Week 9 - "Just One More Door"

Hey Amigos,

So this week was actually pretty uneventful but I will try to make it as exciting as possible.  We went to the temple on Tuesday so that was a great start to the week.  Half of the mission went so the session was FILLED.  It was awesome.  I got to see all of my buddies from the CCM.  And then afterward we had a zone conference (which was really a three-zone conference) which was pretty cool.  They gave us hecka pizza.  Little Caesars has never tasted so good haha.  But yeah it was really fun we set a bunch of goals as a mission and I met a bunch of new people.

Throughout the week we just worked as usual.  It was a little rough sometimes this week because appointments to teach investigators fall through all the time because usually when we go, they're just not home.  But oh well life goes on.  The best thing ever was that on Thanksgiving we hit up Cinco por Quince super hard as like a big Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of missionaries.  I ate 27 tacos.  It was legendary.

Also, we've been hanging out with our zone leaders a ton.  They're super cool guys, Elder Kay and Elder Lopez.  They're both in my selfie in front of the Temple (Elder kay is the blonde and Elder Lopez is the Argentinan).  We also go to the gym with them every morning and they work out pretty dang hard which is sweet.  I'll probably be looking like Arnold pretty soon.

Okay, so something really cool happened this week.  We were knocking on doors on a street on Thursday, and we were pretty much at the end of the street.  Nobody wanted to listen to us and we hadn't found any new investigators.  I'm pretty sure we were both about ready to try somewhere else but we were at the very last house and we said "Just one more door."  We knocked on that last door and a man named Cristian opened up to us.  We taught him a little bit and then set a date to come teach him.  We taught him on Saturday the first lesson.  He accepted everything we taught him and was really interested.  he only had one question that we cleared up right away, and he agreed to come to church with us and even said a prayer to close the lesson for us.  THEN when we passed for him on Sunday and knocked for like five minutes and no one answered.  We were walking away when we both felt like we should go back and knock one more time.  We did and he answered! He got ready really fast and came to church with us and he actually stayed for all three hours and really enjoyed it.  it was awesome.  I'm excited to keep teaching him.

Well, that's just about it! Have a great week everyone love you guys!

Elder Warren

Week 8 - Maximo Esfuerzo

Yoooo what's going on!

This week pretty much just flew by.  We actually just got back from the centro a little bit ago which was sweet.  It's like the actual nice part of the city.  They have a bunch of American stores and some cool old cathedrals and stuff.  It was awesome.  And it's a really touristy area so there were actually white people there! I saw more Americans there than I've seen during my whole time in Paraiso haha.  It's weird going into a Costco-sized store and being looked at funny because you're the only white person in the whole store.  But it's chill, I just smile really big at everyone that looks at me weird.  Also, it was crazy cause at the centro this dude that was hecka drunk came up to us and said, "You guys are Mormons right?"  And I mean this dude was super wasted, he was like dancing the whole time he was talking to us.  But anyways he told us all about how he was like wrecked after some party he went to last night and how a Missionary helped him get home, and somehow he included in his story lightsabers and lasic eye surgery.  It was wack.

Some other funny things from the week:  Everybody does this weird whistle thing here whenever they see something that's cool.  But I don't think anyone here knows how to whistle because it's more like a bunch of air.  But you guys will see, I'll probably be doing it a ton when I get home haha.  Also, there's a basketball court right next to the stake center and it's in our area so we pass by it quite a bit, and literally every time we're over there the people beg me to dunk or to play so that I can be on their team.  I should start charging them pesos to watch me play.  Also, another thing that was hecka funny was that we were walking down a street and my comp was like "Those are the things that I want you to try!" (He was looking at churros.)  He's like "They're called churros, they're like donut sticks."  And I was like "Bro we have churros in America.  I've had more churros in America than I've had here!"  It was pretty funny.

I've been pretty good out here, just trying to work hard.  And I've been relatively healthy, except for like the past two days where I haven't felt too good.  But don't worry, it didn't stop me from destroying fifteen tacos at cinco por quince right before this.

The coolest experience from the week happened on Thursday.  I really needed something good that day because all of our baptismal dates for that Saturday fell through.  It's so hard seeing someone so ready for baptism that just doesn't want to do it right then because of doubts.  But we will keep working with her and her family.  But anyways we were contacting on Thursday and decided to do something different.  We put a table out in front of the Church and layed out a bunch of pamphlets and Books of Mormon to talk to people about.  I didn't really think it would work though cause we usually have the most success knocking on doors, so I didn't have any faith.  After 15 minutes I was ready to quit because nobody wanted to talk to us.  Then Elder Lopez suggested that we offer a prayer.  I said okay and decided to just put all of my faith in Christ.  No joke, within two minutes we had people coming up to our table asking about our church without us even having to talk to them first.  We had like three or four people coming up to us at a time, so my comp and I even had to split up so that I could talk to two while he talked to another two.  We ended up getting 8 new contacts in 45 minutes.  It was crazy.

I also want to share a talk that I read by David A. Bednar called "A Christlike Character".  If you haven't read it, read it.  He shares the scripture John 14: 25-27 which is really good.  A quote from the talk is "The Lord determines if and when we receive all spiritual gifts, but we must do all in our power to desire, yearn, invite, and qualify for such gifts."  We can't just sit around and wait for Christlike attributes.  We have to go out and develop them.  We have to put in the work in order to get the reward.

Peace out everyone, thank you for all your support!  I hope all of you have an amazing week!

Elder Warren

Week 7 - Paraiso and First Baptism

Hola Gente,

Holy cow this week flew.  It feels like I just got here tbh.  The CCM was fast but when you're out here working it goes by way faster.  Everything is going pretty good here!  The members are super nice.  They feed us every day at lunch.  We actually have two companionships in our ward.  It's me and Elder Lopez, and Elder Roberts and Elder Trinidad.  They're awesome.  We eat lunch together every day which is super cool because I always like having more people around.  But other than that during the day we usually don't see them cause we have two different areas in this city.  It's funny cause I'm from Paradise CA and my first area is called Paraíso which is the same haha.  So technically I've been born in Paradise twice!

I haven't gotten robbed yet but someone actually tried to rob me my first day which was pretty funny.  But he was just super high I think.  Also, Mexico City is crazy!  It's so freaking different than in the states.  All of the houses are just cement pretty much and it's just nowhere near as urban as American cities.  But the people are cool for the most part and the food is super good!  The tacos are awesome.  We go to this place sometimes that has five tacos for fifteen pesos.  The tacos are small so you have to eat like 15 but they're the best tacos I've ever had.  It's awesome.  Also, we were at a member's house eating one day and they actually served us fried blood! It was pretty gross.  The texture was whack and the taste wasn't very good either.  I've also tried a bunch of soups and some things that are called sopes.  They're really just tacos but everyone says they're not tacos so I guess they're not but they are.  People are crazy.

Funny things from the week.  So there's a park next to our house and every morning these old ladies go outside and dance to pop songs.  It's funny cause they listen to American pop songs so they have no idea what they're saying and they're all terrible dancers.  But it's super amusing to see them out there.  Also a few nights ago I was cooking some ramen (cause that's the only food we had in our house this week) and I kept electrocuting myself!  Every time I stuck the fork in of touched the pot it shocked me like crazy.  I was so dang confused and I was about to kill my ramen.  But then I realized that I was barefoot and that's why it was shocking me.  I'm never walking around barefoot again.

Some other cool things from the week are that I joined a gym.  It's 250 pesos a month which is pretty dang good and we go every morning.  Our trainer's name is Benny and he's awesome.  And I guess one of the members of our ward actually makes knockoff clothing for a living, like Nike and Adidas and all that.  All of his stuff looks so real but it's just weird haha.  AND the dogs are literally everywhere.  You can't walk anywhere without seeing at least 10 dogs.  But they're pretty cool.  Most of them will let you pet them.

Some really cool things from this week were that our investigator Jonny got baptized! I didn't get to know him very well before the baptism but I could tell right away that the Gospel had made a huge impact on His life.  After his baptism, he bore his testimony and it was super strong.  His life actually made a 180 degree turn towards Christ and it was awesome to hear about that conversion.  Also, the first night here when we were contacting we set an appointment with a woman named Janet.  She was actually my first contact and she said we could come back.  We met with her a couple days ago and she let us in to find a family of four!  We had a really good lesson with them.  They're Evangelists but we feel really good about them.  We're teaching them again this week.

Also, I found a scripture this week that I really liked.  It's 2 Nephi 22:2.  It basically says (because I don't have it in English) That God is my salvation.  I will trust in Him and not fear because He is my strength and my song.  I think this is very important for my mission.  I'm out here for two years, trying to dedicate my life to the Lord.  It gets rough sometimes, but I know that everytime something is hard or uncomfortable I can just put my trust in the Lord because He will give me strength every time.  

I love you guys and hope you all have a great week!

Elder Warren

Week 6 - Last Week in the CCM and First Day Out in the Field!

THE DUNDIES SQUAD

LOOK MOM! WE HAVE THE SAME SHAVER!!

BALLERS FOR LIFE

HOLA!

Well I'm finally out of the CCM! That means freedom at last haha.  Nah the CCM was super fun.  I'm gonna miss everyone from my district.  The last week was pretty dang fun.  People were doing crazy stuff in our casa.  We had people take all of the pads off of our couches, line them up on the ground in a giant square, and then have wrestling matches on them.  It was pretty crazy and I didn't get involved.   We also had a soccer game in our living room.  When you're last weekers at the CCM you pretty much do whatever you want because it's awesome.

I'm glad my experience at the CCM was so good but honestly I was ready to get out.  There were so many meetings that last week it was ridiculous.  But the week ended with the greatest thing ever.  We had a Dundies award show for our district.  It was so awesome.  We all got awards and gave speeches and then we celebrated with soda and a giant chocolate cake.

I have to give a huge shoutout to my squad, Elder Meyer and Elder Morris.  Those guys are some real ballers and we partied it up hard in the CCM together.  Since Elder Meyer is the oldest, we dubbed him the Squad Father.  Realest Squad Father I've ever had.  I'm gonna miss those dudes, BUT Elder Morris is actually in my District out here in the field so that's gonna be so dang fun.  I'm excited.

We left for the Southeast Part of the city this morning at 8:30 AM.  I didn't take any pictures of the city yet but it's kinda trash.  Nowhere near the cities in America.  Our apartment is a concrete box with a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom.  It's crazy but I'll probably pimp it out so stay tuned.

My companion is Elder Lopez.  He's from Arizona but he's Latino, so he speaks English and Spanish fluently.  He's awesome.  I can't wait to do some work with him.  Our district sounds pretty cool too.  I think I met most of the Elders in our district but I'm not sure.

Well I'm super excited to be out in the field.  We have two lessons tonight I think and we teach five investigators tomorrow.  We have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday and two more next Saturday I think.  They get a crazy amount of converts out here. The goal for the mission is 100 baptisms per month.

Anyways I'll just end with something cool from the week.  Elder Morris sent me some audio clips last week I think.  In one of them, Elder Holland is talking about the difficulty of missionary work.  He says that missionary work is hard, and that it's hard to get doors slammed in your face and be rejected everyday.  But then he referenced the Savior, how he was the perfect example, the perfect teacher, the perfect person, yet he was still persecuted everyday on His mission, even worse than us.   Holland said, "How can we expect it to be easy for us when it was never easy for Him?"  I know that whenever things get hard and I just want to ask "Why me?", I can always know that someone a lot better than me asked that same question a long time ago.  I'm going to work to preach His gospel with all my heart.

Thank you all for your love and support, I hope you all have a great week!  I love you guys!

Elder Warren

Week 5 - Dia de los Muertos!

PIC WITH THE CCM PRESIDENT

BACK FLIP!

Hola Gente,

Happy Halloween/Dia de los Muertos!  Well this week was a little less eventful than some of the others but I will try my best to make this email exciting.  Thank you to everyone that sent me packages this week, I loved them all!  Getting packages is the most exciting part of the day.

Well we´re on our last week here at the CCM which is so tight.  We got these little stickers to put on our tags that let everyone know that we´re on our last week.  They´re so awesome.  When you have a sticker on your tag it demands an incredible amount of respect.  Except the stickers also tell you which workshops you go to throughout your last week (based on the color) and they split me up from my boys Elder Morris and Elder Meyer.  That´s pretty lame because us three literally hangout all the time.  But it´s all good we´re still balling.

The last week here is a little bit slow.  We have to go to so many meetings about preparing us for the mission field so it´s a lot of sitting and being talked at.  But anyways here was the fun stuff from the week:

First of all, I landed so many sweet front flips this week.  It was tight I´ll send some pictures.  This week Elder Morris is going to teach me how to do a back flip so stay tuned.  Also we started doing some rap battles with our whole casa at night sometimes before bed.  It gets pretty intense.  It´s hilarious.  Also this week we had to make goals as a district, but Elder Morris and I made some goals of our own too.  We decided we´re gonna do one impossible thing every day (which makes every day pretty dang exciting) and also that we´re gonna try to meet at least five new people every day.  We know so many people now.  It´s super fun.

Anyways we had some pretty cool devotionals this week.  We heard a quote from President Monson about testimonies.  He said something about how it is essential to have your own testimony in these days.  The testimonies of others can only carry you so far. That´s super true.  We have to develop our own testimonies through our own experiences or we´ll be at the mercy of the world, instead of the other way around.  We also heard a cool message from Holland, who talked about how the Book of Mormon has been around for over one hundred years.  Since it´s beginning it´s been examined and torn apart, yet it still stands.  It can never be proven wrong.

To end I´d just like to share one quote from our CCM president from his devotional yesterday.  He said, "It´s not our circumstances that determine our destiny.  It's our faith in Christ."

I hope you all have an awesome week! I´ll talk to you soon!  Love you guys!

Elder Warren

Week 4 - Penguinos!

What's Upppppp?

Well by tomorrow I will have been out here for a month! The days are just flying by now cause we do so much work and it´s like the same routine everyday.  It´s awesome here in the CCM especially cause my district is so cool but I´m ready to get out into the field too.  I just don´t like sitting in classes that much and I know that my Spanish will get way better once I´m just speaking it 24/7.  But while I´m here I´m going to just enjoy my time.

Update on the food: It´s still super good and I am absolutely loving the packages I´m getting so thank you guys so much!  Esteban is hooking us up with extra food and desserts all the time cause we're homies.  Actually the other day we made a pumpkin pie with him during our free time and ate it and it was so freaking good.  I think he posted pictures of it on the facebook page.  Also the highlight of the week and the subject of this email: PENGUINOS.  Penguinos are just like hostess cupcakes.  Exactly the same.  At lunch this week us guys in our district ate a combined 68 penguinos.  Best thing I´ve done in the CCM by far.  It was so awesome.

The language is going really well. I´m trying to learn as much as I can and as a district we speak it a lot more now.  Elder Meyer and Elder Morris were struggling with the language a little bit so we started having classes at night where I would teach them Spanish grammar and conjugations and stuff.  They´ve actually learned a lot and I´m super proud of the work they´re putting in.  I wouldn't even say I'm amazing at Spanish but I'm doing the best to help those in my district, as least as much as I can.

For rec time we´ve been going to the gym a lot.  We also play basketball and this week we played soccer for the first time. Elder Meyer actually plays D1 soccer for UVU.  He played two years before his mission and he´ll play again when he gets home, so obviously he wrecked us all.  He pegged me so hard a few times.  And my dawg Elder Morris can do a bunch of backflips and stuff so I tried to do some front flips cause they´re awesome.  I didn´t land any of them but they prolly looked sweet and I will keep working on them so stay posted.

So we actually joined the choir here our first week and we do it every week now.  It´s pretty dang sweet and the choir lady is so funny.  This week we sang the EFY medley but in Spanish.  The songs we sing are always so powerful.  I´ve never liked singing but here it´s fun.

We heard two devotionals this week that were really good.  The first was by Jeffrey R. Holland.  He talked about becoming converted to the Gospel while on our missions and he said that we need to bring the Gospel into our own lives before we can teach it to others.  He also said we can´t be good missionaries without loving Christ and I know for a fact that that is true because I have felt my love for Christ grow so much in just four weeks here.  It was given as an MTC Devotional Address on January 11, 2011 I think and I would suggest watching it cause it was so good.  The other devotional was by David A. Bednar.  His talk was to people who doubted if they were feeling the Spirit.  He answered this question: "How do I know if I´m feeling the Spirit or if it´s just my mind?"  His answer: Stop worrying about it.  We always look for some huge manifestation of the Spirit, but we need to stop worrying about it.  We just need to keep pressing forward with faith in Christ, doing what we should do, and the Spirit will direct us, even if we don´t notice it at the time.  I thought that was really cool because some people might think they never feel the Spirit, when really they're being directed and just not knowing it.

I hope you all have a freaking awesome week and I will talk to you soon! I love you all!

Elder Warren