Week 26 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

On Tuesday we had a training from the president. He talked about the importance of not focusing on the numbers and remembering our purpose (inviting others to come unto Christ). And he talked about the importance of our teaching because it affects them for the rest of eternity.

We also got to hear from his wife and she always talks about health and the rules. She talked about the importance of making good eating habits here in the mission so we can eat well the rest of our life, and talked about the importance of taking care of our intestines.  

 

After the training all the missionaries from Anahuac (me, my companion Elder Babb, Elder Perez, Sister Aramburo and Sister Dudley) went to pizza hut and bought two giant pizzas, and some cinnamon rolls. We had a bit of pizza left over at the end and we went to go give the extra pieces to the little taurumara kids that beg outside of KFC. My comp handed them the pizza and they didn’t say thank you they just told him to give them his drink.

The taurumaras are very interesting, they always ask for money. The other week, we were in a house in a lesson and one little taurumara boy walked into the house and asked for money. He walked right up to me and got in my face not saying anything and had the bill of his hat pressed against my forehead. It was funny just because of how weird it was. 

Later on Tuesday night we went to Favella with a member who drove us (Favela is like a little ranch like ten fifteen minutes outside of Anahuac) to visit a recent convert and to visit a reference. The recent convert took us and showed us around her garden and was talking to us about the importance of self-sufficiency and growing your own food, she is really into agriculture. She also has this little museum in the back of her house with a bunch of things like mammoth bones, sabretooth tiger teeth, petrified wood and crystals and fossils and rocks I got to hold a meteorite that she had and that was pretty cool. After that we went to the reference and he was drunk out of his mind, and I couldn’t understand a word he said. 

On Wednesday, we were walking to our area that morning and we met the sisters, they told us that they saw our investigator smoking and that he tried to hide the cigarette when he saw them. We helped them carry their water jugs back to their house and on the way we saw the investigator (his name is Juan Manuel) and we talked to him a bit trying to encourage him. After that we went dropped the water jugs off at the sister’s house because we were going to visit the investigator later. 

After that we went looking for a reference that we got from a member and we found a less active member that is really nice. Her husband is catholic and actually pretty cool and we think he is going to progress fast. They gave us some juice and some pancakes with jam on the way out. The pancakes looked so good but we couldn’t eat them because of the rules so we took them over to Juan Manuel, that is when we found him smoking. He tried to hide it when he saw us, then he threw it away, we then had a lesson with him on the word of wisdom and commandments and the atonement. 

That night the sisters called us elders because they had a 'rat' in their house. They called the district leader but we had to go because there has to be four elders to be able to enter their house. We walked over there and found them huddled together scared to death of the 'rat'. We went over to where they said it was and we found it under a bucket and in a sticky trap. The zone leader, that was there with us because he was on divisions with Elder Babb, stuck a broom to the trap and chased the sisters around with it and then threw it away and we left.

Thursday not much happened. I worked with the zone leader in my area. He is a big soccer fan and loves the Italian team, he is from Ecuador he is one of the people who played soccer with us the other week. 

Friday we took some medicine (I think it is called Veerox) to cleanse our systems of parasites. 

Saturday we went to a bakery and bought some doughnuts. I bought an empanada filled with pineapple jelly and a classic doughnut bar filled with flan, and a French bread roll. They were all really good the bakeries are so good here.

After that we went to meet with Juan Manuel. We went to his house and he wasn’t there we called him and he said he was at the park. We were worried that he was smoking or something but luckily we found that he hadn’t smoke since the last time that we had caught him. He said he felt horrible and sick because he hadn’t but he was happy because of his progress and the encouragement we gave him. He was talking with a couple of old guys sitting on a railing and we got talking with all of them and invited everyone to church. Even Juan Manuel was inviting and trying to get them to come.

After those guys left we sat and talked with Juan Manuel. We got talking about fruit and he took us to a store to buy us some grapes because we said we liked grapes. I felt bad and didn’t want any because he is really poor and doesn’t have a lot. But he insisted. He bought my comp a mango and both of us like 5 oranges and then a candy bar thing. It was really cool to see his charity, and my comp said that ya it was tough to take his stuff but he will be blessed a ton for it. 

On Sunday we went for Juan Manuel to bring him to church but when we got to his house he wasn’t there. We called him and he was already on his way to the church. we ended up catching up to him and he wanted to buy us a soda, he didn’t because we told him we couldn’t drink it as missionaries but it was cool that he was so willing to share. He still hadn’t smoked and was even feeling better, it is really cool to see that he has gone for so long without smoking because he has been smoking since he was 14 and he is like 50 something. He is progressing so fast and it has been cool to see how happy he has been.

Glad to hear that the weather is so good for you guys over there. We have been dying of heat during the day, the sun is crazy strong already and it is only February. 

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 25 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

I can’t believe that I have been in the mission for six months. A 1/2 year in the mission is crazy, it feels like I just started yesterday. The weeks are going by crazy fast it feels like I was just here writing. The time in general is just moving crazy fast.

Thanks for fasting for me, I may not have the highest numbers but I do love the mission and am having lots of fun. We fasted this week for our investigators. There is one in particular who is in a pretty rough spot in life. He has no job so he is never able to buy food and he has no family that lives here close to him. He was always really sad. When we first met him we told him that he could change his life if he wanted. And we said one of the ways is going to church. He has come to church the past two weeks. Yesterday he went to church and later we found out he got a job. It is really cool to see the gospel changing this guy’s life and happiness it is bringing him. 

Fasting has been going well here in the mission we have seen lots of miracles for example yesterday with that guy finding a job. At one point we were fasting 2 or 3 times a week because our zone leaders asked the zone to do so. We found out later that we weren’t supposed to be fasting that often and actually we are only supposed to fast once or twice a month.

We still have appointments to eat with members every day, well every day but Monday. We eat on our own on Mondays last week we went to subway and we will probably do that again today. The same members do feed us every day. It is actually pretty good usually, just it is kind of boring right now because it is cold and everyone makes the same soup called caldo. Last week we did divisions and I worked in Cuauhtémoc for three days and I got to eat really well. We had this toasted bread with beans on top with melted cheese that was way good. We got that with tortillas of flour and also like burger meat mixed with potatoes and Chile and we got a dessert of ice cream. Another day we got pizza burritos and soup. 

I am getting along really well with my companion. He is really cool, and I am learning a lot from him too. I also get along really well with the other two elders next door they are really cool too that is Elder Babb and Elder Perez. Today we all made breakfast together breakfast burritos, eggs, hotdogs, and rice. I am getting along well with the zone too we just aren’t with them much. 

Sorry I don’t have pictures this week, and I spent a lot of my time today downloading talks and Mormon messages to my usb.

Love 

Elder Blanchard

Week 24 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

My week was great. Got my hair cut on Monday and got some ice cream. They have tons of different flavors here like Nutella flavor and the flavor of those little chocolate circles that are covered in gold wrapping (can’t remember the name). 

On Wednesday we had an activity at the church for the youth where we played soccer. Wednesday is their mutual night and so the young men were going to invite a bunch of friends to come out and play with us so we could get to know them and share a little message. But the youth said that their buddies couldn’t come because they were working.

So we went over to the park by our house because that is where there are a bunch of people who play all the time. We told them that if they came played and won we would buy a pizza. They said ok and we went to the church to wait for them. Then a bunch of cars pulled up blasting music. A couple big groups of kids came in. Well a lot of them weren’t kids or youth, like 23 or 24 year-olds were there but we got most from the ages 15 to 20.

The soccer courts were filled with people kicking the balls around waiting for it to start. The youth of the church saw who showed up and they got intimidated and left because they didn’t want to play with the guys. At the beginning, we gathered everyone in a big circle in the middle and explained the rules. No swearing. They all started laughing and complaining, but they agreed. We said that we were going to start with a prayer and we taught them about god and how he is heavenly father and wants to communicate with us and then we explained how they can pray.

We said that the first people to say a line from the bible could play with their team first, but no one knew a line. We said that the first person to say a book from the bible could have his team play first, but no one knew. It was kind of sad that they knew almost nothing about religion, but we were glad to be there to help and share a bit with them.

They split into three teams, we were going to play games for like five or ten minutes or until a team scored two goals. One team would wait while the other two played, and while they were waiting we were going to take a couple from that team for like five minutes into the church to write down their names and just so they could hear a bit of the mutual lesson that the youth were having.

They all got their teams together and we got ours. Our team of missionaries was me, my companion, Elder Perez, and Elder Campusano, they are both from Ecuador and they are actually pretty good at soccer. Elder Babb was on divisions in Cuauhtémoc so this other elder was there and we took a couple of the kids who were on the teams not playing to come and help us out in the goal. We had a little kid  like twelve years old come help us out for the first part, but he got nailed in the head with a ball towards the end so we played down a man.

We ended up losing one game, but we won the rest and didn’t have to buy a pizza. We actually got a bunch of contacts and it was a cool experience.

We had to drop the family with the two deaf parents because they didn’t want anything and told us not to come back because they had their religion. They had their little daughter tell us this and we couldn’t really convince them otherwise because we couldn’t communicate with them. So that was too bad.

But, other than that we found a lot of people this week that seem to have a desire to progress and at least listen. We have been getting into a lot more houses and teaching more lessons. We will see this next week how it goes. But we have seen lots of miracles and felt all of the prayers here.

I can’t believe Emily is turning nine and that her birthday is already coming up. It doesn’t sound old, but she just looked so different in those pictures of her playing soccer. She actually doesn’t look too different in the normal pictures but the ones of her running and playing soccer she looks so much older haha.

Yesterday we got to see a video in Sunday School about John Tanner. That was a cool story to hear about. He was a really rich guy who had some disease ridden leg, lots of problems and it was in really bad shape. He went to the doctor and the doctor said that he would need to amputate it or he would die. John Tanner said that he came into the world with the leg and he would leave with it too.

So he left and started to put all of his affairs in order as he was expecting to pass away. Then he encountered the church. He went to a meeting that talked about the Mormon doctrine and he was really interested. So he talked to the missionaries who gave the class, and they came over to teach him and he knew it was all true.

They extended the invitation to him to be baptized but he said no. Not because he didn’t want to or because he didn’t believe, but because of his leg. He was told never to get it wet or something like that and I thought to myself wondering, what I would do in that situation, because that is kind of a problem and something that is necessary for salvation.

I had no idea what I would have done so I watched the next part closely to see what this missionary did. The missionary went on to ask if John Tanner had faith or believed that Jesus had performed those miracles and healed those people. And John Tanner said yes. Then the missionary said that they possessed some of that same power and that they could heal him if he had faith and the missionary asked if John Tanner had the faith and John tanner said yes.

So the missionary stood up and said to John Tanner stand up and walk and John Tanner was healed. From there on out, he gave everything to the church, everything. He gave what was equivalent to be 250 million dollars to the church. It was a really cool story.

Love Elder Blanchard