Week 13

 Another week down!

A LOT has changed since my last email, including actually my companion. They changed my trainer after my first transfer, usually that is never the case. But because so many people are leaving this transfer, they needed him for a leadership position higher than trainer. My new comp does not speak a lick of English!! And honestly the more I think about the whole situation, I feel so tremendously blessed.

My first comp we basically spoke in English all the time, with my limited Spanish knowledge, and a better way to communicate, we just couldn't keep speaking spanish all the time it was almost impossible. But, because he could speak English, I learned how to be a missionary very fast. As in learning to use an area book and contact people and how to get around and everything I needed to do and could do without knowing the language. And in the lessons I was able to sit back and observe and learn. I was starting to become a little impatient though, just because I felt like I couldn't do much, but I knew enough to where if I could just speak to people I could just grow exponentially, like I didn't need any other training. And that was starting to become a problem with me and my trainer because I felt ready to do more but he had authority over me and I didn't see a reason for it. I thought it was just another thing to teach me patience but the lord has better things in mind for me.

So this last week I've spoken almost NO English and I've already gotten so much better at spanish and can talk to people and converse and ask if someone's home and stuff and all the things my other comp just did. I've been astounded thinking about the fact that I came here the only transfer where they would have to do something like take my trainer, and be given the oldest trainer that had to be taken for another position. And that he was also speaking English so I could learn everything to the best of my ability without hindrance and then to have my next trainer be completely spanish speaking to just supercharge my growth and missionary ability here. It seems as though the lord has plans for me. And is keenly aware of me, and what I need and how I need to grow. And acknowledges the same as I did that all I need now is the language help. Such an absolute blessing, and the coolest thing is that I called it before the transfers. I knew the best thing for me would be exactly what happened and it all fell into place so divine. I feel as though I'm sitting back and just watching the ball game that is my life, and the lord is the one in control and I'm just enjoying it. 

One thing I miss about my other comp is his guitar. I was actually starting to get good again because most nights it was either, read more scriptures, or play guitar HAHA. So I got good at guitar. It's never been an instrument I've been able to just commit to everyday for weeks at a time, but here sometimes I would speed walk home because I wanted to play guitar. Funny how Satan uses whatever he can to try and tempt you haha, whatever you allow him to do so with. 

I had my first baptism for myself yesterday! We had two last transfer but this was the first time I've been able to do the baptizing. A lot had to fall into place to make it happen but it all came through, and Hermano Gabriel is now a member of the church. I just feel so much joy hearing things like, "they've never felt so clean before" and seeing the smiles on their faces. 

Obviously there's a lot of details that are in an entire week that I'm forgetting but I'll leave it there. The lesson this week was just seeing how if your will is aligned with the Lord's, he will bless you with your desires. That is promised time and again. And also how influential he is in everything in our lives. It's so much that influential isn't even an accurate word to describe it. The Lord's hand in my life hasn't changed since I've come out here, and his hand isn't in my life more than any of you guys. I've just been able to grow and see it more and I wish you all the same joy of finding that truth for yourself, and feeling the love of your father in everything that happens to you. 

I love you all and I'll talk next week 

-eb

Week 12

 Hola amigos!

Week 12 is down. It was actually probably my quickest week here. It was hot! I don't want to complain about the heat too much because I feel like I bring It up every email, but there was some natural phenomenon happening all week where there was some sort of invisible dome over México that was trapping the heat. So everyday was 110-120 throughout my mission. The coolest part honestly is the fact I'm able to withstand it so well, I'm actually quite proud.

I want to apologize before I say anything else about my typos and bad punctuation in my letters thus far. I type on a Spanish keyboard that autocorrects half of everything I say wrong and things that I assume will autocorrect to english, it doesn't because it's spanish. And then I'm doing it on a lagging phone so I cant catch all the mistakes as I go. And I'm always in such a rush I can't read through it again haha! One mistake was last week when I was talking about the spanish rhyming, I meant to say that my companions said, rhyming and poems in spanish is CHEATING and that made me laugh because everything rhymes. I know it changed to a different word and made my already not so funny joke make no sense.

Some things from this week:

I might have mentioned this, but I hate flan. I can not stomach it. And the members found out and now think it's funny to make it at every event they know I'll be at. My patience has never been so strained

You guys won't BELIEVE this but yesterday when I was at church, I was helping clean up and i went into the kitchen to see if anyone needed help and I came across the elders quorum president putting away the sacrament stuff. I didn't think much of it until I taried a little and watched him before I left, come to find out this man was wiping out all of the used sacrament cups... and putting them BACK IN THE BAG TO USE FOR NEXT WEEK. I almost threw up, it was good I didn't know spanish enough to chew him out. When he left I chucked the cups in the trash can and went to go get more. The members acted as though they were so disgusted but in my head I was like, give me a break because I have not eaten anything sanitary in 7 weeks haha. I don't want to know how long that was going on.

I realized that I can understand Spanish now basically, and that my holdup has been understanding the accent within my little Pueblo I serve in. Because nobody leaves, everybody grows up within city limits and everyone is family and friends, they all have almost their own dialect of speed talking and word slurring. I thought this was how everyone spoke until I had a Day with a Spanish comp without an accent and I was able to speak to him perfectly all day. 

I have learned a big lesson in humble prayer. Never in my life have I prayed so intently, earnestly and unselfishly. I'm embarrassed to admit the before here, prayers much of the time were I vain, times of need, and for my own benefit. I had heard the term humble prayer before, heard it explained as well. But never felt it applied to me and the thought to change never came to mind. But wow is it beautiful, to talk to your father in heaven without any expectations, without asking for a miracle or your gain or in haste because you need something. To be on your knees and truly talk to your father with nothing more than the desire to grow and to grow closer to him. I would challenge all of you to truly pray. Humbly pray to grow, soften your heart and truly repent and try to feel the spirit, and try to do so expressing your love for Heavenly Father. It has been a peaceful realization for me on how our relationships with the lord ought to be.

Last thing, we had a baptism this week. Hermana Clara was amazing and was another golden investigator, and she made a comment the night before that she got baptized that blew me away. She has really bad eyesight, and she said because of this she has been stuck in cansahcab, if this wasn't the case she would have moved years ago but she really has no choice. She told us that she had come to the realization, if she didn't have her terrible eyesight, she would have moved out of the city without meeting us and becoming baptized. And how it was a blessing that she was borderline blind. I am such a baby, but I began to cry. So much faith, from someone so new to the gospel. Often times we get complacent, we can't see our immense blessings from the lord, and even sometimes when we don't have enough faith to get through our trials, we don't see why we had them in the first place and how we could have grown and what the lord wanted for us. And here is clara, finding blessings from the lord where most wouldn't. 

I love this gospel and this church. I know it's true. That's my testimony and I can't wait to keep sharing it. I miss you all and I'll touch base next week.

-eb

Week 11

Hola everyone

This week was tough as far as missionary work! We had a really good progressing family drop us this week. I was sure they'd be baptized, we were met by the father at their door when we went to see them for that week and I couldn't quite understand him but I could infer. I wanted to say more but I didn't know the context or if it was only this week, I wanted to say just one more lesson please, but before I knew it we were walking away. I began to cry in the middle of that dirt road. I couldn't hold back my tears. I felt so much sorrow and pain, how could they not see it? I can only imagine the pain the Lord feels. We also had a day where we didn't teach a single lesson, every place we knocked didn't have time for us. We hit all four corners of our city and walked for 4 hours with no success. But that's the work I suppose.

Some highlights though made this week fun. We teach an English class on Saturdays to the natives here and It is the craziest thing to see people try to pronounce English words when they have never once made those sounds in their life. Like the sound of TH and the sound of a U saying uhhh they can't do it! We laughed so hard when I tried to get them to say it right! It reminded me of friends when Phoebe is teaching Joey French and she breaks every word down to syllables correctly and when they put it together Joey says a completely different word haha! Another thing, which might not be funny to you guys but it made my day. I was reading this mug in a restaurant we were eating at, and when I read I automatically just say the words in English in my head, and this was a rhyming little phrase and I didn't even realize it because I read the Spanish phrase in English. I made the off remark to my companion about it, and he said I don't like Spanish rhymes. And I said why? And he replies, I feel like it's just kidding. I laughed SO hard that coke came out of my nose haha! Because everything in Spanish has the same endings, most basically with an o and a so everything rhymes. Anyway, that made my day.

Two crazy stories from this week. We were walking to a family home evening at a member's house but we had some time to kill so we went to a store on the way. Then on the way to the party, we walked through the central park in the middle of the Pueblo. I was eating chips and looking around when my comp says, watch your pockets. I immediately cover my left pocket and look back to see a kid with his arm reaching out at me, snap his arm back, and run away. It was not only a blessing that it wasn't stolen for obvious reasons, but if I caught him I don't know if I would be able to restrain myself. The other story was looking up from my nightly prayer to see a huge tarantula on my wall. I gasped so loud haha! I don't think I have ever seen one in real life before, it gave me the Willys!

Being a trainee is hard because everyone here bosses you around, and because they've been here longer than me, they're inclined to think they're more spiritually advanced or knowledgeable than I am naturally. And if I have a problem with the authority, I need to humble myself and the lord just hasn't "worked on me enough yet" For a guy like me I've had a hard time conforming and being teachable while being demeaned and made to feel like having a problem with how people respect me makes me less Christ-like but just another thing to test my patience. I know full well I can humble myself to the point where such things are not a bother, I can confidently say I am not at such a level quite yet. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week, I'm doing great and I love it here!

-Elder Paxy

Week 10

Another week down!

This week was tough, I won't lie. I pray for trials, things to help me grow, so my faith can grow. Which in the moment, always seems like a noble thing to do, but in hindsight sometimes you wonder what you were thinking asking for trials. It was the challenge of the week to clear my mind and focus, I feel as though Lucifer knows he can not tempt me, so my mind is the primary target and Heavenly Father is allowing me to grow, and find his light on my own. Just another level of my growing faith! The lord wants me to be humble, and that even comes down to my spiritual progression, and realizing I'm just starting down the road of a lifelong journey. Double hindsight, thanks the lord for trials, and I hope you guys seek to grow your faith and find him when you feel like he's not there. Maybe that's 40 40 vision jaja.

My favorite thing here is the sky. It's the clearest sky I've ever been blessed to be under! No pollution, anything of the sort. I'm in a little town in the middle of nowhere, and when I'm walking around in the dark after a long day and I look up at the sky, I can see every star. Every constellation, and the brightest moon I've ever seen. When what would make most people feel so small, to see something so vast, I feel so grand, knowing that the Lord loves me perfectly, in the midst of all those stars, and everything under them. And he loves you all the same too.

This week has been a week of animals haha! We bought two little baby chickens. If you were to ask us why, we'd tell you that they're to eat, for eggs too every week, seems like a logical investment for a missionary. Come to find out these chickens don't lay eggs, and were going to be transferred out of here before they're big enough to eat, so now our house just smells. But, I made a comment to one of the members, I said, 

"Did Elder Cline tell you guys? We bought 2 little chicks"

Well in my limited Spanish vocabulary I forgot chicas means girls in Spanish. And my actual sentence was, nosotros compramos dos pequeña chicas, or what they understood, we purchased two little girls. They started dying laughing and my comp told me what I had said then I couldn't stop laughing. Now I say it to all the members and they all have the same reaction and now my comp hates me cuz he has to explain everytime I say it again with confidence.

 There was also this dog this week that I fell In love with, and I'm devising a plan to bring her home. She's a little puppy who started following us and never stopped. We're not allowed to have pets so we don't bring her home, and to get away from her we have to run around a corner and hide to get home. Her only frame of reference for where we will come back to is the church, so she visits there until we take her on a walk while we are looking for people to teach.

There was one family this week, who we felt was progressing well enough to be invited to baptism. When we did, there was suddenly a lot of hesitation, questions, about the book of Mormon. And where it says in short terms, thou art a fool if you believe there would only be the Bible. My comp said he had never been so confident to share it because it's very blunt, and I was a little worried too. But they were very receptive and they're all continuing to read.

 Speaking of the book of Mormon, we met a man last night who spoke English too. He was deported from the states haha, born and raised in Texas and had the accent to show for it. Guy has many problems, might have killed someone for all I know, but he seemed very level headed, and he is very well read. He acknowledges God is there and believes the Bible, has read every word of multiple bibles, he just knows he's doing, and has done wrong. But is confident there's a day where he gets his head screwed on straight and he's getting there. He talked about how the Jehovah's witnesses tried to talk to them, and he hated it because he knew their Bible had changed words, and were trying to tell him things he knew were not true. I took the opportunity to hand him the Book of Mormon, and I told him what it was. How it works with the Bible and expands our knowledge on all Bible principles and more. He said there is so much in the Bible he has wanted clarified forever, and he had never been given such a book. He looked at how many pages there were and said, give me a week. And was all smiles and excited to read and learn more. Again an example of how people with any sort of knowledge, and logic, willing to learn, is who the spirit can work on the most. And who the gospel makes all the sense to. If it doesn't make sense to you, may I be so bold as to say you lack knowledge and logic. But if you have an open heart at the very least, the lord will open your eyes with the rest. It just so happens to be the fact that these people who are most willing to hear the message of the church, are those who have been around, are well read, and are searching for truth. 

Lastly, we met another American man. This guy lives in a beautiful big red house that doesn't belong with the houses around it. He spoke English too, and he was a nice guy, but his arrogance exuded from him like he had sprayed it on like a powerful cologne. He acted as though we were like him, almost better than the rest here. He said if we need anything, they've got connections so we can get away from this place a little. Normally, I wouldn't have had anything to think about it, but his arrogance, even the slightest just because he had some money, left such a bad taste in my mouth. He laughed when we offered a lesson and said he was alright. I was so scared that I had ever come off that way to anyone in my life before, because he had no idea. In reality, he's probably a great guy. But I couldn't shake the arrogance. I wrote something about it I'll share and then I'll end this email. I love you all, thanks for supporting me and reading my unnecessarily long emails.

The red home

Owned by those whom everything has been shown

That live in a state of abundance

Where blessings are solely that of substance

When those who have it all

Are the ones who worship none at all

You might begin to wonder

Why there are those who live asunder

But the eyes of the observer know

That blessings are things you don't always have proof of to show

It is harder to convince a man of fortune now

That it took more, than the sweat of his own brow

While the humble man can see

Without Him, he would not be

So then the question might arise

Who holds the blessing of greater size

And are blessings the finding of treasure

Or something of a greater measure 

As light shines brighter in the valley

There are some who are too blinded to see reality

But those who were born without the light

Learned to appreciate the little they had with all their might

And thus we can see

It is the man who knows the Lord made him be

Who looks toward of the light

No matter how bright

That can melt his heart of ice 

He, is who holds the Pearl of Great Price

-eb