Christmas!

Well we had a wonderful talk with Elder Gale over Christmas! It was so good to see him! I just cried when I closed the laptop for about 10 minutes. LOL Mitchell got to spend Christmas with a very nice family. They had two sets of Elders there and the whole time we were on the phone with him the other Elders kept peeking over his shoulder and trying out their English on us. It was so cute! They sang "Do you want to build a snowman" from Frozen in Spanish to us and we just loved it. Mitchell asked if it had snowed here and so we walked the laptop out the front door to show him the snow. The other Elders (who are all native) all say "ooohhh!" at the same time when they saw the 5 inches of snow we had. They asked Mitchell in Spanish to ask us to make a snowball. LOL We made a snowball and threw it for them so they could see what snow was like. We had such a good time with them.

We were disappointed to find out that Mitchell didn't get his Christmas package from us by the time Christmas arrived. I was so disappointed. As a Mom I felt like my poor little boy was in a strange country all alone and didn't even have one piece of candy from home. I emailed the mission president's wife and asked her to keep an eye out for it. She assured me that most packages there are just delayed and not lost. That gave us a little hope. Then we got Mitchell's letter last week that said: "So, as Christmas came and left, I was left without the package that my Mother sent me. Santa really let me down. Just as I had completely given up hope and resigned myself to the fact that Santa was never going to come, something miraculous happened. On the morn of El Dia de los Reyes Magos (3 wiseman day) I received my package. I now have a firm belief that the 3 wisemen are really where it's at." Mitchell goes on in the letter to tell us how frustrating it is to talk about the Bible with people who claim to know what they Bible says but clearly haven't read it. He said that people will say "The Bible doesn't say that" and then he'll have to show them where it does indeed say what he's talking about. Another fun story from Mitchell "One night, it was kind of dark and we went into an alley to try to find the place where we had an appointment with someone. All of the sudden, this big dog came out of nowhere and started growling. It's hair was standing on end, and it was coming toward us. You know my history with dogs here, so I was a little bit nervioso, but my companion was stiff as a board. He was paralyzed with fear. Out of the blue, I thought "you know, I'm a servant of God , and a representative of Jesus Christ on HIS errand. I'm gonna chill this dog out" I kinda walked up to it, put my hand out and calmly shushed it. It calmed down and I even pet it for a bit. My companion at this point still couldn't move and kept saying "Elder, talk to it. Fix it!" After the dog was no longer a problem, we knocked on a door to look for our investigator. The owner of the building came out and told us he was extremely surprised that we made it to his door, because his dog really does, and has in the past, attacked people who go into that alley at night. I just told him we had protection, and I pointed up (pretty cheesy, I know) and he let us in. It was pretty cool. The guy must have believed that we were sent by God because now we have an appointment to teach him as well as the other investigator we were looking for that night."

Holidays!

Well it's been a big couple of weeks! My apologies for not updating you last week but we had a lot going on in our family (funeral, birthday, surgery...etc) Elder Gale got transferred last week to a town called San Angel. It's on the side of the Monterrey mountain and very steep so he's getting a lot of good exercise. His new companion is Elder Contreras. He says they get along so well because they're both kind of goofy and like to joke. Last week Mitch wrote: "Poor corrupt Mexico! We were walking along the road and someone who was loading their car with stuff dropped something. With the intention of being helpful, I leaned down to pick it up for them. They, quite startled I might add shot me a nasty look. My companions just started laughing at me. They told me that I couldn't do stuff like that because I'd look like a thief. I felt kind of bad. What can you do?" Mitchell also told us that his companions (there are two companionships in the same area so they spend a lot of time together) have been practicing their English and wanted to try talking to some real Americans. So on Christmas Kylee and I got to meet the other three boys (who are all native) and had a really fun discussion with them. Since we were skyping, we could see all the silly things they were doing in the background and listen to them as they appeared on camera and talked to us in English. When Mitchell asked if it had snowed there, we offered to show him the beautiful Christmas snow we'd had that day. He gathered the other boys around (who have never seen snow) and we took the laptop outside to show them the 5 or so inches of new snow we had. As we got to the front porch we heard a collective "Ohhh!" from the Mexicans. LOL They asked Mitchell to ask me to make a snowball which I did on camera for them. Then they asked me to throw it. I think the idea of frozen water is more interesting to them than we think it is. We had such a wonderful time talking to our boy and seeing how happy he was. He now has the same skin color as his companion and he's lost some weight so his clothes are bagging on him a bit. He said everything was holding up well and that the weather was just starting to get about like our fall temperatures here in Utah so he gave his heavy blanket away. He also gave one of his suitcases to an Elder who had nothing to hold his things in (he comes from a very poor family in Mexico) which was very nice. Although now I wonder if he is going to need it somewhere down the road. Some of you may know that Mitchell is a pretty accomplished guitarist. He plays acoustic and electric and before his mission he was in two different bands. I wondered what he was going to do with himself without his beloved guitars for two years. But Mitchell told us that he bought...a mandolin! LOL He's teaching himself to play it and has even written a couple of songs. Funny. I'll upload some Christmas pictures as soon as I can!

November!

I'm a little behind because it's been such a busy couple of weeks so I'll post a couple weeks worth of letters today. Last week we got our first letter from Elder Gale that was "spiritual". It was wonderful! And he even included a picture! November 17, 2014 Today's spiritual thought will be brought to you by "Priesthood Blessings!" Over these last like 4 or 5 days, I've had the privilege of being a part of 4 or them! The story that was really cool though was that of Rodriga Mendoza. She's a recent convert and she's already pretty up there in years. Because of this and her various infirmities it's very hard for her to make it to church. We visit her a lot to make sure she's alright and this time that we were visiting, I said a little prayer asking what she needed. I received a prompting that I needed to teach her about Priesthood blessings, and give her a blessing. In that same moment, my companion said "Do you remember when we talked to you about God's power here on earth?" I knew right away that he had felt the same thing. The following lesson we taught was very powerful, and the blessing we gave as well. It was really cool, and evben though it was cold in the room, my hands were onfire. I know without a doubt in my mind that the Priesthood is real. I know that it has real power, and that through our faith, real modern day miracles happen. He went on to tell us about his first talk in Sacrament meeting (that he was asked to give the night before). It was on serving a full time mission and he said that afterwards a young man (maybe 20 years old or so) came up to talk with him more about it. He attached this picture holding a painting that one of the primary kids did of him.

This week we didn't hear from Elder Gale on his regular Pday and I knew it had to be about time for transfers, so we wondered for a couple of days whether he had been sent to another city. I heard from him a couple of days later and it turns out that he did not get transferred but that he and his companion were doing service and going to the temple on his Pday. His letter subject was "Still teaching the Lamanites". LOL It was a short letter this week so you know as much as I do! November 26, 2014 Let's kick things off with a few funny things. Okay, so here, it's completely normal for a family of five to ride around on the same motorcycle. It looks super freaking hilarious, and I always want to take a picture, but they move too fast for me to capture the humor. Another interesting thing about the people here are their names for God. One means like Daddy God, another is mi Diosito or "little God". They're pretty darn strange. The other day a kid asked me "How do you see?". I asked him to clarify, and he continued to ask if I saw everything in green because of my eye color. LOL We're teaching a guy named Santos and he's pretty cool. He understands a lot of things way better than other investigators do, and he wants to get baptized. Pretty cool. Here is picture of Elder Gale and his companion Elder Mendoza at the temple.

Becoming Mexican

So Mitch has had an intersting couple of weeks. First, he got bit by a dog. His companion's response was "Welcome to Mexico!" LOL Apparently, all the white guys get bit. I guess white guys freak the dogs out. He hasn't told me whether or not he's getting shots or anything for that dog bite although I've asked him repeatedly. My suspicion is that he's "protecting" Mom from the horrors of wild dog bites. I told him to hurry and get tan so he doesn't look out of place anymore. This last week he said he had a really good hold on the language and was feeling much more comfortable with it. They've been teaching a woman who is a single Mom and has been inactive for awhile. She is coming back into activity and they are baptizing her daughter so I know he's really happy about that. He sent a couple of pictures so I'll share them with you here.

So I have no idea whose Luchador mask this is or why he's wearing it, but I do know that we made a lot of "Nacho Libre" jokes before he left so it seems appropriate. This next one was a bit of a shock to me because when he first arrived in the country, he told me how nice their house was. I'm thinking he meant that it was nice IN COMPARISON. LOL

At the very least, he seems happy and brown!

So Elder Gale has made it to Mexico and we're finally starting to get some good letters. I've been begging him for pictures too and I got...two. It's a start! (But he's killing his scrapbooking Mother) Mitchell arrived in Mexico two weeks ago. He said that when he arrived at the airport, one of the AP's came up and shook his hand and asked if he spoke any Spanish. He replied that he did. The AP then told him that he didn't speak almost any English. Mitchell said it hit him right then that he was in a foreign country and HE was the foreigner. Yikes! The mission has a blog and they posted pictures of all the new Elders with their companions. They also stated in the post that this was by far the most Elders they'd ever had come in at the same time. 12 Americans and 15 Latinos all on the same day. They said that the Mission President and his wife have been very busy trying to secure new apartments and assign trainers. Mitchell was lucky enough to get to help open a new area with his companion so I know he's been working really hard.

The next week we heard from him and he was really enjoying some of the quirks of living in a less developed country. He said there were wild dogs everywhere and then talked about these trucks that drive around selling bread on the street. This week Mitchell had his first baptism. So exciting! Here's some of his letter below. " This week I'd have to say that the coolest things happened over the weekend. Let's start with conference. How cool is this "Let them preach in their native tongue" thing? It was super sick. Plus it was nice to hear a couple of talks that weren't dubbed over with a translator. The other thing I enjoyed about conference was the singing halfway through each session, because all of the people here pulled out their hymn books and sang the Spanish version of the hymn. I read the words on the screen that were in English and it really hit me that it's the same church here or there. I'm just stationed in a diferent place for awhile. The last good thing was that I got to perform a baptism! It was a great experience. He was upset when we started because his girlfriend didn't show up, but he was almost crying when he came out of the water and shortly after when I asked how he felt, all he said was "happy". He's an extremely special guy, and I feel privileged just to have met him, let alone baptized him."

First Week!

Well it looks like our missionary is doing great. He has sent several letters over the past week and half and he sounds just like our boy. His first letter said he was "alive and really quite happy". He said the Lord is blessing his Spanish so much and he has been able to carry on entire conversations. Several days later, he wrote and said that the Spanish class was going along too slowly for him so he asked the teacher to meet with him on his personal time and teach him the rest of the six week course. He learned it in a couple of days and now he says he just has to work on his vocabulary and keep practicing. Sounds like our boy! A couple of excerpts from his last letters are below. I truly hope you can fathom how much I dearly love you, but furthermore, I want you to know how much I love the Lord. I would sacrifice any number of years for Him and for our Father. I know without a shadow of a doubt that this church is true, and I know that what I'm doing is right. At night when everyone gives goodnight brazos (hugs), I can feel some of the hugs between me and some of the other Elders getting a big tighter. I love my district so much and I love zone B too. They are so amazing and already we've shared so much with each other. Please send me a picture of my perrito (dog) and tell him that I miss him. Give him a treat for me. In the words of the fat Mexican bartender from Three Amigos, "Don't get into too much troubles!" I asked Elder Gale to send me some pictures soon so I hope we'll see those coming this next week!

First Letter!

We got a hand written letter from Mitchell on Monday. It was very short and basically told us that he was alive and happy. Whew! (His Mother feels better now). We're hoping for more this week. We've been asking him a lot of questions and really hope to hear about the work and the language and see how it's going. Cross your fingers!