Listen to the Spirit with Everything you Do!!!

Hola Mama! Things are going great here! My stomach feels like crap today, but besides that I’m doing great! The food is good and sometimes is awesome and doesn’t do anything to my stomach and other times it destroys me! But I’m slowly getting used to the spicy food here. Slowly but yeah I’m not looking forward to when I come home and all the food that I love tastes bland.

It’s definitely a lot of work here. To learn, it helps to pay 100% attention during lessons; and because I don’t fully understand, it’s hard to pay attention. Spanish is coming slowly, but I can understand more and more each week. I know I have Heavenly Father here helping me too. Also, I read the letter that you sent me in the CCM with the advice and my blessing and that was really inspiring! I love it! It’s a work in progress but I know it will all come eventually!

One experience I had was during and after a lesson. During the lesson, I couldn’t feel the spirit so I said a prayer that my comp would be able to say and teach the things that she needed to hear and it worked! We couldn’t feel the spirit before that because we were just trying to teach her a lesson and not teach according to her needs. We taught somewhat according to her needs but it wasn’t the right thing. It’s so important to listen to the spirit with everything you do. The spirit knows what people need more than we do. So I challenge you to pay extra close attention to the spirit during any lesson, or any time day and night! God knows what’s best for us and works through the spirit. If you have a prompting to do something, then do it!

Thank you for the telling me that you sent my package and what is what. You may have to tell me again later haha. And thank you for the thought as well! I love that talk! and I will be sure to write about what my life would be like without the Book of Mormon.

The members here are also great and super nice and patient with me and my Spanish haha. Also my comp and I are getting along better too! He is awesome. I love the feeling of the spirit here and that my DL (district leader) calls every day for us to report, but also to check up on us. Every now and then we get a call from one of the ZLs (zone leaders) or assistant as well checking up on me.

Side note: after we went shopping today, we went with a member to Tianguis which is like an open market where you can buy anything and I mean literally anything! I bought a sweet Broncos beanie for $150 pesos! I will send you a pic next week. There is so much cool stuff there!

Love you mama!

Busy Week of Contacting and Slowly Getting Used to the Food

A synopsis of Monday: we went grocery shopping and it’s crazy how cheap things are here! We also taught a lesson to an older couple and I even invited them to be baptized! They said they want to pray about it so we shall see. They are nice. Regarding what I’m learning from my companion: he teaches me how to love and how to be diligent! Side note: our washer really sucks… It doesn’t drain by itself so we have to empty it with a bucket, and fill it with a bucket too. And since we don’t have a dryer, we have to hang up our clothes to dry.

Tuesday was my first zone conference and we had to be there at 9 a.m. We talked about so many different things like what we as missionaries need to do, how to contact investigators and the upcoming event about Lighting the World. My zone leader had to translate for me most of the time because it’s still hard to understand. We were there until about 7 p.m., luckily and thankfully they provided lunch and an amazing banana cake for dessert. We went contacting after that and got 3 contacts and appointments to teach them later. We came home, I did more laundry, and my companion made us some eggs mixed with beans and tortillas on the side. It was really good. We do good with sharing food together.

Wednesday was another day of contacting. One person wasn’t there that we went to meet with. The second person I didn’t hardly say anything and I felt bad because I wanted to but I couldn’t feel the spirit because I had a negative attitude. So on our way to teach another man named Miguel I decided to change my attitude and be happy I have the opportunity to be out of the casa teaching people; and the lesson with Miguel went great! I invited him to come to church on Sunday and he agreed!

Thursday we got lost for an hour and a half looking for the casa of a contact. We also went to lunch at the Gomez Aguilar families house, the same family that fed us tuna salad on tostadas last week, so I was kind of nervous but it was really good. They made some sort of grilled chicken with salad, bread, potato chips and jello for dessert. They are a super nice family and it’s cool their son served in SLC a few years ago. Later we taught the wife of a member. She’s been an investigator for about 2 years now but is hesitant to join the church because she doesn’t want to pray in front of or teach people either. We will find a way to get her baptized. :)

Friday was another day of teaching and lunch with a member. Every meal we go to they always have salsa that is super freaking hot and they tell me to put some on my food, so I put a tiny bit on so I can try to get more accustomed to spicy foods. We taught some more people and invited them to come to church so hopefully they come. A lot of people here are either catholic or believe in Santa Muerte (which basically means Saint Death).

Saturday a couple of the people we had scheduled to meet with weren’t there, but we met with an investigator who owns a sewing shop, that is really cool! Another contact we met with is like 80 and is super awesome and wants to learn more about the church. He lives in a building with some neighbors that also own a sewing shop and they make soccer jerseys. So we talked to them after our lesson with Juan and ordered jerseys! It’s only going to cost about $10 US but it’s customized with my name on it! I’m super excited to get it!

Sunday we went to church with our investigator Annid, and it was good from what I could understand. The members are all super nice.  We had an awesome lunch with a member family. They made spaghetti, then chicken cordon bleu with salad and peaches for dessert. It was one of the best meals I’ve been fed. The family is super cool and want us to come back soon. Later we got to listen to the face-to-face with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard, then I made eggs with beans and hot sauce on top and it was actually really good. I’m slowly getting used to the food.

My thought for this week is from a talk from Elder Holland called "Missionary Work and the Atonement". I only read the last section titled “the atonement and the missionary” and its sooooo good. Go read it and tell others about it too! In that part though it says that missionaries complain about how hard the mission is and then Elder Holland says, why would we think it would ever be easy for us, when it was never easy for Him (Christ). Ah it’s so good!!! (Share that with CJ and Jess so they can use it in their mission prep class!)

I love you so much mama!! Talk to you next week!

Notice the dogs on top of the house!!!

First Week in the Field

Hi Mama!! This week has felt long but it’s also gone by really fast too. The area I’m in is called Tepalcapa which is known for Malls. My campanion is Elder Martinez and he is from a place in Mexico that is 2 hours away from here called Morelos. My first week was good. We went tracting and taught some families and other people. It’s really hard because I don’t fully understand Spanish yet. I can pick out words from conversations and can tell when my comp is teaching about a certain lesson. With one family we taught the first lesson to, I could feel the spirit so strong and they could feel it too! It was awesome! The whole family has the parents and then a son and a daughter. The son wasn’t there but the daughter was.

For breakfast and dinner we eat in the apartment and then for lunch members feed us! Except for the first day after I dropped my stuff off in the casa we went to the mall and ate at a Chinese place! and the Chinese lady was speaking Spanish! It was weird but cool too haha. The food is really spicy here, at least to me it is. One interesting thing I have eaten was pumpkin that I’m pretty sure was soaked in vanilla. It was really weird....

The weather is good! Cold in the nights and morning and then pretty warm during the day. I’m finally getting over my freaking cold I’ve had for the past 3 weeks. It doesn’t help that we walk up some huge hills and then that it gets cold here at night. There are tons of dogs here in the streets, it’s crazy! yeah we aren’t supposed to pet or touch them at all. They are nice though and don’t chase after us haha.

Thank you for the update with everything at home! Um I’m not sure what I want yet for Christmas. I haven’t gotten your other package yet. I guess there is a new rule here where we have to wait to get packages during interviews which is during week 5....I think it’s really dumb. Oh also I need more ties. The rules here are that they have to be as wide as 4 fingers and I only have barely 4 ties that work. Um besides those maybe just some snacks...?

I’m glad you liked my thought! Thank you for the thought you shared too! (It was from Elder Holland's talk "Be Ye Therefore Perfect -- Eventually.") My thought for this week comes from D&C 3. I started reading D&C and it’s awesome! Anyways read D&C 3 and replace Joseph’s name with yours and think about it as if God is talking to you.

Oh also!!!! I forgot to include this before but the member family that owns the building we live in, their son was in my singles ward!!!!! I didn’t know him super well because he went to his girlfriend’s ward but I still knew him and it’s crazy that I’m living with his parents!

So the pictures I sent include pictures with my teachers, district and friends in the CCM, a picture with all the people who left with us to the field, my new comp, and our church building! I took a video of my casa I’ll send in a second. Also, I only have till 5 so I’m trying to write fast. I have 20 emails to read but not a lot of time left, please tell everyone I’m sorry! my comp made us late for emailing today…

I love you so much! Tell dad and the rest of the fam I love them too! I will talk to you next week!

Chad and his companion, Elder Martinez

Their church building

Church building from the front

Entrance to their casa

This is Chad's casa. They live on the 2nd floor.

From L to R: Chad, his district leader, the DL's
companion, then Chad's companion Elder Martinez

I Made It!!!!

¡Hola Mama! Yes I made it! The last few days have been good but crazy because of the meetings we had and trying to get everything packed and ready to bring out into the field. Saturday was our last day of classes with our teachers so we were able to get pictures with them. Then yesterday was fast Sunday and again to keep my goal of bearing my testimony every Fast Sunday for a year I got up and bore it again! After our devotionals and even throughout the day we said bye to the new friends we had made and took pictures. After that we were up later packing and getting everything ready. When we woke up this morning we gathered our stuff and took it to the reception desk and then went to breakfast and said bye to our district and then back to reception to wait for the APs and President to come pick us up.

After we got loaded up, it took us about 45 minutes to get to the Mission Home where we got told about what we need to do in the field, got interviewed by the President and got food made by the President’s wife!! It was the best food ever! We got eggs, beans, sausage, French Toast, and of course tortillas. The mission home is in this super nice gated area with huge houses that had a guard gate that had a bunch of people guarding including the guys with guns. One guy had a rifle and then the other 2 had shotguns! It was both scary and sweet at the same time! After that and loads of pictures taken, we loaded back up into a van and came to the mission office and then came to email for a bit at an internet place. They didn’t tell us we would be emailing so I don’t have my camera to send you pictures so I will have to send them all next week.

We were told we are going to go out tracting for a bit trying to give out Book of Mormon’s and talking to people. I’m not sure where we are staying tonight but tomorrow I will find out what area I’m in and who my companion is. I’m sorry if my story jumps around and doesn’t make any sense, I’m super excited and I’m trying to type fast but tell you everything that has happened!

My thought for this week from a devo we had is: If you have a chance to bear your testimony, do it. You stand up and you bear your testimony about the truths you know about Jesus Christ and The Book of Mormon. Our testimonies will do us no good if we don’t share them. If you think doing it in front of people in America is hard, you should try doing it in a different country where you hardly know the language Haha. As scary as it is, you will receive blessings for doing it! I haven’t been out in the field really yet but I’m so excited to be able to go out and share the gospel and my testimony about it and the things I know to be true! I know that I will have the love of the Lord and of all of my family and friends to help me!

I love you so much! Talk to you next week!

PS - I forgot to post this last week but here's a message Chad shared with Christy (my sister for those of you who don't know her), that I just wanted to post on here as well: One of the biggest miracles I’ve had so far being on my mission, at least here in the CCM, is how much Spanish I have learned and how much I feel the spirit helping my comp and I during our lessons. Even being here is a super huge miracle because I have a pretty casa to sleep in, and get 3 meals a day. Most Latino missionaries that come here have told us that they normally don’t get 3 meals a day and that their houses are small and tight quarters! There are miracles we get every day, even small ones, we just have to look for them!

Last Week in the CCM

¡Hola Mama! For reals, the weeks go by so fast here. I’m doing great! haha no, no more Nutella binges. (As far as if anything’s different or crazier since he’s leaving next week:) It’s the same for the most part except instead of study time we have to go to meetings where they talk to us about how and what we need to do in the field and how to contact people and whatnot. Yes 2 other elders from my district are going to the same mission as me. It’s only us Americans and then like 13 Latinos leaving Monday morning at 8:30. I’m not sure what all will happen that day but I will cross whatever bridge comes when I get there! It is kinda crazy because it seems like I’ve been in the CCM for so long but at the same time I’m super excited! I know it will be tough but like you said I will have the gift of tongues and the Lord to help me! Yes I did get the letters, thank you. I have only been able to read them once so far because I am always so busy but at least I have the papers with me now.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about that talk, I loved it too! ("By Divine Design" by Elder Rasband). Definitely look up that talk if you haven’t yet! (the one from Elder Holland “Feed My Sheep.”)

I looked at the pictures you sent before I started typing this email to you. Koda looks so funny wearing the shirt just chillin’ there haha! I miss him soo much! I loved the pictures of the pumpkins and of CJ and Jessica dressing up as Thor and Hela! I was so pumped when I saw it but also so sad I have to wait to watch that movie! It’s okay though! Also are you keeping a movie list for me?

Yes I loved that package you sent me! It was so cool and fun! I’m going to keep the Frankenstein Head bucket while I’m out here! Don’t worry I took pictures haha. I was so happy you sent it! (Reese’s Puffs – his favorite cereal). I haven’t opened the Corn Pops yet but I did the Reese’s Puffs and I’m even nice enough to share! No we didn’t do anything special on Halloween. We did hear some fireworks in the city but it was just a normal day. When we got to our casa that night though some of us did dress up and actually went out and went trick or treating! My comp and I didn’t go because my comp was feeling sick but I still dressed up. I didn’t have a lot to work with so I put on my sweats and one of my zip up hoodies and was a gym coach! haha I know not super exciting but oh well haha.

Awesome! Wow that’s pretty cool! (I found a place that takes packages to missions in Mexico and this was his response to that.) I hope it works out! I will let you know probably in 2 Mondays. I talked about when I’m leaving in a part above but I’m still not sure if I will get to call home or what, but if I do get the chance I will call your number! When we went to go find out when we are leaving and whatnot, I got my passport / green card, travel plans, a filtered water bottle with an extra filter that should last through my mission and a P-card that has a monthly amount (I’m not sure how much, I heard it is 1000 pesos which is only like 60 US dollars) when I get out in the field.

PS I have a dumb sore throat today....idk even how! I’ve been drinking lots of OJ and eating halls......

I gotta go! I love you mama!!

Coolest package from the best parents ever!!

Me with my trick or treating head in my gym teacher costume

My student! Elder Peterson, from another district
and Elder Davis my DL.