Wesley's Letter 11-19-12

Sup Fam n Friends,

Good news, this week we baptized again whoop! Their names are David, Armando and Veronica. Do you remember a while back when I told you about the lady in my last area that wanted to get baptized but her husband didn’t let her? Well that’s Veronica, and on Saturday she finally got baptized! So my comp and I went all the way back to my old area, to show our support. She seemed super happy. Unfortunately we got there after the ordinance was done because we took the wrong bus and had to walk like 18 blocks! But at least I felt good about going out of my way to show her my support.

The other Armando, he and his sister Josaline, both got baptized. Because their mom has been less active in the church we’ve been working hard with her and her kids to help them come back and now they’re finally active again.

The other family is the family Vasto Uc. They’re investigating and have recently been having some economic crisis because the dad is a police officer that has been out of work for a while, due to a work related injury. Basically a kid on drugs hit him with a 2 by 4 while he wasn’t looking and broke his arm but we’ve been helping them out tons and teaching them the gospel.

At first while teaching the family the dad was the only one who listened to us. The mom and the kids all would run inside and hide, thinking we had no idea they were home.

The mom even said she hated that we came. But as the story goes now they’re all aboard the baptism boat, David was the first to shove off from port, but this week were baptizing the rest of the kids! The mom and dad still aren’t married so we’ve got to resolve that before they can get baptized. But they are both super grateful that we kept visiting them in the beginning, despite their objection to it. Actually in this album there’s a picture of the mom Nelly preparing a pib she had made for us to show her gratitude. The same lady that was always telling us she was too busy or not interested to hear what we had to say.

There’s a pic of me impersonating the street venders that sell stuff from their trikes, I’m selling the pibs Vasto Uc FAM prepared for us. Hahaha! Yeah, well now they’re all super excited and the girl Vanessa and her boyfriend Jose are preparing to get baptized. He’s super funny. Right now were trying to convince him and David, when they turn 18, to go out and serve a mission.

Ok, another pic that I’ve got here is another member of the branch. Hermano Cruz Chan. He is a bus driver who took his work bus and picked all of us up, the Basto Uc family and a bunch of other investigators, to go see another baptism in the branch. We rolled up in style.

Yep well that’s all folks,
Smit

Wesley's Letter 11-12-12

Hey Fam n Friends,

First off, tell Alena congrats on her mission call and that I’m proud that she’s going to go serve a mission! I’m pretty sure I‘ll be saying a lot more congrats as time goes on and I hear a lot more about where everyone is serving. The mission here in about 2 more transfers is going to get 26 sister missionaries and 48 elders. When we put it in perspective that will be the biggest generation of missionaries that’s ever come here at the same time. The most we have had before was 27. Yeah, it’s going to be crazy.

So, when I went to the offices today for an interview I felt bad for my old comp Elder Barrow (the Executive Secretary) because he’s going to get soooo much work and he knows it. That’s going to be immigration work for probably 30 of the 48 Elders hahahaha.

Apart from that, the cool news this week, I finally got a camera, so now you’re finally going to get pics. I’ll explain some of the pics, some are of me and my comp rockin it in the swagger nightlife in down town Merida.

One is with us and a family we’re going to baptize soon, the son closest to me in the pic is 17 and is getting baptized this week and is already planning on going on a mission. One pic is of a classic Mayan dish here called a pib. They wrap it up in banana leaves and bury it for a few days, and that’s how they cook it, and its actually super good. The rest are pretty much just random ones I took in my area or downtown Merida.

So here’s a cool experience this week, there’s another family we had been teaching and actually they’ve been progressing a lot. We hadn’t gotten to know the dad yet because he works late, but we had given his wife a Book of Mormon to give to him. The other day my comp and I were just walking around and we didn’t have anything to do so I was like “Uh, do you wana go visit Marisol’s family?” So we went to her house and upon arriving we found her husband reading the book, he said, "Finally! I had been waiting for you guys while reading this book since 1:00" I looked at my phone to find that it was about 4:30 when we had arrived. So he had been waiting for us for more that 3 hours reading the book, when we hadn’t even set an appointment.

He then told us how he had a great desire to talk to us and that for some reason he had never felt so anxious to talk to anyone else in his entire life. We talked and talked and talked for what turned into one of the longest lessons of my entire mission, 3:00 hours. He really was receptive to everything and he often started explaining things that we hadn’t even taught him yet. He and his wife went to church with us this week and are both anxious for their baptisms on the 1st of December.

I’m outta time.

Love and kisses,
SMITTY OUT!

Wesley's Letter 11-5-12

Hey guys,

How are things going state side? Things are going pretty sweet down here. This week we’ve been seeing some more cool experiences.

Hey I got some crazy news, it's officially against the rules here in the Mexico Merida Mission to go contact people or knock doors, we can only work now with references from members. Yeah, but I feel like my first few weeks here in Castilla were pure searching and searching and we’ve gotten to the point were we actually have more investigators than I have time for! As it stands we’ve got about 17 baptismal dates whoop whoop! Amongst which is a family of 8, we plan on baptizing in the next month. We got them all to church yesterday and they all loved it! You can tell when someone is interested in our message, if when you try to schedule the next appointment and they make it for as soon as possible.

The other day we had gotten to their house only to find the mom and dad were just horrible drunk. It got me kind of frustrated because they were making such awesome progression and had fallen. But I feel that some good came out of them falling like this, because it was only usually the dad and his son that would come out to talk to us and the mom just kind of stayed inside to mind her own business. I just kind of thought she didn’t really care, but that night she drunkenly explained to us that the reason that she always stayed inside was because she was embarrassed, or because she felt like we would judge her because she has had some big problems in the past and that she wasn’t worthy to talk with missionaries. And recently because we know that now, we can help her understand more who we are and what we do.

Also, I think I already told you about the 2 Mayan guys we teach that contacted us. Well basically they’re 2 best friends/ neighbors that decided to start to listen to us and they both are stereotypically exactly what every missionary in the world looks for in investigators. They both want to be members, both are super Mayan, and speak Mayan all the time and they accept everything that we teach them. We started teaching them the restoration of the church and they said, “listen I didn’t contact you guys to listen to what any other church teaches, I contacted you because I want to be a Mormon” YA BOI. And now they’re inviting all their friends to listen to us also.

Just pretty much know all of the people I’m teaching right now are in families, or groups. So although these last 4 months of my mission have been relatively down baptismal wise, patience is the key. Things in about 2 more weeks here will be looking a little bit more “white”. [the color of baptismal clothing]

Also, sorry if there are spelling or grammar errors in this letski or if things are phrased awkwardly that’s just my way of saying, " Yes Dad, I’ve been practicing my Spanish”

Oh yeah, the mission in 2 more months is going to get like 80 more missionaries. Crazy stuff! They’re going to open about 3 more zones here.

Sorry for not sending pictures Mom, that’s just my way of saying " I still haven’t found a decent camera at a decent price"
I’m leaving right now to look for one.

Love you all more than all the letters my friends didn’t send me recently, (and that’s a lot)

ELDER SMITTTY!

Wesley's Letter 10-29-12

Hey Famery,

Just same ol’ same old here in the ghetto south of Merida. Things are moving in a gradual upward direction. It’s pretty sweet; this week we’ve been finding all kinds of interesting people and shedding some gospel light on their sinful moonless nights.

The biggest news in terms of something new here is that just last night we got a ridiculous reference to a house of 4 different FAMILIES! I don’t know them very well but it’s a sure 18 people. The best part is that they all had barely left their other church because the pastor never went to visit them when their youngest child had a pretty bad heart problem. And he wanted to charge them for a blessing so, yeah the entire house stopped going. On Tuesday we're going to go give the child a blessing and teach them all about the restoration.

Referring back to this other family of 8 we're teaching, they didn’t all go to church but we did get their oldest son to go. After the services, without us even saying anything, just straight up said, “I want to be baptized” LEGIT.

Don’t mean to scare mom but in these last few days I been seeing quite a bit of gang violence here. Like straight up gang battles with kids with sticks, knives, and even rocks. Pretty nutz. I’ve got some sweet stories but I’ll tell them when I get home, so mom isn’t all worrisome hahaha!

Yesterday, I was cooking a delicious sandwich in my sandwich-maker when I stepped back and heard a squi-crack-ish. Now to who ever is reading this blog I want you to look at your computer mouse, the giant flying cockroach that I had stepped on was literally bigger than that. It was the biggest one I had ever seen, and those things believe it or not, apart from being giant disgusting creeps, they’re actually pretty dangerous. They give infections if they bite you. If they bite you you’ve got to take antibiotics and it takes a few weeks for it to stop swelling. Yeah, its actually better to get bitten by a tarantula or stung by a scorpion than get bitten by a cockroach here. Anyway when I stepped on it, it felt more like stepping on a human hand than an insect. But I swept it outa the house real quick.

Everything is going pretty well here. I can’t complain. I’m out of time.

Love Much,
Smitty

Ps Mom I want you to send me whatever you want for Christmas. But the one special thing I do want is a blowgun, not the wussy kind. I mean one with metal needles, because I’ve got to try to take some of these creepy crawlies out when they’re climbing on my walls!