Elder Spencer's Mexico Mexico City North Mission: Teaching, Cambios and Another Stomach Infection...

Hola Mama! Life in Mexico is going good today. I had another stomach infection last week (more on that later) but luckily I didn’t have to go to the hospital, just medicines. I’m doing better now. Guess what’s going on with cambios??? I’m staying in Villa del Carbón with Elder Aguilar!

After writing emails last week we went back to visit the Hernandez family because Laura wanted to feed us dinner. The Hernandez family is super awesome. I know I’ve written it before but with all the trails and difficulties they have been through, and are still going through, but they are improving and becoming closer with God, it is amazing. They are always doing what they can to help other people and to do what’s right.

We had a district meeting on Tuesday where we talked about happiness. It was another good meeting. The commitment that Elder Martinez gave us for the week is to look for things each day that make us happy, big or small, and experiences that nourish our souls. It is a good reminder to me that I need to be happy and like Jessica once told me before I left on my mission, I am going to have rough days on my mission but if I can find one good thing or one funny/silly thing that happened and laugh about it or about a mistake I made instead of getting angry or frustrated, I will be so much better off. We had a lesson with Victor and taught him about the Plan of Salvation. He’s having some problems but is trusting in God to help him know what he needs to do to fix/improve things. Then we went to meet with the Hernandez family and finally made the Mexican Crumb cake you sent me. While it was baking, we had a lesson with Laura and Juan about the law of chastity that Vianey and Priscila helped us talk about and help teach. It was a good lesson!

Wednesday we went to see a new contact, Fernando, and talked to him about the Book of Mormon, the Plan of Salvation and also answer some questions he had about the church. It was a really great start to introduce ourselves and to introduce him to the church. He told us we could come back another day. Sweet! A new investigator! Oh also, sometimes when we walk down a certain street, there is a dog that just chills there on the sidewalk and if she sees us, she will seriously follow us all day. And if other dogs come near us, she will chase them away. We don’t even give her food or call her to come with us, she just saw us one day and started following us. I guess she is our guard dog. I want to keep her :).

Thursday we came up with a plan to find more investigators. We are going to look for service opportunities, post flyers around the town, contact more in the streets and in every place we go, fast and pray for more help and also visit recent converts, less-active members and young single adults. It will be harder to work with the members here since there are so few but still, some is better than none. This is a tough area to be in but I’m trying to improve it for the next missionaries after I leave. For lunch we got money from a member and then we bought a pizza and shared it with the Hernandez family to turn the tables and show them that we are grateful for them. Later that day Vianey told us she wanted to talk and she told us how she has been struggling a lot with her parents. She is doing what she can to support and love her younger sister, and she loves her family too, but she really wants to leave and travel far, far away. We weren’t sure what to say at first, but then I followed a prompting I got from the spirit and talked about the Gospel. I don’t really remember what I said, but I know it was exactly what Vianey needed to hear at that time. I’m glad I followed that prompting and was able to help her, and Priscila too.

Friday I was feeling good during the day but didn’t feel good at all that night. I found out I had another infection in my stomach. Why do you hate me Mexico?? We were able to find a few contacts before we went to visit Victor. We also stopped to talk to Fernanda in the ice cream shop for a bit and she was kind enough to give me some apple cinnamon tea to help with my stomach.

Saturday my stomach hurt really bad but I took some medicine to help with my pains. Members and investigators were super nice and gave me advice for things I should and shouldn’t eat for a couple of days, which was really awesome of them. We did go contacting and were only able to find one guy as a new contact. Another guy we tried to talk to straight up told us he wasn’t interested. I actually respect that a lot, because he didn’t lie and say he’s too busy or many of the stories we hear. I would rather have someone say that than lie.

So, the pictures are of the area and a bunch of things. One is a dish we ate during the first intercambios with Elder Martinez and Elder Rivera. It has hot dogs, nopale (which is like cactus), beans, guacamole, longaniza, cucumbers, chicken and beef with cheese under the cucumber and onion! It was super good! I’m not a fan of nopale so I didn’t eat those (the green things on the side) but yeah it was delicious!

I love you so much mama! Have a great week! TE AMO MUCHO!!!!!!