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!!

The One With General Conference

Was conference hype or what?? Honestly if I'm being honest I didn't understand a lot of it haha.... because we listened in the church and my Spanish just isn't fully there. But I still felt the spirit so strong!! I love the fact that we have a living prophet that we can listen to!! He is so wise and so cool. I love that guy. With almost all of our lessons we teach about prophets because what better thing to talk about? Right?? A little embarrassing story from this week is that we were eating at a member's house and I dropped a potato that was covered in mole on my dress.... no one noticed and so I was trying to clean it up as slyly as I could but it wasn't coming off and it STAINED my dress!! And it wasn't just a little drop of food.... that bad boy rolled down my dress leaving multiple lines of mole. After a second everyone started to notice.... when I stood up it was all over. Rough time. But on a happier side of food, we learned how to make chile en nogadas!! They are SO GOOD! We went over to a member's house and made them in between sessions of the conference. They are a traditional food that people eat usually during September and I was so happy I got to make/eat them! I'm beyond grateful that I got to end the week on a brighter note with food! :)

The One About Sleeping

I would say that usually, I'm a pretty normal sleeper. I move a bit but usually, I sleep like a normal human being. That being said, my mission has changed me. I am not exaggerating to you guys when I say, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT since I've been here I have slept talked. I have been having very lucid dreams where I can't tell what is reality and what is a dream. Every night something happens like, I will think that my comp asks me to say a prayer so I sit up in my bed and start praying. I either open my eyes during the prayer or afterwards and I realize that my comp is laying down in her bed asleep and it's 2:00 am. I will sometimes get out of my bed and stand up and start teaching a lesson or as I'm walking to get my scriptures I'm like, "wait what am I doing?" then I head back to bed. It seriously happens every night. My companion probably thinks that I'm crazy but all is well!

This week was so good though! We had another baptism! We baptized a lady named Mayra. Her son came down from Arizona this week to baptize her and it was so tender! Our zone has a ward here in Tehuacán but we also have a little branch out in an area called Tepexi de Rodríguez. Tepexi is made up of a bunch of little farm towns and it's 2 hours from where I am at so we only really go out there once a transfer. And so it was super hard to plan her baptism because we couldn't easily communicate with people out there. There also isn't a font out there and, since it has been raining a lot lately, the river was too dangerous to do it there. So, we ended up driving an extra hour and went to a different little town (that technically is in a different mission - the Puebla North Mission) and baptized her there. As a result, there were a lot of logistics and stuff that we needed to do this week, but she got baptized and it was so cute and fun! God is always here helping us figure out how to make things work! Love you guys!

The One With Fiestas

Feliz 16 de Septiembre!! This week was completely full of parties! 16 of September is Mexico’s Independence Day – most people think it's Cinco de Mayo but it's actually not lol. And I’ll tell you what, they go hard here for Independence Day. Everything is shut down and people take the day to rest and to party. There was a big fair downtown that we went to with our zone! The day before, on the 15th, there were parties all night too. We also went across the street to our neighbor's house for a little fiesta and ate dinner with them!

Independence Day Fun

The next day on the 17th was my first zone conference! We drove all of our zone to Puebla and met up with another zone too. The car ride there was so pretty and so fun talking with everyone. This Sunday we had our first “in person” sacrament meeting! It was so much fun to see everyone from the ward in person. Today is Elder Trejo’s birthday (he’s an elder in my district) so we went to a little ranch and at breakfast and cake and played “headbands”. It has been a lot of work this week but a lot of partying too! I loved it!! Love you all! xoxo

Zone Conference Pics

The One With My First Baptism

I'm not going to lie to you guys, this week was CRAZY!! It all started on Tuesday. Tuesday was my "monthly birthday" and so we went out to get churros for a treat to celebrate. Here we are just sitting and eating and everything starts to shake. There was an EARTHQUAKE! We all evacuated the building and everything was completely fine but it was wild! We were at the end of the earthquake so it didn't affect us as much but some people in other areas had telephone poles and stuff fall over in their streets! (We found out later that the earthquake was actually about 300 miles away, outside of Acapulco)

Later in the week we had exchanges – which is just when you switch missionary companions for the day – so Hermanas Castillo and Ramirez came over. The tricky part is that their area is 2 hours away and so all four of us ended up just staying in our area. They are both so cute and fun! On Saturday morning for our exercise, they taught us how to salsa! We had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

On Sunday, Jorge got baptized! He is the cutest guy I've ever met! I'm so happy for him! It was one of the most stressful days ever because nearly everything that could've gone wrong did....but in the end, everything worked out perfectly! This week has been a lot of crazy but it has also been one of the funnest weeks in the mission! There is always room for people to join our church and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be out here and see the light that it can bring into a world that has so much darkness. I love you all so much!

The One Where Our Fridge Broke

There are a few things that people here go hard for 1) Dua Lipa 2) Ham 3) God. But legit, everyone in Mexico LOVES Dua Lipa! She is constantly playing in stores and stuff - it's hilarious. Our fridge seriously broke. We come home one day and there is water everywhere on the floor. So we just cleaned it all up and our zone leader brought us a new fridge, so all's well now! We teach approximately 10,000 lessons a day. So we really have time for nothing. But I LOVE all the people we are teaching! They're all such cuties! I went on a hike for Pday and it was so fun! Literally was GORGEOUS!

We shared the #givethanks video (that President Nelson gave last year) with the Santiago family and it is so good!! If you guys haven't seen it or haven't seen it in a while, GO AND WATCH IT RIGHT NOW! It seriously shows God's love so purely. I love it :) here's the link below for it ;) https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158915707701550&id=18523396549&sfnsn=scwspmo 

We all just need to love each other and accept Christ's love in our life! I love you all so much! Seriously, if any of you ever need anything, I am only one text away :)) <3 Also, this little girl in the picture is so cute she is my child. I. Love. Her.

The One Where I Arrived In Mexico

MEXICO!! AHHHH! WOOOO! This is so exciting and fun but it's wild! I'M LITERALLY IN MEXICO, LIKE WHAT!! We flew in on August 17 and hung out with 17 greenies for a couple days, getting green cards and such. Then we had transfers and I got the BEST COMP EVER, Hermana Holt! I seriously love her so much, she's so cool. My area is Tehuacán which is the second largest city in my mission so I'm not like in the boondocks. I mean I legit have a Walmart right next to our church. But my apartment is still pretty ghetto with things like there isn't a light in the bathroom, we have to wear shoes in our apartment, don't have clean water, and we have to hand wash our laundry and stuff. But I LOVE IT!!! It's seriously so fun! We do a lot of calls on our phones and so we never leave the apartment. It sounds horrible but I'm loving it! The towns here are so colorful and pretty! Also, don't hate me for this but me and my comp have a cat... :) I really don't know what to say because there is just so much haha but Email me if you guys want to hear more!! I love you all!

Hola!

Greetings! Made it to Mexico!

(click above)

Catedral de Tehuacán

Me, Hermana Holt, and el gato

Good times!

Fine food

Mi casita

The One Where I Leave

 

It's hard to say goodbye

St. George kids heading to Mexico