Pictures!!!!!!!!!

Hey family, here´s a ton of photos that I´ve taken over our time here in Xicotepec, we had an awesome Zone activity today, so the majority of the photos are from that activity. I couldn´t re-size them so the pictures are really big. And it´s because of that Zone Activity that i can´t write more, I have to get going home! I´m still 2 hours away. I love all of you and hope you enjoy the pictures.

Elder Budge

P.S. I won the swing set contest, as you´ll see in the picture.

Turns out green water works too...

Hey family!!

I've had an awesome week and have a few things to tell you about so sit tight. First, I just wanted to comment on Josh working in the Primary. Ha! That's awesome. Who would of thunk it? That's all. Now on to my week...

Let's go back to last Monday when I told you that my companion had special changes because he was going to train a new Gringo! Welp, on Tuesday we started our Journey towards the Promised land of Mexico state, with our eye single to the glory of the Mexico city Temple. Three and a half hours and 234 pesos later, we arrived at the temple and Elder Cruz received his baby boy...from New Zealand! I like the new Elder...and not just because he reminds me of Flight of the Conchords. They'll do awesome.

My new companion is Elder Martinez, and he's just a stud. We've been getting to know each other this past week, working really hard to find the Lord's elect here in Xicotepec. The day after he got here, our ward Mission Leader invited us to eat dinner, and lo and behold, a lady entered into his store, told us she was a less-active member and that her son was not baptized! Of course...we didn't hesitate to make an appointment with her for the next day. That day we did divisions with the Zone Leaders, and I was with Elder Valdez (who heads home in about a week and a half). We taught Kevin (the not-baptized kid) about baptism, and he told us he wanted to wait. So we left him the task of reading and praying and we set up an appointment for the next day.

After that, we found an awesome new investigator named Araseli. We went to her house, and she basically asked us to explain the Plan of Salvation. It was already 9 o clock so we explained a little bit, left her the P of S pamphlet and set up an appointment for the next day. SO...that 'next day' of which I have been speaking was just awesome. We had about a bazillion appointments we had set up with our street contacts from the day before, and most of them fell through. Wish I could say that wasn't normal. But we went to teach Kevin, but he wasn't home, so we just talked with his mom. She told us that Kevin wanted to wait until he turns 15 to be baptized (he's 12!!!), so we just talked about not procrastinating his baptism. We returned the next day, and Kevin told us that when he prayed, he dreamed that God was talking to him, and that He simply said to him "Yes". It was pretty awesome, because we had explained to him that if he would ask a direct question, like "Should I get baptized this Sunday?", then God would give him a direct answer. So that answer was a very direct "Yes." He was interviewed on Saturday and baptized on Sunday! I love miracles.

We went and taught Araseli about the Plan of Salvation, and she had a ton of excellent questions for us. We were also able to teach her "husband" as well, and they came to Church with us on Sunday. The next task at hand will be to marry them...yikes!! But the Lord will help us find a way to get them married.

That's all the news I have. Be safe, have fun, go to the Temple! Seriously!

Elder Budge

Photos:

1. My first District as DL

2. Me and my new companion in the Chapel

3. Kevin's baptism

Give, give, give until there´s nothing left!

Hey family!

Sorry I couldn´t write a whole lot last week, those pictures took up more time than I had anticipated. You forgive me? Excellent. Thanks for all who wrote me, really it means worlds to me. I´ll try to make this letter as spiritually uplifting as can be written...while ¨I´ve got a feeling that tonight´s gonna be a good night¨ by Black Eyed Peas is being blared in this internet cafe. Haha!

First of all, I didn´t get to give my report of how absolutely amazing General Conference was! I´ll share with you some of what I consider are the ¨highlights´´ of the many talks that were given. Ready? Ok.

First of all, Elder Uchtdorf´s talk about turbulence was a really good eye-opener for me. In my District we´ve been experiencing some turbulence in the work, so it was a good reminder to take things back to basics, and really just rely on the simple impressions of the Spirit and the basic principles of missionary work: hard work, diligence, and obedience. Just what I needed to hear. I was also really impressed with Robert D. Hales´ talk about making decisions...and how we need to just simply make the same choice we made in pre-mortal life...in my opinion, that means to learn and study the Plan of Salvation, and make the decision to follow God and His prophets. As Kevin R. Duncan explained...we have prophets and apostles for a purpose! We need to listen to their counsel; if we don´t, we don´t have a reason why to get up and testify about living Prophets today. Speaking of testifying...I absolutely loved what Richard G. Scott said about testimony: It´s not emotion...a testimony is a quilt woven together by countless correct decisions. Really, it always comes back to us and how we use our agency; as Boyd K. Packer explained, no one can take our agency away from us, we can only give it away--and agency brings with it responsability.

Did you like the way all my Conference commentaries all kind of wove into each other? I didn´t even plan that but I´d say it worked out pretty well! Anyway...

These past few weeks have been a little rough. Lost of decoy investigators...but this past week. We found a pretty awesome family at 8:30 at night on Saturday! We´ve been studying a lot about diligence...and we´ve definitely been putting it into practice. We´ll see how their progress goes. We have to marry them...yikes! That means lots of travel. Oh, and my companion, Elder Cruz (who is just absolutely AWESOME...I love this man to death!) has special changes...he´s going to be training some new americans that are coming in today. We have to travel like 5 hours to go pick them up and I´ll be getting a new companion. We only had three weeks together, but that´s just the way things go sometimes. I´ll miss him a lot. Good thing he has a visa and is going to visit me in Utah. Heh heh. Anyway, I love all of you. Please remember to go to the temple as often as you can! We need to put more temples on the map!!

Have a good week, I love you all so much!

Elder Budge

Photos!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey family, not a lot of time to write, because I spent some time uploading and editing pictures to send! My week was awesome, General Conference was absolutely incredible! I'll write more next week!

Photos:

1. Bowling my last P-Day in Tecamac
2. Ice Skating in Tecamac
3. My dad, me, my son, and my grandson!
4. My new comp and I eating delicious Mac and Cheese with Chili!
5. The beautiful view from my desk every morning...you can see the missionary essentials.
6. Our Chapel in Xicotepec!
7. A banner we found in our chapel, it says "Xicotepec Ward" haha.
8. The two gringos watching Gen. Conf. in english
9. The missionaries of the Tulancingo Stake at Gen. Conf.!
10. Elder Walk and I...again.

Have an incredible week, go to the temple, and always remember that the Church is true!

Elder BudgePhotos!!!!!!!!!!!!

Xicotepec, Puebla baby!

Dearest Family,

As of last tuesday, I am the Leader of the Xicotepec District--in the very farthest area of the mission! It takes about 4 or 5 hours to get to Mexico City from where I am...and there is one state between my area and the Federal District! It´s kind of crazy but I absolutely love it! It´s ridiculously beautiful; lots of trees, rivers, waterfalls, and of course, lots of people ready and waiting to get baptized. Ha you won´t believe it, but here in this Zone, Elder Walk (my MTC companion) is one of my Zone Leaders, which is absolutely awesome (actually, he is at my side on another computer in this very moment!). We slept at the Zone Leaders´ house last night and played some sweet basketball in the morning. We have to travel to their house every Sunday afternoon to turn in records and letters and things like that...they live 2 and a half hours away. Yikes! But it´s really fun because Elder Walk and I get to catch up and talk about EVERYTHING. He´s really become a good buddy to me.

Anyway, so I had to leave my son, Elder Montoya, with my new grandson, Elder Lara, in Los Heroes. I´m sure they´re doing great...that ward is so awesome. And now, I´m in Xicotepec. My new companion is Elder Cruz...he´s super chill and an awesome missionary. We get along really really well...we think the same in a lot of ways. So he´s pretty much a stud. We spent all last week just looking for new investigators...it was ridiculous! I´m too used to working with city people, it´s been weird getting used to these small-town folk. This area is just ready to explode with a lot of success. I have so much faith in this new area...I know that there are thousands of the Lord´s elect ready and waiting for us. It´s just up to us to go out and find them. Elder Walk showed me a really cool letter that his grandpa sent him, and he talks about how being a good servant is just receiving the assignment and doing it. There´s no asking why or how or when...you just do it! I was reminded of how Dad always tried to teach me that principle. He always would say, ¨Jake, just be a problem solver!¨ I´m really grateful for that teaching, because that´s how the mission is. Success in the mission is baptizing...the Lord has called and commanded us to baptize. So we just need to go out and do it! He´ll worry about the how´s and why´s and who´s...we´re just instruments in his hands.

I had a really awesome experience this past week in my very first baptismal interview. The entire interview I had really strongly felt that his man wasn´t ready for baptism...after digging a little deeper, he had some issues that I was uncomfortable with and in the end, we decided to wait for his baptism. I called President Hicken and we talked about what had happened in the interview, and he said to me, ¨Elder, you couldn´t have given that man better counsel if you had been a Bishop for 25 years.¨ I still felt unsettled about what had happened, and I was wondering about the decision I made was the right one...so I prayed, and decided to crack open the ol´ Book of Mormon. I opened right to Mosiah 26:34-39. I´ll let you all read it. It really helped me realize the importance of my calling and my responsibilities in the mission. I´m doing another interview tonight, so I´ll ask you to be praying for me as I do so. I need all the help I can get!

This week I prepared a blank Book of Mormon, and marked all the passages that explain the principles of the Missionary lessons, among other things, so I can use JUST the Book of Mormon in the lessons we teach. It turned out pretty awesome, and has been a great tool in teaching. I love the Book of Mormon!

I love you all, and I think that´s all the news I have for you. I love you all, and thank you for all your prayers!

Elder Budge

Ya no vuelvo más!

Hey fam!

Sorry I wasn't able to write a letter last week. I bought a new USB memory stick thingy and I spent most of the time downloading all the pictures I lost from when I got robbed. Me perdonan? Muy bien. So a little bit about what happened last week...not much. That's actually why I felt ok not writing haha. Don't worry; I'm still alive; I still love you, and no Mandy, I'm not mad at you for not writing. And I'm not mad at you either, Mom, I know things get busy and sometimes you can't write. That's just the way things go. I will tell you that last week we found whom we thought were awesome investigators, but we dropped them last night, mainly for their lack of progress. I can only last so long explaining the same principle of why "bad things happen to 'good' people" in so many visits. Goodbye old investigators, hello miracles!

This week was super busy for us. On Tuesday, we had an awesome Zone Conference where the Assistants taught us to always use the Book of Mormon in our teaching (NOT the Bible) because we're in the land of Lehi and his descendence. And then President Hicken explained to us the importance of obedience. All in all it was an excellent conference. Then on Wednesday we had to be in the house at 6 o clock because it was Mexico's Independence Day...and in the afternoon it's too dangerous for us to be out in the streets. We cleaned the house...kinda like Derek, but man, looks like Derek lives in a PALACE!!!! Holy Cow! And then we weren't allowed to leave the house until noon the next day. We lost a lot of working time, but we definitely took advantage of the time we DID have, and were able to have a really good week. We found a couple of families that went to Church with us, and some of the members brought some investigators to Church too. It was a very excellent Sunday for us.

So...I have transfers tomorrow! I will be saying goodbye to Los Heroes after being here for almost 6 months, and I'll be embracing my new calling as a District Leader. Hello Cell Phone! Haha. Also, my son has been called to be a TRAINER, which is just awesome, and I'm going to be a grandpa!! Awesome, huh? I feel really grateful for the trust that the mission President and the Lord has in us. So next week I'll let you know where I am and who I'm with and all the rest. I really don't have any other news...we went ice skating, bowling, and mini-golfing today (AWESOME!), and I feel way exhausted. I love you all, I hope you have a great week, be safe, and go to the temple!

Elder Budge

PS. I'm attaching some photos from our little trip today, the car I'm going to buy after the mission (Dad, you know what i'm talking about), and i don't remember what else. Enjoy!

Teotihuacan...part 3!

Hello family!

As you may or may not have guessed, today I did my THIRD and possibly final trip to the Pyramids here in Teotihuacan, Mexico. It was sweet, and because it was my last time, I bought some cool souvenirs that maybe I will send home. Maybe. I'm attaching some sweet photos this week--some soccer jerseys that some members made for us, a photo that explains pretty well how i've been heating up water in order to be able to bathe, intented murder, and my awesome mustache. Enjoy.

There's really not much to report this week. We had a really challenging week...as far as numbers are concerned, definitely not a week I am proud of. But, I'm super determined to just keep on keeping on. I was thinking a lot about some scriptures that my companion and I usually share with less-active members or with investigators who are afraid to keep commitments, and just in general when people feel like God isn't blessing them. In section 58 of Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord explains exactly why that is. I'll paraphrase, and kind of translate from what I remember from what it says in Spanish. He says, "Who am I to promise and not fulfill? Men disobey my commandments, and I revoke the blessings. Then men say, this cannot be the work of the Lord, because His promises are not fulfilled!" Wo unto men who so think. I like to ask the question, "If the Lord always fulfills His promises, and those promises are received based on our obedience to His commandments, then what is going on if we aren't seeing the blessings?" Answer: We're not obeying the Lord's commandments.

Family, the Lord is perfect, and He certainly isn't a liar. The scriptures mention that we, the spiritual Sons and Daughters of the Most High God, are less even the dust of the Earth. Why? Because God says, "Dirt, move over there." And what does the dirt say? "Ok." But what happens when God gives us a commandment? "Well, it's really not that important...I don't see why I need to do that...what's the big deal if everyone else does it?" I think we can all take a good look at ourselves and figure out how we can better our obedience to the Lord. Let's be loyal to our Father in Heaven and follow His commandments. It's not a coincidence that those commandments lead us to Eternal Happiness. Who wouldn't want that?!

Anyway, I want you to know that I'm committed to being better, more obedient, and more faithful as a Disciple of Christ. I love all of you.

Elder Budge