Holidays in the Mission

So I guess yesterday was a holday for some reason (the day after the day after christmas, or something like that) so I'm writing you today.

 

So do they normally eat corn tortillas with each meal.  I thought it was flour tortillas you eat with each meal.  Anyway it was fun and delicious.

• Yea, for the most part they eat corn tortillas with each meal (were in the US though, so they've kind of americanized).  I've only eaten flour tortillas a few times, I think it takes more effort to make.  But if you go to the store in the hispanic food section they should have some flour tortilla mix.  I'm not sure how to make it, but you can give it a try.

So to finish off the rest of the day on Saturday we went over to the Martinez house and had a Christmas dinner.  It was a pretty normal americanized dinner, nor tortillas, beans, rice or anything.  But it tasted really good, and we got stuffed, even to the point of it hurting, but it was all worth it.

o on saturday night we got some snow as well as most of sunday (in total about 6 in.)  And everything her shutdown.  Church was cancelled and everything.  In fact Pres. cotterall sent us a message and told us that we couldn't take the bikes or cars out that day.  So we were stuck in the apartment the ENTIRE DAY...  It was kind of relaxing at first, we ate lunch then I read the Liahona and studied some spanish, but then as the day went on it kind of got looong.  Sometimes it's difficult freezing outside knocking doors for hours on end but I am realizing now that it beats staying inside all day.  

The Family Talks to Elder Jeff on Christmas Morning

We were able to talk toJeff on the phone for about 40 minutes on Christmas morning!

Elder Compton is on YouTube!

Jeff's Mission President posted a video of missionaries singing at Zone Conference.  Click here to see!

Christmas Zone Conference

How did the Christmas party go and did you play the guitar and sing? 

 

• Well, it turned out that the person that was going to bring a guitar forgot to bring the guitar.  So I didn't get to play.  However, it was kind of a good thing because I never actually would have had a chance to practice witha guitar untill about a half an hour before.  Not to mention the fact that I've only touched a guitar probably 5 times so far on my mission, so it's been a while since I've actually had some practice.

 

Have you been through an ice storm?

 

• so far no, our mission president left a message with us saying that there might be one coming, but it never came.

 

Did you get your packages yet?  I sent your Birthday presents on Friday so you should get it in a week or two.

 

• Yep, We've got the tree set up and the presents under the tree ready to be opened.

 

hmmmm...what happened this week...I feel like I just wrote home yesterday.

 

This last saturday we had the ward party for christmas, we had some really good food there.  We ate ham, turkey, rice, tomales, and this sort of pasta (it had macaroni noodles with ham and some sort of sauce, I think it was mayonaise).  And unfortunantly they forgot to put the tortillas out untill the end, so I didn't get to eat turkey with tortillas again.   There were a few people that played some musical numbers and then santa clause came (I got a pix with santa clause also).

 

Oh, yea, we also had our Chrismas Zone conference (There should be a few videos on U-tube)  That was a pretty long, however exciting day.  We had to wake up at 4 am so that we could get there in time because it was a three hour drive out there. For the first half of the conference we talked about the ward mission process as well as our investigators church attendance.  I learned a lot from that which will be usefull and that I'm hoping that we will be able to apply.  We just got a new ward mission leader, so learning about the ward mission process should be able to help us/him as we get missionary work going in the branch.   Actually, kind of a cool story witht that.  After Zone conference I was thinking about how I could talk to the president of the branch to get the ward mission process going in the branch, without impeding on his authority.  We didn't have a copy of it in Spanish so I translated it all into spanish onto a different piece of paper and then on sunday I made copies of it and gave it to him.  Aparently he had talked to one of the missionaries in the past about the ward missionary plan and they were thinking about geting things going with that, but they needed it in spanish, and the missionary had plans to translate it, but he must have been transferred or something when that happened.  So when I brought the ward mission plan translated into Spanish, our Branch president willingly accepted it, and it looks like we should be putting it in place pretty soon.

 

I think I have told you about the less active/part member family that we found a while back.  They seem to be doing awesome right now, it's been kind of hard to get up with them very often, but we did get to teach them this week, and they have been coming to church for the last three weeks and they came to the ward activity on saturday.  The last lesson we had with them, we taught them about the book of mormon and the importance of it.  However we did find out some frustrating news at the end of the lesson, they arent married.  Aghhh...!  This seems to be the unending problem, I sometimes feel like a marrage counselor rather than a missionary.  But anyway, they talked with pres. martinez and it sounds like they're fine with getting married, they just need to find paperwork.

 

We also Taught [investigator] this last week, and the lesson went really well.  We taught him about keeping the sabbath day holy, and the word of wisdom.  We just flew through those two commandmants, because he already knew what they were and he was already living them both.  By the time we had finished teaching all of that we realized that only 20-30 min. had passed, so we decided we might as well go on to something else, so we taught him about the baptismal covenant, which didn't know what that was at first, but he learned quickly.   So from the looks of things he should be ontrack still to be baptized on the 8th of January!

Teaching Pool Exploded

 So I have to ask when you read scriptures from the Book of Mormon are your investigators receptive to the teachings from the B of M?

• It depends from person to person.  It isn't an uncommon accurance when I pull out a copy of the book of mormon to hear someone say "another testament of Jesus Christ?" then following several various reasons why that's wrong.  But others accept it just fine.  Sometimes it takes them a while to understand that it's not actually the bible (usually that happens when they start reading and see names like nephi, moroni, etc.  Then they get all upset because those arent the names they ususally see in the bible.)   I usually share scriptures from just the Book of Mormon.  In fact I know very few scriptures from the bible that I can use in teaching.  More than anything it's because everyone knows about the bible, the book of mormon is unique to us and is realy the basis for our investigators testimonies.

 Wow, so things are just looking better and better in our area.  It seems like our teaching pool recently has just exploaded with people.  Not only that we've had a lot of new people coming to church on sunday recently.  I think that also because of that we are slowly begining to grow excitement in the members as the see new people at church and get to know them.  So I'm anticipating that things should just continue to get better for now.  Also this last sunday we got a new mission leader, Hermano ponce.  This should be awesome, if we can keep the excitement going in HNO ponce I think that we will be able to see a lot of good things coming from the branch.

Also this next saturday we are having a Christmas party with the branch and Pres. martinez asked if either me or my companion could play a musical number for the party.  So I volonteered to play the guitar.  I have plans to just play a rythm to a few christmas hymns and then sing.  We'll see though, you know how I am about singing in front of people.  Not only that I havn't actually been able to get ahold of a guitar to practice it yet, I'm afraid I might just have to do it imprompt.  I have the chords and everything and they aren't difficult songs but it's still a little nerve racking.  But if I do do it I'll take video...possibly...it depends on how good/bad it is or I might just send pix.

Oh, yea, I'm not sure if I'm exactly sure how to pronounce our last name any more..I think i might be pronouncing it with a spanish accent...so you'll have to help me with that when I call home.

Golden Investigator

What advice would you give to the priest quorum about preparing for a mission?

• Hmm...where do I start.  STUDY PREACH MY GOSPEL   Go to school (college) before of atleast something anything so that they aren't bumming around the house before their mission, you need to know how to study!  Read your scriptures.

Do you review the missionary handbook regularly on your mission?

• yea, in fact we read about 4-5 pages out of the missionary handbook every day so that we can read the entire handbook twice in a transfer.

What is your current favorite scripture?

• Hmmm...That's a really good question, I'm not sure...but we'll say 3 ne 27:19-21 My companion could probably tell you that that is my favorite scripture.  I like it because it teaches about the gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith Repentance Baptism Gift of the Holy Gost, endure to the end all made possible through the atonement) Quick and to the point.  I've had some long winded companions (previously anyway, right now I do about 95% of the teaching), so I have kind of learned how to teach a little more quickly.

Wow, there's a lot to tell you about, we'll see if I can write it all today.

To begin with, I'm going to be fulfilling mom's life long dream today...I'm learning how to make tortillas.  One of the members invited us over to teach us how to make tortillas today.

One of our investigators...or potential investigators that we have been trying to teach for quite some time has now come to church twice, and we taught her last night.  We taught her at the Rosas house last night.  The lesson went really well, we just taught a lesson about the restoration.  We asked her if she would be baptized when she knew that the BOM is true, and that Joseph smith was a prophet (wow, I cant spell prophet anymore), and she said yes, but we werent able to set a specific date with her, but we should be setting a baptismal date with her in the not to far future.

We also Taught [investigator] last night. He has been coming to church for nearly the last month and a half.  We havn't been able to teach him much, though, because he's canceled on us a lot (not to mention the fact that our area is huge, which makes it hard to visit all of our investigetors often.)  But we talked to him about praying about the book of mormon and also reading in the Book of Mormon.  He also prayed at the end of the lesson!  We had taught him two times before and both times he refused to pray, so this was probably the first prayer he had ever said in his life!  Also we set a baptismal date with him for the 8th of january.  He's a little unsure about baptism still, but I think that if we can get him to read and pray, then he'll be a little more certain about it.

I think I told you about the [investigator family] a few weeks a go.  they are a referral from the Rosas family.  We havn't really been able to get up with them recently, but we have plans to teach them this next week.  We'll have to see how it goes though.

This last week we found a pretty awesome family.    The husband has already been baptized.  he got baptized in mexico about ten years ago, but came to the U.S. right after his baptism and hasn't come to church since.   ...oh, yea, we just found them by knocking doors in a trailor park where the Rosas live.  But, The [father's mother] , is an active member of the Branch and aparently has been working with to invite him to come to church.  It is amazing how prepared this family is and and just like they were put in our path.  But we talked to them for a few minutes, because we didn't have too much time, and invited them to church, and they came!   We have plans to teach them this coming wendsday, so I'm pretty excited about that.  A funny side note on that also, the husband is a pretty funny guy, and he told us how in mexico they call missionaries cuervos, which means a crow, because their always dressed up in black suits and look like a crow.  I can only imagen "ya vienen los cuervos, escondamanos de ellos!" [Here come the crows, let's hide from them!]