More Great Food!

December 5, 2016
    The weeks are just flying by.  Two more weeks and it will be Christmas which is the last day of my training!  Today was a pretty normal day. I have my morning meal plan down to a science so that every week I go shopping for the same things.  We eat something different for lunch every day so that is enough variety for me.  We made the chocolate chip cookies that Mom sent to me at our family home evening lesson  and they were so dang good!  One thing is for sure, I am eating well on my mission and it shows. I have gained about 10 pounds so far. 

December 6, 2016
    Today was good, bout our member bailed on us so we couldn’t really teach lessons.  We still went with a bunch of other people to teach.  One of them is this really nice guy but he has a lack of faith and feel like God has never given him and answer to prayers.  He tells us that he barely ever prays in his life because he lacks faith in prayer.  We are trying to explain that everything in the gospel revolves around having and developing faith in Christ, but for him it is difficult.

 December 7, 2016
    This week is already so much better than last week. It was really funny though.  We had a bunch of great plans for the morning and  member with a car to drive us around. But, none of our appointments were home so we ended up just contacting.  We only contacted one person actually because he was just so interesting that he talked to us until we had to leave for lunch.  We have plans to go back and teach him.  The rest of the day we just taught. It seems like is harder every day to have a member with us in all of our appointments, but that is pretty much our only major difficulty.  We only have one or two investigators that are progressing so that is hard.  We have quite a few new investigators but they aren’t really progressing and as hard as we try to testify and teach, they just don't listen with they hears.  At least some them don’t. I am learning that you just have to have an incredible amount of faith that God will put people in your path that are ready to listen.  Without faith, the work is going to be depressing and very hard, and you won’t have a desire to talk with people and share the gospel.  FAITH.

 December 8, 2016
    Today was cool.  We are always making plans that we actually could do and would be super successful, but things never go according to plan.  We only had one lesson turn out and it was super weird because she was running a shop at the same time and there were constant interruptions. Then we went and contacted a reference that we had.  He was interested and asked if we could come back tomorrow. NO ONE ever says that to us.  So we will see how that turns out tomorrow.  

December 9, 2016
    The work is almost impossible in this mission without a member.  We literally are not allowed to teach one of the 5 lessons without a member.  We just walked all morning without teaching a thing except for sharing couple of scriptures.  Though lunch was AMAZING with the best shrimp I have ever has and some sort of breaded fish  It was just super good.  

     We had a lesson with a new investigator that was super weird. We couldn’t go into his house and it was so noisy in the street that we couldn’t even hear each other.  There was a group of drunk guys basically partying, tons of cars going up and down the street, and a guy lifting weights in the back of his pickup.  Yeah, it was super distracting.  Also one car was sitting int he driveway revving the engine and blaring music for no reason.  Needless to say, I practically couldn’t focus at all.  That and the guy we were teaching talks really fast and the few things that I could understand really didn’t help me to teach.  It is amazing how little things can drive the Spirit away, well big things too, but the small things that you wouldn’t think would matter, do matter and can change an entire lesson.

December 10, 2016
    Another morning of nothing but walking.  I am starting to just really not like the mornings. It didn’t help that we didn’t talk about things that we should have while walking from place to place.  Not bad things, but not missionary topics.  It’s weird.  President Larson said that if you are not exactly obedient, then you are not going to feel good about your work or lack or success.  Your obedience might not change the way that your day turns out, but it will change the way you feel about your day.  

    We had one lesson with a new investigator and an amazing steak lunch with baked potatoes!  It was an American restaurant with the exception that there was salsa and guacamole. 
    The ward Christmas parts was tonight.  Possibly the worst organized church party that I have ever been to.  I got a call today to ask me to play the piano.  Unfortunately my Spanish still sucks so I didn’t understand that they wanted me to play the music as a solo so I didn't bring any of my own music.  I ended up just playing Christmas hymns and it was pretty crappy actually.  Later on in the program, some youth did a really sketchy dance that I just had to stop watching…
     Also waiting for buses sucks sometimes.

December 11, 2016
    Well today was interesting.  We left the house early to bring someone to church with which was cool except we had a bit of a run in with the investigators Dad later that day.  Other than that, not much happened.  We had another choir practice today but the zone leaders go the message from President that we had to return home early because it is the day before “The Day of the Virgin.”  I guess that people party hard in Mexico on the night before “The Day of the Virgin.”

Important life skills that you think you will never use and then you do!  Chicken catching was a skill that my sister, Taylor, taught me a few years back when she had her own chickens during college.