Week 8 in Chihuahua - January 29, 2018 - Another Baptism :)

I got the packages from Aunt Kathy and Aunt DD and the letter from Aunt DD.  I loved them and they were just perfect! I'm going to try and email them now to say thanks!

 

So this week was pretty good I'd say. We got another baptism! Hermana Rita and su hija. They are awesome! My companion said he has never seen someone progress so fast. She is really nice and her daughter whose about 9ish is really nice too. She paid her tithing her first week coming to church  without us even talking about it.

 

I'm feeling better about my Spanish. Sometimes I'm a little hard on myself like if I don't understand a couple of words but I get the gyst of what's going on it still bothers me haha. As long as I'm progressing I can't be too mad at myself.

 

We meet a guy this week with a pretty crazy background. This guy is always drunk and last time we talked with him he kept calling his friend and telling him to shut up and we talked with him for a little bit and he kept telling everyone to shut up even the kids that were just playing.

 

But the next day we talked to him again. It turns out he used to play pro baseball in the US, and he told us that he has been drinking/getting high on glue and smoking every morning, afternoon and night for 30 years. I could hardly believe it. He's actually kinda smart though, he knows a ton about the bible and stuff. But he can barely see anymore because of the affects of the drugs. We challanged him to not drink or smoke or anything for 1 day and he accepted. So we are gonna go check on him sometime today and hopefully he made it.

 

But yeah all is good out here. I let some missionaries give me a haircut...hahaha...it turned out alright  but whatever, it was free.

 

I have some pics for this week from the baptism.

 

Love you all.

 

Jacob left me a list of instructions at the end of his email to me this week.  I thought they were funny so I wanted to share them.

 

1. Check my Acorns (his investment account)

2. Send my book (he's requested a missionary book)

3. Send my jersey (he wanted a Donovan Mitchell Jersey for Christmas but the stores were sold out)

4. Don't miss me

5. Love ya

6. Stay strong

7. Don't stress (I've been stressing a bit about my new calling of Gospel Doctrine Teacher)

8. Know that I have it worse :)

9. But I'm happy

10. Feed the pets

11. Don't touch my stuff

12. Wash the jeep

13.  Scoop the poop (Dad's job is "dog duty" out back)

14. Play Rocket League with Austin

15. Don't cry

16. Eat healthy

17. Wear sunscreen

 

                                                          Sister Rita's Baptism

                                Notice the haircut Jacob got from the Elders...quite the buzz!

 

Week 7 in Chihuahua - January 22, 2018

So this week had its ups and downs. First I gave my first blessing in Spanish. It was pretty darn bad haha. I tried my best but I know it was bad.

 

It was for a member that has been trying to get pregnant but can't and she and her husband are really worried. So I'm really hoping that the blessing works because that would just be awesome if it did. So I've made sure to keep them in my prayers. 

 

The name is la familia cruz mendoza if any of you wanna throw a prayer their way. They are really awesome people and feed us all the time and will not let us wash the dishes after we are done eating because they don't want us to work haha.

 

Another thing that happened was I was contacting and everyone I was talking to was okay, but then there was this one girl who I asked if she believed in God and she said yes and then I asked if she attends a church and she said no but I want to, and I was like hmmmm really lemme just show you to our baptismal font... hahah. No I didn't say that but we have returned to talk to her some more and she's never home.

 

The funny story for the week is that I was contacting with this other white kid and we were talking to this lady who was going off about how we are going to hell because we aren't baptized right and all this stuff and she was so mad and so I was trying to leave and so I said okay have a good night and she just keep screaming stuff and so my comp leaned over to me and said... just let her ramble... and then she said WHAT and my comp said um nothing hahaha. And then she kept screaming at us and I kept on pretending to fake cough because I was laughing but its all good.

 

There has been like 6 fires in the last 4 days which is weird. and one day we were walking and there was a fire really close to our house and my comp said... did we remember to turn off the stove and I was like ummmmm I don't know... hahah then we ran for our house but it wasn't our house ... phew.

 

 A member brought us some food today and had this super spicy chili and said that it's like one of the spiciest in the world and at that moment I knew I had to try it. Holy cow, I will never make that mistake again! I drank like 5 glasses of water and my mouth hurt for so long! The chili is called habanero.. anyways thats all for this week, love you all.

 

 

                               Thought I would take a selfie while I was typing this email.

Week 6 in Chihuahua - January 15, 2018

OK so this week wasn't crazy eventful. A lot of contacting and a lot of studying.

 

The milagro for this week is that we had no idea if we were going to get any people to come to church so we were kinda bummed about that but when we showed up at church there were 8 investigators there! We didn't even know who they were haha. They were like friends of members and others that just wanted to come, it was way cool.

 

Ok and a funny story for this week is I got straight up attacked by this dog lol. Don't worry it was really small, but this dog is a member's dog and it's super cute and small and puffy. One day it literally fell asleep in my arms for like an hour when we were eating at this member's house. But the last time we visited, it wouldn't stop barking at us so I started to pet it and it calmed him down at first but then randomly it bit my hand! So I like yanked my hand back and it launched the dog into the air  It was really funny. It didn't draw blood or anything.

 

Another crazy thing that happend just as I was walking here to email was a crazy car crash. Luckily everyone was ok but 3 cars got wrecked and it was like 20 feet away from us.

 

Anyway I feel like the Spanish is coming. Every week is better and better it's just really slow which is the hard part but at the same time I have only a little bit more than a month in the field so it's not too bad.

 

That's all for this week. Love you all!

 

Elder Lignell

 

                                                Just a nice friendly dog on our route.

 

                                               A few stickers on my socks from our hike.

 

 

                            I think a member was trying to take a picture but took a short video instead.
                                 At least there is a quick picture of Jacob :)

 

Week 5 in Chihuahua - January 8, 2018

Okay so this week was kinda crazy.

 

So like right after President Monson died everything started going wrong with our investigators.

 

One investigator's mom died and the other investigator couldn't talk very long because her co-worker committed suicide that day and one investigator is moving and the other one we found is selling drugs so we can't talk to her anymore and the last investigator is on vacation and oh yeah another one just wouldn't open up the door for us.

 

For real, all this happened right after the prophet died.

 

So this week we did a lot of contacting. I feel like I am comfortable enough to contact people on the street now which is nice. One of our investigators was watching the news about how the US has been having a lot of bad weather and stuff and it was in English so he had me try to translate what was happening for him. I did my best. I swear like all the people I meet with want to learn English from me instead of the gospel lol. And others try to talk to me in English instead of Spanish when they know like zero English and it is actually really funny haha.

 

All I want to say to them is I promise you we can get further in this conversation if you speak Spanish!

 

Anyway, beside all of our investigators everything is pretty good. We climbed a mountain next to our house today and that was way fun. I basically had to drag my comp out of the house to come to hike haha. 

 

Love ya all!

 

Elder Lignell

Week 3 and 4 in Chihuahua - Christmas Skype Was The Best - January 2, 2018

 

 

Ok this week has been awesome. Talking to my fam was the best. There is a bunch of members that gave me and my comp candy for Christmas which was fun but I already have a ton of candy so I was kinda hoping for stuff like cereal or milk (hahaha) more essential stuff than just like a bucket full of tootsie rolls.

 

Anyway we got a reference this week to the this lady who we met with last Wednesday and she was awesome. She was talking about why she wanted to talk to us and I couldn't understand everything thing she said but I did understand that all she wanted was to know if her son is okay.

 

She began to explain more about her situation and eventually she started crying and before I knew it a couple of tears were running down my face too. I kinda felt like an idiot because here I was crying with this lady that I really couldn't even understand but I don't know I kinda just felt like I could feel her pain a little and that she was just a worried mom for her son.

 

After the lesson I had my comp explain what happend again but much slower. So it turns out that her son was killed about two years ago. He was running from the cops because he was selling drugs. He climbed unto a roof of a house and accidently fell off onto a fence and a bar pierced his leg and he was stuck there for like 2 days because he couldn't move and no one found him. Finally someone found him and called the cops and he was dead by the time the ambulance got him.

 

I now know what was troubling this mom so much. It was a pretty cool experiance for me because it was like the first time on the mission that the spirit helped me know how troubled someone was without me even understanding what they were saying.

 

Anyway the next day I was preparing a scripture to share with a family because me and my comp always switch off sharing scriptures with members. The scripture was about the Holy Ghost. We had another appointment with the lady whose son had died and she had some questions about the Holy Ghost and I actually was able to understand where the conversation was. So I shared my scripture that I had prepared earlier to share with the family. The scripture is about how the Holy Ghost can help us know what to do in all things. 2 nephi 32:5 I think. It is a scripture that Austin sent me to help people which is cool. 

 

But yeah all is good and I definitely think that this investigator will get baptized soon as she is just ready for the gospel.

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Lignell