Week 58 Villa Bonita

Hey guys! 

This week was another amazing week here in Obregón. The heat hit us strong, it feels like we're already in June, but it's February. I'm already sweating like crazy, taking cold showers, and drinking a lot of water. I just need to survive one more 9 month summer.

Church was amazing yesterday. Ricardo got confirmed and chose me to confirm him. It was actually the first time that I've ever confirmed someone. When I was done, my hands were trembling. I literally felt as if the Holy Ghost was transfered from my hands into Ricardo, which is was happened. I was super nervous too, which makes my spanish suck.

I actually broke another record of mine. We had 9 investigators at church, just from our one companionship. Most of them were part of Ricardo´s family. Their family of 14 all showed up together in their one truck. You can imagine how I felt seeing so many investigators showing up at the same time.

We were planning to baptize Luis Angel tomorrow, but yesterday he told us that his parents don´t like the idea of him getting baptized. They told him he could get baptized in the catholic church and it would be the same. So many people just don´t understand. It seems that the spirit of the devil has confused so many people.

This week alone I have left so many lessons just feeling angry because the people are so caught up in the beliefs that they themselves don´t even understand. For example, we were teaching Kristo's mom, Esther, who is already a member of the church. It was the worst lesson ever. She told us that she only got baptized because her daughter was baptized. I don´t know how, but the discussion turned to the Virgin. I explained how God doesn´t want us to worship graven images because there is only one God and the images are created by man and they don´t answer our prayers. She answered angrily and said "You have an image of your mom in your backpack! You can´t tell me that I shouldn´t have the Virgin in my home, it´s the same thing!" I wanted to give up at that point. So many times, it seems that I teach so clearly, but the hearts of people are so confused by the devil that it is almost impossible for them to come to the knowledge of the simple truth of the Gospel.

I imagine that is how the mission would be like in Missouri. The devil has got the minds of people so confused that they believe anything that their pastor will tell them. There´s not a single person on this planet that knows everything, that´s what I always tell my investigators. Don´t just trust whatever we tell them, but ask God. That´s what I like about our church so much. God will give the same answer to everyone. It´s so simple, so easy, but the people sometimes would rather trust their minister more than God.

Anyway, those are my thoughts right now. I am trying to improve my teaching more, to help them understand how two world wide accepted truths prove that our church is true: God is our Father; He loves us and wants us to be happy. Those two truths help us to know that if we truly believe in God, we know that he can answer a simple prayer. God doesn´t want to and won´t hide the way to happiness from us, his kids. Seek and ye shall find.

I´m just about out of time, that was my week. I love you guys. Have a wonderful week!

-Elder Steele

Week 57 Villa Bonita

Hey guys,

I went to Guaymas again today to finalize my visa. I missed out on going bowling today the zone for having the most baptisms in the mission, but that´s ok.  My companion stayed with Elder Poaletti and Elder Sullivan. Guaymas is a pretty cool place.  There was 5 of us that went from my generation.    I had a good time there even though all we did was sign a paper and eat pizza.  We ate Papa Johns pizza. 

So, this week was pretty good. We had Ricardo´s baptism on Tuesday. That was pretty interesting. We passed by his house to bring him to the church, but he wasn't home. Then we bravely went to his dad's house to see if he was there. He wasn't there either. So we were looking for him for about an hour and a half trying to find him. He finally showed up, and we went to the baptism and he got baptized.

There´s is another story about his confirmation. On Sunday, he showed up after sacrament meeting, so he wasn't able to get confirmed yet. When he showed up, he was wearing a hoodie to hide his face because he had been beat up. A member of the church had beat up my convert! I was pretty mad! Ricardo is a super scrawny poor kid, and he got beat up by a member way bigger than him, and he beat him until he passed out.

This week we had planned rides to bring at least 8 investigators to church. Unfortunately, only 3 of the 8 investigators made it to church.

We have found two huge families of investigators where some of them have already been baptized. For example, we are now teaching a bunch of Ricardo´s cousins and step-siblings and aunts, etc. We made a huge family tree in our house to make sense of the huge family and to see who is a member and who isn't. We should have a lot of baptisms from that family.

I don´t have that much more time. This next week should be good. Hopefully Ricardo gets confirmed and his whole family comes to church. Thanks for your letters and support. 

I love you guys.

-Elder Steele

Family letter extras:

Elder Steele's little Sister and Brother asked:  what does Mexican pizza taste like?  Haha. :)

Elder Steele's response: "There is a specialty pizza flavor called Pizza Mexicana. It comes with jalapeño, chorizo, salchicha and that´s pretty much it. It´s pretty good. Mexican pizza in general is pretty bad in comparison to American Pizza. Papa Johns is pretty much the same though."

We asked how Ricardo was doing after being beat up...Elder Steele responded that he seems to be doing fine.  Such a sad thing to have happen.

Here are the pictures from Ricardo´s baptism:

Me, Ricardo, and my companion Elder Alvarenga at the baptism

Here´s some pictures of me with Genesis´s crazy nephew, Christopher, he just turned 3

Week 56 Villa Bonita

Hey guys! 

This was pretty amazing for us. Last week I was a little disappointed by our lack of success, but this week was my best week ever when it comes to lessons to investigators. We taught 15 lessons with members present and 7 others. The standard of excellence is 18 and we had 22! I got pretty pumped by that.

I am focusing on teaching to people that I feel like are going to progress and be baptized, so if I can´t imagine them in white clothes in the baptismal font, I leave them. We have left many of our new investigators already and found new ones.

We will have a baptism tomorrow for Ricardo. He is Ivan´s older brother. We were going to baptize Luis Angel also, but he hasn´t been to church in 2 weeks and we want to make sure that he wants to be baptized for his own desire and not just the make his girlfriend (the bishop´s daughter) happy.

We have a lot of interesting new investigators to talk about.

Cristo: That´s right, his name is Christ in spanish! We found him as we were going through the member directory looking for all the less-active members in Villa Bonita. His mom and sister are both members that left the church because another member offended them. I helped them understand things and they want to come back to church. They are really interesting and the missionaries that baptized them were huge fritos. jajaja. They said that their what happened in their house doesn't leave their house, and they told us stories of everything the missionaries did there.

Maria: She is 81 years old and crazy. She loves listening to the gospel and tells the weirdest stories. For example, she told us that she read about when Jesus appeared in a Jail in Hermosillo and chose 12 apostles. He supposedly proved he was Christ by washing their feet. After that, they took off and no one knows where they went. She believed that story... She doesn't hear well, but she remembers well. We taught her about prophets and how our church is the true church and she told us she wants to be baptized in the same way that Jesus was baptized like we had explained to her. I just hope she is sane enough to baptize.

The rest of our investigators are pretty normal. We are just hoping that they´ll go to church.

I´m enjoying the mission a lot and I´m enjoying being a trainer. I´m trying to help my hijo enjoy the mission and I think he´s excited for his first baptism tomorrow. I´m pretty excited too. 

Love you guys!

-Elder Steele

MORE EMAILS TO FAMILY...

As a family we felt bad that he didn't receive any of our emails we sent last week.  It was hard when we received ours from him, but he didn't hear anything from us.   He mentioned in the email last week that he didn't get any emails.  We kept trying to say Hi, but nothing was going through.  It was sad as a mom to hear this.  

We were very happy as a family to hear that he got all of our letters today from last week.

Technology can be so frustrating when it doesn't work, but it is SUCH A BLESSING overall!

Elder Steele..."I got the letter as I logged in today. But that´s fine. It just gave me more to read today."

Mom...I asked him how is training went last week... 

Elder Steele responded..."It turned out that I didn't give my training. It´s because the mission president talked for a long time and didn't give me time for it. But I'm alright with that. I was pretty nervous. It wasn't just our zone, but it was a multi-zone conference with the mission president.  Actually at the end of the conference they gave us vaccinations-Flu shot. I was so nervous about my training and then letting other missionaries inject me that I almost passed out. I felt super light-headed that I laid myself down at a table after the injection.

Mom...As soon as he said the word vaccinations, before I read anything else I thought, Oh NO! I hope he didn't passed out.  I think that is a hereditary thing to pass out around our family.  His younger brother Tanner does that too. When he was getting shots for his mission, he passed out really bad at the doctors office.  I'm so glad he recognized it and laid down before he did a full pass out.  

The tough guys have the hardest time with needles right??

Elder Steele.."Things with my new comp are pretty good. It´s interesting to be with a new missionary and remember what I was like what I got to the mission. He left a girlfriend that he had been with for 5 years, I imagine that would be pretty hard. We have a lot of work to do when it comes to his teaching. I will teach one principle and motion for him to teach the next principle. He will talk for about 15 seconds about something and then give the time back to me. He is super shy and doesn't talk very much."

"He also has a really cool accent being from El Salvador. I think the sister missionaries are in love with his voice. His city, San Salvador is extremely dangerous; he´s told me a few crazy stories. A member told us that he saw a list of the most dangerous cities in the world and San Salvador was number 2. (He also said that Ciudad Obregón was number 10."

Week 55 Villa Bonita

It was my first week with my son, Elder Alvarenga. We get along great. I feel bad because in his first week we did a ton of walking because so many of our appointments fell through and we've had to leave a lot of our investigators and start finding new ones. So this week, we didn´t have a lot of success, but I´m not too worried because we had an amazing start to this coming week. Yesterday after church we had 5 lessons with members present and found 5 new investigators. My companion did his first baptismal invitation, and the investigator accepted.

At church we only had two investigators: Ricardo and Pablo Ruiz. We are still planning on baptizing Ricardo February 2nd.

We have a zone conference tomorrow and I was asked to give the training. I'm a little bit nervous, but it should be a good experience for me. I actually don't have much time left because I've been trying to plan my training. 

Have a good week everybody! 

-Elder Steele

Week 54 Villa Bonita

Hey guys. 

This week we received our transfers.  I am still in Pioneros Ward in Villa Bonita. I am training for real this time. This time, my son actually showed up on the mission. His name is Elder Alvarenga.  He is from El Salvador. He speaks English really well and seems super chill. We´re gonna have a lot of success!

The elder that I was supposed to train two transfers ago finally got here too, but he is with Elder Reader.  

On Tuesday we had interviews with President. It was the best interview I´ve ever had. We sat down, and he said "All the missionaries are asking about Elder Steele and how you are having so many baptisms in Pioneros. Tell me, what are you doing to have so much success?" I know he said that just to boost my confidence even more, and it worked. In the interview he told me that he wanted to keep me as district leader in Pioneros and that I was going to train. I was hoping he was going to tell me that I would be a zone leader, but my work here in Pioneros isn't done yet. I´m actually really happy that I finally get to train someone.

When I left the interview, I found the opportunity to motivate my companion a ton. Normally if you would say to someone that it would be their last week, they would die. I told him in a way that motivated him to make his last week the best week we've ever had together. And it was.

This week we were able to have 15 lessons with members present, which is more than we have ever had. Elder Rojas was able to gain a ton of confidence of a few members in his short time here. We told those members that it was his last week and that they needed to take advantage of the time with Elder Rojas. We taught with Moroni Bahena every single day except for Friday, when we got super sick. The lessons we had with Moroni were super crazy awesome lessons that only happen on rare occasions on the mission.

These last 3 weeks with Elder Rojas we were able to start teaching 28 new investigators, which for me, is unbelievable. I know a lot of people think of Elder Rojas as a frito, but I had more success with him in 2 transfers than with any other Elder in my mission so far. We baptized 7 people together. Me made a good fit. I was the super sincere and direct teacher, and he was the clown that helped us gain a lot of confidence. It´ll be different teaching kids without him. He didn't go too far, but I´m gonna miss him.

Since we have so many new investigators, I can tell you about some of them.

Luis Angel: He´s not new, actually we were almost about to leave him. He is the bishop´s daughter´s 15 year-old boyfriend. She apparently broke up with him, and the next Sunday, he showed up to church for the first time in forever. The next time we taught him, we made sure he understood that the church isn't just about winning the love of his girlfriend (even though it´s pretty awesome he´s willing to get baptized for her) but that he needs his own testimony. He told us sincerely that he would pray to ask for his answer. He also went to church yesterday and his a baptismal date for February 2nd.

Ricardo: Ricardo is Ivan´s older brother. He has been to church ever since the confirmation of Ivan. Things are going well with him. The challenge with be his dad, who has full custody of him. I don´t know if you remember hearing about that story. Anyway, Ricardo will be baptized February 2nd also.

Pablo Ruiz: He has been to church 5 times and wants to be baptized. He is 72 years old, and lives in a free union and can´t get a divorce from his old wife to get remarried. He is cool. He still gives us rides to church on occasion.

Jesus Alberto: We had taught his son one time, and one day we were looking for him again when we found Jesus. He told us that his wife left him with all his kids. He seems like a he would be a pretty sucky husband and dad, but when we found him, he was in the most humble and depressed state I have ever seen someone. He said the other day, he tried to kill himself, but stopped himself and decided to pray instead. He made an inner promise with God that if he would do whatever it takes to get his family back and that he would be a better husband and father, if God would send help. The next day we show up at his door. I promised that if he went to church with us, that his family would return. We talked for a lot more, and the lesson went really well. He still didn't show up to church. We´re gonna go chew him out.

Marcela and Javier: Marcela is Orlando´s sister and Javier is her boyfriend. They seem really cool and want to be baptized but have super busy lives and haven´t been able to make it to church yet.

Portugal: She is Moroni´s friend. We went to teach he, and had invited her to be baptized and she accepted. At the end of the lesson, her parents showed up and her mom wanted to dispute about everything and was really angry. I answered every doubt without contention in my voice and with such clarity that they were left speechless many times and I could see in their eyes that they almost started believing that what I was saying was true. But Satan was still in her heart and she didn't believe. She actually made us participate in the Lord´s Prayer at the end. Such apostasy.

I´m realizing that I've been writing for too much time now, and will have to write about the other investigators next week. I didn't even get into detail about Friday when we were sick, haha. Anyway, I love you guys. These transfers are passing by so fast, it´ll be Christmas again before I know it. Bye!!!!

-Elder Steele



These are the extra photos and things he said to us as a family this week:
As a mom, I thought this was the best apartment yet.  It was great to see that he actually has a Fridge now!

We actually had interviews with the president on Tuesday and they told us to bring 10 pictures of our house to show that we actually keep it somewhat clean. It turns out they didn't ask for the pictures, but I can show them to you guys.

It doesn't have much. But it´s home

Yay! A Fridge!

Eggs are super cheap and taste good with Salchicha and Chorizo.

Did you notice we have to heat up water in a bucket to be able to shower?

And today the president made a new rule that we can´t do that anymore, so I´m going to have to buy an electric shower head. They won´t let us heat up the water because apparently it´s super dangerous and we could electrocute ourselves, even though I've been doing it every day for almost 6 months now.

Mom's response- "That sounds even more dangerous having an electric shower head."  

His response-  "It is more dangerous. Sister Munive was talking about how people have been been in the shower and they start feeling tingling on their back. I have never been shocked by the water heater that we use."

The last photo in front of our house with Elder Rojas

Elder Rojas transferred to Esperanza. The northern boundary of my area is the southern boundary of his area. It's funny because with Elder Rojas, we were teaching a few investigators that live in the boundaries of Esperanza, and now it´s his area.

Here is a funny story he sent us as a family.  We all got a laugh out of it...  Just had to post...

I found out something crazy and funny about my companion Elder Rojas. It´s that on Friday we got really sick, so we stayed in our house that day. I was more sick than my companion, I couldn't function at all and just slept almost that whole day. My companion started complaining that he was bored and asked what he could do. I told him to just do whatever, and I was going to rest. He asked me if he could play a video game. I responded, "sure" because I assumed he was being sarcastic as he always is and that he would read or something. 5 minutes later I woke up and he was playing on a PSP! I had no idea that he even had one, and I was with him for 3 months. I responded really surprised that he had it. He knows that I don´t like to scold people and when he noticed that I didn't like that he had it, he stopped playing. On Sunday when we found out the transfers, he decided he would give his PSP to Orlando (our convert) for his Birthday. I asked him if he was really going to give away a PSP to Orlando, and he said, "Yeah, don´t worry, I have another one that is better." My frito comp had 2 PSPs! When he said that he spent all his money on candy, that was a lie. At least he never played on them except for that one occasion. Que loco!

With my new companion Elder Alvarenga in the mission home

Week 53 Villa Bonita

Hey guys,

I don´t have hardly any time to write today because I went to Guaymas to renew my visa, and that took up the majority of the day.  It was like 2 and a half hours in bus.  So I´m just gonna put the highlights of the week.  It was a nice change of scenery.   We saw the ocean! I pulled out my camera, but by the time I had it out we couldn't see the ocean anymore. There are a lot of cool desert hills/plateaus covered in cactus. 

Andrea got baptized. This time the water wasn't freezing cold, actually it was almost too hot. Also, her son told her where she was supposed to enter the font, and she thought he meant in that moment. So when we were going to start the baptismal service, she was already in the font, just barely above the ankles though so it wasn't too bad.

We had splits this week, so one day I spent with Elder Morrison in his area, which is the center of Obregón, where all the stores are. It´s a tough area, but we had a lot of success.

During the whole week, we had a lot of success. We had 11 lessons with members present. And the whole district in total had 36 new investigators, which is amazing. My district is doing an amazing job and we´re going to have a lot of baptisms soon. We personally are going to have a 3 or 4 week break without baptisms because we don´t have any planning soon.

I´m really running out of time now. I´ll leave it at this. Have a good week everybody. Congratulations Bryer on your mission call. Suerte amigo, sé que puedes ser un misionero bien suave si te esfuerzas. Toma la iniciativa, sigue el espíritu y vas a ser un buen líder. 

I love you guys!

Week 52 Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year!  

2016 started off with two baptisms: Ivan and Abraham. Abraham is Genesis´s older brother, if you remember who is Genesis, she is the little girl who was crying in the cold water as I baptized her. 

Abraham was actually baptized 7 years ago but was never confirmed, and there is no record of his baptism, so we did it again. Abraham was only here on vacation, but that doesn´t matter to us, we taught him extremely quickly and got him baptized. He´s already back in Mexicali where he lives. I´m gonna keep in contact with him through his mom to make sure he is actually going to church.

Ivan is a really smart kid. His mom is actually an inactive member, so that made it a little bit easier to baptize him. His dad didn´t support his baptism very much. He says that he is catholic, but his Ivan´s mom claims he is atheist. His mom got us permission from his dad to baptize Ivan, but Thursday (2 days after the baptism) we went to visit Ivan in his dad´s house. It was the first time that we had seen his dad. He opened the door and said "His mom gave him permission, not me. If you want to see Ivan, it has to be in his mom´s house, because this house is catholic, goodbye" Then he slammed the door in our face. We hadn´t even said a word. We also had brought Ivan´s friend with us to the lesson. I have been rejected before, but that was actually the first time that someone has actually slammed a door in my face and it was our recent convert´s dad.

When we saw Ivan at Church yesterday for his confirmation the first thing he said to us was "I told you guys not to go to my dad´s house on Thursdays" Ivan is such a good kid. He actually bore his testimony the day of his confirmation. The world really isn´t fair, how an extremely good kid can get stuck with 2 horrible parents is something I don´t understand. I´m just glad I got put with 2 amazing parents.

Tomorrow we´re going to have another baptism. We are going to baptize Orlando´s mom Andrea. We already had her interview and she is extremely ready. She is a single mom of three kids, and one grandkid, and she struggles a lot to get by. She doesn´t even have a fridge in her house. She worked herself to death to try to buy a few things for her kids for Christmas. When we taught her about the Sabbath Day, she said that she would stop working on Sunday even though her job is to make food for parties and the majority of parties happen on Sunday. She also used to drink 5 cups of coffee a day and she quit the day we taught her the word of wisdom. She knows that through her great sacrifices, that she will be greatly blessed. I have never met someone with so much faith.

I can´t believe that we are in 2016 and at the end of this year I will be with my family. My goal is to have at least one baptism in every month of this year. I already have baptisms for 6 months in a row. I have seen a lot of miracles in 2015 and 2016 will be much better, now that I actually know what I´m doing, jaja. I want to wish you all a happy new year, and I hope that you all experience changes in this new year that will make you happier. I love you guys a ton.

-Elder Steele

We had two more baptisms this week. Here´s some of the pictures

The two that got baptized are Abraham (15-year old) and Ivan (11 years old.) 

The guy that baptized them is Arturo Bahena. 

Ivan and his family at his baptism

Arturo Bahena and his wife and kids are in the pictures with Ivan and his family 

 The baptism of Abraham

 Abraham and his family

Abraham´s sister is Genesis, the little girl we baptized a little while ago.

We had a zone meeting and this is the majority of our zone.

Today we went bowling as a zone because our zone had the most
baptisms this month (just 10, which is sad)
We brought our friend Moroni Bahena with us, 
because he has helped us get a lot of our baptisms.
After bowling we ate fish tacos, then we bought our food at Walmart.
 And now we are here.

I had the best score on our team, but from the whole zone, 
I think our team did the worst. 
It was really fun though. I haven´t gone bowling in a long time.