The One With Quarantine

I really had hoped that I could go my whole mission without making this a title...but here we are. This past week an elder in my district got Covid and because we were all with him on pday, we are all quarantining until this next Saturday. :(( I'm not gonna lie, this has been hard! It's hard to think of things to do and ways to contact people. I can't imagine the life of a missionary when everything was shut down. Shout out to those troopers. This week was el día de los reyes! (the day of the Kings) On January 6 everyone celebrates this as the day when the King's came to visit Jesus! So people give presents to their kids and everyone eats this bread called rosca! There wasn't anything grand about this holiday that they did, but I also was in quarantine so maybe I just didn't see hahah. This week I also somehow convinced my comp to sleep on our roof with me!! It probably wasn't the smartest decision because now we both have a little cough...but it was worth it because the stars were so pretty!! Also I don't know who trusted me or how I got designated to do this but the other week I cut the hair of 3 people in my district! I'm not the best....but honestly it wasn't terrible for the first time! Hahaha I hit my 6 month mark in the mission!! It's so crazy to think that I'm 1/3 of the way done with my mission! It feels like 2 weeks but also 2 years. Time is very weird out here but here I am with 6 months of being a missionary!! I'm so grateful for this experience and time that I've had to dedicate my life to the Lord's work! My testimony is so much stronger and I am so grateful to know about the true church of Jesus Christ. Not gonna lie this transfer has been hard for me, but thankfully I have a loving Heavenly Father that loves me that I can pray to for help and guidance! How important and vital is that little piece of knowledge?! It hasn't been easy, but it has been an opportunity to grow and growth is the reason we're on this earth! I love God and I love u guys so much!! Sorry I'm not the best at writing but I'll send some pictures and I know that's really what everyone wants;)

The One With Responsibility

I got a phone call last Sunday from my AP saying that I was going to train and white wash an area!! When I got that I was super excited but just about threw up from fear. This week I got my new comp and area and it has been super hard but good!! My companion's name is Hermana Reyes and she is from Campeche! She is 23 and very put together so it doesn't feel like I'm her mom in the mission at all hahaha. She is a convert of about a year and her testimony is super strong! Our new area is a little pueblo called Nealtican. There is an active volcano in our mission called Popocatepetl and we are right next to it!! Don't be too stressed out, lava isn't pouring out from it...much ;) But it does always have smoke clouds coming out so it looks really cool!! Nealtican is really small but there are a lot of members!! Everyone here calls it "mini Utah" because everyone here is either a member or has family members who are members. When I got here I was stressed but I had confidence in my memorization skills that I could learn quickly the names of the big wigs in the ward. Come to find out I don't just have one ward, BUT THREE! Needless to say I'm kind of dying...But all is well!! The first day I got to Nealtican I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, I'm not gonna lie. I felt a lot of pressure to do everything perfectly. I had to train. I have a new area. We have 3 wards. I still know not a word of Spanish. I don't know anyone in my district. My companion doesn't like Christmas and I don't know anyone here so I am stressed about that and I just was feeling very alone and very sad about my life. It was the first time in my mission that I really cried and just wanted to give up and go home. This week I (finally) got my Christmas package from my parents! My family made an advent calendar for me (they're straight angels I know) and so every day until Christmas I have a gift. I got the package on the 15 of Decemeber, so I had 15 little gifts to open! I started to open the gifts which were filled with little nick nacks and Christmas things. But each little gift also had a letter. I remember when I was home I was forced to write letters to all of my siblings and cousins who were on their missions. I always thought, "this is so dumb. I don't know what to say and I highly doubt that a letter from me will change their day." But let me tell ya, I was reading those letters, and every single one made me cry! I felt SO loved!! I remember reading one of my cousins and his card had a drawn swirl and said "Merry Christmas love Jayden." But this homie spelt his own name wrong and scribbled it out then rewrote his name. I was laughing and crying and I felt so much love for him in this moment. I was thinking about how I love so many people and how sad I was that I can't be home with them. After 5 minutes of crying, I felt dumb and decided that I needed a change of perspective. Instead of thinking how I can't be with them, I began thinking about how lucky I am to be so close with so many amazing people. There are so many people with nothing and I have been blessed with so many people in my life!! I'm SO luckyyyy!! Just know that I love you all so much and I'm so grateful and pray for you guys all the time! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and enjoy it whenever you are!!

The One With Thanksgiving

I'm sorry that I'm GaRbAgE at sending weekly emails...but with keeping up with my "Friends" theme I figured that it was necessary to do a Thanksgiving email!! So hey guys!! Happy thanksgiving!! This week was pretty fun. The STL's came and we did exchanges for a day with them! My comp was Hermana Conseco and she is SO CUTE!! The day after the Hermanas from Tepexi came to town for our district council and thanksgiving and stayed the night in our house with us, them, and the STL's!! It was crazy to have everyone in our house but super fun! Thanksgiving is only a holiday in the United States because it started with the pilgrims and Native Americans. It's really funny to me because a bunch of the people from northern Mexico celebrate it! They just see it as an opportunity to eat and party with their family so they join in on the fun. I love it! But here in Puebla....no one knows what it is. But half of my district right now is from the US and so I convinced my district leader that we need to have a Thanksgiving! We had a district council then afterwards had dinner as a district. :) We ate tacos and cake! I was sad I couldn't bake a turkey or a Thanksgiving dinner, but what is better than a Mexican Thanksgiving than tacos! And the STL's came too so we had 10 people there and so it was fun to have a celebration with everyone! Besides that, nothing crazy happened this week. But I'm doing great I'm just SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMASSS!!! WOOOO I hope that everyone does a lot of classical Christmas shenanigans for me :)

The One With Hermana Castro

Hey guys!! So this week we had transfers and hermana holt left :(( I was SO SAD because I love her so much!! But it's okay we'll meet up one day! I got my new companion and her name is Hermana Castro!! She is from Tijuana and she is so cute!! She's really fun and we have had a good time so far! :)) We have just taught some lessons and gotten to know one another. The only hard part is the fact that she knows zero english... Which will be great for my Spanish!! But it has been harder to connect and understand everything that's going on haha but I'm grateful for this experience to learn Spanish faster! Also, this Sunday Aracely had her baptism! It was so fun! We had it right after church so people would come and so many members came! I felt so blessed to have the love and support of our ward :)) So, Aracely is the sister of Jorge who was my first baptism here! It was so beautiful to see how the gospel has touched the lives our their family! What a powerful thing!! We also moved houses because our house had zero service, except for one window, and so it was impossible to message people and do lessons in our home. For pday today we moved (ghetto I know)!! Our new house is so much bigger and I'm so happy that we made this transition! The only problem is that we have random objects all over the house and we need to clean it all.... but nothing that a little hard work can't fix!

The One With Dia de los Muertos

Hey guys I was reminded by the one and only Ryan Rarick that I haven't written a group email in over a month so I'm sorry about that... but I'm just having a party out here in Mexico!! We have had so much work to do this past month that I feel like I don't have time for anything! But it's good because we are just getting so much accomplished!! I'll just share a few things that happened over this past month! 1 – We were able to go out to our branch in Tepexi!! Our area covers a ward and a branch, and the thing is that our branch is 2 hours away from our house..... but we had the opportunity to go out there twice!! We went to a church service and visited members one day, and the other time we had a baptism! Our branch covers a HUGE area and planning baptisms out there are always fiascos! There isn't a font and, at the moment, the rivers are too dangerous to baptize in, so this family BUILT A FONT IN THEIR YARD!! The straight dedication they have is SO impressive!! The baptism was so beautiful and Zoram (the boy baptized) bore his testimony and started crying as he was talking about how much he loves Jesus. It was SO CUTE!! Everyone was bawling because the spirit was just so strong! 2 – We have been in Puebla a lot because my companion is also an STL (sister training leader) and so she has to do exchanges with all of the other sister missionaries. So while she did that with hermana Castillo, I was in Puebla with hermana Aguilar! (Sorry that's kind of confusing but I don't even know how to explain it haha) It was cool to mix up the normal routine. 3 – Dia de los Muertos!! It was like the movie, Coco. It lasts for 3 days and most of the celebrations take place on the 2nd & 3rd days. Like I said, we have been jam packed with lessons so we didn't have time to really do things; but on the 2nd day, one of our lessons fell through so we had one hour free, and so we called a taxi and went to the cemetery!! Our phone died after 1 blurry photo but it was such a cool event!! It's such an amazing experience to celebrate ancestry and it makes me want to do family search more in my life!! 4 – We had zone conference :)) one of our areas is in Oaxaca and that's where our conference was held! (So I got to visit a different state of Mexico!!) It wasn't just a normal zone conference either, we had our general authority 70 come! Elder Montoya and his wife spoke to us and it was super great. There were 2 sisters and 2 elders who were invited to have a personal interview with him and guess who one of those lucky gals happened to be?? That's right. ME!! It was TERRIFYING but it ended up being super good! I'm grateful to have had that experience! 5 – The queen herself, hermana Natalia Holt left me!! :,(( I am SO sad!! But all is well, life will move on! Hermana Holt was my trainer and at the end of this transfer she left! Technically transfers aren't until Wednesday but because she went back to Utah she left a few days early. So right now I'm back in Puebla with hermana Castillo & Aguilar until transfers officially happen. It's so weird to think that I'm just getting done with my training. I feel like I still know nothing! But with God's help I can do anything so I'm not too worried! I'm SO GRATEFUL for the time I had with Holt because she seriously is the best!! I can't explain how much I love her! She seriously is just so fun and diligent and I'm beyond grateful to have had her as my companion! Sorry that's not real detailed from the past month but I'm so grateful for all the experiences I've had! I promise I'll try to be better about writing! I love you all so much! 💗

The One With Hermana Aguilar

Hey guys!! This week was definitely a little crazy town...but all is well! My companion right now, Hermana Holt, is an STL (sister training leader) which means that she has to do exchanges with a bunch of other sisters in the mission. So she and another sister (Hermana Castillo) went around with a bunch of sisters and Hermana Castillo’s companion became my companion for the week while they were out there doing that! Sorry that is super confusing but hopefully you get the jist. So my companion for this week was Hermana Aguilar! The first two days, we continued the service project that we did the week before. We, and a few other Elders from a different zone, were there and I handed out water the whole time. Kind of the worst.... but the line ¿quiere agua? will always have a special place in my heart haha. After that, we would spend a day in her area then a day in mine. But we were in Puebla and so it was all just with our phone so it wasn't super efficient. But from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning we went back to Tehuacan! We had a super cool and spiritual Noche De Hogar (Family Home Evening) with our ward. They did a big event about the Plan of Salvation and it was super good! Some investigators came and so it was a super exciting night! Then on Sunday morning we drove to Tepexi, which is about 50 miles away. It was a blessing because our mission president was driving through town and was able to take us with him! So me, Hermana Holt, Aguillar, Castillo, Elder Ruiz y Elder Trejo all squished in the President's minivan and drove to Tepexi where we had a baptism! Zoram Mendoza Cruz was baptized and he is THE CUTEST BOY EVER!! There isn't a font nearby anywhere so their family constructed one!! It was SO precious!! Zoram bore his testimony and started crying talking about how much he loves Jesus and it was adorable! Everyone was crying during it!! The spirit was so strong! I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to go out to their house and visit and meet them in real life because they are the best family ever!!

The One Like West Side Story

This weekend we did something as a mission that was kind of crazy. Our ENTIRE mission came together for a service project in Puebla! In three days there were over 55,000 people who came and got the covid vaccine! Because it was a lot, we went and helped. But no, it wasn't just my mission that went; the Puebla North mission came with us! We were all working together handing out hand sanitizer, organizing lines, doing paperwork, and answering questions. But....there was still this hidden feud between us trying to proclaim who is the better Puebla mission. I truly felt like I was in West Side Story trying to claim my turf. And I'm here to say that clearly the Puebla South mission is better ;) Even though we are both here in Puebla, our lives are SO DIFFERENT! My mission is pretty chill with everything and their mission is EXTREMELY strict! I couldn't believe some of the things that the missionaries told me happened in their mission. There were a bunch of silly things like they couldn't drink soda (and that is about 1/2 of what I drink here), But it made me open my eyes more and realize that people can live such different lives but still have the same main purpose. So many people here love and worship Heavenly Father so differently than what is “normal” or than what I'm accustomed to. But that doesn't make what they're doing wrong. I love that we are all sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father. And we are all loved equally. What a BEAUTIFUL thought that is!!