Blur

Started off the week with an exchange with my district leader Elder young. it was super good their area feels like a whole different country haha everywhere is so ghetto and so close to the border. it pretty much is mexico. no one speaks english. it was great. we went by this house to see if a member still lived there and there were 2 chickens in the front yard in separate cages.. i look at elder young. and was like hey.. do you know what those are. he said no. it was pretty obvious they were fighting chickens. haha we knock on the door and the lady that lives there is not the member haha. and elder young is like hey i love your chickens.., are they by chance fighting chickens... haha the lady hesitated... and said.. ummm uhh.. yes.. haha but uhhh uhh in mexico not here.. hahah yeah she wasnt interested in the gospel cause she was in a rush out the door all of a sudden haha. it was kinda funny. but elder young didnt know it was illegal hahaha so funny. its been pretty warm the past week. but not too bad. one night while i was with E. young we were riding back home and this dog up ahead is just barking and barking so loud. as we ride past the fence. the dog runs through the bars and starts chasing us hahah we were like what the heck.. ahhh ride ride ride!! haha
E. young slows down and gets a couple good kicks to the dog and then it runs off. hahh it was pretty intense cause it was a big dog. gosh it was a good exchange. i got back with my comp and we were riding to an appointment and his bike starts having some problems.. so we swing by the bike shop real quick cause we had time and then they ended up keeping his bike so we were on foot now. so we have been walking everywhere since then. on friday we got a call in the morning from our zls saying that there is a meeting in mcallen that we need to be at the next day at 8:30am and we need to find a ride to it. so we started calling everyone in our branch. no luck there and so we started callling people from other branches and still no luck. hours go by and we still didnt have anyone. as im looking through the contacts i see this one name and both of us dont know who he is so we call him. and he says we are so lucking to have just called cause he was about to go into work and he never takes his phone with him. he says he gets off at midnight and will come pick us up at 5am. Brother Huskey is the man!! he pulled through and swooped us a ride. milagros! haha its a 3 hour drive to mcallen from laredo. we were so grateful. so the next day we go to mcallen to listen to elder corbridge give a talk. hes the guy who wrote the 4th missionary if any of you guys have read it. if not go read it, its super good. well we went to listen to him. the whole mission did. i took a couple of ties for elder russel and sanchez from rockport. we went and listened to him and it was super good haha it was only supposed to be an hour but he went over 40 minutes. it was so good we all wished that he had kept talking. it was super good to see everyone. when i saw elder russell and sanchez idk why but i felt like maybe i should give them different ties later... idk why but yeah i just didnt give it to them. later that night when we were back in laredo we were in the library trying to make a map of our area. and this homeless guy comes up to us and starts talking to us telling us where we can get a map. come to find out hes been a member his whole life and just hasnt been to church in a long time cause hes homeless.. so i gave him my ties that i had carried. he was so happy when he saw them. it was super awesome. we got his number. and on sunday he didnt come... but it was still a good experience. last night we had dinner with the family Gutman they are from mexico. we had posole and i accidently dipped my Izod tie in it how sad.. well the gutmans invited their cuban non member friends over. and we had the best lesson ever. they are so accepting and we are going to start teaching them. their names are renae y ilda. they are so rad! this last week was a blur for sure. everything is good though and my comp and i are going for 3 baptisms this week. the mission really needs it. its gonna be a week of milagros. i love you all. be safe out there. and be strong. the lord loves you. and so do i. Alma 38:9 there is no other way. be good.

this is our washer.. haha theres only two options hahahaha.. i cried when i saw this hahahah.

the chickens haha 

this pic is for my papi. i found this gem in casa blanca the other day. 

lent special anyone..?

Carousel

last week was pretty fun. there was this training meeting in Mcallen for 3 days so elder acosta and i were in a trio with elder anderson (different than my last comp). we biked super hard. and on monday we found a family of 5 that are down for baptism. they are super great the dads name is Hilberto and he is super quiet haha its kinda funny cause his wife is super loud and just out there haha. we are only speaking spanish to eachother forever. its pretty fun. that monday night we rode up to the top of our area to have visit elder anderson's investigator. it took us like a half hour to ride up. we get there and she isnt even there... ahhhh!! the next day we ate with this japanese member... and if you thought tex mex was at times confusing. try tex-jap-mex. it was so weird. tackingchowfreakingbueno. ahha she was great. that night elder anderson and i taught his investigator israel. while my comp was at coordination. he is a super cool dude and is going to get baptized in a couple weeks. while we were teaching him. he said he had questions but couldnt think of them at the moment. and then he said tghat he isnt sure if god is in his life. we kept talking to him and told him how he can start practicing his faith. i asked him to pray and ask god about the things we talked about. he prayed. it was really good and the spirit was so strong in the room. after the prayer i asked him how do you feel..? he couldnt explain how he felt but it was good. and that all his worries went away. i looked at him and said. thats the spirit. it was truly amazing. on friday the rama had a dinner for valenties day. a half hour before we went to the party elder acosta and i were walking near by the church and this guy told us he needed some help putting some things in his truck so we go over and help him out and tell him that we are having a free dinner and that he is invited. and guess what.... he came!! haha hes a great guy. the dinner made me super trunky cause while we were all sitting there eating they were playing latin music.. elder Gallegos and i just look at eachother in pain cause we just wanted to get up and dance hahahah. the mission is so great. like why wouldnt you want to be an active member in the church. the change the mission has on everyone is so cool. the lord wants you to be the best that you can. dont fight the change. trust in the lords plan. on saturday we were at the library getting a list of the members. oh man that felt good to finally get a list. well when we were leaving there was this man that stopped us and said hey! tell me your beliefs i want to know. so we stopped and talked for a while about everything. he was super interested. while we were talking to him this hobo walks behind him and says "hey do i have to be a witness to get a bike?" we are like "oh we are mormons. he says oh man god doesnt let mormons into heaven. and then he sat down and started playing his broken guitar and started singing about how mormons cant make it to heaven. and this is all going on while we are teaching this other guy named carlos. hahah then the hobo said.. " you can bike all day and you still wont make it into heaven" haha it was pretty funny but then he left. hahaha isnt it great to have the gospel in your life. haha we moved apartments so now we live in the middle of our area.. my new address is
6402 McPherson Road Apt #54
Laredo, Tx, 78041
ha we just moved yesterday morning and already this morning we got a knock at the door super early from our neighbor saying we were too loud while doing our workouts. what a great way to start everything. the lords work is great! we also saw this old lady flip her car over going real slow. nobody knows how it happened but it did. texas drivers...'-' hahah also found out the deftones are coming to my mission.. ha fun fact.

picture or post card?

elder acosta and i 

fluffy dog!

p-day fun. since we all play. we all went.

People Are Strange

soooo a lot of weird things went down this week.
some good things. we had a super good district meeting. i did a training on language.. and i think everyone took it pretty good ha. theres a weird religion down here called santisimo muerte..
well its not just here but a lot of people here practice it they worship like the grim reaper.. well there was a car that drove by and it had a sticker of it on the car... and it was just really creepy but was in my mind a lot idk why.. and one night i woke up in the middle of the night and bam that thought came into my mind.. and it kinda spooked me for some reason. so i got up and went to the bathroom.. and after i was looking in the mirror and in the corner of my eye in the dark room. i saw this little child and it scared me a ton. i look back and there is nothing there. i put some water on my face and say its nothing and look back in the mirror and there it is again.. this little beat up boy... i was literally spooked. i was like okayyyyy i need to go to bed. so as im laying down i hear this little kid whisper wake up.. and im like what the heck... okay i just need to sleep. so i closed the bedroom down cause sleeping with the door open is weird. and i just cant get this thought out of my head.. like why is it there. i need to sleep. i say a pray and am like please.. help heavenly father help me go to sleep theres lots of work needing to be done tomorrow i really need to sleep. and just then..i felt like this weird feeling all over my body.. and i heard someone whisper "give up".. so i keep praying and just have a conversation to really help get rid of this thought. i felt like i was fighting with someone.. i started hearing things in the living room..so i keep praying and praying.. like i really need to sleep.. well.. i fell asleep praying.. finally.. and ever since then i have been. good but i dont know what happened. power of prayer guys. dont ever give up.

this one morning we played soccer real early like 5:30 it was fun. then after role plays we went to have lunch with a family and rode 25 minutes uphill and got lost. it was great hahah. she gave us this sick referral of this women and her 3 sons. we went and talked to them and they are super great. we had many great referrals for people. one was this guy named mario. we go to his apartment and start talking to him. baptism is something he is super interested in. especially cause he has a 3 year old son. so we are like great. we set a date and he had to go to work so he left and we started talking to his neighbor. while we were talking to his neighbor. mario comes back up and in the corner of my eye.. i see him wabbling back and forth.. i look at him and am like wow something is up with him. he is standing by his door and he starts to slowly fall. so my comp an i sit him in a chair and his eyes start to roll back into his head and his tongue is coming out of his mouth.. we are like what the heck.. is going on.. yeah this guy was tweaking out.. it was just so weird cause we were just talking to him like he was normal. sooo that happened.. we also later met julio who is this super sick guy that took everything super great. we set quite a few bd's we also got Anti'd really hard haha it was great. the key to when youre getting antid is to just have tons of animo.. cause who cares.. if they just want to stab us with false things and telling us what we dont believe in. its okay cause we know what is write. we at least try and give them the opportunity to listen. we were attacked a couple times. it was great haha. one was this old lady.. and this other one was this house full of "single" older women like 7 of them. yelling at us saying they dont want anything that we have to offer... not even service.. and we just had a great time haha. lots of success thanks to many blessings. the work out here is great. families are super important. we are working hard to find a family. we know we will find one.. maybe 3 who knows haha we just have to be obedient and worthy for miracles.
I love you guys.
read alma 29 today best chapter ever. if you have a chance read it.

Laredo North Zone

that mountain in that picture is in mexico... so yeahh we are pretty close.. literally within a few miles. half the members in our ward live in mexico for work.

sunsets.. always.. haha its the best part.

Si Eschucho Con El Corazon

Lehi "if there be no righteousness there be no happiness"

just want to start out saying that Victor and Marissa got baptized on sunday!! WOOO!!
super happy for them!! it made me a little sad telling them they we wouldnt be able to be there to baptize them but they still did super good!!

sooooo i am now in Laredo. its seriously right by the border. quite a few of the members in the spanish branch live in mexico during the week and come here for the weekends haha.
my new comp is Elder Acosta. he is super loco and awesome and wants to be a navy seal.
my new district is super awesome. its a bro district haha just elders. everyone is like brothers here is super great and we all play the guitar minus a few people. i havent really done too much biking. so once i got here i got put right into shape. haha we got hard everyday riding our bikes. by the end of this transfer we are gonna have tree trunk thighs its gonna be sick! haha. hablamos mucho espanol. because like 90% of the population here is hispanic. tex mex is used a lot here its actually quite hilarious. some people can even tex mex every other word haha. i dont know how you can even do that but they do hahah. the members feed us a lot here. im glad that my comp eats just as much food as i do so i dont look like a chancho every meal haha. so i was in casablanca but they changed all the areas up in the zone so now my comp and i are covering Hill Top and Del Norte in español. its honestly a massive area and its all on bike haha we are super pumped to get working. we are alos moving apartments sometime soon to be in the middle of our area. every saturday the north zone ( thats mine) and the south laredo zone we play soccer at like 5:30 am and it super fun just chill and play soccer in the morning. haha i thought i was in shape until i got to laredo haha ive been sore all week its great. there is always something to do in laredo. like there is always something going on with the members non-member friends of members. haha the members here are great! always bringing their friends to church. my companion and i went to this play called Rudy's to eat with a part member family. haha this play was the best. youd order meat by the 1/2 lb. we all ate so much meat i thought i was gonna die haha. im not a big meat guy but Rudy's was awesome. on sunday we were at church from 10:30am to about 5:30pm. thats how it is everysunday. our whole zone goes to church. there is only one spanish branch, theres 2 english wards, and a ysa. church went by pretty fast haha. and in between the churchs yesterday there was 2 baptisms. haha it was a great first sunday here in Laredo he had dinner at president Lavulavu. they are a super awesome family because they feed our whole district which is 8 elders everytime. not to mention their 6 kids as well. everyone here is great. something ive learned this week is to really listen to the spirit and to just go for it haha. no fear man just do it. yeah the person might not be interested but its all about planting seeds and finding people who are ready. listen to your heart when you feel the spirit and you will be guided and will get help in any way. gracias por todo. i love you guys.

i'll take more pictures this week. also random fact.. the water down here is pretty gross.. and it just makes you more thirsty.

sunset in Laredo

tried to get a picture of me and the sunset.. haha

New Address:
4420 North Loring Avenue #9
Laredo Texas
78401