Week 83- Where to begin, how about with the EARTHQUAKE that I just lived through

   Well this week I experienced my first earthquake ever and it was awesome. The night before the earthquake I did a baptismal interview for the other Elders in the ward and we decided just to have interchanges for the whole day, so everything went well and when we woke up in the morning, everything was normal, half way through compañionship study, my seat started shaking, I honestly had no idea what was going on at first but Elder Poyner got up and yelled EARTHQUAKE!!! the whole building that we were in starting shaking back and forth, it was like trying to stand up on a dirt cike in the middle of a race, just alot of bumps and waves, the door and everything started waving back and forth and things fell off the table. I'm not sure if it was dumb or smart, but the first thing that came into my mind was to take out my camera and record the earthquake, so I whipped it out and started recording, sadly my camera ran our of space after 1 second of recording, so I have no evidence,  it lasted for like a minute and a half, I looked outside the window and saw all the telephone poles and building shaking and waving back and forth, everyone was outside in underwear, frankly the nudity was more shoking than the earthquake. We never even left the building, you would think that after years of worthless earthquake drills in school, I would of learned to get under a chair or leave the building. The power went out as well in the middle of the earthquake and our phone signals, so we had no idea what had happened to the rest of the zone, after about an hour we found Elder Hernandez and Elder Lopez alright, and after a few more hours we got hold of the rest of the zone. There really wasn't much damage done, because the city learned from all of the other earthquakes in the past, but there was some walls crakced and roofs cracked, actually there wasn't any damage done the church, that just shows that a good foundation provides the strength to overcome the earthquakes of the devil!!

    Right after we got phone signal the bishop sent us a message saying : "elders how are you?? alive?? alive enough to talk in church sunday?? haha so we prepared our talks ( all 6 elders) and  each one had 5 minutes nothing more, and we also had to sing a song in front of the whole congregation, we pracitced without music, the song He sent his son, it's a primary song that I love, and being easter and everything, it fitted, but when the sister put the music on in front of everyone, we realized that we were way off rhythm, not tone, but rhythm. half of us followed the music, and the other half followed what we had practice, and basically it was the most embarassing moment of my mission, as we botched really hard the song. Not one person complemented us haha, and when the first 4 elderes gave their talks, Elder Hernandez and I got ready to give ours, right when the first counselor said that we would be hearing from someone else yeah, so we didn't talk, but that's ok.

      Apart from that, Elder Hernandez and I are doing a ton of work, we have lessons planned every half hour and the spirit is stronger than ever in the work, were doing serious spirit contacts, so almost 90% of the contacts accept a visit and 50% become new investigators. The baptism this week of Iztacalco 2 was really sad. The water was green and almost no one showed up, but she was a serious convert. The elders quorum president is struggling a lot with his quorum, almost no one shows up, so he asked for the help of us 6 to do divisions with the quorum and visit the less actives, he made us stay for hours , which made us late to a really really important lesson. I learned a lot of patience  and calmness, sometimes you just can't do anything, and even though you know that the people are going to blame everything one you, you just feel calm haha.

    A less active that we were working really on with, ran away from home, because her family chased her out, and she's pregant now, so that really hurt us . It was the bumber of the week, that and I have to buy another memory card because mine is full now!! 

                                                    -Elder Ordway

Week 82- I got robbed again...

   We had a really good week this week, one of the miracle that's happend was when we were in interchanges and we talked with some guy in the street that told us he was a less active and that he wanted us to visit him. The next day we stopped by his house and there was 7 people there!!! we had an awesome lesson and the spirit was soo strong, we taught the doctrine of opposition and they all promised to go to church the next day. and of course they did go!! and they asked personally for an interview with the bishop, it was such a good day. 

   The ward is getting down to work now that there are 3 companionships working, we had another meeting where we divided even better the areas boundries and everyone was happy. Yesterday we had to get the whole zone together because the presidente was going to talk to everyone, we all seperated into our distinct districts and the president walked into each one and talked to each district personally. He talked to us about abenadi and how he never got to see any of his converts, but we should all work as hard as possible because our work will always be worth it. 

   This week we got bus robbed, we were in the bus returning home to our house when 3 guys came into the bus and robbed everyone even the driver. It's like the old school train rob, but on a bus and really there is nothing you can do about it. I felt good thought not being the only person getting robbed haha

   The power also went out in our colonia, and we had to teach a couple people  under candle light which was cool. You know it's been a long time since I've shared my testimony in spanish:

    Bueno, yo sé que JesuCristo es mi salvador, he podido sentir su poder expiatorio en mi vida y en mi mision, me he acercado mas a el que cual quira de mis compañeros o aun mi presidente. Sé que las escrituras }, especialmente el libro de mormon contiene las respuestas a todo, he podido escudriñar mas que nunca en mi vida las escriturars y soy testigo que hay informacion sin fin para aprender, Soy testigo del poder de arrepentimiento, he visto el cambio en mi, y en mis compañeros. Queiro mas que nada regresar con honor de mi mision, habiendo servido al señor con todo lo que tengo. Estoy muy agredecido por el poder de mi cuerpo tan maravilloso, he podido soportar las dificultades por un año y medio. Lo sé y lo comparto en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen. 

  Ok, I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior, I was able to feel his power in my life and in my mission, I gotten more closer to him than any of my companions or even the mission president. I know that the scriptures, specially the Book of Mormon contains the answers to everything, I was able to really ponder in my  scripture study and I'm a witness that there is guide in the scriptures every day. Im a witness of the power of repentance, I have seen the change in myself, and in my companions. I want more than ever to return with Honor, having been able to serve the Lord with everything I have. Im very grateful for the power in my own body, because I was able to support myself in difficult times in the last year and half. I know, and I share this with you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

                                                 Elder Orwday

Week 81- No pictures this week, Sorry

     Well this week was awesome. week #1 in the change, First off, basically everyone has problems with everyone. While some took advantage of general conference to uplift their spirits and build their faith, for a lot of missionaries it wasn't so. Saturday night many missionaries called us telling us all about their emotional problems and struggles with their companions, I don't know what we did to gain so much trust of the zone, but seriously ,we had to talk with missionaries, and  get everything back in line, most of the problems came from the sister missionaries sadley, some were flirting all confernce long with the elders and I couldn't focus so much on the conference itself. I watched half of it in english and the other half in spanish, luckily I  heard Bednard's, Holland's, and Monson's talks in English. 

   Apart from the many problems that arose during the conference, I feel like a new person, I  learned so much about what I'm doing good and what I can do better in my life. I feel the need to be perfect and correct and get rid of all evil in my heart. 

   We had interchanges this week and the elders that we had interchanged with, they seemed really weird, maybe it just wasn't their day, but the night after ending the interchanges.a They were both taken our of the mission....The president called us in for special interviews and asked us a million questions about the interchanges and what we saw, what we felt, I honestly didn't know much. But Something happened just hours after the interchanges. So I feel really sad, The two Elders were really good people. But I'm really not allowed to talk about it anymore. 

   We had a million meetings with the President this week and our mission is going to be visited by Elder Johnson of the seventy, he is our area President, and he's going to come to our Zone!!, he also is going to have a special meeting with just the zone leaders, for 4 hours, I don't know what he's going to talk to us about for 4 hours but that will be coming up the last thursday and saturday of the month.

           Elder Ordway

Week 80

   Hey I don't know why my letter last week didn't get sent but, nothing cool happend.....NOT Every week in the mission is awesome.

  To start out this week, we had CHANGES!!! but I'm staying in Iztacalco again with Elder Hernandez and were going to dominate another change together. We're still fixing the little problems in our relation ship, but they really don't interfeer with the work and  they opened up Iztacalco 3!!!! so there are going to be 6 elders in the ward,. They would've pút sisters here but the area is really ugly  and fairly dangerous, I haven't been assaulted for like 2 months now. We had a meeting with our bishop where he told us that he was going to release our mission leader because he wasn't doing anything and he was going to call a new super strict mean one, I'll be happy with a mean mission leader if he works hard.

 

  Today we played volleyball with the elders of our ward and when to a street food stand to get some huge hamburgers, it was a blast and I showed everyone how to dive for a frisbee, hahahaha. They called some new District leaders to the zone and there was some serious changes in the mission. If your guys remember my first area Contreras...it got divided as well and now there are 6 missionaries in the ward, and my "son" Elder Johnson is now going to be training!!! WHICH MEANS I'm going to have another grand child. that's 2 children, 3 grandchildren, and 1 great grand child. Actually Elder Clark, my first grandchild, is going home early,. and for the life of me I don't know why, but it makes me sad.

 

   When I was reporting with Elder Rivera and Elder Jonguitud.. ( which are two compañions that don't get along) they just started fighting in front of me,Elder Rivera had blown a roof and Elder Jong wash't having it. I sat them down and we prayed and told them that if they didn't resolve the problem in the companship inventory that night I was going to call the president, and when they called me that night, they were both happy, they had seriously fixed the problem.

 

   This week an Elder got lost in our Zone and the President called us during dinner, we had to hop in a taxi and run as fast as we could throught the metro to find the elder and finally when we got the last station in the metro, he was found and we returned to finish eating. Things are really good in the mission. 

          

            -Elder Ordway

P.S : Oh i forgot to say, that i bought a ballin new suit, that is gray, with silver strips!!!

Week 79