Week 25 Ahome

Hey everybody! 
Just another normal week here in the mission. Here are some of the highlights:

A ton of new missionaries just arrived here in the mission. In the district there are 2 new ones. I feel bad when they struggle with spanish. It´s like watching me 5 months ago. I´m still teaching English every week, and I´m getting better. I try to teach in the same way that they taught spanish in the MTC because that was so effective. It´s tough though when some of them have no desire to learn english. I guess that was me in spanish class in high school.

Some of our investigators are actually going to church. We had a great lesson on Thursday with 7 investigators. It kinda sucks because we found an investigador that is really great, but she is moving out of our area. Another decided he wanted to work in a shrimp farm for a month.

On Saturday we offered tours of the chapel to people walking around outside. I always get surprised by how easygoing people are here. About half of the random people that we talked to decided that a tour of the church would be fine. Sister Melgar was really bold. She stopped cars going by to ask if they wanted a tour. She even stopped a police truck driving by. The police truck refused the tour, saying they were on their way to an emergency. Probably to buy some pollo asado or something. Jajaja.

Saturday night, the sisters in Ahome had a baptism. The bishop was planning on baptizing him, but some crazy stuff happened that day. A drunk driver hit 3 of his relatives as they were just sitting outside their house. It was very sad news. I was chosen to be the one to baptize at the last second.

The young man we baptized is named Oscar, he is a very large kid. There were a few things that made the baptism very difficult to perform. Firstly, the water was only filled slightly above my knees. Also, Oscar weighs a ton and did not want to bend his knees or cooperate at all. I had to do it three times just to get him under the water. I literally had to push him down to submerge him. On the way up, I slipped trying to pull him up because his feet weren´t touching the ground and again, he weighs a lot. It was all good though, and it was a very spiritual night and a great experience.

That´s about it for the week. Next week marks 6 months in the mission. Woo Hoo! Have a good week everybody. :)

The baptism of Oscar

Week 24 Ahome

Hey guys! 
Transfers came and I am staying in Ahome with my companion Elder Martinez. There is a lot of work to be done is Ahome.

This week we had a meeting by President Benjamin de Oyos who is president of the Area of Mexico. He taught a very good motivational message to us about the Lord´s way of doing missionary work.

The week was extremely hot again, and our little AC unit is barely making it through. One night during the week was especially difficult to sleep because we were fasting, so we were hungry, thirsty, sweaty, hot, and there was a loud party going on next door. We have to make it 2 more transfers of insane heat, and then it should calm down.

On Sunday, we had Ward conference, and the choir that I was helping sang. The best part of the conference was that Saul, our recently reactivated recent convert (if that makes sense) spoke and he did a great job. I felt good because we have spent months trying to help him and know he is happier than ever.

The best food I ate this week was a Roosterfish. It was the largest and most delicious fish I have ever tasted. Sister Teresita feeds us good here in Ahome.

That´s the week! I´m doing real good here in Mexico and surviving the heat. I hope that everyone is doing ok back home with all the bad storms and everything. Hasta Luego!

Choir for Ward Conference

Eating with the Hernandez family
That was a fish. There were nine of us there and we couldn´t eat half of it. 
It was the most delicious fish I have ever tasted in my life. It is called pescado gallo. I don´t know what that is in English. It literally translates to Rooster Fish.

Here is us at the church before the transfers

Hna Davila who is by me left to Ciudad Obregón. The poor girl is going to die in the heat there.

This is the last picture. Lunch today was spaghetti with piña-colada. Good stuff.

That´s my study desk at the house. On Mondays we always make our own lunch. 

Spaghetti hardly exists in Mexico.

Week 23 Ahome

Hey everybody! 
This week was a pretty good week for us. We talked to a lot of people in the street and have a ton of referals. Our biggest success is that in the first three days we got 11 new investigators. Throughout the week we were able to get 18 referrals for even more new investigators.

The people here in Mexico really are willing to listen to us. For example, on Tuesday, we were looking for a lady and didn´t know exactly where she lived. We went to ask another lady if she knew her. After we said "buenos tardes" she immediately invited us in to visit with her.

In my 17 weeks in the mission field, I still don´t have a baptism. It´s super sad when you see people get so close but it falls apart. There is one guy is extremely ready to be baptized but we need to talk to his wife and she takes off every time we go and visit. Transfers are next week again, and I hope to stay so that I won´t leave Ahome without a baptism.

Nothing very excited happened this week that I can share. Our bathroom sink broke randomly. Stuff like that always happens. This week my comp and I are gonna work super hard. Have a good week everybody!

-Elder Steele

Serving with a smile

Week 22 Ahome

Hey guys, 
It´s getting kinda difficult to write different things that keep the letters interesting. Here´s a few things that happened this week.

On Tuesday we got chased by a dog. We outran it until it gave up, and it didn´t bite us. It was a good adrenaline rush.

Also on Tuesday we were given a ton a mangos. They are probably going to rot in our kitchen because there is no way we can eat all of them.

On Wednesday we chopped down a tree with an axe. I sweat so much and I got about 7 blisters on my hand. This week was even hotter than the last week, but I´m slowly getting used to the heat. You just need to deal with the fact that you constantly drip sweat.

Update on the choir: They are singing 2 songs. "Santos Avanzad" (Press Forward Saints) and "Con Fe Absoluta" They have no sheet music for "Con Fe Absoluta." Luckily the song is pretty simple and I learned to play the vocal part by ear on the piano. It´s a really pretty song. The choir still sounds pretty bad, but they have improved a lot.

Today has been the exception to the weather. It feels amazing. It is really windy and sand and dust always blow in your face, but other than that it´s really nice. 

That was the week. ¡Adios!

This is the tree that we cut down.

This is Alex my buddy. He is the son of Bishop and Tere Hernandez 

Week 21 Ahome

Hey everybody. 
During this week, the real summer heat hit us. It´s pretty bad. A lot of people walk around with umbrellas to escape the sun. The heat really made our job much harder. It seemed like we did super amazing the whole week until Friday. None of our investigators were home it seemed, so we walked around the hot streets all day and taught almost no lessons. None of our investigators went to church on Sunday.

Here on the mission I´m getting a lot of teaching experience. This week I taught the ward choir. I felt like my choir director Mr. Elam teaching a bunch of incompotent students. It´s super frustrating. They picked to sing 2 songs that none of them had ever heard before. One of them I´ve never heard either and they don´t have sheet music for it. Every one of them are tone-deaf so obviously it sounds horrible. I just have them sing it over and over again and tell them to sing louder. We have until June 21 to make it sound good.

My comp and I have a great time together. We work hard, and also we joke around a lot. I´m pretty good at being sarcastic in spanish, and can get him cracking up a lot. This week we went to a lot of our far pueblocitos. We contact a lot of people. It´s hilarious when the drunk people come up and talk to us. For some reason, a lot of the drunks can speak English, and they always say the weirdest stuff. We usually give them pamphlets for the Word of Wisdom. It actually worked for one of the drunks, we saw him this week completely sober.

That was the week. I keep praying that the weather will be colder the next day. haha. I hope everybody is enjoying their summers. Also, RIP Elder L Tom Perry.

Here are some of the recent pictures that I took.

There´s a little family of owls. The babies are learning to fly now.

Those aren´t random ladies btw. They´re the sister missionaries.

On the road with my comp.