Tuesday, September 29, 2009

El tiempo da buen consejo.

Hi everyone!

This past week has had its ups and downs, as usual. Luckily we have a calm P Day to recuperate and start fresh tonight at six. 

We have been working with a number of Investigators, all of whom are really really cool. We have three baptisms scheduled for the coming Sunday; all three of them have scheduled baptismal interviews for Wednesday and Saturday. Their names are Irais, Claudia, and Angelica. Claudia is the daughter of Angelica, and Irais is a refferral from a member in the Ward. Yep! It's really sweet to have been able to see the great improvement in this Area. 

The following Sunday is the tentative date for the two young guys, Jose and Eric from the AA group. They're bothing having trouble giving up smoking, but we're doing what we can to help them. 

It was pretty crazy yesterday (Sunday) because Elder Pastrana went to pickup three investigators in three different places to no avail. It was frustrated, but we were instantly blessed with having Angelica, Claudia, and the husband of the family Juan attend sacrament meeting, along with Irais. We met a man named Vicente who attended for the first time yesterday, by himself. This is RARE. haha. He told us that he has passed by the chapel a number of times, and curiosity (and we could say, the Spirit) brought him to the Church. He is really awesome, he was asking us for a Book of Mormon by the end of Priesthood meeting and told us we could baptize him whenever we wanted. It was so great haha. We told him we're going to teach him a bit and then we can baptize him. We have an appointment with him tonight in the Chapel, along with our new Ward Mission Leader.

Gotta love this work.

Elder Budge

PS/ Mama Crump, thanks for that picture of Brady! I was dying of laughter. I'm doing to develop it today :)

Oh, and the picture attached is just one I took while we were on our way to play soccer last p day. I thought it turned out pretty sweet!

Monday, September 28, 2009

2 months in Mexico? No puede ser...

Good afternoons!

That´s what we say in Spanish. Don´t ask why its plural because I do not know. I can´t believe another week has passed; time flies so so fast when you walk as much as we do, I suppose. Yesterday was my four-month mark, and I feel like I´ve been here for a week. It´s a good sign, I guess, because it means we´re working hard and keeping busy every day. And we´ve been seeing an abundance of miracles.

Yesterday, Elder Pastrana and I had the privelege of providing the saving ordinance of Baptism for two of the Almas of God (souls). It was so great, I love seeing our investigators in white--the change in them is just astounding. I´ll try to attach a picture, but the card reader on this computer is a little finicky. I baptized Irais and Elder Pastrana baptized Angelica. It was a sweet experience. We have two baptisms programmed for the following Sunday for Vicente (our miracle walk-in investigator, who is really awesome) and for Claudia, Angelica´s daughter. If all goes well, Juan, Angelica´s husband, should be baptized the following Sunday (11th).
It will be really awesome because we´re going to the Stake Center to watch General Conference next Sunday, and we´ll have the baptisms between the two sessions of conference, along with the other missionaries in our Stake who have baptism scheduled as well. I know, right?

Just by the way, we had our Zone Conference last week (the 22nd), and I received letters from Miranda, Elder Jace Ross, and Kristie Martin (Kristie, I have received every letter, don`t worry). The letters I received were sent from BEFORE August 17th (do the math...that means over a month after they were submitted to DearElder). Just to let you know the approximate time frame. But thank you all, it´s great to know how everyone is doing.

We finally got a Ward Mission Leader called in our Ward, and we had a really good training meeting with him on Saturday. We received the list of Ward Missionaries on Sunday, and Elder Pastrana and I are preparing a training meeting for all of them on Saturday of this week. The Lord is definitely blessing us here in Atlicpac with the help of the members. Do your best to try to give at least one refferral to the missionaries this week--the work is so much more effective with the help of the members.

I love you all, and hope things are going just swimmingly for you. Suerte!

Elder Budge

PS- Nope, I couldn´t attach the picture. Dang.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Nephi had to slay Laban...and we had to break into a chapel.

FAMily! Hey!

Thank you for your emails! Mandy and Eli, I´m glad you finally got your own place. I know what it´s like moving in with Mom and Dad again after...well, not living with Mom and Dad. Different worlds. On the one hand is the free food, and on the other...well it really isn´t important. I´m happy for you! I think Brady Crump´s brother and sister-in-law might be in your ward, they live right by there as well. There names are Dustin and Starlee Crump. Just by the by.

I´m glad things are going well for everyone that I´ve heard from. And I hope things are going well for the others. Things have been excellent, as usual, in la Misión México Este, the best mission on the face of the earth. We have definitely had an interesting week. Elder Pastrana and I went to the Doctor last Monday, and Elder Pastrana´s ear drum is fine! When we went a few weeks ago, the Doctor said there was a hole in his ear drum, but now it´s closed up! Which means no more need for surgery. Thank you for all your prayers; I know a surgery would have interfered greatly with the work we´re doing. He still has an infection, but he only has to take some medications and junk like that and all should be well.

So this past week we had our District Class with the other District of our Stake (in which are the Zone Leaders). We all went to a Chapel about 30 minutes away from ours by car, and when we arrived, the keys that the Zone Leaders didn´t work on the chapel doors. All the doors have locks with Finger Print Scanners, but the manual keys weren´t working. We found an open window on the second floor of the chapel, and an Elder in the other district lifted one of the members that was with us up into the window. It was so great, I have some sweet pictures of it. I can´t send them because the computer i´m using doesn´t have an SD card slot (bummer) but I´ll try to send them next week! 

Elder Pastrana and I did some Celestial Contacting this past week, and It has been awesome (I don´t have time to explain exactly what that is right now). We found some really solid people, we have been teaching a ton. We contacted a lady that told us she had lived in Utah for three years before just barely coming back to Mexico! We made an appointment for the next day with her, and we went and visited her. Elder Pastrana and I started teaching the Restoration, and we started to teach her about baptism. She got this huge grin on her face, and explained to us that she had already been baptized. We were like, ´but have you had the oppportunity to baptized in the way that Jesus Christ taught us?´ She said yes, in the LDS Church! haha. She told us she was too embarassed to tell us the day before, because she knew we didn´t know who she was because she´s been inactive for a good chunk of time. We invited her to come to the Chapel with us this coming Sunday, and she agreed. She´s a really awesome lady, very kind. She showed me a bunch of pictures from when she lived in Utah--pictures of Orem, Spanish Fork, and Salt Lake. It was so weird talking to someone who knew the area in which I used to live. She gave me a picture that she had taken of Bridal Veil Falls up in Provo Canyon. It´s sweet! It´s funny how things play out.

Welp, I don´t have much more to report. We´re still teaching the two young guys from the AA group who are really cool. We have a tentative baptismal date for the 27th of this month, as well as another investigator we have named Irais. We´ve also been teaching a really sweet mother and daughter, named Claudia and Angelica, who also have a baptismal date for the 27th. We´ve seen incredible improvement in this Area, and plan on seeing this desert flower blossom even more. Man, I´m poetic.

I love you all and I hope you are doing the greatest things ever!

Love, Elder Bood-hey (that´s how some people pronounce my name--i´ve embraced the fact that no one will ever be able to pronounce my name).

Monday, September 7, 2009

My first cycle is already over...crazy.

Hey everyone! I hope you´re doing well.

Because I am! This week has been hectic for us here in Atlicpac. We confirmed Daniela yesterday in Sacrament meeting, which was awesome, and we completed that family! It´s an awesome feeling. She´s doing great, she is going to baptisms for the dead on Thursday. I´m excited for her. She already wants to head to the baptismal font again. The Lord has allowed us to see tremendous miracles in this area.

This week has been hectic because Monday through Friday Elder Pastrana and I went to the City and We only had Saturday and Sunday to really work. Elder Pastrana has had some medical problems, so we went to the Federal District (that is what I refer to when I say ¨the City¨) a lot to have exams and all that good stuff. On Friday we had to go to a laboratory in order to get a Tomagraphy of his ear, which was actually pretty cool, apart from taking up all of our time last week. Nevertheless we had some good success on Satuday and Sunday; we have two new investigators who are really really cool, who have a baptismal date for the 20th of September. I´m really looking forward to that. An inactive member brought both of them to Church last Sunday; they´re part of an AA group, and have been searching for Religion. It´s awesome to see this sincere desire that they have to change their lives for the better--more than anything I could see in their eyes that they really wanted to find our Father in Heaven. I´m excited for both of them. 

There isn´t much else to report on... we´re head to the Federal District again to pick up the results from Elder Pastrana´s tomography--which will let us know how complicated the surgery is going to be (the fact that there will be surgery is inevitable). Pray for him, please. We don´t want it to interfere too much with the work.

I love you all, and I love the emails. Keep em coming. By the by, if you receive an Email from me, that means that you can reply to me through email as well. Thanks!

Elder Budge

Fotos: the Baptism of Daniela, Elder Pastrana and I with our rain gear (it has been raining like crazy here), and me doing some street magic for the enjoyment of the viewing public.