Tajin

Tell Timothee and Marc that they are my favorite missionaries we ever had at home. They rock. Also tell Timothee that I hope he'll skype with me when I'm at BYU again so I can practice my French with a real French friend!

Tell Grandma Dorrough thank you so much for writing me letters. I appreciated the handwritten one and think it's funny that Windows XP is getting taken down because it's all I've seen in Mexico! I also love what she said about Grandpa Bradley. Let him know I can feel his prayers and I love him.

I got to visit Tajin today.  It is an incredible city.  But it is amazing that only 500 years ago the people there were still worshipping the wind!

Things are going well with my comp. He gets a little cranky at times, but fortunately with my life's experience as oldest brother I know how to react to essentially any type of childish behavior in the most positive way, so things are always resolved quickly and we get along well.

The work is also going along well here. We've been getting the hang of taking lots of people to Church - it's a matter of simply being a friend and showing sincere interest by actually listening, that way people want to listen to you. A new friend and investigator, C, has added us on Facebook. He's going to get baptized on his birthday, April 18th. I hope to still be in Papantla on that day because transfers are just before! You can actually see the transfers Monday morning on the Facebook page of the mission and send me an email about what they are so I don't have to wait forever to hear about it. Things have been going really well for the work ever since I left Puebla so I don't know what to expect for transfers now. It's not by any means a guarantee that one who starts a training finishes it in this mission, so even though it's be more likely I stay here 6 more weeks, who knows! 

Anyway. Tangents. C is super cool. He falls well on me. He's one of the people who had the seed planted a long time ago but just waits for the right moment to be harvested. It just took time and somebody specific to resolve his doubts he had, but now he's good to go. We somehow randomly run into each other a lot in the street, too...

I'm not even sure what Apple TV is... you guys will have to surprise me when I come back!

At this point I'm still good with the clothes I brought. De las diez camisas que me traje solo 3 ya no me sirven y 7 son suficiente para una semana. Pero cuando necesito algo de ropa te aviso. Okay. Shaking off the Spanish brain. My birthday is coming up soon! Shoots! I didn't really realize. . As for my birthday... Just some art from Zachary and Savvy.

Conference was amazing but it'd take too long to detail all my thoughts about it. I will share my humble but sincere testimony that I know we are lead by Jesus Christ Himself who speaks through our dear friend President Monson. If we follow his lead we will always be in the right.

Una divertida tradiciòn papanteca - ¡los voladores!

Conference in English!

 Another shot from Tajin.  It's not as cool as Cantona, but still a very impressive ruin.

Everything happens for a reason

Everything happens for a reason.

A few weeks ago when you sent me a Book of Mormon in French and other French language books, and the package got lost for a month, you sent another Book of Mormon and more French books. When it turned out both packages actually arrived and it seemed like I just had an extra French Book of Mormon, I love the words you wrote: "Everything happens for a reason." You already had the plain confidence that for whatever strange reason in the Lord's plan I needed two of them. For a couple weeks I had been looking at the book on my desk just taking up space wondering when it was going to come in handy. After all, there are no French people in Veracruz. Here's the reason I needed two.

This week my companion had to go to Xalapa to take care of his Visa. The day and hour of the bus ticket was at 4:30 PM Thursday. Wonderful. Because I was to stay two days with other missionaries in the mean time, I also packed a bag of clothing and books. When I thought I had finished packing, I had a feeling that I should add the Livre de Mormon to the bag. It doesn't weigh a lot, I figured, and I will need something during language study time. I obeyed the prompting and put the book in the bag.

We made it thirty minutes early to the station and waited for the bus to arrive. Whilst sitting and chatting, we noticed quite easily that two white people walked into the station. The fact that there are no white people in all of Veracruz and the fact that Papantla has a very small bus station aided our discovery. Before in my mission, I had only seen one other white person who was not a missionary, a high school exchange student. Now seeing a couple in their 20s with giant mountaineering backpacks and hipster-ish clothing on was a complete surprise to me. ''I'm going to contact them after they buy their tickets,'' I told my companion. We watched as they walked over to the ticket counter and set their ginormous tourist backpacks on the ground. I took the care of noticing their airport baggage claim tickets attached to the backpacks. I read six letters: MEX and FRA. To my complete and utter surprise, the Lord had placed two French people right in front of me. In Mexico. In the town of Papantla. I was absolutely astonished. Just a few weeks after I had started studying French and a day I randomly happened to go to the bus station at the same time the only French tourists in this part of planet earth were also purchasing their tickets and I just so happen to have a French Book of Mormon to give away. Go time.

At this point the other missionaries I was going to be staying with also arrived, one of whom speaks English. The French couple brought their bags over to the benches to wait and the man took off for a few minutes. So, I decided to just talk with the lady. First I simply introduced myself in French and asked how it was going for them. She said fine and they had just come from Mexico City. Then she asked what languages I spoke and I said Spanish, English, and a little French. The other Elder said just Spanish and English. She said she had also learned English in her school so she started to talk in English. She is from Brittany. We talked for a few minutes about what they were doing in Mexico. They are out for about a 3 month trip in the whole country just seeing sights and doing fun adventures. Then she asked what we do. We explained we're missionaries who go on a two year service for the Lord and a lot of people know us as Mormons. We offered her the Book of Mormon and she politely declined. Then her boyfriend came back. He spoke basically zero English. ''Zhou are zhe chef!'' he pronounced in an extremely heavy French accent. I told him it was okay and spoke in French a little bit with him. I simply said we wanted to give him a book that talks about the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and stands as another testament of Jesus Christ. He gladly accepted. He even pulled out his wallet and asked me how much it costs. I told him there was no cost. He said he would read it all and told me merci beaucoup for the book. I told them goodbye and headed out.

So. I don't know what will become of that couple or even what will become of that book, but the vast amount of situations, occurrences, and minute decisions that all had to occur in a very specific order and at very specific times for that meeting alone to occur and for me to be able to give away that Book of Mormon are astounding. The fact that they accepted it also amazed me. For my first contact ever in French, it went pretty well, I'd say. The Lord truly prepares His servants. Everything happens for a reason. Even when you lose a package in the mail.

In other news, this week we baptized U! He was super happy and is so glad to be a member of the Church.

This week in Papantla

I'm glad I've still got another year to think through what to study and what direction to head for my career... because I'm still not totally sure yet, either. But if I were to do business/international relations with an ability to communicate with the English/Spanish/French world, that could get me a sweet job translating or doing international something or other in an office. Still got time to think it over.

I will be praying for Great Grandma this week. (She fell recently and suffered a concussion).

This week was a fun week because we had four Elders in the same little house for 5 days. In the mix of all the house complications, two Elders moved all their stuff in and studied on the floor for several days in our house while they found a new house. I thought it was quite a blast.

I had an interview with President this week. Short as usual. He said just to make sure I'm helping my comp with his English books the mission gives him. ''Just help him learn English while you're studying... well, languages.'' Also that he is very content with my work recently. My package of the completely new 501 verbs book (I didn't even recognize it at first) plus dictionary also arrived. In combination with watching The Restoration in French, I'm getting more or less a grip of how things should be pronounced. Maybe you could do like you did with the Livre de Mormon and send multi language DVDs the Church makes for me to be able to listen to it more.

This week we also taught one of the coolest lessons I've seen. We went to teach the mom of one of our investigators the Plan of Salvation and she told us about a dream she had just had - in which Christ came and taught her the whole plan of salvation. So she basically taught herself the whole lesson right there. No standardized lesson plan needed. Just obedience and the Spirit.

This raccoon is named Pacumeni.

J'apprends le Francais en Mexico! Increible!

Mexicans are awesome. I am so happy the Lord called me to serve my mission here in Mexico.  There are things I can learn only here with these great people.  My Spanish has also developed to the point that I have two brains inside and hopefully within a year or two three idiomas with French. That's the reason I went to Mexico. If I'm a businessman or a diplomat I'm on my way.  I still actually have no idea what I will do for a career, but those two options are on the table.  When I'm back at BYU I think I'll take French classes to master it and then possibly Arabic classes my last few semesters. Or whatever language comes next...

Anyway! I forgot to mention that with my French books I also received some brownies, beef jerky, and whole lot of Fun Dip. Fun Dip is an excellent package snack because it weighs nothing, therefore you can pack a lot of it, so it lasts a very long time. I thank thee kindly for sending me packages. Not only do they remind me of a family at home that loves me, but also that my family is real. The mission has reached a point that I am perceiving it as very far out of my reality sphere so those packages help me a lot. A request! If you could send the Chariots of Fire CD amongst the next package I might get motivated to do excersise in the morning. Probably not because I do excersise walking these crazy hills all day, but I still miss hearing that wondrous 80s synth with the piano roaring the ocean waves in the background.

J'apprends le francais en Mexico! Increible!  For week one it's gone pretty well. So far I see the rules as you told me - that the French use "to have" OR "to be" for the compound tenses and the past compound tense (/or whatever it's called) is used instead of past simple tense, which is actually really silly and fun. Like ''we we are sat'' is we sat down or ''we we are washed''  (or have washed) is we got washed.

Learning a language is like learning the gospel. You just trust what the master says, be humble and recognize we all make mistakes and that's the only way we learn. I think the last mistake I made in Spanish was saying 'a comer' for a snack after a family home evening. A youth told me ''no, se dice 'a cenar' porque es la noche.' Ah, of course. The word doesn't depend on the amount of food but when you eat it. Got it. I see a lot of people struggling with Spanish because they just want to keep thinking the English way. Language isn't just another set of words - it is rather an entirely different mindset and culture. Hence also my desire to learn French because I realized how much more expanded my mind can become by learning another language. Languages are fun.

So that was a random tangent there. Alas! My week was wonderful. My companion is such a little ball of fun. He says he would greatly appreciate the English books, by the way. The mission does give books but in my view they're not very helpful because it's all practices and there's practically no explanation as to how to do them. Elder L likes working hard but he also understands that we are human beings with a sociological need to just sit down and rest for a couple minutes every once in a while to maintain not only a good but also a great friendship. (this is also what the ''adaptarse a la vida misional'' book says) He's quite a joker and we get great laughs. 

Until next week!  Thanks for the French books and language lessons.  Je vais etudier.

A new companion

I believe this is a picture of me with Elder L justo después del anuncio de nuestro compañerismo.

This is my physically exhausted victory face, I think. I just scored a winning goal for the first time in my life. That makes two goals for the mission and one happy nerd.

When I went to Xalapa this week to pick up my new companion, I found the ''lost package'' of French books. Turns out it was just damaged in shipping and the label got ripped off so they couldn't identify whose it was. Thank goodness I decided to check the mail room!  Now I can get to work studying French.

When I was in Xalapa I asked again about my going home date and that's still in doubt as to whether it will be March 20, Aril 3, or April 27, but it's one of the three. For now I'm just going as if it were April 27.

Let me just start by saying - training rocks. This week was very unique. On Monday Elder C packed up all his stuff to go to Tuxpan the next day so I didn't work, on Tuesday at 6:00 am my bus left for Xalapa and I spent all day with Elder D and Elder S (so I didn't work), on Wednesday I spent all day with Elder D and Elder S, met my ''son'' and at night took my son back to Papantla, (so I didn't work). Then there was a whole bunch of confusion as to where we would be living and which area we would work in and finding a new house for the sisters and moving houses for 3 companionships and a whole load of random bojambo and I basically didn't work any day this week. Despite all of that, we did bring 4 new people to Church on Sunday! One is a friend of Joaquín and he's really looking forward to getting baptized, so hopefully we'll send you a picture at the beginning of April.

Amidst the movings of house, I also had to cambiar de casa. That's because now I'll be working in the South side of the city where it's dark at night because there's no streetlight anywhere and where the Narcos have their colony in the Papantla uno neighborhood. So! My new house doesn't look as nice as the other one, but it's still pretty big and cozy. I also managed to snag an extra fan in the move so that's a good deal.

As to my new companion - say hello to Elder L from Guatemala, Guatemala! Aquí todos le dicen que ''Ya te fuiste de Guatemala... a ¡Guata Peor!'' That joke was funny the first time but after like 30 times my comp beats them to telling it. Anywho! Elder L it awesome. He is also an incredible amount of fun. He said his last day in the MTC he prayed for a companion who would be calm, not use his stuff, know the scriptures really well, and be able to teach him English. He said he was super surprised because his prayer was answered in the full extent, which he was hoping for but almost not expecting. Hurray for asking with faith!

I am so excited to be staying in Papantla with Elder L for at least 6 more weeks.

I'm staying in Papantla

Tell Aubs I'm super glad she's being a musical rockstar and I can't wait to hear her songs in less than 14 months. I'm glad the cello still reminds you of me... I think in about 10 years I might pick it up again a little bit. Also, penny pinching has become more than a form of thought recently - it's my way of being. I feel really bad when I spend even a few bucks on your credit card even though I know that's what it's for. Totally random thought there but there you have it.

For the first time in my mission history, I guessed a transfer correctly - I will be staying in my area and training. Who my comp is, from where he is, what languages he speaks I don't know and I won't know until Wednesday. The exciting part is that all day tomorrow I don't do anything; I just travel in a bus to Xalapa and hang out waiting for my 'son'. I shall train him and we shall definitely have a lot of fun.

A few favors: There is a song called 'el juego de las vocales' that a Spaniard wrote. The lyrics consist of several verses using only the vowel A, the vowel E, the vowel O, and the vowel I. If you could send me the letra that would be greatly appreciated. If you could also scan and send the music to the Rachmaninoff prelude in C# minor I played I would love that.

This week was a wonderful learning experience. I love looking at life with the perspective that sometimes we think things change when they really don't. One little event can totally throw off a whole lot of people's emotions and therefore decisions and attitude, but I have learned to stay strong being cool headed and making smart decisions. That one little event that many people would get depressed about really doesn't change my world all that much, does it? Because this work is about the people we are serving and not about us it's alright.

Next Monday I'll let you know how my training is coming along... until then!

¡Hace calor!

My package isn't here, but I did get a super sweet drawing of Zachary's furby. That made me smile. Please send little pieces of art with every package if that's possible! It means so much to me. Thank you!

This week went really well for us. The truth is that the Lord blesses His servants. We were incredibly blessed to be able to help bring a family one step closer to the temple. A member told us his son had apparently been baptized when he was 8 but the record was never made and they had no photos. Recently he had been going downhill with bad friends and influences. We did a family home evening this week with over 20 people in the family and the Spirit was truly powerful and we helped all see the importance of accepting Christ in our lives by means of faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It was also cool because it was a lot more old fashioned preach-on-the-corner style than a normal lesson. So we baptized 2 on Sunday, cousins. This Sunday they will receive the Holy Ghost. That family is so happy.

Going to those lessons was super fun. We hopped in the back of the Mission Leader's fruit truck driving out to a rural community and felt the cool breeze going who knows how fast.  We had some fun taking pictures in the wind.

Also, the heat finally came this week. I actually have no idea how warm it got but the sun feels extremely scorching in Papantla. Ademàs climbing up and down hills all day doesn't help with the sweat...

Mission life is interesting, but life all comes down to the Lord is in charge. He trusts us enough to use our agency and choose for ourselves but He is always planning the perfect way for us to receive blessings right when we need them. I know that God is our Heavenly Father. He loves us and knows us personally and He desires for all of us to be able to return to Him and become better people.