Magisterio

So I'm back in the port of Veracruz! I'm now a zone leader with Elder Castro from the Dominican Republic in the Magisterio Ward! It's one of the strongest wards in Veracruz so I'm happy to be here. Elder Castro is awesome too, he was a breakdancer before the mission and travelled the world to different dance competitions. He´s going to teach me a few moves for when I get home! haha The people we are teaching here are super awesome, we have about 15 families we are teaching. The only problem is that three of them have family members that have prohibiting them from getting baptized... Satan really works hard. However, we´re going to keep helping them and see if a few miracles happen there!

Pictures of my last zone before I was transferred ... AGAIN!

The fun parts of the week were:
Our interviews with the Mission President on Thursday. President Palmer is super fun and I always am able to learn something new from him.

Friday we had our zone study, something the Zone Leaders before Elder Castro and I started to do every Thursday to talk with and motivate the zone as well as help them plan for the week. We are going to keep it going because the majority of the zone is new missionaries, many of which are training, and are still learning. This week we moved it to Friday because of the interviews with President.

with papi Elder Castro!

Friday we also did divisions, I went with Elder Cadima from Peru to his area and Elder Castro went with Elder Starkey from St George Utah. It was really fun, my friend from the CCM Elder Barnum trained Elder Cadima so it was fun to hear about him.

Saturday it rained all day and I got soaked so that was a rough day.... but at least I didn't get sick!

But yeah, all is good here! I'm learning a lot from Elder Castro and I'm excited to get to know the members here!

Hope you all have a great week!

Week Quien Sabe

This was a great week. We were able to watch the saturday session of General Conference in English in the computer in the Bishop's office and it was so powerful. There is a big difference between listening to the prophet and the apostles voices and listening to a translator. Plus in the Bishop's office we could eat candy and snacks without disturbing anyone!

Watching Conference in the Bishop's office!

On Wednesday, we did divisions with the zone leaders so I went with Elder Mendez to his area which was super fun. It felt like Tres Valles all over again but now I can understand what is going on. It was a somewhat disappointing day because the whole day was spend helping the sister missionaries move into their new house and working out the contract... but it was fun catching up with Elder Mendez.

A photo of a member from the Tres Valles ward when he was young and my trainer!

Zone Conference

Another family photo

Apart from that it was just a normal week. I'm proud to say that we did not get lost this week. The best part was that three of the people we are teaching came to the general conference. They've been listening to the missionaries for about 2 months now, they're reading the Book of Mormon, and have now gone to church three times however they still won't commit to baptism. We are going to see them tomorrow to see if listening to the prophets helped them overcome that fear and commit to baptism! 

Eating a trenza (braid in English).  It is like a hamburger but better!

A new fruit I tried.  It kinda freaked me out but it ended up tasting like a grape!

But yeah all is good here!! I'm enjoying the Eye of Water ward, hope you all have a great week! 

A photo of the chapel from the Ojo de Agua!

Elder Gurney

The world is small!

Sooooooooo I got transferred to the Ojo de agua ward!!!!!!!!!! It is literally the area right next to my old one. I took a 10 minute taxi ride to get to my new area haha. If you remember last week I mentioned that my favorite family from the Escamela Ward, the Luna family, was moving wards. Well they moved to the Ojo de agua ward so I'm just following them! My companion is Elder Garcia, from Dallas Texas. He is super awesome, he is a quiet person in general, but this kid knows the bible incredibly well! So I've been able to learn a lot from him. The best part is that it was his birthday the day after transfers and he got a massive package from home full of jolly ranchers and poptarts.  So our breakfast everyday this week has been poptarts, its been a good week hehe. The difficult part of the week is that Elder Garcia only has 3 weeks so he doesn't know the area nor the members well... so we've gotten lost more than a few times, it's been an adjustment but the members are super awesome here so it'll be a great transfer.

Now the reason for the title of my email, I met a member here who served in Morristown New Jersey!!!!!! He served about 4 years ago and knows a bunch of the missionaries that I met about 4 years ago hahaha. So after church yesterday we were talking about Jersey and the people we know in common. The craziest part was when his mom came up and joined the conversation. She mentioned that her son who is serving a mission in Brazil was trained by an Elder from Morristown, New Jersey, an Elder Norton!!!!!!! I freaked out a bit, cause Matt (Elder Norton) is one of my best friends from New Jersey and so basically all of Sunday I was in shock about how small the world is...

But yeah, this week was pretty good! Tuesday we had interviews with President Palmer, so I got to ask why I was transferred from my area after only having only 3 weeks... And he just said that I learned what I needed to learn and did what I needed to do in that area and now God wanted me in this new area. He said that it'll make sense later on, so I still don't know why. On Wednesday, we had our zone conference which was awesome. We learned a lot about treating the people we are teaching as agents, and not objects. It was something that we really needed to learn.

The rest of the week we focused on not getting lost... We also were able to talk with a family of three that are awesome! Selene(the mom), ashley(11 year old daughter), and Isis(8 year old daughter) have been been talking with the missionaries for a little while now but only recently have they really been reading the Book of Mormon. This little change has helped them a ton to really progress towards conversion. They want to make changes in their lives.  They like the Church and everything we are teaching them.  They've gone twice to church so far and liked it a lot. So we have high hopes for them.

 
There is also Jackie, the girlfriend of a member. She's gone many times to the church, the only problem is she is scared of asking permission from her parents to be baptized in this church. However, she said she said shes going to talk with them this week. 

That's the highlights of the week! Hope you all have a great week!!!!!!!
Elder Gurney