Feliz Navidad!

No letter this week from Brandon ... but lots of pictures!!

 Christmas Zone Conference

With my companion and Elder Rivera, one of the Assistants to the President  

My companion and his trainer, Elder Seely

Elder Byrne and Elder Jesus (we started our missions at the same time)!

A day in Temascal!

Visiting Members and Investigators as SANTA CLAUS!

Random pictures from the Veracruz Mexico Mission Facebook Page

Almost Christmas

This email is going to be pretty short because not much happened this week.    Last Monday, Elder Mendez and I must have eaten something bad because on Tuesday we were both super sick and we were put on bedrest all day Tuesday.  So that was quite the long day ... luckily the next day we felt well enough to go out and work.

On Friday, we went on divisions with our District Leader, Elder Barcenas.  Elder Barcenas needed to come and do the baptismal interview with Hermana Duke.  So he came to Tres Valles with me and Elder Mendez went to Temascal with Elder Andrade.  However, Hermana Duke's daughter got sick and she had to cancel her interview.  So halfway through the day, Elder Barcenas cancelled the divisions so he went back to Temascal and Elder Mendez came back to Tres Valles ... so basically it was a waste of time!

Yesterday, both Elder Mendez and I were asked to share talks in church.  It went pretty well.  We both talked about Christmas and spoke for about 15 minutes each.  After church, we went and visited a ton of members.  This week is cambios (transfers) so most likely Elder Mendez is being transferred to a different area tomorrow.  We still don't know where but we will find out later today.  So we went and visited a bunch of members and investigators ... took lots of photos and Mendez said goodbye.

Something I shared in my talk was 3 Nephi 27:13-15, 27 which talks about how Jesus came to the earth, suffered, and died for us.  Therefore, as it says in 27, we should try to be even as He is.  In this Christmas season, I encourage you all to focus on our Savior and to try and follow His perfect example and help others.  If we do this, we will find incredible joy!  Have a great week!

Merry Christmas!
Elder Gurney

December

So the biggest news of the week, IT GOT COLD HERE!  Obviously, it is nothing like home but the past few days Mendez and I pulled out the sweaters and yesterday we wore our suits!  It been pretty nice!  This morning it was about 10 degrees C.  It is hilarious to see the people here ... they walk around with scarves, gloves, heavy jackets, the whole show!  Based on their clothes, you would think it is in the 30's F.

Outside of the cold, this week was pretty normal.  On Wednesday, we were able to teach this super awesome family that is investigating the church.  They have come to church the past two weeks.  The mom, Flor, recently divorced her husband and she has two kids, Jose Maria (10 years old) and Salvador (7 years old).  Her kids are crazy smart.  Jose Maria knows the Bible better than we do.  In the lesson, he was throwing out quotes from the Bible left and right .. he is crazy smart!  And Salvador too .. he has the deepest voice I have ever heard from a 7 year old!

On Friday, we went and visited Hermano Juan again, which is always super fun.  Another one of his cows gave birth this week so when we visited, we went to see his new cow.  This time, we actually got photos with it, the mom was less protective than the other one.  We also helped him herd the cows so he could milk a couple.  So yeah ... that was way fun!

Another fun part of this week was ... the food again!  HA!  When we went and visited Arturo and Soledad, we bought the biggests hamburgers I've ever seen.  They tasted amazing too!  The other fun food was when we went with Hermano Juan.  They fed us Mondongo!  Which is cow stomach!  hehe!  It is pretty good ... once you get over the fact that you're eating cow stomach!

Lastly, this Sunday was the children's program and they asked for my help to play the piano for it.  So this week I spent a lot of time with the little kids playing Primary songs which was way fun too!  A bit stressful .. they are all quite wild and crazy!  HA!  That was my week!  Miss you all and have a great week!

Love,
Elder Gurney

Weekly Email

December 4, 2017

First off:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!!!!!!

It is too expensive to send cards so hopefully Tyler likes his sign!!

Thanks for the Christmas tree Mom!!

Second off:  The highlights of the week:

Last Monday in our district meeting, we got quite the news.  There are now Hermanas, Sister Missionaries, in Tierra Blanca!!  The zone leaders have known this was going to happen for a little while because they found an apartment and started to it ready for the hermanas.  It was quite funny though... last Monday more than half the zone left the meeting early to go finish cleaning the apartment and getting everything ready.  So that was Monday!!

Tuesday was pretty normal.  The most fun part was that President Rojas (the Branch President and baker) made us a pizza and it was quite amazing!!  I've never looked forward so much to eating the crust!  The bread was amazing!!

Yum!!

Wednesday we had quite the miracle!!  We went to the house of a member for lunch.  (Side note:  they have the biggest dog that I have ever seen.  It is massive!!)

During lunch, she gave us a reference.  Her neighbor had recently told her that she's been wanting to talk to with the missionaries for awhile.  So we went over to her house right after lunch.  Her name is Dulce.  She is 22, divorced, and has a three year old daughter.  She is amazing!!  She knew the answers to almost every question we asked and she accepted a baptismal date for the 23rd of December.  She also came to church yesterday and participated in the classes and everything.  She is quite the awesome investigator!!

Friday was quite the fun day!  We had divisions/splits/whatever you want to call it with the zone leaders again.  So I went to Tierra Blanca for the day with Elder Uribe.  Speaking English we him was quite fun by itself but we also bought and gifted an ax to one of his investigators.  The man literally lives in a shack with dirt floors.  It was awesome to see how happy this ax made him.  We also had a little meeting with all the Tierra Blanca missionaries to plan activities for the Light the World program (for those that don't know what this is, I encourage you to look it up www.lds.org).   I discovered there are a couple comedians in the zone ... which made things fun.  I also met the new sisters.  They seem like good missionaries.  They've already accidentally stolen an investigator from some Elders.  I don't know how they found the investigator, but they ran into her and didn't know that they Elders were teaching her.  They taught her a lesson and then the woman told the sisters that she preferred that the hermanas teach her.  I thought this was hilarious ... the Elders that lost their investigator ... didn't think it was as funny.  Elder Uribe and I also bought about the biggest sandwich I have ever seen (for only 50 pesos).  We also met up with another companionship and a member treated us to massive milkshakes.  If we didn't walk so much, I would be worried about gaining weight!

Sunday we had the privilege to listen to the Christmas broadcast.  One thing that I really liked was the message about loving others and serving them.  In this Christmas season, as we focus on Christ and His sacrifice ... it is important to remember to not just focus on our gifts but also what/how we can give.  I know this will bring us much more happiness!!

Have a great week!!  Enjoy the cold!!  Miss you all!!
Elder Gurney

HOLAAA!

Hola! Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! My Thanksgiving was a lot different than the usual. On Thanksgiving day we had interviews with the mission president. I actually forgot it was Thanksgiving day until we got to the chapel in Tierra Blanca and the mission president´s wife, Hermana Palmer, shouted out HAPPY THANKSGIVING when we arrived. Hahaha, she then presented us with our Thanksgiving feast... carrots, ranch, and granola bars! It wasn't quite as filling as the other Thanksgiving dinners I have had, but it's all good. The interviews themselves went pretty smoothly. Presidente Palmer gave me great advice like usual and I´m working on applying it this week. The rest of my Thanksgiving day was spent with the one lesson we had scheduled, lunch with a recent convert (we had the usual... chicken) and my piano classes. And yeah that was my Thanksgiving! It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds. Haha, the rest of the days this week were pretty normal, except for Saturday.

Brand new puppy!!

Hermano Juan and I rocking his sombreros.  The one I am wearing is actually really expensive!

On Saturday, we had quite the interesting day. We left the house at 7:00 am (we usually leave at 10) to go help the parents of a member in the ward cut down a tree... or so we thought. We got there and found out that the father had already cut it down (He is a 75ish year old man and is a magician with an ax!). So instead of cutting down a tree, we cut the tree stumps up into firewood. It was pretty interesting because he only had one ax and well we didn't know what we were doing... haha he had to show us how. After tearing up one of the stumps, we finally got the hang of it and finished off the rest of the tree. But yeah so that's how we spent our morning, they also gave us these super good empanadas and a ton of bananas. Elder Mendez and I combined ate about 16 empanadas. After that we visited Arturo and Soledad, they also gave us a ton of food, chicharron tacos, and then after that we visited Juan and Lucia, who also gave us a ton of food, a whole fish each... We were literally dying the whole day. After stuffing ourselves even more with the fish, Hermano Juan took us on another one of his tours, because they started harvesting the cañas, which from what I saw are these super large sugar canes. He also took us on another tour to show us his new baby cow! It was born literally that morning! It was super fun, unfortunately the mom was super protective so we weren't able to get too close to the baby but it was still way cool! Pics are below. But yeah that was the most noteworthy things that happened this week! Hope you all have a great week this week and enjoy the cold (I'm still dying of heat out here...)! Miss you all!

One of the fields of caña that was just harvested!

The burn the caña, chop off the outer part, and then suck on the stick. 
It is basically sugar water .. and way good!

The baby cow!

Weekly Email

So this week was pretty unique.  On Wednesday, we had a zone conference.  This is when all the missionaries in the area gather together and the mission president, his wife, and the assistants come and share talks and messages with everyone.  It is basically a training conference.  It is all centered around how we can become better missionaries.  That's what a normal zone conference is, however, on Wednesday, we had the opportunity to also hear from one of the leaders of the church, a member of the 70s, Elder Valenzuela.  It was way cool.  The conference was held in Tierra Blanca, in the same church where we have our weekly district meetings.  All the Elders in the Tierra Blanca Zone, my zone and all the Elders in the Tuxapec zone gathered there.  There were about 30 of us.  I think Tuesday was the conference for the rest of the missionaries in Veracruz (but I am not sure about that because that is a lot of missionaries)!  Regardless, it was way fun to meet all the other missionaries and to see two familiar faces, Elder Byrne and Elder Jesus, two missionaries from my generation, that I befriended in the CCM.  It was fun catching up with them.  I also got to meet the trainer of my trainer, Elder Seely.  Elder Mendez has told me a ton about him to it was cool to put a face with the legendary Elder Seely.  He's from Colorado and was a professional snowboarder before the mission.  Right now he is a zone leader over Tuxtapec.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring our cameras so I don't have any pics of the people I met.  But it was fun!!

Thankfully, the mission has a facebook page and posted this picture!!

The conference itself was also awesome.  The beginning was pretty stressful because I was tasked with sharing a spiritual thought.  I was pretty nervous about sharing a spiritual thought in front of one of the members of the Seventy ... in Spanish!  I think it went well.  I shared Alma 26:12 and talked about how Ammon just converted a whole city, the king, thousands of people and yet he gave all the glory to God.  Then I said something along the lines of how I know God is helping us and if we recognize His hand in our work, we will be blessed.  More or less that was my spiritual thought.  I messed up the conjugation of one word, but I fixed it real quick!  After that, President Palmer and his wife shared talks, then the wife of Elder Valenzuela followed, and for the last two hours Elder Valenzuela talked with us.  He's quite funny and his words were very powerful. He talked about teaching with the Spirit and teaching with unity in our companionships!   But yeah, that was more or less the zone conference.  

Outside of zone conference, it was a fairly normal week ... just slightly discouraging.  This week none of our investigators were able to come to church.  We were planning on at least four but none of them showed up.  So I guess we will find out why when we visit them tomorrow.  But, focusing on the good of the week, we were able to help Hermano Julio by helping him paint the logo of a business he is starting.  He is starting a water purifier business, all the water here is well water so the drinking water is purified and then distributed in these big jugs.  So he set one up near his house, where there isn't a water purifier for quite a distance.  So it should be pretty successful. Besides that it was a normal week, lessons, contacting, my piano class every Thursday, and studies.  That's all I've got this week.  Miss you all!!  Have a great week!!

Elder Gurney 

Los Bautismos

Holaaaaaaa! So this week was pretty different.  As in the whole week was centered around preparing for the baptisms, as well as an activity that we've been planning with Hermano Julio, but I'll talk about that later on, my week:

Tuesday we went to los Naranjos to prepare Aaron for his baptism. It went super well. However, getting there is quite the adventure... There are only specific buses that go there and they are pretty old and rickety. But it's not the buses that make it so adventurous, it's the roads and the bus drivers... The roads are mostly dirt roads and they have bumps all over the place... and I am 99% sure that the bus drivers speed up for the bumps... It is way fun. On the way there we were getting tossed around all over the place. I left the seat like 20 times and got some pretty decent air time. Elder Mendez and I were cracking up the whole way there and the way back too.  But yeah that trip took up basically half the day, with the other half we visited investigators.

An iguana at the church!

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty normal days, except we got some pretty interesting news on Wednesday.... Our zone leaders called and let us know that we were going to be in a trio from Friday until today (Monday).  This is because the companion of our district leader finished his mission on Friday so they came to Tres Valles Friday morning and from there we sent off Elder Ramirez to the mission home and went on our way with Elder Barcenas.  It's actually been super funny having Elder Barcenas with us.  He and Elder Mendez don't really like each other that much, so it's been pretty awkward.  I have no problem with Elder Barcenas but he and Elder Mendez didn't really talk to each other that much.  The only time both are talking is if we talk about movies or food.... So we talked a lot about different kinds of food, our favorite foods, favorite movies, etc. It's been way funny.

Friday we went immediately from picking up Elder Barcenas to the church to meet up with Hermano Julio to prepare for the activity, which we had on Saturday at 5ish.  So our activity was a big lifesized game of Chutes and Ladders (or Serpientes y Escaleras here).  The purpose was to unite the ward a little bit and to teach them a little bit about the importance of Family Home Evenings (where once a week the whole family gets together, someone shares a little lesson and then the fam plays games, more or less).  So Friday morning was spent planning that and then Hermano Francisco and Aaron came to the church for their baptismal interviews. They passed with flying colors.

Pictures from our activity!

Saturday we spent the morning cleaning up the church for the baptisms. At 1 Hermano Francisco came and I had the opportunity to baptize him.  It went super well, it did take me a couple tries to get the words right, but besides that it went well. After the baptism, we went outside and finished preparing for the activity (pics of the activity below).  The activity went super well too, we were a little super worried at the beginning because we were supposed to start at 5 but only two people were there at 5... and at 5:30 we had like 10... but from there on about 10 more people showed up. So we had about 25ish people that came (which is really good for the ward haha).  But yeah, Hermano Julio and I gave a short lesson about FHE and then we went outside and played the game, it was a bit wild but super fun. 

Sunday was the baptism of Hermano Aaron and it also went super well, Elder Mendez had the opportunity to baptize him.  It went super smoothly. It was so cool to see the happiness that these baptisms brought to Hermano Francisco and Aaron, it isn't really shown in the pictures below, but they were super happy and full of energy.  I am so grateful for the gospel, and the joy it brings me.  I am extremely thankful to be able to bring this same joy to others! On that note, until next week!

Hermano Francisco's baptism

Aaron's baptism

With Aaron's family!

Elder Gurney

Primero Y Segundo Bautismo!!!! (Cerca)

HOLAAAAAA!!!!!

Before I recap this week, Ive got good news!! This Saturday, at one oclock, we are going to have our first baptism!! And then Sunday, at eight am, were going to have our second!!!!!! So we are excited about that! The first baptism is for Hermano Francisco, he is the gentleman that came up to us while we were opening the chapel a couple weeks ago.  Last week we invited him to be baptized but he said he wanted to think about it a little more and then he called us a couple hours later and said that he felt like he should be baptized! So this week we worked with him to be able to be baptized on Saturday.  He is super awesome.  Our second baptism is for Aaron, he is 10 years old and his family is less active, not for a lack of belief or anything, they just live far away and don't have enough money to come.  However, they talked with the Bishop and worked out a plan and they've been able to come the past couple Sundays to church. We are super excited for the weekend!

But yeah now this week:

Dia de los Muertos: So November 1 and 2 are the days of the dead here in lovely Mexico and those couple days were quite interesting... Being the only Gringo in all of lil tres valles I get a bit of attention. People stare shamelessly and there are always the occasional person who shouts out a random greeting in English or just random English words. Its pretty funny actually. But this week everyone was out and about and drinking, so the attention was multiplied.  Hahaha. We had this one drunken guy come up to us one day while we were waiting for the bus and he staggered up to us and starting flailing his arms around, pointing at the sky, and yelling about Jesus.  We just kind of stood there and then gave him a picture of Jesus and he went on his way... Elder Mendez and I started cracking up as soon as he left.  So yeah I thought I'd share that fun story. Regardless, besides the increased greetings in the street, this week was pretty normal. 

Pan de los Muertos ... our Bishop is a baker so he gave us a bunch of these.  They are delish!

Our Investigators (as promised):

- Arturo y Soledad: These two investigators (husband and wife) are two of our stronger investigators, they've been investigating the church since the end of August.  They know it's true, but Hermano Arturo wants to be 100% sure before committing to anything.  We're encouraging them to pray to receive that answer.  They did accept a baptismal date, the 25th of November, and if they receive their answer then they'll be baptised on that day! 

- Hermana Juana: Juana is a reference from the Bishop.  She is living with her spouse, but they aren't married, the spouse is an inactive member however so we've been working with them on getting married and baptized haha. They accepted both, so we are super excited for them too.

- Isis, Carlos, Angelica, and her husband: This family is absolutely hilarious. They all are pretty interested in the church. Hermana Isis accepted a baptismal date for the 18th.  Her husband, Carlos, is the funniest of the group, he has an interest but he works every Sunday. They are way fun and so we'll see what happens with them!

- Juan and Lucia: This is the family with a daughter on a mission.  They always take us on tours of their rice fields and cows. They are also super fun, but it's pretty expensive to visit them so we weren't able to go this week. However, yesterday, Hermano Juan called us cause he misses us basically, haha, he offered to pay for our taxis and everything.  So we're going to go visit him on Wednesday, paying for ourselves. haha.

But yeah those are more or less our current progressing investigators!

The Service: On Saturday we had the opportunity to go help Hermano Carlos with his fence.  However, this isn't really a typical fence, it's a few posts in the ground with barbed wire along it and metal sheets to cover it, more or less.  So we tore it down, put in new posts, replaced the barbed wire, and then recovered it with the metal sheets.  We did that from 9 am to 3 pm. And I forgot sunscreen... so yeah I'm a bit red right now and tired and scratched up. But it was fun so it's all good! So yeah that's my week! 

A snake that attacked me while we were digging up posts ... thankfully Carlos got to it before it got to me!

Love you and miss you all!

Elder Gurney

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEENNN

So first off: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Second: sorry for not being able to respond to everyone last week! We were running late and the 

district leaders called us wanting to meet with us before the actual district meeting to talk about upcoming divisiones. 

Third: This week:  So yeah this week we had divisiones again! This time with our zone leaders.  This is not very normal at all, normally divisiones are only once a month and only with the district leaders.  We were worried about why we were having these divisiones with the zone leaders, but it's all good.  It was just because we have an upcoming zone conference with a member of the seventy coming so they went on divisiones with every companionship in the zone.  So regardless, Elder Mendez went off to Tierra Blanca with Elder Lazaro and I stayed here in Tres Valles with Elder Uribe.  It was super fun! Mainly because Elder Uribe is from San Diego California and speaks fluent English! So it was way fun being able to talk in English with him and to have a translator for when I don't understand.  Also almost every family we visited fed us food! We visited with four investigators and a family who are members ... it was great.  First we went to Arturo and Soleda.  They are two investigators that just accepted baptism this week.  They fed us these chincharon tacos (or something like that) they were amazing. Then we went and bought pizza for lunch. After that we went and visited Juan and Lucia, they are the investigators with the rice fields and cows and massive tractor.  They just recently sent off their own missionary.  So we talked for a little while about the CCM and missionary life because they had a ton of questions. Then Hermano Juan took Uribe and I on his "rice field and cow" tour which is always fun.  But yeah that was basically divisiones this week! I learned a ton from Elder Uribe about what to study and how to teach in general, so it was a good day!

Splits with Elder Uribe ... eating coconut!

Hermano Juan

Trying to pet a cow but they always run away from me!

Regretting chasing the cows ... it was quite muddy!

Giving up and just taking a picture with them again!

The coolest thing about this week though was just seeing our hard work start paying off.  Seven of our investigators accepted a baptismal date!! It was awesome! However, only two were able to come to church this week, but we are working on that.  I´ll talk more about them next week! 

The worst part of this week was that we had a nice mosquito infestation in our casa (some food was left out and went bad, but yeah) and we´ve been having an ongoing battle with them.  We are losing.  I'm getting pretty good at killing them though! Also the good thing is they aren't biting us at all... just annoying us... so stay tuned until next week for how that battle goes.... Also a quick update, the cockroach kill count is now at 5 so I'm staying true to my one a week pattern. 

My attempt at being artsy!

A family in the ward's dog had lots of puppies!

Spiritual thought: This week I've been thinking a lot about how anything is possible with God.  One of the scriptures I memorized in the CCM is Mark 9:23 

"Y Jesús le dijo: Si puedes creer, al que cree todo le es posible." 

It is basically just saying that with faith, anything is possible.  I love this scripture cause it is super simple but way powerful. With God´s help we can do whatever He needs us to do; whether it is learning Spanish, or learning how to teach, or anything.  With God, all is possible.

So yeah that was my week, more or less. Love you all and miss you all! Enjoy Halloween tomorrow! 

Elder Gurney