the zone looks good

Well this week has been a lot of trying to figure out in who and what to focus in order to strengthen the ward and to baptize at the same time, ensuring that they have fellowshipping and are truly converted. We´re working with a less active named Mauro who honestly seems like leadership material. He knows his stuff, has a strong testimony, and acts like a leader. His family will also be taking the lessons soon as he has been inactive since long before his 3 daughters could get baptized.

Also, Britany, another member of an incomplete family, is planned to be baptized on Saturday. We just have to make sure her dad gets an interview with someone from the bishopric so he can be approved to baptize her. This week we´ll also be going back to the old folks home to do something small. The idea is to keep the members involved and to develop service into a habit and tradition, instead of a one time thing. We`re teaching a couple other families as well that are new...we´ve found them contacting or from references, and they seem really interested. The only downside is that one of them is moving to Mexico City at the beginning of February.

We´re preparing for a conference with a general authority that will be the 26th. There`s a special meeting for zone leaders and then there`s a conference with all the missinoaries in Guadalajara. He`ll also be in stake conference, which I think is this coming Sunday. Should be exciting...I`ll let you know how that goes.

Honestly, the zone looks good, and we`re enjoying the work. Everyone gets along and everyone is working and they`re happy about it. Now we can focus on being more efficient and exercizing our faith in order to keep upping our success, but they`re putting in a good effort. We even got together to play a board game today, and we ate some really spicy tortas ahogadas. Remember the soaked sandwich I told you about? This time the sandwiches were drenched in 100% chile. Yum. Going home, I`ll have to have a spice-off with the relatives.

So that`s basically all there is to mention. We spent all day tuesday in the interviews in the houses, helping them clean their bathrooms and whatnot, but it was a good experience. The sister missionary house was absolutely spotless...I have no idea how they find the time to do that and all the arty posters and pictures and paper maché stuff that they have all over the house.

Well time to run. Love you all!

say that 5x fast

Well in this week a lot of things happened and yet very little happened at the same time. Tuesday was transfers, E. Juarez went to Colima to train a greenie, and my new companion is E. Cruz, who is coming from Colima. He`s from Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (say that 5x fast), is 26 years old, is a lawyer, and has a great sense of humor. We have lots of plans to get the zone excited about the transfer and working hard while enjoying what they do at the same time.

Wednesday and Thursday were leadership conference and ZL council, from which I learned a lot as usual. I enjoy these conferences because they refresh things I learned before but may have forgotten about in the day-to-day work, and I make new connections as well. It also means every two months I see Elder Christiansen on TV. I`m used to that now.

Friday we finally got started in the area. We met an inactive family (the father`s name is Daniel) with plans to return to church in the area, and we visited them. They`re really nice people, but for their economic position they often spent a lot of time selling seasonal items and are out of the city on Sundays. Hopefully we can help strengthen them and unite their family and, of course, help complete the family baptisms so they can start working towards a sealing in the temple. There are now 3 families like that with 6 possible baptisms we are working with. Church attendance has gone up though, which is good.

We also met another family through service. A lady was trying to cut down a tree and cut it into pieces to throw it away because it was scraping up her wall, and we offered to help her out. After taking a hacksaw to it for a while we finished the job and she invited us inside, where we met her daughter Michele. Michele and Angelica (the mom) were very interested in learning more about us, since they have seen missionaries pass by before and wanted to know why we do what we do. They have also felt the hand of God in their lives a number of times. Michele was in an accident a while ago and was severely injured, but now can walk around just fine but still is lacking a little strength. They asked a lot of questions and seemed very interested. Hopefully we can help them overcome their challenges and find the true gospel. They believe in personal revelation, and are very good people. Please pray for them.

That`s essentialy all we`ve had time for. The 6th was King´s Day though (I think that`s the name in English), when supposedly the 3 kings came to visit Christ. Part of the tradition involves a special cake-like thing called the rosca de reyes. It`s circular in form (like an O) and has 4 little plastic babies inside of it. Everyone at the party that night cuts their own piece of rosca, and if there´s a plastic baby inside of their piece, they have to buy or prepare the tamales for another party on the 2nd of February.

I did not find a plastic baby in my cake this year.

I wonder if there is you can find rosca like that in the states. Supposedly, this day is another day for presents and whatnot. They really love their holidays here.

Well time to run, but we`re kick starting things here. Interviews with President are in our houses this time around, and they`re tomorrow. Gotta make sure everything is squeaky clean for when he gets here!

Love,
Elder Lund

P.S. What are your goals for this year?

lots to do

This week was a hard one but a good one. There was lots to do and lots of people were busy or out of town, but we did what we could. For New Year Eve we gathered the Elders together again and once again ordered pizza. Early New Year Day we left to go give service to a sister who needed help fixing a leaky hose.

Other than that, Thursday we organized a family home evening for the whole ward. About 50 people came...that`s about two times the assistance on Sunday last week. There was a message and games and refreshment (we all put in a little to make it work) and it was a great success. Also, sacrament attendence shot up to 70 this week with 5 investigators and a couple inactive families that we brought. We`re seeing some good fruits. Pray that we`re able to see them all the way through to activation and baptism.

A new Elder showed up as well, who just got his visa. He has 5 months in the mission already, but he was in Santa Rosa, California waiting to be able to come here. He seems like a cool guy, and his name is Elder Johnson. He`s from Mesa, Arizona. Apparently, he knows my BYU roommate Nathan Larson. We`ll see how that turns out too. Transfers are tomorrow (they`ve been moved to Tuesday), so in a couple hours I find out what happens. Odds are I`m staying though, because E. Juarez goes home in February and they won`t leave him here as a ZL for his last transfer.

Well gotta run to a lunch with the zone before we have class and send them off to their new areas. We (E. Juarez and I) will be giving the class. It should be pretty cool, and really spiritual. We want them to give testimonies of the things they`ve learned and experienced in this transfer.

Well, gotta run, not time to comment on much else today. I love you, and hope you had a fantastic New Years. Be safe and happy as well.

Love
Elder Lund

You all look great.

It was fantastic to be able to see and talk to the whole family. You all look great, and it was good to know that you all got to be together for Christmas. Don´t worry about the hour either, everything worked out just fine. In fact, it gave me time to make sure the system was ready and working beforehand. So tell me what everyone got for Christmas!

Christmas Eve was fun. We all got together in the evening (when everyone else in the country was partying) and played some sports in one of the chapels, after which we went and ordered pizza and played board games. It was simple, but enjoyable. It was also a good way to watch over all the missionaries and make sure they had a safe and sane holiday.

I spent Christmas day serving other misionaries. In the morning the plan was changed quickly because Elder Jensen had his call home planned for 12:00, but his companion got a call and needed to head over to the mission offices at that time...so I went with him and Elder Juarez went with his companion. However, the place where he was going to make the skype call was closed. The worker said he would come open just for him and just for that phone call, but he never showed up...so, we ran over to the baptism of Elder Juarez´s first convert´s daughter, who I interviewed for baptism. Following that, I took Elder Jensen with a member in our area who might have been able to help. As it turns out, she was able and willing, so he called there while I played dominoes and Uno with the family. By the time all of that was over, it was time to get to the house, so that pretty much wrapped up my Christmas.

Other than that, there´s not much to comment. There were very few people in sacrament, but with the start of the year the schedule changes and odds are more people will attend. The ward´s problems seem to be sorting themselves out a little bit, and if all goes well there should be a number of good baptisms in the ward...people who want it to happen and who have confidence and faith in the Lord.

Well I love you all,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

talk to you soon

Well the details about the phone call will come tomorrow, because I still have to work out some details. It may be possible to call by way of Skype, which would be free. However, we have to see if the internet cafés will be open on Christmas...I don`t think so. By tomorrow I will have all the information, and I`ll let you know.

I`m glad to know the family is all together now, and I`d love to see fotos of that, actually. I`ll have to owe you the ones from the Christmas activity, since I don`t have my camera on me. Actually, I can`t write many details at all right now, because it`s actually kinda late and there`s still a lot of things to take care of...but DON`T WORRY! Super Elder Lund is here. Tomorrow you`ll have the phone call details, and on Christmas we`ll get to talk about aaaaaaallll the details of everything I`ve done this week and lately. Sorry for not being able to get it all written out now, but time is time and busy means busy. I`m working hard and trying to share the Christmas spirit with everyone. Hopefully you`ll get to feel that love and that kind of "Christmas fever" this year as well.

Love you, and talk to you soon!
Elder Lund

The activities were fantastic.

Friday, we went to the nursery up in the really poor area of the zone. The clowns played games like musical chairs and things like that with the kids, and we sang some Christmas hymns as well. We had a sound system, so the kids could dance as well. After about a 2 hour program, we gave them all gifts, took lots of fotos, and headed out. There were a LOT of gifts left over as well, so we took to the streets and knocked doors, giving toys to all the little children we could find in that community. Honestly, it was a fantastic feeling. Also, not only was our president there with his wife, but also the president of the other mission (Guadalajara East). A member invited him to come along, and he brought a lot of gifts with him.

Saturday we went to the old folks home. We sang many more christmas carols this time and a member played guitar and sang old folk songs for and with them. Then we got the older ladies dancing and having lots of fun, and we served them hot cinnamon and sweet bread, and at the end we gifted each of them a scarf. The funny part was that there were some catholic priests there giving mass and prayers and whatnot when we arrived. We waited for them to finish before we started up, and they joined us! One of them sang a song with the member who played guitar, and I talked to another one for a long time. He had a lot of questions about us and said he respected us as missionaries a lot. He was really happy we came to help out the old ladies. Also, he said The Other Side of Heaven was a fantastic movie.

It was really really fun to do all these activities and it helped these people a lot. It also got the zone exited to work hard and motivated the members to work together with us. They´re planning another activity for the 28th, but I don`t know the details. Now the last crazy christmas thing Elder Juarez and I are in charge of is our part of the big mission Christmas dinner. We´ll be putting on our skit (and I`ll explain it later! :P), showing off our super cool piñata, videos of our service activity, eating, and having a gift exchange. That`s tomorrow, and then we`ll be able to return to a semi-normalish work schedule. The good news is that 4 less actives that we visited came to church on Sunday. Little by little we´re getting there.

Love,
Elder Lund

Say hi to everyone.

Yes, the barranca is pretty cool...actually it`s really cold. It`s much colder over here than in Belenes, even though it`s not that far away physically, thanks to the giant cliff. There are also soccer games every weekend, although I think the season just ended. Atlas plays there, one of the 3 first division teams from GDL. Our house is pretty nice, actually. It`s even got a couch.

My favorite Christmas traditionas have always included the calendars, the many different types of christmas ornaments, the pickle, reading a Christmas story every night, "Twas the night before Christmas"...pretty much everything. I plan on passing it all down to my children (assuming my wife lets me!!!!). I want to make sure every Christmas is a fantastic, special, and spiritual experience for my family.

I`ll let you know what I`m thinking about BYU in the next week. I need some time to process it all, because there is a lot to decide and these decisions will have a very big impact on the future.

Oh, apparently I started talking in my sleep. I have no idea what I said or why, but I did. The problem is that my companion doesn`t speak English. I`ll keep you posted on further developments...

Well everything is all set for our service activity this weekend. We`ll be bringing a huge bag of toys to a nursery with 46 poor children on Friday. We`ll sing to them (I`m directing the chorus), play some games with them (there will be clowns!) give gifts, and have a good time with them. Saturday we`ll be going to an old folks home and giving them things for the cold like gloves, hats, scarves, and whatnot. We`ll also sing to them and with them and try to share some Christmas spirit. The whole zone is in on it, and it should be lots of fun. We`re also preparing our skit for the Mission Christmas Dinner, which is the 14th. I play a rag-doll missionary, with a pull-string and ridiculous phrases. It should be lots of fun.

The Christmas Devotional was great as well. I really enjoy these devotionals...although they`re way better in the original English. The only complication was that they told us it was at 6:00, but it ended up being at 7:00, so we had to wait an hour. There was an investigator there though and he enjoyed his first chance to hear the prophet speak. We`ll see how that develops in the future.

Well, time to run! Say hi to everyone. I`m running around very busy all day every day organizing activities, doing divisions (I went to Paraìso this week, and got to meet some really great investigators of theirs and help the young Elder Jensen improve his studies), and all sorts of stuff.

Love,
Elder Lund