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

Week 23 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

This last Tuesday we had a training from our president of the mission. He is crazy smart about all of the doctrine and stuff like that. He talked about the millennium and that was really cool but he also talked about the importance of teaching with objects and how it is important to have knowledge or an understanding of something before you know the value of it.  Like a baby will just past an iPhone on the floor because it doesn’t know the value or understand, it is the same with us and the gospel. He also talked about the importance of using our own words or the words from the heart not memorized words.

That night we took too long doing a lesson and got out at like 8:50 and we were really far from our house and had to run like crazy to try and make it back on time. We ran for like ten to fifteen minutes which normally wouldn’t be too bad but we had our giant bags.

On Wednesday we took a video in sign language to communicate with the deaf parents of the two little girls that we had been teaching. We found out that the restoration video that we have does sign language and we took a portable DVD player and showed them it was a really cool experience. The dad wasn’t there and the mom didn’t understand very much because she doesn’t know a lot of sign language. She is like 40 and just learned sign language like 14 years ago. We have a few other videos that we are going to take over and show them later.

That night we had an activity at the church with the youth where we had a few investigators come and we played soccer. It was actually really fun and turned out well.  

On Thursday we started divisions and I worked with an elder named Elder Johnson he arrived six weeks after me he still doesn’t know a lot of Spanish. I guess he went to the MTC with almost no Spanish. We visited a family of investigators shared a lesson with them and they gave us homemade tortillas at the end with honey and an apple it was really good.

The next day I worked with him again and we did a family home evening at a member’s home with an investigator. We talked about eternal families. It actually turned out really well.

That Saturday I was still with Elder Johnson and for food with a member we got to eat hotdogs American style. They were so good and it was so good to have them like that again and I think I ate like 9. The members kept telling me to eat more and more and I wasn’t going to argue because they were so good. Also when we first got there they taught us how to make some juice with real fruit. We just cut up a pineapple and threw it in and they asked us what our preference of fruit was and we couldn’t decide so we threw in lemons, oranges and guava it was really good.

This week I had the opportunity to give two blessings of health. One of the members that we ate with asked me if I could give her one because she was having problems with her leg. Then on Sunday, a youth was a bit sick and asked for one. It was pretty cool.

I have kind of learned what goes into the tortillas here so hopefully I will be able to recreate them for you guys when I get back. Everyone says that they are really simple, and that is all that I have really noticed that is different from the burritos in America. 

Sounds like a cool book (The Biography of Joseph Smith). It is really hard to comprehend what he went through and all that he had on his shoulders at the time. That is really cool that through all of those trials that he didn’t betray God or lose sight of his mission. That just compliments all of the other facts showing that he really was on the errand of God. You should send some of the stuff you learned or that you weren’t aware of.  I always like learning more about him. That is really what our message as missionaries comes down to. 

I am actually not really sure how many people we teach in a week, it is not a lot so my companion and I have been trying to give short summed up parts of lessons to people we contact right there on the street if they have the time because it has been a bit difficult finding people in their homes. 

I am getting along with my companion really well actually. I am learning a lot too, he knows the scriptures really well, especially the bible.

Transfers are this week but I am not getting transferred, and neither is my companion. They usually call Sunday nights and let us know what is going on. My zone is barely changing. Only my zone leaders are getting switched but that is it. My companion says that this is the first time in 3 cycles (each cycle is 6 weeks) that him or his companion haven’t been changed. It actually isn’t that nerve racking for me. I was actually really convinced that I was getting changed because I had been here forever I even started packing ha-ha.

I am not disappointed I was hoping that I would stay I wanted to stay, I was just convinced I would go because I had been here for so long. We have had baptisms in our areas but they don’t really count. There was this couple from the Tarahumaras (direct descendants from the lamanites, and they wear floral dresses and live apart from every day life) came up to Anahuac so that they could get baptised. The husband of the couple had been baptised a while ago and know the bishop or president of our branch. He brought his wife up here because she wanted to be baptised. It was reallly cool that they got baptised and they counted for our area but none of the missionaries taught them. There was another lady that lived in a little ranch outside of Anahuac that wanted to be baptised but neither of us taught her either. Neither my comp nor I have been at eiuther of the baptisms. 

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 22 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

Monday before the meeting we played soccer at the church. And also that night we had a little extra time and we couldn’t enter our apartment yet so we played soccer with some people in that pavilion thing I sent you a picture of. We played a bit and got their addresses…it is too bad they don’t live in our area though. They were actually really good.

 (This is a picture of the park across the street from our apartment. In that building is a basketball and soccer field. We go there to work out. and it was really foggy that morning.)

At our meeting they told us that we can’t use our electric heaters anymore because it is wasting too much money. There was a house of elders that spent 2000 pesos on electricity the previous month.  They said that we had to use the gas ones now, but we didn’t have one yet and had to wait a few days until they could bring some out to Anahuac. It got really cold. The houses here are just like freezers with that brick. In the morning it was warmer outside our house than inside and we could see our breath inside. Luckily we had a ton of blankets and jackets and some thermals to keep warm.

On Tuesday we went to Cuauhtémoc because Elder Hansen had to sign some papers for immigration. Elder Garcais and Elder McGavin were also there waiting too and we were able to talk and catch up with them. Elder Garcais was the one from Utah that was in my district when I first got here in Mexico. And Elder McGavin is the one who used to live next door in Anahuac. It was cool to talk with them and tell them all that has been going on here.

They are companions in the Sierra where it is really cold too. There aren’t a lot of members out there or the members don’t like to feed the missionaries or something so they have to buy their own food every day. They took us to this Egyptian burrito place here in Cuauhtémoc where I bought this raja quesadilla that was really good. It was just beans and cheese and some green spicy pepper thing. There was also this thing called a falafel, I think they have them in the US too but I don’t know if they are the same. It is like an eggplant breaded with garlic or something in a burrito, I also tried some of that and it was pretty good. 

 (This is a picture of the parking lot and courts of the church in Cuauhtemoc. it was raining really hard.)

Later that day we got invited to the home of a lady that we had given a blessing to the previous Sunday. She was really sick, and after the blessing she felt a lot better and her husband noticed how she was able to do a lot more after having received the blessing so they invited us back to hear a bit of our message. They are good friends with one of the members and they tell the members when it is ok, or when she is feeling up for us to come visit. We have only been able to go one other time but we have plans to try and go back soon.

On Wednesday not much to write about just lots of rain and wind.

On Thursday we had a zone meeting. During the meeting the zone leaders taught us about what they learned from the meeting that they had with the president earlier that week. We learned about mountains and how our lives are full of trials or tasks to accomplish and how these are like mountains.

We were also taught about a horse. The horse was really famous it was named secretariat. It was a racehorse that was really successful. And they related our lives as missionaries and as members of the church to this horse. It was actually pretty cool, they talked about how this horse was from a lineage of champions and that is like us because we are children of God. And how this horse had to work really hard to break records and to achieve goals and how that is like us on the mission and like us going into the New Year with goals and records to break.   They also talked about the second coming. In Revelations chapter five it talks about seven seals. They talked about how the second coming is at hand and they tied it into our obedience as missionaries and how we need to be worthy and the Lord can’t work with dirty workers.

Afterwards they got permission from president to go out to eat. They took us to a pizza restaurant. Every companionship got a pizza I ordered my half with barbecue chicken.

On Friday some random person saw us and started talking to us in English. She was really excited to see missionaries because her daughter was a convert and she married a missionary. She called her daughter to tell her about us and took a picture of us sent it to her daughter who lives in Sugarhouse Utah. She then bought us an ice cream cone. And we talked about the church and got to know them a bit. They were from Texas just visiting family there in Anahuac.

That is way cool that you got to go the farewell of Jon Thomas. That is way cool that he decided to serve and that he is heading out. It is pretty cool to see how the gospel changes people.

The weather has done the opposite hear in Mexico. It was colder this week, lots of rain and fog. I got a couple of cool pictures of the fog. 

 (This is the church in Anahuac, it looked a lot cooler than it shows in the picture, the picture didn't catch the fog very well.)

The work was still a bit slow this week. No one has been opening their doors. They don’t even look out to see who is at the door the just don’t answer it is weird. But there have been more people in the streets though, more people to contact and that is good.

We just kind of stopped visiting Manuel and Luz. We still eat with them every week on Wednesday but nothing more than that. They are just very stubborn I guess you could say. They always say that they respect what we are doing but they don’t want any of it.

The new elder, Elder Perez is really cool. He actually played soccer before when he was in Ecuador. He is pretty good too. Last week before our meeting at the church we played a little 2-v-2 tournament with some missionaries which was pretty fun. All of the missionaries that just got transferred in said that I was the first gringo that was good at soccer ha-ha. I actually can’t tell a difference between his Spanish and the Mexican Spanish it sounds the same to me. I can actually understand him pretty easily which has been nice. The last missionary was from like central or southern Mexico and I had a hard time understanding his Spanish.

Love Elder Blanchard