I know that mom is enjoying Girls Camp right now and that everyone is off with their activities, I hope that you enjoy Bear Lake this week as well, and hopefully all of you are doing well. Things are going great down here in Oaxaca. It wasn´t a super different week, but it was interesting in some aspects, but I'll talk more about that in the questions, and of course you all want me to get onto the questions, and so I shall move on...
(Ok, there was some confusion about the packages. Did you get both of them, or just the one with the pants?)
1. Well... I'm not entirely sure what was going on either, I have my conspiracy theories about the LZs with my package, but first off I will say that I did receive the second package and all appears to be accounted for. But the LZs told me that I had two packages a few weeks ago, but then only showed up with one, and said that they were joking about there being two, and then this week in the District meeting they gave me the other package with the line of authority in it, so all is well, though I don't know why I was told that I had two but then didn't receive the second for a while later. Oh well. Thanks for sending me the line of authority though, its really neat to have that and see where the Priesthood comes from, and how it really does come directly from Christ. Thanks for taking the time to get that for me!
(So...give us the news we're waiting for. Did you move or stay?)
2. The big one... I'm gonna just keep moving onto the other questions so that the suspense kills you all while you are waiting to read about what is happening to me in the cambios. Okay fine, I'll answer the question I guess. Well... right now I am in the area of........ Donaji. So was mom right? Sadly the answer is no, I am actually going to be getting on a bus at 11:00 tonight and will be travelling for something like 8 or 9 hours to the very far and very conocido area of Huatulco. I didn't expect that one either, I was sad that I was leaving, but then again, I never thought that I would be lucky enough to go to Huatulco! So it should be sweet, minus the fact that I wont be able to swim at the beaches, or see all the cool stuff, and that I will just be swimming in my sweat, but I think that it will be a cool area. Its a branch, but its big enough for two sets of missionaries, the LZs are there as well, and so it is that I broke the Donaji spell and instead of the Istmo, I'm finally going to the coast!
(Tell us about your new area and/or comp. if you moved.)
3. Well, I really don't know anything, sorry. So by next week when I tell you about Huatulco, I'm sure mom will already know more about it than I will. It is the famous place in Oaxaca, so it will be a cool place for us to visit in the future, hopefully I make some good friends with the members there! jaja. All I know is that my companion will be Elder Price, he is from Arizona, and I think he has something like 7 months in the mission, but that's all I got. So, guess we´ll know more next week, though mom will know sooner.
(How was the week with investigators? Congrats on getting the mission record for number of investigators in church last week!)
4. Well, it was a good week. We had 9 investigators come to church this week, and it was a really good class. The bishop helped us out and gave the Principles of the Gospel class with all of the investigators, and it was great. Aracely came for the second time, we haven't been able to teach her, but she is really interested and I think that she will end up getting baptized in the upcoming cambio here. Hortencia is still coming along, she just really needs to get her divorce so that she can be baptized. We are also having lots of success with Rosario, he is really interested and loves the gospel. He is a really good person and has told us that he also wants to be baptized in the Church, we didn't want to bring it up quite yet because he also is living with a person, so he needs to get married or separated to be baptized, but I believe that he will keep on progressing and will be able to do so. The "fun" part of the week was Alejandro and family, but that will come in Q6. But anyway, it was another great week here.
(Do you have any baptismal dates set?)
5. As of right now there is no dates set here in Donaji. Though Edilma also came to church yesterday. She said that she feels bad that she has been so busy and that we haven't been able to help prepare her for her baptism. She is most likely going to leave this week for Monterrey and so she will be gone for yet another week, but she promised us that the week after she will finally be able to accept the necessary lessons and will be baptized. I'm sure that it really will happen, sadly I wont be here for it though.
(Any fun/interesting/spiritual experiences to share from your teaching this week?)
6. Okay, sorry that this one isn't too much of a spiritual experience, but it at least gave me some understanding of some of the people in the world and was kinda funny. This week I started to teach English to the daughters of Alejandro, Sandra(12), Silvia(10), and Daniela(8). The classes were really fun and I came up with some pretty creative ways to teach English, they are really good learners and the classes were great. Alejandro and his wife Macrina were always kind enough to feed us afterwards. They are a really great family, we got to talk alot with Alejandro as well, he knows everything there is to know about the bible and about every religion that exists, Ive never been with someone like him before. He is a really nice person and is convinced of the bible and of the Gospel and the necessity of Faith in God. We were always scared to go back and teach him after the English classes because he knows so much. However, I learned that while knowledge of many things is very necessary and good, its not everything. We slowly got to know him, and the one problem that he has is with the quote that was given some time ago in General Conference, sorry I don't know where it comes from, but everyone knows it.
"Be in the World, but not Of the World" It basically comes from the Book of Mormon, cant remember the reference right now either. But anyway, he has all of this knowledge, but he just cant bring himself to leave the world behind, its something hard for me to understand because I never have been fully immersed in the world before. But anyway, we need to not just know about the Gospel, but we need to make sure that we live it and always remember to put it at the top of the list of important things to do, though the Gospel is more of a thing to Be than to Do.
Anyway, the funny part was that one night at about 1:00 in the morning Alejandro called us, we were out of it but Elder Carrasco got the phone first and answered. He was drunk and he said a ton of things, it was funny to us at the time. I guess I'm really a spy from the Pentagon here conspiring against Mexico (that was my favorite part), and ya, he talked to us for about 16 minutes until he realized that he was the one who called, and therefore the one being charged for the call. But ya, its an interesting world down here, be glad we live in Mexico.
Well, sorry for the lack of spiritual thoughts or anything interesting, but Alejandro had the biggest impact on me for all of the things that we talked about with him and learned about him. I cant share them all here, but I am really grateful that I like Nephi was "born of goodly parents" and was raised in the Gospel. I have come to know and appreciate even more the truth of the Restoration of the Gospel here on the Earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I hope that all of you can keep growing your testimony of the Gospel, I realize that I didn't have too much of one before my mission, but I know that it was there, and now I know that it has grown so much.
Just a quick thought that I had while reading moms letter. She mentioned Brady and how he is still waiting to go to Puebla, he´s in the MTC if I understood, but I think that I just saw in the Liahona that the Puebla Mexico mission was just divided, so which one is Brady going to? Was he already called to one of the two missions, or was he just called to Puebla in general?
Sorry, just curious, well... I better get going now, but I will talk to you all next week! Love you!
Love,
Jordan
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