Week 18 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hola Everybody and Merry Christmas!!!

Well this week was an awesome week. I had the amazing opportunity to talk to my family over Skype and see all of their beautiful faces. It truly was such an amazing blessing to get to see and talk to my family. And yes, I'm not ashamed at all to say it. I did cry. And it was tough to hang up, but what an amazing experience for me!! I hope all of your Christmas was super amazing and that you all had many opportunities to serve during this amazing time of the year. Anyways like always I have an experience or two I would like to share.

So we had the opportunity to teach an inactive member in our ward this week. We've been trying just about every other day or every third day to teach her, but she's impossible to find because she's a doctor and she's literally never home. And when she is finally home, she's sleeping. Anyways, we taught her a little bit about prayer and how important it is. She hasn't prayed in a really long time and it's tough to hear that. So I let her know how important prayer was and that Heavenly Father really wants to hear from us. I shared with her an experience in my life when I was struggling just like she was and having a difficult time and how prayer helped me through all of the tough times I was having.

Anyways, I didn't know much about this sister so I asked my companion after the lesson why he thought she was having a hard time praying and everything. He told me her life story. So this sister was married and she had her first kid with her husband and everything in life was good. Then she had her second kid with her husband and she was born with down syndrome. It happened to be that her husband was mad at God for their kid having down syndrome. So he left her for another girl after two kids. After all of this happened, her first born daughter died at the age of 5.

I share you this story because I was absolutely heart broken for this sister. It just killed me hearing this story. I have seen so many things on my mission where I'm just beyond grateful for the life my Heavenly Father has let me have. We all have our trials as this sister has hers, but I know that he has given us all our trials to make us stronger. I absolutely LOVE what my dad said in his last email to me. He said, "Just remember GOD GIVES HIS GREATEST CHALLENGES TO HIS TOUGHEST WARRIORS." I believe that every single one of us are the toughest warriors and we all have that drive in us whether we show it or need to find it to get through the challenges that we face in our life.

I just want to tell you all how much I love you and how grateful I am for this extremely humbling opportunity in my life to serve our Heavenly Father. I know you are all going through something in your life now or will face a trial in the near future. Fight your way through that trial and the temptations that Satan brings and you will be stronger every single day. I hope you all have an amazing holiday with your family. I love you all so much! Keep doing it!!

Elder Blake

P.S. Thank you all SOOOOOOOO much for your letters and packages. You are all so awesome and I'm so grateful. Everything I received was exactly what I needed and wanted. But my favorite part of everything in my packages was reading your messages you sent me. I can't tell you thanks enough. It literally touched my heart!!

 This is a picture my companion drew for me freehand. The dude is an artist!

This is at a placed called Zocalo. It's super close to our area and we go 

there sometimes on p-days. There's always a bunch of tourists It's awesome.

Oaxaca Temple at Christmas Time.

My shirt and pants after a couple of days of work and service. 

My pants have holes in them from all the walking (I did buy some more today).

Just a good ole picture to make you all laugh (love the hat)!

 

And the BEST part of Christmas was Skyping with Jordan. And believe me, he was not the only one to cry. His testimony in Spanish was amazing and the spirit was super strong. But, saying goodbye was definitely not easy. We all can't wait for Mother's Day (138 days, but who's counting?)!

Week 17 - 4 Months

Hola Everyone.

I sure hope everyone's week was amazing and that you all have an amazing this week as well - especially right before Christmas. Anyways, I had quite the experiences this week that I want to share with all of you.

So to start off, we have this lady in our ward. She's a recent convert and was the first baptism I was able to be a part of. Her name is Hermana Xochitl. She's an awesome lady about 52 years old and she doesn't have a husband which is really tough for Elder Sac and I right now. She literally calls us everyday to come over to her house or something because she's scared or needs help folding her clothes. It's always something. So we had another "service project" with her on Saturday. It was at her mom's house this time because she wanted to see if her washer worked and she needed our help. So she gave us directions and we were walking trying to find it. We couldn't find it, so we finally had to ask for directions and this man told us it was down the street and to the right. So we walk down this street and the entire street was full of prostitutes. It was pretty crazy. My companion was super worried and scared in this area. It was a rough area for sure, but I know Heavenly Father is always here to protect me so I'm never scared about getting robbed or anything. I know if we are obedient and doing what's right we have no need to fear.

Anyways that was the first really weird story, but on the same day we got to sing as a missionary choir and it was super awesome. The spirit was so strong! After we sang, the stake had a bunch of talent numbers we got to watch and it was awesome. Then to end it all they had one of those portable like rides that spin you all over and up and down. Of course, I had to do it even though I get super motion sick. So I did it and the guy running the thing kept us going for like 3 minutes. It seemed like forever. I about threw up and then on the bus ride home, I about threw up again. All day Saturday and Sunday both me and my companion felt dizzy and everything. It was an awesome, crazy, terrible day that is for sure.

Also, to end it's pretty tough right now in this area. I'm sure you all though I would have 100 baptisms by now where I had 3 baptisms my first 4 weeks, but the people here are actually really tough. If they let you in their house, it's a miracle. Most of the time they don't want anything to do with us, so it's tough. But that's just how life goes. Sometimes we work super hard and we're hoping things will change.

Also this transfer Elder Sac is still my companion. He's an awesome dude, but we were both hoping for changes because I felt like we needed a change in this area and he's been here for 4 and a half months now. But even though we didn't get a change, we will be working harder than ever this transfer. I love you all so much! Have an absolutely amazing Christmas everyone. I will be emailing on Tuesday next week as far as I know. FELIZ NAVIDAD A TODOS (Merry Christmas to All)!

Elder Blake

P.S. Happy birthday, Generra. I sure do love you and I'm sure you're glad I wasn't there for your birthday to beat you in cornhole or something!

FINALLY some pictures!!!

Pictures from the Mission Choir - Found on Facebook.

Week 16

Hola Everyone.

This week was super crazy like always. The mission has it's ups and downs without a doubt every single week, but you can never let the bad out weigh the good. I hope you all had an amazing week and I hope the good ol' San Juan Broncos are tearing it up in basketball. Just a few experiences I want to share from this week.

So we are teaching a lady and she's Catholic and we had our 3rd lesson with her on Tuesday. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyways, she thinks our churches are the exact same. So this lesson me and my companion were super direct with her. We basically told her (in a really nice way) that without the authority of the Priesthood, her baptism doesn't count. And we explained to her that baptism by immersion and by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God is the only correct way. She didn't really buy into that, so towards the end of the lesson she was saying that it's okay because our churches are the same and God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the same and how it doesn't matter what church you join because God isn't a religion.

Anyqays by this point, I was a little upset. I really have a love for sharing the Gospel and so I kind of raised my voice and just west straight at her. I said, Yes, that't true that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the same, but our churches are not the same. Your church has part of the truth, but our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth today and it's very important what church you join. Jesus Christ established his one and only church on earth again. Then I read 2 Nephi 31:21 and I told her baptism is the only way to enter into the presence of God. Anyways, she ended the lesson with prayer and she said in her prayer how grateful she was to be in her church and be baptized in her church. She's a really great lady, but it's hard to see people not accept the Gospel.

I had another super humbling experience this week. So we got a call from a member in another ward and his nephew lives in our area. He has cancer and this member wanted us to go and give him a blessing. So we met up with this member and we went into the house. Seeing this kid who was 25 years old that has cancer absolutely sick in his bed was so hard for me. He couldn't sit up or anything during the blessing. But we were able to give him a blessing and tell him how much our Heavenly Father loves him and he's given him this trial for a reason. It was really tough and humbling to see this.

Anyways, I don't have much else to say other than I love you all so much. I hope your week is amazing. Don't ever forget all of the blessings that we have - especially the opportunity we have to celebrate our Savior's birth with our families at this time of year! I love you all so much. Have an amazing week and keep doing it.

Elder Blake

Week 15 - 105 Days (Triple Digits!)

Hola Everyone.

I hope everyone is doing amazing and I sure hope everyone had an amazing week. I know Mondays are probably the worst days for all of you, but Monday is such a blessing for me to be able to have the opportunity to talk to all of you. It's amazing the spirit that I am able to feel every week when I read all of your emails. Anyways, this week has been awesome - but of course, every week has its ups and downs. That's just life.

So to start off, we had an amazing lesson with the family Silva on Wednesday. It's an older lady and her son. They're so dang awesome. We taught them about prayer and then we gave them a baptismal date and they accepted. I was so excited. They're awesome investigators, but they have the hardest time going to church. And after this lesson I just knew they were going to come to church. The spirit was present and they accepted their baptismal date and everything. It was just awesome. Anyways, they didn't come to church, and it was a real bummer. We have 10 or so investigators right now and we only have one attending church. It's heart breaking because we are literally trying to do everything we can to get them to come to church.

An amazing experience I had this week was after one of our lessons, I just felt like I needed to ask my companion to give me a blessing. It was really different for me, but that night I asked him for a blessing. And it was absolutely amazing. He literally said so many of the things that were in my Patriarchal Blessing and it just gave me so much comfort. It was such an awesome tender mercy.

Anyways the Spanish is rough that is for sure. I can understand more and more every week, but it's an extremely slow process that takes a LOT of patience. This whole mission is helping me learn so much patience. It's like some lessons I can understand almost everything and then we go to another lesson and I can't understand a ting. It's tough, but it's helping me learn about patience and the Lord's timing.

A funny experience I had that I didn't mention a few weeks ago was this. So they have road blocks here quite often because the people will start protesting for who knows why and it gets crazy. So they have a bunch of road blocks all over the city to cool things down. Anyways, we made it to the church for a District Meeting and we had to walk a decent ways because the bus could only go so far. It happened to be that we weren't even having the meeting because of the road blocks. So when we got there, we had to turn around and come home. On our way back home, we were walking - and it's probably 10 miles or so (I'm not kidding). After walking forever, we finally found a bus. So we got on the bus and it was a smaller bus with the engine in the front, so there wasn't a whole lot of seats. All the seats were taken as usual, so we just had to stand. And it got so crazy, I'm not even kidding. There were literally probably 75 people on that small bus. It was insane and I thought we were going to die. The drivers here are super crazy. They go 50 miles an hour until they are 10 feet from the car in front of them and then slam on their brakes. It's an awesome experience here that is for sure. I learn something new every day.

I love all of you so much. Have an amazing week and most definitely an amazing Christmas season. Share the gospel and your testimony every chance you get. Also serve the people around you every chance you get too. I love you all so much. Keep doing it.

Elder Blake

Sorry, Mom. I forgot my camera again. But we did get the package with food and a Christmas tree. My companion and I decorated it. It's so awesome and we took a bunch of pictures. I'll remember my camera next week!