Week 29 Ahome

Hey everybody. 
This week was pretty good. We actually got some good rain. We took advantage of the fact that it was downpouring and we visited some of our bishop´s neighbors. They were kinda forced to let us in because they couldn´t just let us get soaked. So we found a new family that way, haha. They are super cool.

This week was the most successful of all when it comes to how many progressing investigators we have. We have 5, which isn´t a ton, but it´s our best so far. What has been helping is that a few of the members have been really amazing reaching out to help some of our investigators. Our investigator, Trini, has a ton of friends in the church, but she still isn´t completely ready to be baptized. She is already part of the ward though. Alma (the blind lady) is progressing fast and has brought family members to the church. She will be baptized the day after her birthday and she is excited for that. Those two are the best one that we have.

That´s about it for the week. Not much new happens that I can talk about other than the progress of the people that we are helping. Next week is transfers and I am hoping to stay in Ahome again so that I can be there for all my investigators baptisms. Have a good week everybody!

-Elder Steele

-¡Sea feliz, sea Mormón!

Photo in front of church in Ahome

Dinner with the Hernandez family

Week 28 Ahome

Hey everybody. 
This week was good. We are now in the hottest 40 days of the whole year when the temperature rarely drops lower than 35 celsius. I´m doing well in the heat though. I´m keeping myself hydrated and staying in the shade as much as possible.

We have had a lot of luck this week finding people on the street. We contacted only about 40 people, but we had 21 of them give us their addresses. That´s a pretty good statistic. We should contact a lot more and we could have a ton of people to teach.

Our investigator, Trini is doing really well and we hope to be able to baptize her on Saturday.

Our investigator, Alma has the most trials that I have ever seen a person have in life with being blind, having diabetes, being a single mom, living in an extremely poor home, and having almost no support from any of her family, and she always feels alone in life. We were finally able to bring her to church yesterday and she loved it.

On Saturday night we found a tarantula in the house. It freaked us out and we decided to start it on fire. After it was scorched we put it next to the scorpion on the shelf. We have a collection now.

That´s the week. We´re working with a lot of investigators now. Hope all you guys have a good week wherever you are. Remember to help the missionaries in your ward, we´re all in this work together.

-Elder Steele

Our investigator, Alma 

Guess what I found in the house this week? And how I killed it. It was pretty awesome!

Our house is super sketchy.

We were about to go to bed and I opened the bedroom door and saw a huge tarantula!

Here is it walking around a little bit.

Another one a little closer up. We´re about to kill it now.
HOW DID WE KILL IT??

It dies by fire!

There´s nothing in the house that can start on fire. Here everything is made of concrete. 

All we burned was paper and the tartantula. 

We have an awesome video but it´s too big to send through email.

The roasted tarantula. We have another creature to add to the collection.

Week 27 Ahome

Hey everybody. 
Nothing out of the ordinary happened this week. Our #1 investigator, Trini, is still progressing really well.

We planned two activities for the members on Friday and Saturday. Friday was kinda like the preparation for the real activity on Saturday when the members were going to help us talk to people in the street. We had about 18 members show up on Friday and 1 show up on Saturday. That shows how much we need to motivate the members to support the work of salvation.

The rest of the week was good. It was extremely hot, but we´re making it through. Right now we are trying to replace some non-progressing investigators with brand new ones. That might be one of the most difficult parts about the mission, finding people who actually want to apply what we are teaching them.

I´m having a super hard time thinking about what to write. I guess I´ll leave it at that. Sorry for this sad letter, haha. Next week will be better. Have a good week everybody!

Our investigator, Trini

  I forgot this also. We gave one of our study tables to the sisters in the area because they only had one. Now we only have one, but we made the best of it. The sisters have tons of our stuff now, haha. Our table, 2 USBs with music, our bucket, and one of our purified water jugs.

Hopefully you didn´t notice my incredibly horrible neck tan-line. Haha.

Week 26 Ahome

Hey everybody. 
This week was a really good week for me. Here´s the highlights.

We have a perfect investigator finally. Her name is Trini and she has been to church 3 times in a row now and is progressing faster than anyone I´ve ever seen on the mission. If you remember back a few weeks ago when I said someone invited us in after we simply said "buenos tardes", that was Trini.

The house was a zoo this week. We found an iguana on my comp´s bed, and a cat had babies near the pool in the back of our house. (yes, we have a pool, pool parties every p-day! haha) My comp almost got stung by a scorpion in the kitchen while he was washing dishes. Also, I went on a cucaracha killing spree with over 50 of them that live where the water drains outside.

This week, I feel my ability to teach effectively increased dramatically. Ever since a lesson on Thursday with Trini, I have felt the spirit so much more in the lessons. It is because I changed my mind-set a little bit. I have always cared for the investigators, but now I imagine the investigators as one of my best friends from back home and I want them to accept the gospel in their lives. It´s something that works really good for me.

The weeks are getting faster it seems, the heat doesn´t seem too bad,  I am 25% done with the mission already, and we have una investigadora de oro. Everything is going real positive for me here in Ahome. Have a good week everybody!

-Elder Steele

We Live in a ZOO...

This first one will make mom sick. !CUCARACHAS! 

There were 11 in the shower. Most of them I found outside the house where we drain the water from the laundry machine. After I took the picture I found more. There were more than 50 in total.

This next one we found in my comps bed. ¡Iguana! 

We cought it in a box and then let it outside.

This one is the most dangerous. ¡Alacrán! (scorpion) 

My comp almost got stung by it while he was washing the dishes. He didn´t notice it. 

The last one. ¡Gatitos! 

A cat had some babies in our patio.

Here´s another picture. It´s an attempt of the whole zone.