Loving Leon

Monday, March 6, 2017

Wow!  Hey Mom, this week has been awesome and crazy.  The two Martinez are hilarious!  We have had a good time and we have had some really awesome lessons.  We have been working in both of our areas.  Our area is humongous, we take so many buses.  Leon is awesome!  Our house is pretty cool I guess.  It's simple, but it gets the job done.  Everything has been smooth here in Leon.  I have been learning a lot, it's been awesome!  The spirit has been strong recently.  I talked with a cholo (A cholo is a gangster) today it was an experience. haha  It was funny, he was drunk.  We were at a bus stop and he started talking to us.  I don't want to tell you what he was saying to us. haha

I just barely got the package, it is awesome!!!  Debbie Arbon you are  the best person in the world!! Second to my Mom, of course.  Thank you so much to you and all of  those that contributed!!!

We have had some really cool lessons.  We were teaching one of Elder Martinez investigators.  He is 18 and he's super cool.  We were teaching him the restoration and  everything was going great.  I was super proud of how I taught as well.  We got to the point about where Joseph Smith read James and decided to pray.  He said, well ya, I have thought the same.  Why are there so many churches?  We asked him if you want to find out if what we are telling you is true, that Joseph Smith really did restore the church?  He was like, well ya, and we were like well let's do what he did.  Will you pray and ask the Lord right now?  So we did.  We all knelt down and Ivan (the investigator) said the prayer.  It was super cool.  The spirit was overwhelming.  He was beaming.  He was like, wow I have never felt like this before.  We showed him in the scriptures that what he was feeling was the spirit.  It was super awesome.

Gotta go.  Love you Mom!

Monday, March 13, 2017

Hey Mom, how are you doing?  This week was sweet.  hmmmmm stories.  I don't know, everyday we just go out and work and work and come home tired haha  (He was really tired last week.  It was hard getting anything out of him.  Yes, missionary work, is HARD work!)  My area is huggeeeeee.  We take a bus to a bus station to take a bus everyday.  We still walk a lot too. Probably more than in Celaya.   

Sorry, mom.  I'm good, I'm tired. haha  It's been awesome.  We reactivated two familias this week. This was my first time going to the church because the last week was Stake Conference.  It was super awesome.  We had some powerful lessons.  We should be able to baptize.  Something cool, we went to contact a reference of a teenage girl.   Her mom answered the door and she asked us why we wanted to talk to her.  She was super cool.  She was like well ya I want your help because she has noticed that God helps out families, so we are going to return.  She was super nice and well it was cool.

Another story, we were teaching a lady whose husband is a member.  It was super cool, we were talking about baptism and we explained why she needed to be baptized and she was like, wow, it all makes sense.  The Catholics are wrong.  haha  This next lesson with her we are going to set a date.  We also have like 4 kids that we should baptize, it's awesome.

Elder Martinez is awesome!  We went to the centro to buy him some shoes and stuff.  We looked at the Nike store but it's super expensive.  It's better that we buy fake things haha.  Can you send me another pair of jeans?  I asked at the tiangius and they just laughed in my face. (Apparently they don't have size 34/36 in Mexico. haha) 

Gotta go Mom.  Love you guys so so much!

Baptisms, turning 19, and a new area

Monday, February 20, 2017

Hi Mom!

Wow!  Harold and Tristian are awesome!!!  How was Harold's talk?  Was he nervous?  I hope they are doing well, they have been an inspiration for me here in the mission. 

This week was crazy preparing for the baptisms and everything.  We are super super tired.  Friday night we went to the church to see about the font and everything.  The building was trashed so we cleaned it up as good as we could.  Saturday morning we were at the church at 7:00 to fill the font. There wasn't any gas in the boiler so we had to put in water heaters that did nothing.  So that was cool. A's baptism was at 10.   He showed up super late.  It was insane!  The font didn't fill up quite all the way.  Then at like 4:30 we went to the church to check up on everything, and the water level in the font had gone down!!!!!!!  The baptism was supposed to start at 5 so we flicked on the font and filled up a bucket with a tap in the church and kept on dumping it in the font, it was insane.  Luckily they didn't show up on time.  Their whole family came, there were a lot of people!!!  We had to wait for the bishop too.  He didn't show up until like an hour later but finally everyone was there and it went fine.  J's father baptized him.  J is so awesome, he was beaming!  His Grandma told me that he couldn't sleep the whole week because he was so excited.  The program was awesome, the spirit was so strong.  Elder Romero and I were witnesses for the baptism.  The water was freezing.  The first time they did it they messed up and had to do it again.  J  clung to his dad because he was so cold after being dunked.   Elder Romero told him tranquillo, it's ok.  It was cool, he just calmed down and they did  it again.  It was so awesome and cute because right after he came up out of the water he shouted Aguante! which translates roughly into like "wow I did it," or "I handled it."  Everyone laughed, it was super funny.  I felt real joy then.  It was super awesome to see the blessings of the gospel that are to come to this family. 

I love you so much, Mom.  Talk to you later.

Hayden's Birthday was on Wednesday February 22, a couple of days after we got this email.  That evening my phone blew up.  A sister in the ward, Beatrix, who has taken such good care of the missionaries threw a party for Hayden.  She sent me pictures and videos.  It was so fun to be a part of the festivities!

taco feast

cake and Coke Jello

presents

We love Beatrix!

celebration signs

translation - "missing Lorraine"  Yes, I cried!!!

Monday, February 27, 2017

Hey Mom, what's up?

So the news is I got transferred to Leon and I was made District Leader. It's super freaking cool here and it's super hot, I'm dying right now.  My comp is Elder Martinez, he was my Zone Leader in Celaya my first change.  He is super cool, this is his last change here.  He is from Vera Cruz, he is Mexican.  Also the other Martinez from when I was in the offices is with us for a week because he is going to train and his comp doesn't get here for another week. It was about an hour and a half to travel to Leon from Celaya.  Leon is the shoe central of the world so I'll find some sic shoes here (if he can find his size 12-13 haha). Leon is a pretty big city with lots to do. 

My Birthday was amazing, we had a ton of tacos.  Beatrix is so awesome!!! I have tons of pictures. Last week was cool, we had some cool lessons.  There was one where I kind of just took over and because of what I did he accepted a baptism date.  Elder Romero is going to baptize him thanks to me haha.  I traveled here to Leon with most of the zone.  We went to a place like Buffalo Wild Wings (Hayden's favorite!). It was super cool and super fun. They played lots of music that I like, even Hootie and the Blowfish haha.

 Awesome new bed! (We got Hayden a new bed haha) It probably fits me, the beds here are super small. haha  I'm super excited for this change, I think it's gonna be cool.  I like my comp.  He told me to not stress, he'll help me out.

Gotta go, Mom.  I love you!

He didn't have a whole lot of time since transfers were this same day, he had just arrived in Leon and it was evening. We are anxious to hear from him today and find out about his first week in Leon.  

Hayden's District in Celaya

Leaving Celaya

Saying Goodbye

The Last 3 Weeks

Monday, January 30, 2017

Hi Mom!

I'm doing pretty good.  This week was kind of weird.  We had the broadcast and other things like that so we didn't necessarily get a full week of teaching in.  We did get to teach J and A various times in the week. They are rolling. We think the date for A has fallen or is going to fall, but we kind of expected that.  We just barely got them to let us in and they are interested.  His wife knows the gospel is true but when her dad died members kind of offended her so she is pretty sensitive.  We do have scheduled appointments with them. The thing his their Aunt is an evangelista or evengelist, I think is what it is in English, and she is basically a missionary.  We went over there  for one of our lessons and she was there.  She never gave us a chance to talk.  It was kind of weird, she kept on touching me as she talked.  Elder Romero made me sit by her. haha   It's frustrating because they are in love with her so it's hard to teach them but they are receptive and they want our help.  They feel the spirit with us and they respect us a lot.  It's cool, Mom, we just help people see the light and it's really awesome. We have reactivated the whole ward basically and the bishop is happy with us for that.  It's been really cool.  (I remember when Hayden first got to this area he said there were only a handful of people that attended church.  Now the congregation is full.  They have done good things!)

(We had to laugh at these pictures because of where Hayden's head is and the top of the entry and window.) 

M is the grandson of M (the friend of B) and they were all out on the street and M was lassoing and we stopped to talk to them.  Romero tried it because he used to know how to before the mission because his dad is a ranchero and then it was my turn.  

The blog is awesome as usual.  Grandpa and Grandma are funny.  They said I look like George Strait haha. 

This is why his grandparents said he looks like George Strait. haha

I played the guitar for the first time on my mission and oh wow it felt so good.  I have missed it so much!  I have missed music so much!!! 

J is the boy and A is the husband of a hermana that says that the church here isn't as good as in the states because in the states we are diligent and here everyone is lazy.  That's why they don't get good stuff here.  It's kind of funny but has truth to it, unfortunately.

Their inner nacho libre?

Ranchero

He's still got it. haha

Monday, February 6, 2017

Hi Mom,

I've been alright. This week wasn't the best but we are starting a new one so it's cool.  Elder Romero and I are exited for it to start. haha  It was just a hard week. Sometimes there are just weeks like that. 

We went to Subway.  We were going to go to a store that sells really cool t-shirts but it was closed.

(I didn't get much out of him today.  It was obvious he was down and had a really rough week.)

Mission selfie.

February 13, 2017

Hey Mom!

The start of this week was scary. We thought our baptism with A was going to fall through. It's funny because his wife is super controlling and so when we talk to her we get her side of the story.  A was super busy so we couldn't finish teaching with him.  We stopped by to find him and we told his wife that we can't baptize him because we haven't finished the teaching.  She told us a bunch of stuff like he was going to get offended and 30 minutes later he called and told us that he was good to move the date. I then told Romero that we are only going to talk to him for information.  We then went and had a sit down with A.  We brought Allen with us, a Priest in the ward who is hilarious. We had an intense talk with A and told him that he had to come to church and everything. He was cool.  He told us that he knows the church is true and he wants to bring his parents.  It was cool, really cool. hard to explain but cool. So we set up his baptism for this week and he came to church by himself with out his family, it was awesome.  He's going to be baptized this week. 

Studying.

It's been cool.  I have been getting better at everything.  Elder Romero has been commenting on my Spanish.  He told me it's better than President's and both of the AP's.  The only thing I lack is confidence.  In the lesson with A I did lots of things that made it seem as if i had a year under my belt, or so says Romero.  I still lack confidence but I'm working hard. 

It was cool, we had interviews with president this week after Zone Conference.  I couldn't speak English to President, I kept on breaking out into Spanish.  I forgot how to pray in English. haha (His emails are getting harder and harder to understand.)

Also J is going to get baptized this week.  The Bishop interviewed his dad and he said his dad can baptize him.  We are super super excited.  The hermana conchita is the Primary President and she has been helping us out a ton there, it's awesome.  

I tried not to be alarmed by the barbed wire along the top of the fence.

The other day we were walking and we passed some drunks.  I was like Elder Romero lets go over here but he didn't hear me and kept on walking.  They stopped me and asked about Trump.  I got mad and was like look I don't know anything.  Then Elder Romero started to talk to them.  I got frustrated. haha  They were kind of picking a fight with me, but it's cool.  Right after that we went to see the C family at their store.  All of the kids where in the store, there was like 20 of them.  They are all super cool, they loved us and force fed us pizza.  Romero told them about the drunks who tried to fight me. A was funny, he told me swear words to tell them then gave me a fake gun.  It was funny and cool, there were a ton of people in the store. The next day in church one of the boys who is 11 years old came to church by himself!!  It was sweet.  We had 4 investigators in church Sunday.  Oh yeah, and 15 minutes before church the First Counselor of the Bishopric called me and asked if one of us could give a talk for 10 minutes.  I went and told Elder Romero thinking he would say he would do it, but then he was like naw you do it.  So I did it.  We headed over to church and during Sacrament I found a few scriptures to use.  I was the concluding speaker and actually ended up talking for 15 minutes.  I was happy.  I was like wow, did I just do that?  It was cool pretty cool stuff.

Tell Mr. Morales he is awesome. 

I miss you, Mom, a lot.  I hope everything is ok.  I'm doing pretty good. Talk to you later.

Where's Waldo? haha

This is a picture that Sister Williamson posted on the mission FB page from their Zone Conference last week.  We have yet to see a picture where Hayden is not a head taller than everyone else.  haha

Thank you so very much for the love and support everyone has given to Hayden.  His Birthday is this week on Wednesday (the 22nd).  If you would like to leave a comment below wishing him a Happy Birthday he would love it.  He will see them on Monday.  We love you all!!! 

Working Hard is How You Get Things Done!

Hi Mom, 

This week was awesome!!  We have 2 more baptism dates!!!!!!  So now we have 3.  Two of them are solid and the other one we are going to have to work for.  O and B we haven't been able to get a solid sit down with them for a while so nothing new for them.  We have been busy with all of our other work.  We teach a lot of drunks so that's interesting.  I always come away learning more colorful words from those lessons.  We put a baptism date with the husband of the C family.  The muchacha of B, his name is E, left B's house for a while so we haven't seen him but he should return this week.  He is awesome, he's our buddy.  

This whole week was awesome, we put 2 baptism dates in one week. It really proves that just working hard is how you get things done.  It's interesting because it felt like we were working for nothing, we couldn't find results.  I think it was just a little bit of a testing point.  We improved lots of things, worked hard, and just kept on pushing.  I think the Lord was like, ok they really are here to serve me, so he lead us to the people that are prepared to receive the gospel. 

Wow, ya, I don't know what I want.  You know I'm not good about picking stuff out.  There isn't anything that I really need.  I'll try to think of something this next week and let you know.  You are pretty good at picking things out for me. haha  You know me, I love you, Mom. (This is in reference to his Birthday on February 22.)

I have pictures.  There are a few of Elder R and a boy named M teaching me how to lasso, it was cool haha  Today we went and played basketball and then went to Pizza Hut with a bunch of Elders.  It was fun.  

P-day lunch at Pizza Hut

I just heard about the conference for the first time today.  Wow that's crazy about Rudy, Mom, of course I remember what Rudy is.  haha  That's insane and cool. (This is in reference to the real life Rudy joining the church recently.  The movie is a favorite.)  That's awesome about your cruise, it sounds like you guys had a blast.

Love you, Mom.  We have to go now.  I hope everything is good.  Love you so much, Mom.  Tell everyone I love them.

Elder Bush 

Lots of teaching and missing the food already

Update from Monday, January 9, 2017

Hey Mom, 

This week was pretty awesome. This is the year that I spend one entire year in the mission.  Kinda weird. Tuesday we didn't have anything so we just basically contacted like 30 people.

Wednesday was awesome!  There is this family that we reactivated that has a daughter who is married and a son who are inactive.  We visited them Wednesday.  Their son is 9.  We taught them and put a baptism date with him!  It's awesome, two birds with one stone.  We are reactivating this family and getting the son ready for baptism.   I think the plan is to get the dad ready so he can baptize his son. That would be best. The C family who contains like 50 people in it, well we have been visiting them. We haven't been able to get a set set appointment with them so we haven't really been able to get all of the numbers from them.  It takes a little work to build up their trust and desires to meet with us. One of the little boys is having open heart surgery so they are struggling there.  We have been helping them with whatever we can.   We are going to give a blessing to their son.  We have been working hard and planing with the ward to get them to come back to church and to baptize the husbands and some of the kids who haven't been baptized.  There is lots of work but it takes a while to pry them open.  I'm sad because I will probably leave before anything happens with this family.  We also visited another less active elderly couple.  It turns out they haven't come to church because he has really bad health issues.  We gave him a blessing and after he was crying. It was actually a pretty spiritual experience for all of us.  

I don't really tell you weird or crazy stories because there are crazy things that happen everyday so I'm kind of used to them and they don't stand out to me.  I will try to be better about sharing those because they will get good laughs out of you guys.  

Something awesome...B was selling at the tiangis and she was reading her Book of Mormon and a lady said that she felt like she should talk to her.  Beatriz talked about The Book of Mormon and gave her a tarjeta with our number and everything.  She basically got us a new investigator.  It was funny because that day we had to be home by 7 and so I told her earlier that she had to contact like 30 people for us. 

We have finally gotten to visit O and B.  They are from Mexico City.  They are super super awesome. They sell carnitas and they are super good.  The have been in teaching for like 2 years.  We will see if wee can get them to progress. We were visiting them Sunday and another missionary in our zone called us so I answered it and stepped away to talk with them.  They told us that there was someone in the hospital in our area from their ward that wanted a blessing.  He wasn't doing too good.  It was kind of cool, O and B offered to take us so we went.  I hope everything is going ok.  Something that I have  learned a lot is that we are here to serve first.  We gave the family our number and told them if there is anything they need to call us, we tell that to anyone we contact as well.  It's weird, I have given more blessings in Spanish than in English.  It's cool giving a blessing.  It really is a good reminder of the priesthood duty I have.   It's pretty awesome. 

I think that is pretty much it.  Love you, Mom.


Update from Monday, January 16, 2017

Hey Mom,

I'm doing pretty good.  It's been awesome. I don't remember what I have told you.  These last few weeks have been weird emailing that's probably why you haven't updated the blog.  It's been awesome!  So we had changes and I'm staying here in Consti with Elder Romero.  I'm happy I can celebrate my Birthday here in a comfortable place with Elder Romero.  We are happy. 

We went to Costco today and to a store and bought new sweaters and ties.  It's been blazing hot.  It only gets a little chilly at night and in the morning. I don't know if you know, but we have a baptism date for February.  It's a less active family and the son isn't baptized, he's almost 10.  It's been cool to reactivate the family and teach the son.  His name is J.  He is super cool,  He reminds me of Dillon haha.  

Lots of our investigators have problems with alcohol so that has been funny haha. Also B has, well I don't know what to call him, but he's the son of her ex husband.  She has been taking care of him because he was in a super bad motorcycle accident.  It's been cool.  We have been teaching him and some cool things have been happening. Before he lost his faith he got into drinking and stuff really bad and lost sight of god.   His life went down hill and when he heard of us missionaries he thought we were something weird.  Well I guess we are, but still.  When he heard of "los hermanos" that teach B he thought it was something crazy.  The first day we visited him we were ourselves.  Elder Romero and I are goof balls and we became friends with him.  He found that interesting and so he listened to us and he is really interested.  He thinks his accident wasn't a coincidence and that he is here listening to us.  It's been really cool.  He even came to church yesterday. 

We have been working with the C family which is the ginormous family with investigators and menos activos.  Our visit last week with them was cool, we talked about everything.  We are going to teach them Wednesday.  I think we will be able to baptize the husband and activate everyone else.  It's been cool.  They really like the Elders, they are just super sensitive. It's been fun.  Contacting is always interesting and we have a pretty solid teaching pool.  It's been a little hard to get people to church, but here in Mexico it takes time haha.  We have reactivated multiple families and it's been super cool to see.  It's weird how much bigger the congregation is. 

I'm going to miss carnitas.  We have investigators that have a carnitas stand.  They always give us carnitas, sometimes in tacos and other times in tortas.  The food here is super super good!  You know me, I love food, so I'm already sad.

I love you guys so much!

Love Elder Bush


Last Monday when we heard from Hayden the first thing he did was ask what we were up to.  We sent him this:

I felt terrible but wasn't going to pretend like we were just "hanging out."  We went on a 4 day cruise and were able to spend a day in Mexico.  It was so fun for us, especially his brothers, to get a glimpse of what Hayden is experiencing (sort of haha) and what Mexico is like.  It was weird to think that for a day we were in the same country.  We love you, Hayden!!!

Eating tacos on the street.

The street shopping.

Mexico life.

Christmas 2016

On Christmas Eve Hayden was able to Skype us.  The picture isn't great.  It was sooo fun to talk to him.  We were able to meet his companion, Elder Romero and also a Hermana who takes really good care of them.  It is her nonmember friends who let them use their computer to Skype.  It was so weird having Hayden translate for us.  In just a few months he is totally fluent!  We commented on his hair cut, Elder Romero gave it to him. hahaha

Monday was pday, of course, and we had our usual email chat.  There wasn't a whole lot to share since we had just talked to him a couple of days before but here is a little of what he had to say.  We did get a lot of pictures though!  I have shared a few.

Hi Mom!

Ya I was super trunkie after the call.  I missed you guys a lot haha, but it's ok.   Missing you makes me work harder.  It reminds me that I'm sealed to my family for all eternity and I want the rest of the world to have that.

It was Christmas so everyone was drunk.  I didn't get any sleep because there were so many parties.  It was frustrating.   Everyone was out of town.  We contacted a lot and it felt like the whole country was denying us.  It was frustrating for me.  The other missionaries told me not to be frustrated haha, that's how it is in December.

I uploaded a bunch of pictures.  The one with Elder Romero cooking is our Christmas dinner, tacos!!!!  

Love you Mom, update the blog pleaaaase.  You are awesome.

Elder Bush


This is how they spent Christmas Eve after talking to their families.

Elder Romero preparing Christmas dinner, tacos.

This Hermana looks out for the missionaries and takes really good care of them.  We were cracking up at Hayden's head getting cut off in the pictures.  

Here are a few pictures from their mission Christmas party with President and Hermana Williamson.

'

Reunited with Elder Rowley!