Week 68 Jardines Obregón

Well, this week was awesome. It was my first week as zone leader and it is a lot easier than I expected. It´s pretty much the same as what I did before as district leader, but instead of working with each missionary, I work mainly with the district leaders. The district leaders are Elder Bragg (my old zone leader), Elder Martinez (my old companion and ex-zone leader), and Elder Bradford (a missionary that I almost trained). They are all great guys.

My companion is a super cool guy. His name is Elder John Yoo, and pretty much everyone loves him. He turned 21 yesterday and 2 different members got cakes for him and others bought him gifts. He is teaching me a lot of stuff. He knows how to teach really well compared to my other companions. He also knows a ton about music, and if you know me than you know I love music. He has perfect pitch, which is a rare gift. It means that he can hear any sound and know exactly what note it is. You could tell him to sing an F and he could do it easily. Basically he is a prodigy child. He is teaching me music theory, and with that, I am learning how to play the guitar a little bit better. I think I´m going to buy myself one when my companion leaves with his.

I got to my new area at the perfect time. My companion had been teaching some super chosen investigators and on Saturday we had 3 baptisms. I only got to teach them a few times before their baptism, and they are amazing converts. We were able to find a lot of new investigators this week too. Here´s a little bit about my new converts and the investigators.

Maria: She is a little old lady who has studied a few different churches already. She amazed me with how much she effort she has put into learning about the church. We were able to do a service project for her on Thursday helping her remodel her home. She was baptized on Saturday. 

Milagros: She is Maria´s little 9 year old granddaughter. The name Milagros means "Miracles" but is actually quite a common name. They call her "Millie." She is a super cute little girl with a wonderful personality. The first day she met me she immediately started talking to me as if I was one of her favorite people. She was baptized with her grandma on Saturday.

Gabriel: He has been a member of the church since he was 8 years old, but was baptized in Hermosillo. The bishop had been looking for his church records for 2 months and couldn't find them. We then told president about him, and he searched for the records. When they couldn´t be found, he told us to baptize Gabriel again. So, we baptized him on Saturday.

Ivon: She is Milagros mom. She has been learning about the church since the missionaries started teaching her family, she just hadn't had the chance to go yet. The first time she went was Friday to the Church activity, then Saturday to the baptism, and Sunday to church. She looks super happy whenever she is with her mom and daughter at church. She should be baptized in 2 or 3 weeks.

I´ll end with the investigators here. I want to talk a little bit about the activity that we had on Friday. It was called "Viaje a Hawaii" (Trip to Hawaii). It was super cool. It started out in the Chapel, everyone was sitting down as if they were in a plane and there were flight attendants handing out treats and stuff. There was a video playing of the plane taking off and a few minutes later the plane crashed. Everyone supposedly dies and enters the Spirit world. We were dressed in White as if we were angels and started the tour. We had decorated rooms to represent the Telestial, Terestrial, and Celestial kingdoms. Members in each room explained what they did to deserve their kingdom and how they felt. It was a really cool activity. We (my companion mostly) did a good job.

I´m out of time, next week I´ll have to explain more. I love you guys. Good Luck Mishae on your mission! Bye!!!

-Elder Steele

Bad news for the week...it seems like my camera stopped working and I haven´t been able to take pictures all week, which kinda sucks because this week was awesome....well actually...It´s because another Elder dropped it while he was borrowing it and know the camera doesn't know how to read the memory chip. 

It´s ok, the pictures should all be on facebook. I already have some great friends with the members of this ward.

Week 67 Last Week in Villa Bonita. New Area Jardines Obregón!

Well, I am in Jardines now. I´m missing Villa Bonita already. It´s like my home there. So many memories.
I didn't get transferred very far. I`m in Obregón still in a ward called Jardines (Gardens) 

I don´t have much more time actually. It´ll be a short letter. I have a new assignment. I am now zone leader after being district leader for 5 transfers in Pioneros. I´m super excited. My companion is the most loved missionary in the whole mission. His name is Elder Yoo. He is from California. He is my first gringo companion, but I don´t know if he really counts, seeing that he is also Korean. He really is an awesome guy, and he plays the piano like a boss.

My new zone is going to be awesome. Two of my old companions are district leaders in my zone. Elder Martinez and Elder Juarez. I´m super pumped. That´s all that time gave me to say this week. I love you guys!

-Elder Steele

 This is Elder Osborn and I. It´s from 2 weeks ago. He just got made zone leader as well.Elder Osborn started in Ahome just like me. He is super cool. He is the zone leader in my old zone now. It kinda surprised us because he had never even been district leader. He`ll do good though.

Here is Elder Alvarenga and I as we decided to explore a little more our area. There is an awesome canal.

Here is our district (except for the assistants)
 I´m going to miss this district like crazy. We were such good friends. 

Just so you remember the names, they go: Elder Alvarenga is from El Salvador is from California, Elder Sullivan is from California , Elder Poaletti is from New Jersey (but will go to BYU) He is a new zone leader, me, Sister Kinard is from Alabama, and Sister Cruz is from Hidalgo, Mexico.  

Elder Poaletti is now in Los Mochis as zone leader, and Sister Cruz is in Navajoa.

Here is Elder Reader and me. He was my first zone leader in the mission.
He extended his mission one transfer and finally he is with his family.

Here is the last picture with Elder Rojas. Who knows when I´ll see him again.

Here is us with the bishop and his wife.

   

This is my favorite family from the ward. The Iriarte Family.

This is Netzahualcoyotl Iriarte. 

He is super awesome. Everything he says makes me laugh.

Here is Silvia Bravo. She is an amazing lady. She made us the strangest things to eat.
For example, I ate Cahuamanta, which is sea turtle (which is illegal).

Here is the Relief Society President, Sister Diana Ruiz. 

We went to visit her last night, and I told her that I was moving to Jardines. 

She said that she lived there when she was younger. 

Then she gave us 10 referrals of friends of hers to go teach. That was awesome.It was pretty awesome. 

We used to wash our clothes in her house, and sometimes we did have enough time to finish washing the clothes and we had to go to an appointment. She always jokingly got mad at us saying "those lessons better end in baptisms or you´re washing clothes by hand" And honestly, they all did. She is an amazing woman. As missionaries, we have "Mama Galletas" (cookie moms). Basically its the member that treats you like her own child. I had 6 of them in Villa Bonita.

1: Noya Iriarte

2: Blanca Bahena

3: Soledad Cisneros (Genesis´s mom. I didn`t get a picture with her)

4: Diana Ruiz

5: Margarita Espinosa

6: Juanita Ruiz

Here is my convert, Elvia. Chuy wasn't there but I wanted a picture with him. They always tell us the transfers too late and we don`t have enough time to visit everyone to say goodbye. I only got pictures with a few of my converts.

Here is Marlene Alcantar with 2 of her grandkids, Yu-Yo and Michelle. I think I´ve talked about Yu-Yo before. He gave me one of his Hotwheels cars so that I would remember him, so I gave him the one you guys gave me in the Christmas package.

Here are Orlando and his mom Andrea, two more of my converts.

Here is Margarita Espinoza and 2 of her grandchildren.

Here are some of the Bahena Family.
Moroni is the guy that always goes with us to teach people

Here is the best last picture that I think I have with Elder Alvarenga in front of our house.

Here we are getting ready to go the the Bus. We are the 4 missionaries that worked in Villa Bonita. 

That´s why we are trying to make a VB with our fingers.

Week 66 Villa Bonita

The mission is going by super fast. I can´t believe I´ve been here for 15 months now. Normally the transfers would be today, but this transfer there are 7 weeks, so I get to enjoy Villa Bonita a little bit more. I´m pretty sure that next week I will be in a different area considering that I´ve been in this area for more that 7 months.

We have some interesting investigators. I guess I could talk about them.

Andres: He was an investigator that we had found back in November, but we left him. We started teaching him again a few weeks ago. It´s been really interesting. We actually have a nickname for him. It is Cholísimo. He´s had a crazy past. We had to find out if he had killed anyone so that we could be sure that he could get baptized. I asked him if he had in his life done anything really bad. He started explained some crazy stuff that he had done. I had to interupt him and ask him directly if he has killed anyone. Luckily he said no.

Lalo: He is a little 9-year old boy. His mom (Monica) is another investigator that we would´ve baptized a long time ago if she wasn´t forced to get married by her father when she was 14 years old. In Mexico it is extremely extensive to get a divorce and remarry. Lalo´s step-dad is a less active member. We were actually planning to baptize Lalo tomorrow, but he wasn´t able to come to church. It´s because he´s not able to go to church on his own and his mom had a baby through c-section on Thursday and obviously is still in recovery.

Linda: We actually haven´t been able to teach her in a long time because she´s has been actively preparing for a gynastics competition every single day. We went last night to visit her. Apparently she got medals in 3 events and will be able to start coming to church again. Her whole family are less active members so it shouldn´t be that hard to baptize her soon.

This week we had 8 new investigators. We´re going to see if they progress or not. We´ve had a lot of disappointments be a lot of our investigators when they don´t keep their commitments. This week I´m going to focus on preparing my companion to take control of the area so it doesn´t die once I leave. I know he´ll do good, he´s a great Elder. I will be so surprised if they don´t change me, and truthfully, I want to stay in Villa Bonita. I´ve been here for half my mission now.

Well, that´s it for the week. I love you guys and wish you a great week.

-Elder Steele

Week 65 Villa Bonita

This time I don´t have any time hardly to write what happened this week. It actually was our best week of the transfer. We had 18 lessons with investigators and 6 of our investigators went to General Conference.

The conference was amazing. I loved so many of the talks. My favorites were those by President Monson, President Uchtdorf, and the closing talk by Elder Holland. I love the quote that he said that we obtain salvation even if we´re not perfect. God gives us credit just for trying our hardest.

Our investigators made us proud this week when they actually read the Book of Mormon. One of our investigators said that he had even asked God if it was true, but he felt normal. I decided to try to do it with him. We all got down on our knees in the lesson, and he asked God specifically if the Book of Mormon is true with the promise that he would be baptized in the church. It was awesome. We were in complete silence for about a minute following his prayer while he was waiting for his answer. He said he felt calm and peaceful, but not an answer. I makes sense that God is going to have him work a little harder to demonstrate his faith before he recieves his witness. Our investigator used to be a hard core drug addict. I am completely confident that he will be baptized soon.

I don´t have any more time left, but I want you to know that I love you all and I´m loving being here in Mexico. 

-Elder Steele

My old shoes.  Time for some new ones

 

I bought some awesome new shoes

This is Omar, my first convert. He is with Sister Sanchez. She was the first missionary who tried to teach Omar about a year ago. He completely rejected her. 

Sister Sanchez came back after her mission to visit. They are both happy.

We saw this the other night. I´m not sure what it´s called.  It was cool.

I saw this little kid again. He is Christopher.

This is the biggest Pitbull I have ever seen. The picture doesn´t do it justice. I really love pitbulls. In fact, I´m going to have a pitbull named "Lucas" when I get home.