Week 64 Villa Bonita

Hey guys,

This week was a really normal week. No crazy stories or anything. This week we taught a lot of people. Being in Villa Bonita for 5 transfers now, it´s been a little difficult finding new people to teach. A few weeks ago, we decided to work with an inactive member who is in a alcoholic recovery group. We helped him get to church, and he gave us a ton of referrals of friends in that group. I think that some of them could progress really well seeing that they are all trying to change their lives.

This week we had surprise divisions with the zone leaders. They showed up to the house without warning with the Senior couple, Elder and Sister Downs to check our house. To their surprise, our house was actually really clean. I went to the area of the zone leaders. We had a lot of success there. We found 4 new investigators. Too bad it wasn't in my own area. 

I´m having a tough time again thinking about what to write. The best part of the week is that the sister missionaries in my district had 2 baptisms yesterday. It was actually really cool. What I think is really interesting is that the only month that my companion and I don´t have a baptism, my district has 7. My district is the best.

We kinda forgot that it was Easter. They don´t celebrate it in Mexico. And it was Sunday so we couldn't really buy anything good to eat. I´m actually doing really well. My companion is awesome, my district is awesome. The only thing that is frustrating is that we haven´t had a baptism in a while, but it´s all fine. We just need to learn new ways to find people when the members already gave us all their references.

Week 63 Villa Bonita

Hey guys, 

This week was pretty good. I´ll start my letter off with the interesting story. We´ll see how well I can remember and explain. Basically, we taught a false prophet. Here´s what happened:

So we were walking in the street and talked to a guy named Antonio. We asked him if he had a few minutes to listen to our message, he said sure and we walked over to his house. We sat down and started talking to him. He said that he lived alone and was a missionary like us and that his religion was God. All this seemed pretty normal to us, in fact we were just happy that someone wanted to listen to our message.

We started the message off with a hymn, and after that he broke loose. As soon as we stopped singing he started speaking in the name of God as if he were a prophet. He told us that we had angels around us protecting us and that my angel was named "Isaihi" and my companion´s was named "Malaguía" (I don´t remember if those are exactly what he said, but the names were weird.) He asked us if we had ever seen God or angels or visions. We told him no. He said that he saw those things and that he sees God in heaven.

He then grabbed our hands and faced them palm up and began to say a blessing or prayer or something for us. My companion was scared to death by the time it was over. I obviously knew at this point that this guy was crazy, but I wanted to play around a little bit and see where the lesson would go. I asked him if we could start our message with a prayer. After the prayer, it got even more intense. What made it hilarious is that I acted serious and almost as if I was interesting just so that he would tell us more stuff. Occasionally during the lesson, I looked at my companion and the whole time he was trying not to burst out laughing.

After we offered the prayer, he told us the things that God had supposedly made known to him. He told us that after Jesus was resurrected, he went to heaven. There, his body was kept in a crystal case for almost 2000 years while his spirit returned to the earth. He said that while Jesus was a spirit on the earth, he organized 60 churches. He did that by going into the body of certain ministers. He also said that the Mormon church was the 60th and last church that Jesus established.

He later talked about a 2nd coming of Christ of sorts. He said that on February 16 1996 that Jesus came to the earth with his body again. From that date, for 20 years, Christ apparently had been fighting against Satan, and on February 16 of this year, Satan was destroyed by Christ. He said that all we need to do now is destroy all the angels of Satan that remain on the earth. I asked him where Jesus is right now. In case you were wondering, he is in Bethlehem.

I PROMISE I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP!  This guy said all of these things. You should be proud of me for keeping a straight face during all of this. But wait, the lesson didn't end there. Elder Steele doesn't leave a lesson without leaving an impression. In this case, I just wanted to make him look like an idiot.

I asked him if he was a prophet. He said no, that he was a seer. I said, well, a seer can talk to God and speak in his name and say the truth of all things right? He confirmed my statement. This is where the fun begins. I said, you said that Christ established the Mormon church, does that mean that you believe in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith? He said yes. I was still acting interesting, and he was giving me so much of his own words to use against him.

I asked him where Christ went when he was resurrected. He said heaven. I then shared from the Book of Mormon how Christ visited the Americas. I asked him if men possessed Christ´s authority on the earth, and what it was called. He said yes and that he had the authority and that is was called the Holy Ghost. I then told him how in the scriptures it talks about the priesthood. I think at that moment he realized that I was playing him. I shared with him many more scriptures that go against pretty much everything that he was saying. Because I´m running short on time I´ll cut to the end.

I basically shared briefly the whole lesson of the Restoration with emphasis on the one true church that Christ established and the apostasy. He was still trying to convince us of his being a seer, so I finished with the scripture that says that by the mouth of 2 or 3, God establishes his word. I said "That scripture exists because God doesn´t want his children to get carried astray by men like you." He obviously got a little angry by what I said. He said that because we only are 19 years old that we can´t possibly know more then him, being 53. Then I told him that Joseph Smith saw God at age 14 and that´s about when we left.

That was a crazy experience that I´ll never forget. Please don´t think that I argue with people like that. That was a rare occasion. It´s not everyday that your potential investigator claims to be a seer and tells you a bunch of apostasy.

A few days later, we were talking to one of my converts and mentioned that experience. My convert actually knows Antonio. Apparently what he does for a living is that he convinces people that he talks with God. He says that he can look at someone in the eyes and know if they are sick or not. He says that if they give him 50 pesos, then he will converse with God to find out what they need to do to be cured. People actually believe him.

Anyway, on a different page. Our week was great. We had 4 investigators in church. There was an awesome baptism in my district. This week is "Semana Santa." We found a few new investigators that our going to be baptized. And yeah, I think I used all my time writing about the false seer that we met. I hope you enjoyed the story. It was much better being there. That was the week. I love you guys!

-Elder Steele 

Week 62 Villa Bonita

Hey guys,

This week was pretty amazing. We worked hard. The best thing that happened is that the other Elders from my district baptized a family of 4. We had divisions so that I could go to their area to conduct the baptismal interviews. The interviews went really well, but it was tiring doing 4 interviews back to back, each one being about 30 minutes, but I was happy to do them.

Doing the divisions, I was with Elder Poaletti, which means that we left our two "sons" together in my area. I was nervous to do that, knowing that they did not have much experience in the mission, and the fact that Elder Sullivan doesn´t speak spanish hardly. But it turns out, my companion did really well and they had 8 lessons and 3 new investigators just in that one day. I was proud of him.

I´m having a tough time thinking of what to write, we basically just worked hard this week. Today we played volleyball as a district and had a good time.

Yesterday, none of our investigators went to church, so that was a little bit frustrating. Our best investigator is Linda. She is 12 years old and she wants to be baptized. She wasn´t able to go to church yesterday because she participates in Gymnastics competitions.

That´s about it for the week, it´s a lot more interesting when I can talk about awesome lessons that we had. We´re looking hard for new investigators. Anyway, I love you guys!

-Elder Steele

Here´s a few pictures we took one day this week when we saw 2 cows randomly roaming the neighborhood street.

In this last picture, the cow kinda scared us that´s why it shows us looking back just as I took the selfie.  There is garbage like that whenever there is an abandoned house. The neighbors pile all their garbage in the house that is empty. And there are a ton of abandoned houses, you can imagine.

We played volleyball as a district today

Week 61 Villa Bonita

Hey guys! 

This week was pretty interesting. If you remember that last week I had told you that I would be going to the leadership council meeting. It turns out that the meeting was in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. We stayed the night Wednesday with the Assistants, and at 5 in the morning, president picked us up and we drove to Los Mochis in his mini-van. It was awesome being back on that side of the mission for a day. I'm pretty sure we passed close to where my old area was.

They told us that we were going to work in a field in Cuatro Milpas as a service project. What it really was, was a field trip to learn about the whole process of making potato chips. It was really interesting. Thinking I would be working hard in a field, I did not bring a camara, but if you would like to see photos, I'm sure that there are some on the Facebook page.

My companion and I were the only ones in the meeting that weren't zone leaders, but they invited me because I've had baptisms in 7 consecutive months, which apparently in the most consistent in the mission. President made me stand in front of all the leaders in the mission and tell them my "secret to success." I felt really nervous and weird, especially when they applauded me at the end. I guess they're zone leaders for a reason, because they're good at motivating people. I sure felt motivated at the end of the meeting.

In the meeting, I got to see my first 2 companions, Elder Coello and Elder Martinez. It was a cool experience. We also took a 4 generation picture while we were in the potato field. Elder Funk (my grandpa), Elder Coello (my dad), me, and Elder Alvarenga (my son). I don´t have the picture, but hopefully I get it someday.

This week we've had some interesting teaching experiences:

First of all, we've been teaching Monica and Maria. They both live with less active members of the church. Both of them have been to the church 3 times and are excited to be baptized. We found out that they and their husbands are married, but all to different people. All four of them would have to get divorced and remarried if they were to be baptized. And that process takes forever and costs a ton, especially here in Mexico.

We were teaching an inactive lady named Margarita. We have gained so much of her confidence that she tells us everything. She apparently has been listening to a lot of apostacy lately. She told us that she has been listening to YouTube videos from a women who claims to have heard messages from the 9 arc-argels. She describes the angels as over 2 meters tall with long blonde hair. Apparently the angels deliver messages from God saying that we shouldn´t eat meat and that the earth is going to blow up unless we stop using petroleum. I amazed myself because I didn´t start laughing while she was telling us such apostacy. She sincerely believes in the 9 arc-argels and wants to protect her children and grandkids. It was a very interesting lesson. If you want to see what I´m talking about, she said they´re called "Guardianes del Universo."

Yesterday we had a lesson with a lady, and it was going really well. We taught her the restoration and invited her to be baptized. I said "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ be being baptized be someone who holds the authority of God?" She surprised me when she said "I was baptized in the mormon church when I was 10" Then there was an awkward silence for about 10 seconds, and I said "Que bueno," "just go to church I guess." It was an interesting lesson.

We've been teaching the Fraijo Family for some time now. We´ve taught them the first 3 lessons and put a baptism date, which they accepted. They told us that they had been to our church a long time ago and liked it. Yesterday and we were looking through the huge ward directory, we found them. They are already members. We´ve been visiting them for weeks now and never told us that they were baptized, in fact when I asked them, they responded no. I can´t believe they played us like that.

I'll end with our investigator Linda. She is 12 years old and her parents and sister are members. She went to church yesterday and I feel like she will be baptized.

That´s about it for the week. I wrote a lot. Love you guys!

-Elder Steele

Here´s a picture of me last week when I thought I might get transferred.
 I´m with my convert Omar, who I baptized my first week in Villa Bonita. 6 months later, and he´s still going to church.

Here is Ivan the same day that I took the picture with Omar.

Do you remember who those guys are?  

They are zone leaders in other areas now.  It was GREAT to see them again!

 My old companion Elder Martinez is in Navajoa.

My companion Elder Coello is in Los Mochis.
 He was my trainer.