Hola familia y feliz Halloween y dia de muerto!!
This week has flown by. The first part of it was really hard, but it has gotten better towards the end. At the first of the week my companion was sick so from Monday until Wednesday we sat around the house all day..... It was awful. I have never been so bored in my life. I never thought I would be like this, but all I want to do right now is work, work, work so just sitting around for those three days killed me!!!! But we got to work on Thursday. The work is still slow though. It is so hard to find new people to teach here, and the people that we are teaching aren't progressing. But that just pushes me to work even harder!!
On Thursday all of our appointments fell through so we were just riding through the streets with nothing to do. I felt prompted that we should go and visit a member of our branch named Jose (such an odd name for Mexico right?). We headed over to his house and arrived just as he got there too. Jose is paralyzed. About 15 years ago he got sick and ever since then he has been paralyzed. We're not sure exactly what happened. But being paralyzed in Mexico is really hard, because it cuts out a lot of opportunities for jobs. So he has a hard time earning money. He invited us in and we started to visit him. But instead of us teaching him a lesson he taught us. He had all of these scriptures prepared to share with us about how Jesus and his apostles healed the sick and performed miracles. He then asked us if we believed those things were possible in these latter days. We said yes and then he asked for a blessing. So we gave him a blessing and it was soooo cool. He has so much faith to be healed!! He isn't married, but he has this girl that he always tells us is the most beautiful girl in the world and he wants to be healed so he can marry her in the temple and be sealed to her for eternity. He's been a member for 5 years and he hasn't ever missed a day of church!!! Mexico needs more members like Jose!!
Our branch has a church attendance of like 20 people per week. But there are like 150 members in our branch. Most are less active. A lot of people here get baptized and then end up leaving the church. We're working hard to re-activate people and we're trying to find more families to baptize to strengthen the branch. We have a lot of work to do!!
Well this week was Halloween. Dia de Muerto was on Nov 1 and 2 so that was fun to see. It's kinda sad because the old traditions like that are dying off so it isn't as celebrated as it used to be, but it was still cool. We went to the cemetery to see what it was on Saturday night. The cemetery's are really different. They have a lot of really big tombstones and a lot of really big family tombs. Some of the tombs are nicer than most of the houses here. The people all go to the cemetery and bring food and decorations for the graves because they believe the dead come and visit them. There were a bunch of bands playing to the graves too. Like they were literally facing the tombs and playing to them.
Oh ya, today is my 2 month mark of my mission!! Yaa..... haha it has honestly gone so fast and if the rest of my mission goes this fast I'm not going to want to come home. The language is still really difficult, but I'm learning more and more every day. I know I can learn it. I love you all and I hope all of you have an amazing week!!
-Elder Anderson
This week has flown by. The first part of it was really hard, but it has gotten better towards the end. At the first of the week my companion was sick so from Monday until Wednesday we sat around the house all day..... It was awful. I have never been so bored in my life. I never thought I would be like this, but all I want to do right now is work, work, work so just sitting around for those three days killed me!!!! But we got to work on Thursday. The work is still slow though. It is so hard to find new people to teach here, and the people that we are teaching aren't progressing. But that just pushes me to work even harder!!
On Thursday all of our appointments fell through so we were just riding through the streets with nothing to do. I felt prompted that we should go and visit a member of our branch named Jose (such an odd name for Mexico right?). We headed over to his house and arrived just as he got there too. Jose is paralyzed. About 15 years ago he got sick and ever since then he has been paralyzed. We're not sure exactly what happened. But being paralyzed in Mexico is really hard, because it cuts out a lot of opportunities for jobs. So he has a hard time earning money. He invited us in and we started to visit him. But instead of us teaching him a lesson he taught us. He had all of these scriptures prepared to share with us about how Jesus and his apostles healed the sick and performed miracles. He then asked us if we believed those things were possible in these latter days. We said yes and then he asked for a blessing. So we gave him a blessing and it was soooo cool. He has so much faith to be healed!! He isn't married, but he has this girl that he always tells us is the most beautiful girl in the world and he wants to be healed so he can marry her in the temple and be sealed to her for eternity. He's been a member for 5 years and he hasn't ever missed a day of church!!! Mexico needs more members like Jose!!
Our branch has a church attendance of like 20 people per week. But there are like 150 members in our branch. Most are less active. A lot of people here get baptized and then end up leaving the church. We're working hard to re-activate people and we're trying to find more families to baptize to strengthen the branch. We have a lot of work to do!!
Well this week was Halloween. Dia de Muerto was on Nov 1 and 2 so that was fun to see. It's kinda sad because the old traditions like that are dying off so it isn't as celebrated as it used to be, but it was still cool. We went to the cemetery to see what it was on Saturday night. The cemetery's are really different. They have a lot of really big tombstones and a lot of really big family tombs. Some of the tombs are nicer than most of the houses here. The people all go to the cemetery and bring food and decorations for the graves because they believe the dead come and visit them. There were a bunch of bands playing to the graves too. Like they were literally facing the tombs and playing to them.
Oh ya, today is my 2 month mark of my mission!! Yaa..... haha it has honestly gone so fast and if the rest of my mission goes this fast I'm not going to want to come home. The language is still really difficult, but I'm learning more and more every day. I know I can learn it. I love you all and I hope all of you have an amazing week!!
-Elder Anderson