Greenie coming

Hola Familia!!

This week was a little bit hard. Everything was going all good, we interviewed Itzel for her baptism and she passed and felt ready and everything, and so we were going to baptized her sunday after church. We went to her house to bring her to church on sunday, and she came out in sweats and a t-shirt and we were like oh no somethings wrong. She told us that she had some news and that she wasnt going to get baptized. She said that she didnt have the desire yet and that she didnt feel prepared. She said that we had taught her everything well but she didnt want to do it yet. Lots of times the people here are scared because its a big decision and they dont want to mess up after being baptized, so we tried to help her and find her doubts and everything but she didnt want to do it. She ended up coming to church with us and our mission leader gave a crazy powerful class on faith and we invited her right there to be baptized after church but she has doubts that she hasnt told us and didnt want to do it yet. So we are going to pass by this week and see what we can do to help her.

The picture is of a baptism from 2 of the Elders in our district. This lady is really neat and her name is Pilar. Her whole family had gotten baptized but she didnt want to yet, she had some problems and doubts. Elder Espinosa had been teaching her forever but they divided the area and the other misionaries started to come. They put a bunch of dates with her but they have all fallen through for one reason or another. But she finally got baptized on friday, she wanted Elder Espinosa to baptize her because he had taught her for so long, so we got to go to the baptism. It was really special because it had been a team effort with everyone, Elder Espinosa and I had both taught her a bunch on divisions and stuff and I had to do two interviews with her for some problems that she was having, but she finally made the decision and it was really special with her family there and everything.

So I have some crazy news! This week we have changes, and I am going to train a new misionary!! I´m sooooooooooooooooooo excited!! I´m going to stay here in this area and still be district leader, but I´m going to get a brand new missionary as a companion!! I still don´t know if he´s going to be American or mexican or from central america, but I do know that Im really really excited. Im so greateful for this chance that I get, it really is an oportunity really sacred, and I´m really nervous but greatful because everytime I start getting comfortable with something the Lord changes something up so I have to learn and improve as a missionary. Elder Espinosa is going to Veracruz to be a district leader, we have enjoyed our time together. We are going to Veracruz tomorrow to pick up the news and do changes and everything.

The other thing is that they changed the district up. Hermanas are going to arrive in one of the wards, and it is only going to be them and my companion and I in the district. The other two companionships of Elders are going to be a separate district. Its going to be really different but im excited because the Hermanas are all amazing and they work really hard.

To answer some questions

1. What is the funniest thing that happened to you this week?

That I´m always soooooooo cold in the mornings! We shower with cold water and I always have to wrap myself in a blanket in the morning, and my MEXICAN companion makes fun of me because hes not cold. And i bought my first pillow that ive had in all of my mission, haha

2. What is the weirdest thing you ate?

A sucker with chile powder

3. What are the houses like in your area? Is your area poor or middle classish? (Your apt looks pretty nice from the pix)

The houses are all middle classish , a little different than my other area. We live above an Hermana in the ward, and the house is sweet!!

4. Do you mostly walk in this area or do you take taxis or buses? Are the buses there crazy where every seat is full and then they pack you in like sardines with standing room only so that it takes you 30 minutes to make your way to the front when you need to get off if you're in the back?)

We walk alot but we also take taxi, because with interviews and stuff we are short on time sometimes, so we have to hurry. The busses usually aren{t too packed but there have been a couple of times where we had to stand.

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!! Thank you for the emails and the prayers!!!

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond

Pictures Oct 1 and 8, 2012

Conference in Spanish

Que dice familia!!

Wow what a great conference!! We watched it from the chapel in one of the areas in the district. We didnt have an english room this time but it didnt matter because I could understand it all in spanish this time. We watched the priesthoold session in english because we had to go to a different chapel and they had it all set up there. I have to say its better in English, haha, because you can hear they voices and everything. I loved Elder Nelson´s talk, ask the misioneries, they can help you. Haha that was such a great talk. Also I loved the announcement about the misioneries. I totally agree that lots of the guys get lost in that year after high school and before the mission, and Im so excited for the young women who all want to serve, they will help the work progress so much faster! It´s going to get crazy pretty soon! I also liked both of President Uchdorf´s talks and there was one about 5 things that we can do in the sacrament that I liked too. Also, it was cool because Elder Scott speaks spanish and so beforehand, he recorded himself reading the talk in spanish and they put that in the conference Instead of someone translating, it was really neat.

We only had one investigator come to the conference. He loved it but we were kinda bummed that no one else came. We are teaching almost only references right now and we assigned all the members to pass by for the references and investigators. Half of the members that we had assigned didnt even show up...haha if the members dont come, the investigators arent gonna come either. We were kinda frustrated, we have yet to check with everyone to see what happened. But all of our converts were in the conference and loved it, that was really special. And a lady that we are teaching (Maria) watched it from her house with her husband who is a member, so that is good and we are going to visit her todayand see how she liked it. We had two baptism dates for this week, Maria and Itzel, both are 20 years old and have at least one familiy member who is a member of the church. We werent able to baptize them this week becuase they were really busy with school and everything and we werent able to teach them very much this week. But they both have dates this week and we are going to focus alot in their answer to the Book of Mormon. Pray for them so they can get answers! They´re really good, Itzel is trying to stop drinking coffee and had a headache today when we went to visit her in the morning, but we gave her a blessing and that is going to help her alot.

This week we have changes! Elder Espinosa has been in this area for almost 6 months and so we are almost sure that he is leaving. This change will be interesting because we are getting 25 new missioneries, and there are already a ton in the process being trained right now. Alot of us feel like we are going to be training this change, but we will see what happens. I have been adjusting alot to new things in the mission and some problems in the district. We have basically stopped knocking on doors completely and we are totally focused in working with the members. It has been I little hard because we cant always get the references we need, we have to be really patient and try to be creative in the activites and things we do to find new people to teach. I am really trying to rely onthe Lord alot and ask for his guidance for how we can have even more sucess here in the area and in the district.

the pictures are of my companion and I with some friends after the conference, the one of me in the blanket is in the morning when I was really cold. I have completely adjusted to the Mexican sun and weather and it has been a little colder here in the mornings, nothing compared to Utah but I have been a little cold in the mornings, haha. Im going to die when I get back in December. And the other picture is of the zone...We were trying to take pictures of the zone in baptismal clothing with the timers on our cameras, and we had everything all set up, but every time we set the timers everyone started jumping on eachother and trying to get in the front to make the best pose/face posible. We took about 5 and they all turned out like these. We may be missioneries but we still have little kids inside, haha.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the conference, I feel so greateful for all the messages and I feel alot closer to my Heavenly Father. I know that the key now is to apply everything! And we can start today, we should never wait to apply the consels and words of the apostles and profets. I know that as we put what we learned in to action we will be better people and have more happiness in our lives, and be able to touch the lives of other people!

Les amo mucho, a cada uno de ustedes!!

Elder Eastmond

Tough Week

Hola familia!

It was a tough week this week. We had alot of roadblocks and challenges but we worked hard. We had a zone conference with President, his wife, and the assistents, it was soooooo good. We learned alot about references and how we can be more effective with the members. We learned a ton of great stuff and we are excited to apply everthing these coming weeks.

We did all we could to help Jorgina and Francisco get baptized this week but they decided they didnt want to do it. Francisco didnt want to get married and says that he wants to wait because it is hard for him right now that he has cancer. It was hard because we tried to help him understand that making this covenant with the Lord would help him in his trials, but he wasnt seeing it. We taught them one day and we were going to pass by the day after but when we got there, there were kids runnig around out side, and they saw us and ran into the house and then came back out and told us that Francisco had left... but Elder Espinosa saw Francisco close the door. Kinda sad but maybe in the future he will be more prepared to accept the missionaries again.

To answer some of dad´s questions : Yes I now dream in spanish, in fact I have been dreaming in spanish for a while... haha I hardly ever dream but when I do it´s in Spanish. And yes I´m to the point where I can say anything I want, it´s pretty fun :)

I do alot of interviews because the district is awesome and they are teaching and baptizing alot of people. The average has been about 3 per week. Its true dad, the interviews are really special, it´s really neat to be able to talk to the investigadors about the changes they have seen in their lives and see how excited they are to be baptized. The interviews in Huatusco are an hour and a half away from our area so we have gotten home pretty late some of these days, haha.

For district class we have a book that helps us prepare weekly classes with scriptures and quotes from Preach my Gospel. We also talk about what we are doing well, what we can do to improve as a district, and we talk about the investigators that we are teaching and their challenges that they have. Then we do an hour of practices in different teaching situations.

The new program that President organized is working great! We have received a bunch of references, to the point where the members have set up appointments for us and we go to the houses with them. Close to all of our investigators right now are references from the members.

The most delicious food I have eaten... hmmmm that´s a tough one. Probably the cow stomach... haha no there are these taquitos that they do here, they put meat in a tortilla, roll it up and fry it, and then put salsa and lettuce on it. Tostados are good too, I dunno I absolutely love all of the food here!

This week we have a goal to baptize 3 people. All of them are referencias and they have been coming to church. One of them is the wife of an ex misionary (Maria), the other is the wife of a member less active (Nilley), and the other is the daugther of a member less active (Itzel). They are all really great, we are focusing alot in receiving an answer about the Book of Mormon, they all have told us that it they get answers this week they will get baptized conference weekend. Nillely, we have to help her get married, she told us yesterday that she is going to talk to her husband (technically her boyfriend) so they can decide what to do. We are really excited for these people, they are all really neat and we have had some special lessons with them. We are going to be praying really really hard this week so they can get answers to their prayers.

The pictures are from today, we climbed a mountain here in Orizaba, it was way cool and a little bit cold at the top, it felt really good, haha. Good to here that you´re all enjoying yourselves back home!! I got my birthday package and I absolutely love the ties!!! They are so cool, and the pictures are all colored so perfectely inside the lines, haha well done family! Tell camile thank you for the 20 bucks!!

Have a great week!!

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond

"I have twenty years"

Tengo veinte años!!

Haha I feel really old! We had a another great week, and the best was that I got a sweet present for my birthday...we baptized Griselda!!! Best birthday present ever! Griselda is really really special. She was a reference from a hermano and does everything on her own. She shows up to church and reads alot from the Book of Mormon without us having to ask her. We did the baptism at 8 in the morning on saturday, it was really early but a ton of members showed up and it was really spiritual. Griselda had a bunch of stuff to do this weekend but she was super ready to get baptized, so we had the baptismal service at 8 in the morning. She lives in a little town called Yanga, where we have the family group because it is too small to be a branch. She is going to be a strong member of the church, she has a lot of faith in her Heavenly Father and is willing to do what he asks of her.

This birthday was really really special. I woke up and didn´t even remember until I changed the Argyle Sweater calender that mom sent me and thought, hey, I turn 20 today! It rained for 5 hours straight that day and we were walking in the rain alot, we got home absolutely soaked to the bone and freezing cold, but I was just happy as could be because we had a pretty good day and I dunno, I was just happy to be a missionary on my birthday. :) I thanked my Heavenly Father for letting me grow up in an amazing family with good parents so I had the chance to serve a mission.

So mom, the truth is I don´t really know what´s wrong with the sentences that I wrote...the english is getting worse and worse, haha. The other day we went to do an interview and while we were walking to the house with two other Elders from our district, this big group came up to us, like 10 from mexico with one american lady leading the pack. They came up to us and started speaking to us in English, and the american lady told us that she was their teacher and they were learning English. They spoke pretty good, but I was finding it really really hard to talk to the lady in English, (Elder Westhoff too, he´s from St. George.) Haha we had a fun converstion with all of them, talking about what we do as misionaries and the lady was telling us that it was good for her students to hear native speakers, so we talked to them all for a while. But we are so used to talking about the gospel in spanish, that we almost having to translate everything from spanish back to english, haha it was great. The best part was that Elder Westhoff wrote down a bunch of the adresses and is going to try to visit all of them.

So there is a new program that President Treviño has explained to the members where they are going to give us 12 references every week. So this week in church the bishop gave us an hour after sacrament meeting and we taught the members how to share pamphlets with their friends and then set up an apointment when they can bring us to talk to their friends. My companion and I showed them good example and bad examples, and the members were laughing and really into everything. Everyone was super excited and we had them do a couple of practices, and then at the end we did an activity to get references and got like 15. And in Yanga during the week, the ward organized a movie night and we watched the Testaments, and talked about how Jesus came to America. We had 10 people come who weren´t members, (a bunch of them are super interested in the church) and we wrote down their directions and everything so we are going to visit them all this week. I am super excited because we have a lot of work to do and it is all going to be through the members.

This week we are going to baptized Francisco and Jorgina. They are living together but aren´t married, so we are going to help them get married this week and do the baptism afterwards. Francisco has cancer and is going through treatments. They are really special and want to get married in the temple a year after their baptism. We are praying and fasting alot that everything can work out for them this week, and that Francisco can respond well to all his treatments and everything. They will apreciate all the prayers that you can sen them this week!!

 

This week we are going to have a zone conference with president and his wife, we are all really excited for that! The pictures are of the baptism and some pictures that we took after a counsel of leaders that we had sunday after church. We have a crazy group of misioneries in the zone as you can tell, its really fun here in this area.

I love you all sooooo much!! thank you for the birthday wishes and for your prayers!!!

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond

"Drinken coffee"

Que dice famila??

Another great week! The mission is so perfect, I just have to say. I feel so focused in the work, more and more every day. Especially with the new calling of District Leader becuase I´m not only thinking about what is happening in our area but in the other areas too, it´s great.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, because Lucrecia was able to get baptized this week!!! Woooo! She is such a great convert, she will be in the church with her grandaughter every week without fail. It was a rough week for her though, haha. We taught her on Tuesday and she had the worst headache. She has drinken coffee ("Drinken coffee??" Really? Ok, this is Tyler's mother-- just want everyone to know that I taught him gooder grammer than that. Honestly.) her entire life so it was really hard for her to leave it. She even had to go to the doctor on Wednesday, only two days after leaving coffee, because she felt a ton of pressure and her body wasn´t responding very well to the change. So we gave her a blessing on Wednesday and also a specific chapter of scripture every day until Saturday so when she felt like she wanted to drink coffee, she could read the chapter and pray for the strength to break her adiction. She did it and was just excited as can be to be baptized on Saturday, it was really really special. I love when our investigators can overcome their challenges with the help of the Lord, they are always so happy and thankful for the power of prayer afterwards.

President Treviño just barely had a meeting with every ward council in the stake and he put in a new plan that is going to help us work more closely with the members and be able to have more sucess in the missionary work here. The ward councils are going to get together every week and get 12 references from the ward and the quorums. They are also going to  make a list of 30 families inactives that we can visit. So basically all of our news are going to come from references and from inactive families, and they are going to be more likely to get baptized and more than anything, reamain active in the  church, because their friends and family will be with them every step of the way. We are really excited to work with the members even more, I love the members here, they are absolutely amazing!

This week we should baptize a lady named Gricelda. She is super special. She showed up to church on her own the first week and has been reading way more from the Book of Mormon than we had asigned her. She is really really smart, really fun to teach. She told a member that she accepted to be baptized and was super excited, and that she can feel through the Book of Mormon and the misioneries that the church is true. We also are teaching a guy named Francisco who has cancer and is going through treatments, he lives with his girlfriend and can´t get baptized until he gets married but they want to get married and join the church and everything, it´s just a hard situacion because he gets kinda sick with the treatments and has a crazy schedule. But we are going to do all that we can this week so they can get married and get baptized either this week or the week after.}

Being District Leader is really fun. I feel alot more intune with the spirit, especially during the Baptismal interviews and in the District Classes. It´s hard sometimes becuase the other missionaries ask for advice and stuff and I feel like I hardley have the experience that some of them do but I just tell them what I have seen work so far on my mission. I did splits with Elder Castro on Friday. He is from the Domincan Repulic and has three months on the mission. it was really cool. I love the experiences that we have associating with other Elders from all around the world, it´s great. (another elder in the district is from Honduras) But we did splits and we hadn´t really known eachother that well before, but after divisions we had a sweet day and he was all excited about all the stuff we had done. We are super good friends now and he is always joking around with me and stuff. I have gotten to know everyone in the district alot better lately and we have alot of unity.

I still haven´t gotten the package yet but I am excited and I will let you know when it comes, thank you!! And mom, I have new shoes don´t worry, I got some blisters trying to break them in but now they´re comfortable and a little bit better than my others, haha.

I love you all sooooooo much!! Thank you for the prayers and emails, I hope you all have a great week!! The BYU UTAH game sounded crazy!! Should have sent someone from mexico to do the field goal, they kick pretty good here.

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond

Pictures Sept 9, 2012