Week 34 Castillo Obregón

Hey everybody! 
This week was quite a week. I had my first official baptism on Tuesday. I say "official" because last week one of my investigators from Ahome was baptized. This baptism counts in the books for me. His name is Saul and his best friend brought him to church for the first time and we taught him from there. It´s always better when the members help the work. All the members are still super motivated to split the ward and with each baptism the excitement for missionary work increases here.

Other than the baptism, this week was a lot of walking around in the intense heat looking for people to teach. We honestly didn´t have very many lessons this week because we let go of investigators very quickly if they don´t progress. There are always those ready to accept the gospel, we just need to find them, and we won´t ever find them if we are teaching eternal investigators.

This week was probably the hottest that we´ve experienced, and hopefully that the heat will go away soon. Right now it´s raining, so that is a good sign. My comp is dying a little bit I think (losing motivation to work in anticipation to go home). It seems we make plans every day, and when we go to those people´s houses, they either aren´t home or refuse to open the door, and it´s frustrating my comp a little bit. I just need to take the lead more and help my comp out a little bit.

A funny thing happened this week. We were at a house knocking on the door and nobody answered for a long time. My comp then knocked in a different way and a man quickly opened the door looking angry. We thought "huh." Well, at least he opened the door. The same thing happened at another house when my comp knocked in the same way. We then asked one of our Mexican companions, and he told us that the special knock is a really bad insult. We didn´t know, but I thought that it was funny that there is a way to insult someone just by the way that you knock on their door.

Another crazy thing happened this week. We walked in our house one night to find that there were a ton a black widows all over. Not gonna lie, I was super scared. I had no idea what to do because there were webs literally all over the place with little baby ones crawling too. We went to work carefully killing all of the big ones with our shoes and I sprayed bug spray on the webs were all the baby ones were. We then went to the store and bought Raid to spray all over the house and to kill the ones that were hidden under tables and such. That was fun... I couldn´t sleep without imagining black widows crawling on me and biting me. But that´s over now, I´m over that fear now.

That´s the week. It was pretty interesting. Also, I am exactly one third of the way through the mission already. Here´s is a picture from the baptism that happened on Tuesday.

-Elder Steele

This week was a quite the week. My first official baptism, which went really well. 

You asked if it was finally cooling down, I think summer is saying goodbye with a vengeance because it was the hottest week I think of the whole mission so far.  

 

And I experienced a lot of arachnophobia. 

You guys have no idea how many black widows I have killed this week in our house. I can´t sleep without feeling like a black widow is crawling on me. I took a picture of the first 2 that I saw, 

but there were more than 15 huge black widows, and a few of them had babies.

Week 33 Castillo Obregón

Hey everybody.

This week was really good. We had stake conference and I directed the stake conference choir. It was pretty awesome, and they sounded great. I also had the opportunity to play the piano for one of the songs. We had 3 investigators show up to the conference. One is getting baptized tomorrow! He is super excited, he is even going to seminary, which starts at 5 am here.

In Ahome, the blind lady, Alma, that I found and taught got baptized on Saturday and all the other investigators are close to baptism. I´m glad to know that the people I taught and worked so hard with are actually changing their lives.

Not much else happened in the week. We are working hard to find investigators that will listen to us. We meet a lot of crazy people on a daily basis. Here are some cool pics of tarantulas that we found. 

 We saw these the other night. They are 3 different tarantulas. 

They look pretty dangerous. One tried to bite me as I was throwing rocks at it. 

It lifted up it´s butt in attack position.

To finish this post on a good spiritual note, 

This is the Message I got from Elder Martinez in Ahome. Alma got baptized on Saturday!

Hey men!!

miere nada mas la hermana alma ya se bautiso men!! :3

estuvo bien suave su bautismo casi ni se bautisa la hermana por que sus hijos no la llevaron ala iglesia y tuvimos que ir por ella pero ella bien feliz la hermana, todos los miebros ya le ofrecieron ratie para ir por ella los domingos, los frutos de nuestros esfuerzo men tambien el suyo men por que se las robamos alas hermanas!! jajajaja XD

saludos men!!

Week 32 Castillo Obregón

This has been a very good week, but a very, very hot week. We had two divisions with other Elders in our district and those went really well. In our ward, there were 3 baptisms during this week, which really shows how much success we have. It really is possible to have a baptism every single week here. We have our first baptism scheduled for the 25 of August, and if things go well, it will be a great time. Two youth will be baptized, our investigator, Saul, and another named Dulce.

I have the opportunity again to help play piano for a choir that will be singing in stake conference this Sunday. Yesterday, I was given three songs that I need to practice, and they are a lot more difficult than the average hymn. At least in this choir, the majority actually sing well and it will sound very good with harmonic parts and all. I just hope that I can do my part well so that they we all sound well.

Other than the choir and the baptisms, the rest of the week was about the same. We talked to a bunch of crazy cholos, had a lot of lessons, sweat a ton, and worked really hard. Oh, and we also tried some of the hot dogs and burritos here. I thought they were good in Sinaloa, but here, they are so much better. If you ever have the chance to go to Obregón, try the Mummy Dogo.

Have a good week everybody!

Elder Steele

¡Sea Feliz, Sea Mormón!

Hey guys, the food that they sell here is amazing. 

America invented the Hot Dog, but Mexico perfected it. 

This Hot Dog is called ´´Dogo Embarazado´´ (pregnant hot-dog).

Also, the burritos here are way better than in America.

Week 31 Castillo Obregón

Hey everybody. This week was definately different. Castillo is a lot different than Ahome. The people are a little different. In Ahome, the majority of the people would let you talk to them but here they are a little more closed. There are a ton of cholos here that ask for Book of Mormons. They don´t want to read them, the pages are really good to smoke drugs with apparently. We have met some pretty sketchy people here to say the least.

It has rained pretty much every day since I got here, which is awesome because it hasn´t been that hot, but 15 minutes of rain causes huge puddles all over the streets. Our area is so much smaller than my area in Ahome, in fact, in only a week, I know the area really well.

We do have one ejido, or outside town that we visit also, which I don´t know at all yet. The ejido is called Campo 60. Campo 60 has one branch that we attend on Sundays. We went yesterday, and unfortunately not a single member of that branch went to church. It was pretty sad. We just talked and waited and eventually we went back to Castillo. I hope that it´s rare that that happens. Not even the Branch President showed up.

The Castillo ward is super awesome. Right now, they are super motivated because they want to split the ward. At the rate that they are baptizing, they´ll be able to split the ward in no time. We don´t have a lot of investigators right now, but I got pretty good at finding investigators in Ahome, and we´re increasing our pool of investigators quickly, including some families. We have three sets of Elders here and they are all super awesome and work hard.

Well that´s about it for the week. I hope everybody has a good week back home. Good luck in the first couple days of school. Bye!

There are lots more missionaries here, so we can actually join to play sports on P day now!

Our new zone, Zona Yaqui.  (Jaden's head is the face of the clock)

That's my new house! Without the car though.

Week 30: Last week in Ahome :( New Area, Castillo Obregón

Well, I got transfered after 6 months of being in Ahome. I left my amigo Elder Martinez, and now my companion is Elder Rivas. He is from the Dominican Republic and has about 17 months in the mission. I am in Ciudad Obregón in the Castillo Ward. It just had to be August when I transfer to Obregón. The hottest month of the year.

During the week, nothing super crazy happened. At church, we had even more investigators than last week. At least I left Ahome with them about to have a lot a success. It's a shame that I won't be with them when all those investigators that I helped find get baptized. I will miss Ahome a lot.

Well I don't have a ton a time, and I'm still trying to get accustomed to this area, so I will keep this letter short. Have a good week everybody.

Leaving Elder Martinez in Ahome

 Adios Amigo

Here´s the last picture of the Relief Society district before I left it. haha

More photos of leaving Ahome

Saying goodbye to my companion and sister missionaries

Apparently people think this kid looks like me. 
Normally he has his hair spiked up like mine.

This is the Santos Family they are super cool.

Saying goodbye to Hernandez Family- photo with Teresita and Alex

They were awesome and fed us good

Dog named Morgan, likes to bite

My new companion is Elder Rivas

He is from the Dominican Republic. He seems pretty cool so far. 

I am in the ward El Castillo. Which is in the Yaqui Stake in Ciudad Obregón.

This new area will be good. There were a lot of things in Ahome that caused little stress here and there, but here everything is nicer. The house is smaller, but newer. The fridge works!! The shower is taller. The area is smaller. I don´t have to pay a ton of money for buses all the time. There a way more members so that we don´t have to go to restaurants all the time to eat. We are closer to the offices so we can get supplies and packages faster. The streets all have names and are paved. And we have a keyboard in our house! A lot of little things make the mission a lot easier. I´m gonna miss Ahome a ton though. The challenges there made me better!

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.