And The Rains Came. . . . .

My comp has 10 days left.  He is working hard and we have had a lot of great lessons.   One investigator in particular is golden. We found her while we were looking for her brother.  She is going for a master’s degree this fall in Chemistry. She loves to read and learn. She takes notes on her reading, has great questions and plans to be baptized in a few weeks.  She had some issues her first week at church when she found that the bishop has to be male.  So, we had to take a whole hour to talk through that one, ha but she is really good humored about it. 

 

 

We have seen a bit of wild life here in Torreon.  One man was playing with a Tarantula on the side of the road. Then a couple days later on the same street we saw a family all peeping out of their door looking at a spot near their house.  I went over to inspect and saw a tiny little snake.  They were terrified and I told them to hand me a broom. They thought the snake would strike if I tried to remove it.  This was not the Mexico I had seen in movies like Zorro.  But we took care of it so all can sleep well.  They are all calm around these hundreds of dogs that wander the streets and make me paranoid. The mutts seem to have a taste for gringos. But, when bugs and other small creatures show up there is  widespread panic.

 

 

 

It only rains here a couple times a year; but when it rains, it pours. Seriously, it was sunny and hot one moment and then grape sized water droplets began to pelt us.  The streets were all completely flooded for two days. There isn’t a good drainage system in place so we had to take huge detours to get anywhere. Also my poor clothes while drying on the wire outside took a beating.  It wasn’t sunny for several days so when they finally dried they smelled horrible.  

 

This is the only kind of mustache I am capable of growing:  

 

 Love you all,

Elder Speen

 

Mole

Detective - "Do we know if the victim is a man or a woman?"

Cluso -  "Well, of course we know that, what else is there, Kittens?"

Torreon things- 

They sell watermellons and cantalope here in the back of trucks. Watermellons for less than a dollar and 3 cantalopes for a dollar.  Nothing like a perfectly chilled watermellon and a spoon at 7 in the morning.  Dad a question for you-  is it bad to eat watermellon seeds?

There is an elder that is identical to jim halpert from the office.  The mexi sioni, well at least his hair.  (i have a picture with him, but my camera is in the house.  soorry.  ha i dont take it with me in my backpack cause i don't want to be robbed.  

I tried gum this week. Char sent me some, and we can't chew it on the streets; but i thought it would be rude to not try a piece. Not bad. Ha Cate will love that.   

One day our house smelled like gram and gramps old dog Kisa.  Or at least his/her breath.

We have been painting for our service quite a bit; three times in the last several weeks.  In return we get food.  =)  a very nice trade . There is really a lot of food in this area.  It is not uncommon to be given 2 or three meals in addition to the one large lunch that is provided by the members. Many times those additional meals consist of ice cream. There were 3 birthdays in homes where we visited and shared a message. This morning that family gave us a big breakfast.  Resistance to the offers is futile, and mostly our resistance is feeble.  They really are so giving here. I just wish I could say the same about the waist band on the pants. Ha, but no worries, when i get sent to the ranches i will need the reserves.    

They had elections here but it doesn't matter who won because everybody here has accepted the fact that the power really is in the hands of Justin Beiber; at least over all teenage girls and an occasional boy. Really though.  In Roma one girl wouldn't come listen to a lesson because she had to listen to his album.  And in this area we walked into a battleground as we visited a family.  The mom had spent much needed money to attend an upcoming concert with her daughter.  Those tickets are not cheap.  The daughter wouldn't come out of the room and we found out it was because the seats werent close enough.  We really do have it so rough being teenagers.  

I had exchanges this week with an Elder Nunez.  He was in the MTC with Meg and is from the D.R.  He has 15 siblings!  He is new and excited about learning english so we had a really good time practicing throughout the day. Every single one of our lessons fell through that day; which never happens in that area.  I don't get discouraged by this as I remember hearing that an Elder in Ireland taught 1 lesson in his first year. rough.  But while I was with Elder Nunes we were knocking on a door when we heard,  "no esta."  We looked over and saw a man pocking his head out of the neighbor apartment. We went over and talked to this man and it turns out that he lived in Idaho for six years.  He had talked to the missionaries and wanted to know more, but had to come back here and didnt know how to find out more. He was quite interested. Elder Nunez told me that he went to church yesturday. Quite a diamond in the rough of failed plans.     

We are now settled in the area and had some real progress this week.  It changes your whole day when you feel the spirit during a lesson.  It is like an old friend or family member coming and putting their arm on your shoulders. In that moment you stop worrying if the lesson is going in the right direction and you just talk comfortably about the truths that you love. We can't force the same spririt on the investigator, but it always seems that when I begin to feel it they seem to relax and drop their defenses. There is one lesson in particular that stands out. While we were in Roma, Elder Poblete and I had contacted the Rodrigues family on one of our outings to the University area.  The parents were Jesus and Maria Magdalyn (those are really their names). They were instantly interested and baptised within the month.  This week we went by to try to teach their sons who previously didn't want to participate. They accepted the appointment and last night on a second lesson we had a family night with them. Jesus had recieved the priesthood during church and officiated the noche hogar like a pro.  They had a lot of questions specifically aimed at the Book of Mormon, so we read the first chapter and intro with them.  The boys were excited and accepted our challenge to read the book as well as prepare for baptism. 

For dinner after the lesson we had Molle. For Molle they take stringed pork and add a chocolate sauce. =). Well done Mexico. Well done; making greasy deliciousness more greasy and delicious. We had already had hamburgers and fries for lunch.

They always make fun of Americans here for eating pizza, hot dogs, grilled chicken, and hamburgers for every meal. Ha hmmm. During lunch with the bishop and his family, his brother-in-law started playing a tune. He asked me if I knew it. I had to admit that I didn't know the tune. It was the Mexican National Anthem.  They were shocked and asked if I didn't remember it from the Olympics?  I said "hmm...nope.. it seems that all I seem to hear during those ceremonies is the star spangled banner."  and started to hum it with hand over heart.   ha  They all laughed.   

More Pictures Than Words

I apologize that I have more pictures than words today.

I just looked at all the Italy pics! It would have been fun to be there with you. Congrats to Will on going to the Temple today. He is an incredible spirit.

Previously we couldn’t go into our area without a member but now we are free to serve as our feet desire.  There are certain areas that are to be avoided at certain hours but the rest is great.  The only real danger is the hundreds of stray mutts with rabies and fleas strewn about them.   This area is poorer which results in more slang and slurred speech so the Spanish is harder to understand. 

In my last area there was a family that I got pretty close to. They have a son and daughter that are in Utah right now. They had some visa probs and need to fly to Texas. They are going to call you this week to ask about the airline.  Also the parents are going to Utah at the end of July and wondered if they could stop by and say hi.      

Dad asked about the temperature.  It is low to mid 90’s. It is cloudy today and I don’t think we have much humidity. But we did have three minutes of rain.

 

 

I want you to know that I love the missionary work here and I wish so badly that I had let the gospel really soak into me before I came out here. I didn’t do that as much as I should have but all I can do is press forward and be better. I love reading the talks that you sent me. I wish I knew this stuff before I came out here.  But, that isn’t how it works. It is interesting how our perception of life can get twisted. I feel like I have been blessed to progress rapidly with the Spanish and I feel good about the fact that we have worked really hard in our area. I am fortunate that they changed the mission age so that I could get out here.

 

Sorry for the short note but I really have to go. Thanks so much for everything.  

Love you,

Elder Speen

 

 

 

 

 

The University

We had 3 baptisms on my birthday.  One of these was the daughter of the family that I thought would never fully commit. We had spent a lot of time with them and it was so great to see her in white. The other two were from the new area. We showed up by a reference and taught for 15 minutes then needed to leave.  We asked when we could return, they said "well tomorrow." Ha -  baptized 3 weeks later. Talk about being ready.  Here is a problem, the zipper on the baptism onezey doesn’t work, so we have resulted to stapling and other such methods. 

 

I haven’t been sick at all. I’ve been completely healthy - so give Tagge my thanks for the tonsils.

I think I Gained 10 pounds this week. The people here found out it were my birthday and I was showered with ice cream and cake for three days.  Today was the end of my time training with Elder Poblete.   We would spend three hours on 2 days of the week in an adjacent area that has been closed for a year because there was some trouble there in the past. We weren’t allowed to walk to the houses but rather drove with a member.  I am now reopening that area. It is called the University. My companion is Elder Nicolas; a native that is finishing off his mission with me.  I am actually pretty excited for this new area.  4 of our 5 baptisms have been in this area, and we have a pile of references that we didn’t have time previously to visit.  Also our old house was quite an adventure.  We didn’t have water for three days last week and that would happen every other week. The bathroom reeked.  But we found solutions and sources of water to accomplish what was needed. And I did learn quite a bit about piping.  Also it was on the top floor of an apartment which was quite hot after a day of Torreon sun.  Our new house has air conditioning and a great water system.    

I have a ton of pictures from the last couple of weeks but my camera was taken out of my backpack in the move.  The bishop helped us for several hours move.  That man is a saint to us.  On my birthday and one other day this week his family invited us over, then whipped out a big cake and other food. They sang me happy birthday in Spanish then tried in English, then a whole compilation of other Mexican songs and traditions.  The other day he took us to lunch to get some delicious tacos on the side of the street. I talked to him about business for twenty minutes while we ate and it made me miss my dad.  He is going to try to sell his old business and start up a chain of restaurants’.  He has a "help" that knows how to cook like no one else.  So the bishop is going to have Mike the help teach those in the ward without work how to cook then place them as chefs.  The bishop has two sons on the mission now.  One was very rebellious.  The bishop had enough when the son was 18 and sent him to a farm to reform him.  The son was beat up a lot there by other delinquents, but came back different.       

Thanks so much for the packages. That it really makes the week.   Thanks to Chari for her package.   I got to give the zone leaders some treats for helping me move, and it was fun to see elder Tec, a tiny little native whose eyes get wide with anticipation when he sees sugar (or really any other food), smile with a mouthful.  Really he downs it. ha

 

Impossible is Nothing

"You can do it Brucy"  - Matilda  (so classic)

This week we talked to a Hermana for a little about why she was inactive. She said we just felt so much pressure. She repeated that a few times, so we asked "pressure to do what?" She said

"we don’t have time, and they want us to spend time we don’t have reading the bible and stuff and going to church. We don’t have time." (they had the television on). So we responded that the books and church are for us to grow and be better. The pressure is out of love and knowledge of the happiness it gives us. She repeated "we don’t have time." So I said: "You don’t have time for God?" She wasn't budging.

When people try to get rid of us, the line they use the most is "I am another religion." It turns out most don’t really go to church and they prefer churches that are more hands off so that they can really do whatever they want. I really like this distinction where we are expected to give it all to become so much more.

Elder ´Poblete likes to quote Elder Holland’s: "salvation is not a cheap expérience" in English with Elder Holland’s emphasis. He also likes to say: "impossible is nothing" which is a Nike quote.   This week he accidently mixed them and said: "Salvation is Nothing!"   haha then said wait, no. . .   ha I was dying. It’s such a good time to be comps with the Hispanics - especially this guy. 

When people give me a photo to look at of their family here or at home, I usually look at it for a few seconds then say something nice. The people here are much kinder than that. When I give them a picture of my family they stare intently at it for 3-5 minutes then ask in depth questions and memorize the names. (I try not to crack up during their study). It’s incredible. I have some work to do on that front.

There are tons of birds here. What a couch potato the telephone wire has made out of those birds. Do you think that they are receiving some of the messages that are passing through the wire?  Maybe birds are gossipy and totally in on all the juicy info.  Just a thought.

We were driving one day in the other area with a member and I looked out the window and a tiger was 3-4 feet from me. It was in a cage. The circus was apparently in town. I still almost had a heart attack.

I got to go but love you all.

 

Speen

Elder Holland

Quote: "You done been shrunk. Quiet down fish"   (Vector - Despicable Me)  

 

I might have used that quote already but I crack up every time I think of Cate quoting it, soo I’ll probably use it again.

This week I saw the Mexican version of the SNL Obama, Potipher from the Donny Osmond version of Joseph, and the guy from Star Wars that starts to cry after Luke kills the giant beast in Jabba’s palace. At one time I knew the name of that beast. I also saw a version of Eric Lehnardt, but he was ten years younger and wearing some pretty retro clothes. 

Another fun Torreon thing is that we have seen several boats parked outside of people’s houses? What in the world? Where are you going to use that? The closest lake is called the Atlantic Ocean.  

We have been running a loop around the University by our house. There is a security guard at one point there to "keep the peace." There are hundreds of military personnel constantly in trucks on alert here. This security guard is 85 years old, in a lawn chair with a baton, and we often see him napping. I can’t wait for someone to start making trouble and see this guy fly out of his chair and go Rambo on them. Maybe I have too much time to think while we walk, or a little too much sunlight.  Speaking of which - Meish is getting a little hot there?  i don’t know what the effects of the humidity are there, but check out my ten day vs hers. But all is good. I have more trees to use for shade than she does - - - - not.

 

• Torreon Average Temp: 99 degrees
• Naga Average Temp: 91 degrees
• D.R. Average Temp: 86 degrees

Thanks a billion for the package. You guys know me: mints, talks, cereal, and chocolate. I almost started to sing to my comp "these are a few of my favorite things."

Elder Holland came and we had a meeting with just the missionaries on Saturday and a tri-Stake meeting later that day. In anticipation for this my comp spent the days before saying to me "Do you love me" trying to replicate Elder Hollands talk about the apostles returning to fishing. He was incredibly stoked to hear an apostle.  It was perfect because many of our investigators went.   He spoke of the tenderness of the experience when Christ visited the Nephites and the importance of baptism (perfect right). We will see the result this week.  He spoke a little of his talk in Spanish; a pretty stellar minute actually. But he had a very thick MTC accent. At the end of his talk on Saturday, after hitting the podium a few times and just blowing us away with the spirit, he used this great catch phrase "....and if you think you have it hard here on your mission, Welcome the work!" Now my comp and I have a thing between us that when one pretends to be all tired or says the sun is hot, we look each other in the eyes and say: "beinvenidos a la obra!" It was a great weekend.

Take care.

Elder Speen

New Apartment

 

"We got no food, we got no money, and our pets’ heads are falling off!"  

-          Loyd Christmas (Dumb and Dumber)   

This week we moved into a new house that was not previously used by missionaries. We had to buy all of the supplies and we didn’t have time to go to the mission office to get reimbursed. So, we went for a few days with no food or money and we don’t have pets, but

I have seen plenty of animals on the side of the streets whose heads have fallen off.  

I met the Mexican version of Hannah Jenkins this week (exact same person). She was way cool but it was blowing my mind the entire conversation. Also, I saw the Mexican Colonel Sanders. 

 

We got together with our zone this week and the other Elders in the zone were all awkward around the new Hermanas.  Ha

I also learned that Mexicans like their pizzas with ketchup. ha wha?   And I don’t mean a little bit of ketchup.

The gospel gets truer every week. My ignorance seems to grow the more I study (It is actually pretty fun to find out how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know).  

 

There is a Hermana here that has been surrounded by drugs, death, and a rebellious extended family. Everyone around her except her little boy has been involved in bad stuff. Through all of this she found the gospel and she is one of the greatest Saints I know. We had lunch with her this week and I asked her if we could help with her yard. She speaks decent broken English and got all excited to have our help. I am excited to help her. 

 

 

I have a picture of our family and some of the other missionaries (all under five feet tall) were playing eni-meeny-mini-mo to determine which of my sisters there were going to marry.