if I don't send home an email saying what to do. I will probably call. My comp wants to skype, but every missionary I've ever talked to said that skype is horrible here and Eric said it was a bit weird. I hope everything is cool at home and I'm very happy here in my mission. I couldn't not have chosen a better mission.
Mexico it awesome and this area isn't all that hot.
-See you guys soon Elder Ordway
