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