Techribe

So the news of this week was that SAUL GOT BAPTIZED!!!!! He was very excited and he could not stop smiling the whole service! Right after the service, he called his wife in Mexico City and was just super happy. It was an awesome experience. The sad part was that Rosa got to the baptism and was really sick... she really looked like she was about to faint... it was bad. So we gave her a priesthood blessing and she went back home to rest. We visited her the next day and now she is feeling a lot better. We are planning to have her baptismal service this week! We also are planning a baptismal service for Angel. He is the 9 year old son of an investigator named Thelma. Thelma is also preparing to be baptized but needs to get married first. However, we believe that in this upcoming month of June she will be married and baptized! We are super excited for this week!

with Sergio and Saul

The other big news of this week was that one of our three wards, 5 de mayo, joined another ward and now is being covered by the sister missionaries in the other ward! So our area just got a lot smaller! This will help us time wise, however, we were working with four investigators in that ward. The sister missionaries will now teach them. We are sad to lose them but it's all good. Also next week our two remaining wards are joining together! The Uribe ward is joining the Tecnologico ward! That will be interesting for sure! So yeah, our three ward area now has become one single ward!

Another fun part of the week was yesterday we had the opportunity to take Saul to the chapel next to the temple of Veracruz! There was a fireside talk given by President Palmer for all investigators and recent converts, so we brought Saul to it. It was very spiritual and nice to be next to the temple. I also got to see a lot of other missionaries that I've met in my mission and see how they are doing, which was super fun!

Elder Kirkham hanging out with a massive stuffed animal at a member's home!

But yeah, that was more or less my week!  Thanks for all your emails, hope you all have a great week!!

Elder Gurney

Enfumugados

Buenas tardes mis amados amigos! So these past couple weeks have been pretty good! Insanely hot... but still pretty good! Today we had quite the surprise! We were getting ready to come write, when our neighbor knocked our door.  She told us that the city had sent people to spray the houses with an insecticide.  Like 5 seconds after she said this, a man barged in with a gas mask and a massive leaf blower type sprayer thingy and kicked us out of our house... So Elder Kirkham and I went out in the street while this man doused our house and belongings with insecticide... I was rocking the white shirt, dress pants and flip flops look and Elder Kirkham was rocking the shaving cream beard in the middle of the street... They told us we would also have to wait 30 minutes before entering again... so that was quite the exciting moment...

Outside of getting kicked of our house we also had quite the surprise this week! We have an investigator named Saul, who we've been teaching for a while now. Saul was going super strong when we first met him, and was getting close to being able to be baptized.  However, he found a job which doesn't let him go to church on sundays... so we've been encouraging him to ask his boss to change his day off to Sundays. On Saturday he gave us the news that his boss changed his day off to Sunday! So he was able to come to church again yesterday and we are planning to have his baptism this week!!

The other great news is that Rosa, the mom of Jocelin and Frida (the two girls we baptized April 20th) found another job! The reason she didn't get baptized with her daughters was because she had to work on Sundays and wasn't able to come to church! However, she found another job as a secretary, and it lets her have Saturday and Sunday off! So she's been able to come to church the past two weeks and we are planning to have her baptism this upcoming Sunday! So if everything goes well we are hoping to have two new amazing converts to the church this week! But yeah, we also had a fun activity that Elder Kirkham and I planned this last week! However, we don't have the photos still so I'll explain all about it next week when we have the photos! So look forward to that! Meanwhile, have a great week this week! Talk to you all next week!

Elder Gurney

The Mission President's Favorite Area...

So the news came and Elder Kirkham and I are staying here in Tecnológico!! ...which we are excited about! #keepingthegringocompstreakgoing but yeah so these past two weeks have been good! We had the opportunity to go visit investigators with President Palmer twice in the past two weeks which is super rare but also a lot of fun! The first time he only had 45 minutes so we only were able to have one lesson.   It was with a recent convert who has been struggling a lot and he was able to help her.  President Palmer actually was the one who baptized her, so he knew her story enough to help her. One of the reasons she's been struggling was because her 18 year old son, who we are teaching, hasn't been able to stop drinking and smoking.   He's been a big challenge for her. It was actually because of him that President came back with us this week.  Darian wanted to talk with him.  President came with us yesterday and the first thing Darian said was, "You baptized my mom and I want you to baptize me." We were surprised because first he said that even before saying hi and second he has shown a desire to change but not a super big desire to be baptized! We set a baptismal goal with him as well as a plan to help him stop drinking and smoking.  Part of that plan was for us to go running with him in the mornings... so now we will run every morning for our exercise, it should be fun!

A tourist place called Malecon in our area!  

The other interesting events of the past two weeks was finding two new investigators who want to get baptized! One was a referral from the church named Victor, idk if I've mentioned him yet, but he's awesome! He came to church yesterday and loved it! He's an older man who was homeless, drunk, and an addict, but he went to Alcoholics Anonymous and picked up his life. He's a taxi driver and gives us free taxi rides home whenever we teach him which is always awesome because he lives pretty far out. The other promising investigator is named Jason, he has a few special needs so his mom wants to talk with us before moving along with him, so we shall see what's up tomorrow. We found him Saturday, we were just walking to a lesson and he called to us.  We shared lesson one and he said he was going to church a while ago and was going to get baptized but his mom didn't let him... now he is an adult so we will see what happens with him! 

We went to Malecon with Sergio!  Elder Kirkham bought a fun hat!  

We also had a few days this week when it started to rain a ton!  I haven't seen rain like that since before the mission and at first we were super excited! However, we very quickly learned why the members always said they hate when it rains... After it rains and the sun comes out, the humidity gets insane! So that was a major struggle... 100 degrees and humid is not a fun combo for missionaries.... but yeah that was the interesting parts of the weeks! Hope you all have a great week! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL:

The rain!!

Elder Gurney