Week 51 Villa Bonita NAVIDAD!

This week was a pretty awesome week. On Tuesday, we had our ward Christmas party. It was interesting. There was supposed to be a baptism from the sister missionaries before the party, but the investigator showed up 2 hours late and said he wasn't ready to be baptized yet. That´s the second time his baptism has fallen through.

The party started really late, so late that we had to go home before dinner was even served to meet our curfew. We did meet a few inactive members, and watch a few people sing Christmas songs. The missionaries sang a song at the last second. We sounded pretty good.

Thursday was the Christmas Party for the missionaries. We played volleyball, soccer, canasta de frutas, did skits, ate turkey, and that´s about it. It was a pretty fun day. When the night came, our district went to the mission home for dinner and a gift exchange activity. 

Friday was Christmas and we talked to our families. That is always the best. I felt a little bit weird on Christmas proselyting as if it were a normal day, but that´s what we did.

Saturday was a little bit interesting. We couldn't contact the lady who was going to give us lunch, so we asked the bishop if we could eat with him. Of course he said yes. At the end of lunch, we got a call from a different lady who apparently made us lunch and she was waiting for us. We decided to go to a second lunch and I ate until I almost puked. Haha.

Sunday was a really cold day. The coldest that I have ever experienced in the mission. Being really cold and the Sunday after Christmas, there was hardly anyone at church. None of our investigators made it.

This morning we finally received a few things that we´ve been waiting for for 6 weeks. A microwave and an electric stove. I can´t even believe we went 6 weeks without cooking anything. That´s a whole transfer! That was a good late Christmas Present.

Tomorrow we should have 2 baptisms. Ivan and Abraham. There are potential problems, but I believe they can happen.

It was actually a little tough to write the letter this week, even though it was Christmas. We didn't have much success as proselyting goes, but this week will be different. I´m excited for 2016. The new year is my halfway mark, and I´m sure the time will fly by. 2016 will be a very great year with tons of success.

-Elder Steele

Skyping with my Family from Missouri and 

Utah at the same time.  Best Christmas Present Ever!

Missionary Christmas Party

The little girl is Zuri. She is Keylani´s little sister. She is a handful.

This is a picture at our party, only 3 people got to hit the pinata 

before it was  completely destroyed.  

Week 50 Villa Bonita

Writing "Week 50" makes me feel old. I´m almost half way done.

This week was the most successful week that I think I have ever had in my whole mission. We had all amazing numbers in all the things that matter most. We had a baptism, 18 investigator lessons, 9 with members present, and 10 referalls from members. That´s pretty good for this mission. We are about to have 3 more baptisms in about 2 weeks.

Orlando was baptized on Tuesday. When we went to visit his mom, she asked us when she could be baptized. The answer is next week.

We are teaching another kid named Ivan, and he is ready to be baptized, we are just sorting out legal problems with his parents so that he has permission to be baptized.

Genesis was baptized last week, and her brother came to church this week. He was baptized 7 years ago, but was never confirmed. There doesn´t exist a single paper that says he was baptized, so we are going to baptize him again, but right this time.

Pablo Ruiz was going to be baptized on Saturday, but we found out about some marriage/free union problems. He still wants to be baptized, he will try to get divorced with his old wife so he can remarry and get baptized.

This week we had a crazy Family Home Evening in which 10 small children were present. It was a mistake to have invited them all. They went super crazy. For baptizing so many kids and having so many investigators who are kids, other missionaries have given me the nick-name, "Presidente de la Primaria." I think it´s fun and challenging teaching so many kids. I have gotten to the point where I understand too much spanish. I hear the little kids talking about things that I wish I couldn´t understand. They make me laugh though.

The following story may contain information innapropriate for missionaries to use. I apologize. I can´t let this story go un-told:

This week something happened that I will never forget. I was waiting for the bus with my companions and the sister missionaries. We saw someone from the other side of the street that waved to us. We were too far away to see who it was so we waved back. Then he/she crossed the street walking very flamboyantly. He/she was wearing women´s jeans, women´s shoes, a hoodie, wig, and a scruffy face for lack of shaving. I recognized the drag-queen first.

Of-course, he came right to the gringo and sat himself down. I was extremely nervous and didn´t know what to do. I slid myself rule-breakingly close to Sister Rodriguez. He turning and started talking to me, sliding closer and closer saying things like "Hola Guapo, Que Hermoso" He then touched my hair and moved his hand all the way down my body to my leg, at which point I stood up and distanced myself.

Sister Patraca was trying to talk to him to distract his attention from me, but that didn´t work. He immediately got up and followed me. I had three ideas in my head: 1: Run away. 2: Pretend one of the sister missionaries was my girlfriend. 3: Play stupid. I chose number 3. I spoke in the worst gringo accect that I could pull off, "No entiendo español." It didn´t work. I kept walking further and further away as he kept getting closer calling me "hermoso and guapo". I was almost about to try plan number 2 when we we were saved by the bus. He got on the bus, asking me to follow him, and thinking we would take that bus. We obviously waited for the next one.

That experience will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have shivers just typing it. I gave my companion a hard time because he just hid from the situacion instead of trying to help me. The sister missionaries were trying their best, apparently they almost tried plan 2 also. They will never let me forget that experience.

Now that you have all had your laughs, I want you all to know how much I love you guys and hope you have a wonderful Christmas. I can wait for Friday to be able to Skype you guys!

-Elder Steele

Photos of Orlando's baptism:

We ate Chinese food and had fun taking selfies with the sisters and the ward mission leader.

Week 49 Villa Bonita

This week was another crazy week. Some very memorable stuff happened.

Firstly, the baptism of Genesis. She is 8 years old and we had her baptism Saturday night. Saturday was a very cold day. I had called our ward mission leader to fill up the font three hours before the baptism so that the water would be a little warm. He decided to fill up the font in the morning. When I stepped in the water, it was freezing cold. Genesis was nervous to baptized in the first place, when she stepped in the water, she started bawling. Her mom had to get halfway in the font just so that Genesis would walk down the steps. I said the prayer baptized her while she was crying. I felt horrible. She fought for a long time, and it took some convincing to get her to cooperate. I will never forget her baptism, and I know she won´t either. We drank some hot chocolate afterwards and everything was fine.

That same night we watched the Cultural Event for the Tijuana Temple. It was really interesting. Apparently the cultural music of Tijuana includes Katy Perry, Daft Punk, the bee gees, Rick Astley, Star Wars, Lord of the Ring, and others. It didn´t make sense, but I had a good time listening to it. jaja

The dedication on Sunday was really cool to watch. President Uchdorf had fun putting mortar in the corner stone with a bunch of Mexican kids that had no idea what he was saying. The temple president is Gordon B Hinckley´s son, so that was really cool to listen to.

Here´s a story about a Chihuahua named Junior. He is a member´s dog, that would follow us everytime we passed by their house. He likes to run ahead of us so that he can have time to pee on everything he can before we catch up. He has been present in a lot of our lessons, and our investigators love him. We were going to make him a little tie to wear and a name tag that says "Elder Junior." Junior is the coolest dog in the history of Villa Bonita. I took a picture with him on Thursday when he was being our "perro-presente" in our lessons.

Friday night, Junior´s owner told us that he was hit by a car and died. It´s super sad. I really loved having a little dog follow us wherever we went.At least we know he is preaching to the other dogs in the Spirit World. jaja

Tomorrow we will have another baptism for Orlando. And hopefully on Saturday we will have another one for Pablo Ruiz. We are having a lot of success, even when it sometimes feel like we´re not doing much, the baptisms keep coming.

That´s it for my week. I´m really enjoying my mission right now.

-Elder Steele

Baptism of Genesis

 This is the coolest dog in all of Villa Bonita. His name is Junior

Week 48 Villa Bonita

Hey everyone, 

Today I have 11 months in the mission! It´s definitely going by really fast. I can´t believe it´s already Christmas time. It will be my first Christmas and only Christmas in the mission, so it will be very interesting and very exciting. We have a lot of baptisms planned for December and the beginning of January.

This week was the week of transfers. The people in the district stayed almost the same. The two sister missionaries who were secretaries both left and the assistants to the president are now in their area. The new secretaries are a Senior couple named Elder and Sister Downs from California. The other six of us all stayed in Pioneros, but 2 areas were switched. It will be very interesting having the assistants to the president in my district. I have more pressure to do a good job, but I get along great with Elder Reader and Elder Funk. I actually am still the newest missionary in my district and I have 11 months. My district is pure experienced missionaries who do a great job, and I´m their leader.

Here are some updates on investigators:

Orlando: He is now going to seminary at 5 in the morning and mission prep class. Nuff Said. He will be baptized soon.

Edgar: We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he told us that he will never stop drinking beer because he believes that the way he drinks it is not bad. He drinks it because he likes the flavor and analyzes the texture of different beers, and he never drinks too much to get drunk. That kinda sucked when he told me that. I told him afterward that we can´t force him to do anything. I explained that it was a commandment from God and he just won't receive the blessings of obeying it. He still wants to go to church, maybe there he´ll gain a stronger testimony of the restored gospel and choose to live the commandments of God.

Marco Antonio: He´s a difficult one. After an amazing lesson, we invited him to church and he said no. Not because he doesn't want to, but his parents won´t let him. His family, like many others, has deep traditions in the Catholic Church. He knows that our church is true though. In his prayer, he told God that one day when his parents no longer have control over him, he will attend his church. I hope it happens sooner than that. We´re gonna told to his parents.

There´s a few of our investigators. It was really interesting for me to receive no as an answer to a commitment. That actually hasn't happened to me in a long time. Rejection is a blessing though because it allows us to examine my teaching and see what we could've done differently and better. I've been focusing a lot on that. I want to be a teacher after my mission, so I've been studying and practicing different teaching strategies. Preach My Gospel is perfect to help any teacher develop his ability.

This week we will have a baptism on Saturday. The investigator is Genesis. She is another 8-year old girl. Next week is Orlando´s baptism, and the week after we have other baptisms planned that we are hoping will happen. That family that I talked about last week will be baptized soon. I actually gave that family to the sister missionaries who haven´t had baptisms in a long time, so that they can be more motivated by having 8 easy baptisms.

Eso es todo por la semana. Les amo mucho. Ojalá que todos tengan una buena Navidad!

-Elder Steele

 Elder Steele,Elder Poaletti, Sister Palmer, Sister Perez, Uriel (a member from the ward), Elder Rojas, Elder Morrison

Zone Obregón Mexico