Elder Spencer's Mexico Mexico City North Mission: Devocional Navideño y Fiesta!

Hola Mamá!! como estas?? Things are going good here and if all goes right then we will have 2 baptisms this Saturday! so the work is coming along. Yeah its super crazy and something even crazier is that today I only have 9 months left!!!!! I don’t like that time is going by so fast because I love my mission and want to keep working and helping people and changing myself! Oh we went to a Chinese buffet today before we came to write and it was amazing!

The ward here is big but there isn’t that big of attendance here. There’s about 485 or so members but we have between 80 and 100 people in church. Kinda of crazy but we are trying to help the members here as well as find new investigators.

So last Monday we spent the morning as a district practicing our song that we were going to sing for the devotional. Then we got permission to go to Walmart to buy groceries. I got two boxes of Waffle Crisp, a box of Fruity Pebbles, one bag of Colossal Crunch, one bag of S’mores Cereal (they have it here!) and two boxes of pop tarts. I love cereal!! Other than that we went and visited a few investigators and scheduled appointments to go back and teach them later.

Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat and couldn’t breathe super well. I got sick from Elder Loomis who got sick from one of the assistants. But when I realized I was starting to get sick, I quickly went down and made some tea, drank orange juice and during the day I ate halls which helped a ton. During the day we had 5 or 6 appointments and were able to go to 4 of them and actually have lessons! It was great! One of the appointments we had was with a woman named Orma, who is a really nice lady. She is actually the one who contacted us so she is very interested in the church and our beliefs. I see a lot of potential in her.

Wednesday we had a short first lesson with a woman named Cecilia, who is very interested in taking lessons from us so we started teaching her about the Restoration of the Gospel. She was busy though so we scheduled an appointment for another day. She really does seem interested with a lot of potential too. We have been really blessed by Heavenly Father to start teaching more people and it has been wonderful! I know that every person we contact and start teaching won’t be baptized but we are planting seeds for the future.

Thursday we were finally able to go and have a lesson with Linda and Angel about some of the commandments from lesson 4. It was a lot but because they have their baptism coming up, we have to teach some things they still need by putting them together in one lesson. After the lesson they wanted us to eat dinner with them, but it was 8:30 and we were on the other side of our area. They were kind enough to make the food to-go for us and then call a taxi so we didn’t get home late, and thankfully we didn’t!

Friday was a super fantastic day! We had a short devotional to start, took pictures as zones, then went in the cultural hall to play games. We played minute-to-win-it, Uno, Jenga, Guess-who and a game where you have a plastic helmet and fill a small container on top with water then spin it. There are 8 safety sticks that you have to pull out 1 by 1 and if the one you pull out was the one holding the water, well the water poured out on your head! It was super fun! After games we went outside and hit piñatas, then we had a gift exchange, and ate lunch which was turkey, veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and cupcakes for dessert. After we ate we watched Jingle all the Way and it was super great! Then each district sang the songs they prepared, we did the Birth of Christ, and finally had a special surprise visit from Santa Clause who gave us each our own mug of the mission that has our names on them, a bag of treats and socks. I’m super grateful for President and Hermana Urrea and for all they do for us.

Saturday we went as a zone to a park and separated into different parts then went and contacted people. If the people we talked to were interested and let us schedule an appointment with them and write down their address, we gave them a literature bag that had some candy in it. The goal for each companionship was to get 10 effective contacts and give out 10 bags of candy. My companion and I were able to do it! One guy we contacted is the Director of an Elementary school and was super interested in learning about the church. With each person we gave a bag of candy, I could see them light up and get happier. It was a really fun activity.

Sunday was a little crazy because after we took the sacrament, one of the bishop’s counselors got up and said we are going to hear from one brother and then after him, we are going to hear from the missionaries. I looked at the zone leaders and said “Que?!” We had no idea we were going to speak. So while the other brother was speaking, my companion and I quickly looked up some scriptures about missionary work. When it was our turn we went up and had to wing it with scriptures, share experiences and bear testimony. In the end, it went better than I thought. I don’t like being called on the spot to give a talk but it was a really good experience.

I’m sorry I forgot to wish you happy anniversary last week so Happy Anniversary! Thank you for sending the package and I will be sure to keep my fingers crossed and pray hard that it gets here on time! Thank you for that quote as well! and updating me with things at home! Love you so much! Have a great week!