Week 62

Buenas dias a todos!! ( Good Morning Everyone!!)

This week was awesome, we ended the change with 2 really cool baptisms. Nayeli and her daughter Naomi. They had to get baptised two times, for them both. haha. I felt really good when they got confirmed. One of the converts of the Elder that I replaced in this area baptized and confirmed Nayelli.

We also had changes this week. I'm staying here in Culhuacan to finnish the training of Elder Johnson. Elder Velez is going home. Elder Cabrera will be training. They took from the Cafetales ward and they put 2 new Elders there and Elder Vitte left to Iztapalapa to open up a new area. There is now 9 Elders in our district. I now have the largest district in the mission and this mission has a rule where you have to do interchanges with every missionary in the district at least once a month, but you can't start them until after week three. So in 3 weeks I will have to have interchanges with 7 Elders and a Zone leader. That's like every other day.

Our mission now has new rules. We are now allowed to play tennis, but only with our Comp, and we can now listen to music before study time!!! Our President, even though he would like to have more rules, he got told by an area 70. But I love my president.

We are teaching a lady who has more problems in her life than anyone I have evevr seen before. Her husband is cheating on her, she has one little boy with ADHD, her house has rats in it, and everything is just trashed. Her husband keeps boxes of porn in the house, and he's a drug addict who's a drunk. She has no job, and you literally cannot feel the spirit when your inside the house. The spirit waits for us to leave again. My Zone leader said that he felt like throwing up after haing the lesson. I really don't know what to do to help her, she needs more help then from the missionaries.

I'm stoked to work here another change, I love my mission and my comp. 

Elder Ordway

Week 61

    Wow, Saturday night, I was dead!! basically. We had worked so hard. I feel like Elder Johnson is still learning a lot, being his first transfer and everything. Which makes me feel like a lot of the stress an work all over my shoulders. This keyboard is busted, so a lot of the keys won't work. Elder Palomeque told us that our work is of the most highest of the mission. I've been contacting like never before and a lot of  times, the ward leaders don't work very hard, which makes things a bit harder, but I can feel a difference in my attitude, when I'm serving the Lord really really hard. I shouldn't go into bragging though. 

   Elder Johnson is doing really well, we have changes this sunday and I really don't want to gooo. I love this ward soo much, I love my comp, my bishop teaches apostacy, but I love him too.!!

   We will also be having 2 baptisms this saturday, and Elder Johnson and I won't be baptizing anyone. We planned it and brought a couple of priests with us, so it should be really awesome, all I know is that we fought hard to get this family baptized. a Single mom and her daughter who had her husband killed a couple weeks ago. At first she didn't want to be baptized, because she couldn't forgive the guys that killed him, but the Lord really blessed her heart. 

   There is a hidden cricket in our house that we can't find, that chirps every time we turn off the lights, but we can't find it, I actually kind of like it, it feels like I'm sleeping outside, as there are unlimited mosquitos and crickets making noise...hahaha

   We have some investigators that are in the worst life situations ever. One girl name Gabby, literally was at the point or taking her own life, her mind has gone crazy, I'm not even joking, her husband beats her and smokes and drinks a ton, her kid is like mentally ill and I feel so bad for her. Our area, is really ugly, one of the most dangerous and uglies in the whole mission, but the members are awesome. 

   Things are rocking here in Mexico, but I'm sure I'll be really stressed out again in a couple weeks. I'll also be losing my other ward, since the mission President will be putting missionaries in cafe-tales  again...cry cry cry.. 

Loves all around,

                         Elder Ordway

Week 60

Hola a Todos!!

   A wonderful week indeed. We have two families going really strong. One of which, the mom simply did not want to get baptized, she did not want to change her old life. But that's no match compared to Elder Johnson and I and the Spirit.....We came into the lesson and we blasted her with an atonement lesson, and applied it so well to baptism, I'm surprised she wasn't baptized that night. She accepted a baptismal date and now this family, there all my best friends... a Single mom who's husband was killed and her 3 children. 

Basically everyone you teach here are single moms....it really makes me sad. But the other family that we are teaching, is Victoria and Zaory. They're really awesome and Victoria, (as well single mom) received an answer so strongly about the book of mormon. She's way awesome, and the best part is, she makes hamburgers every night, so she gives us free american food all the time. 

   I've really been able to make my english personality come out in spanish. I feel like I can love the people I teach more when I can freely speek my mind and personality. These families are awesome, the only thing is that one feels a lot of anger towards the people that killed their dad and husband. It really is a sad situation. 

  I'm not sure if I saw the following this week or last week, and if I've already explained it but: Elder Johnson and I were contacting some guy in the street, when we saw a gang of 8 guys run up and throw some other guy to the ground right by us. They ripped his shirt off and then threw him into the wall. As they started beating the life out of this guy, I felt so soooo bad. I don't know what the situation was, but I couldn't bear to see this guy get his guts beat out of him. I seriously wanted to run up and say to them "SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. … Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!" but I didn't.... We've been working really hard with the ward missionaries and someone in our ward just got her call to the Dominican Republic!! the other Elders in the ward finally found a sweet house to live in, but it's a house for 4 people, so they want us to move there with them... well see what happens

   I just got off the phone with a missionary in my first area, who told me that the less active family I helped return to church, the dad just received the melchizedek priesthood, and they will be entering into the temple within a couple weeks. that almost made me cry to know that....

I should be sending home a sweet package, but I don't know yet. Everything is good here in Mexico.

Loves all around,

        Elder Ordway

Week 59

   Wow this was my first Day of the dead here in Mexico. It's a lot different than the U.S. 

   

   -First off; the niños(Kids) still go out and ask for Candy, but they say "can you give me my little Skull" it really doesn't make any sense, but it's cool. 

   -Secondly; They celebrate it on the 1st and 2nd of november instead of the 31st. The 1st is for the kids, where they make alters and put pictures of little kids that have died. They also make little skull that you can eat and put your name on it. So if someone gives you a little chocolate skull with your name on it, it's like a nice gift, even though in reality it's weird to see your name on the forehead of a skull. Here everyone, except for the members of the church make alters and fill it with pictures of their dead relatives, then they put a bunch of candles. The specific foods that the person liked and a holy death statue and they make a little flower trail that leads from the road to the Alter, becasue they believe that the dead spirits come and eat the food........It's kind of weird, but way awesome. They also make this really famous bread, that is called Death Bread. It's just normal bread but it has like bones on top, but besides that, there really is not that much difference. So the kids go out for two days straight asking for candy. 

   Monday, I realized that there is a member in our ward that specializes in masajes(massages) and he's endowed in the temple. So I got a really awesome masaje (massage), for barley anything. I feel like new!!

  We also had a sweet time this week being in a trio. Elder Velez is an awesome missionary and it was so much fun just being around two great guys for a week long, but Elder Cabrera from Veracruz  got sent to our ward, so they are now working hard in their area again. Saturday was one of the hardest days of the mission that I've had, being haloween, there are not that many people that want you to come over, but we made it through the day, working hard. 

  We had a zone Conference thursday, and it was awesome, our president just got back from a "all of mexico President meeting in OaXaca" so he was full of information and he pumped us full of excitment. I love my President, he's so cool. I don't know how it does it all. For example in the next 3 changes, 75 missionaries are coming into the mission, and 17 are going home. That means every ward will be getting doubled the missionary power. It's so crazy right now in the mission, I think I'll be training for the rest of my mission, like Elder Robinson, all he does is trained.

   Here in Mexico, they don't really have pumpkins and no one has ever carved a pumpkin, so I bought a fairly expensive little pumpkin and took it to an investigadores house. With all of her little kids we carved and took out all the junk in the middle. It was a really special moment for me and the investigators. 

   I miss old fashion pumpkin carving... Things here are good. 

     Loves all around, 

                               Elder Ordway