Alright let's go!
So right now I'm writing you all from Martinez de la Torre, which
is the area of our zone leaders. We're down here in Veracruz again en el
calor y humedad, but it's all good because it's a zone activity! It
takes about 2 hours to get here, we'll be playing some sports, and then
two more hours back. But I'm writing you now because they told our
district to be there as early as possible, and they apparently told the
others to get there at 12. So, we're using our time wisely and writing
now while we wait for the rest, we headed out at 8 am. So pretty much
it's one of those blown P-Days that I'm sure Jason and Sean can tell you
all about, because we most likely won't be getting back until 4 and our
clothes take forever to wash and we have no dryer.
Which is fine, except for the fact that we have no clothes for
tomorrow, and in the cold of Teziutlan, clothes don't dry so fast. But
we'll figure something out^^
So anyway, what happened this week...
Well, we had an activity on Saturday because this last week was La
Noche Mexicana, which is basically 4th of July, but Mexican style. And
we had our investigator come, the one that's having a really tough time,
but she had fun there and sang some pretty funny karaoke with the young
women and bishop's wife, which I took a video of. I might send it, I'll
see how sending videos goes through email. But anyway, that went well
and it's looking like she's going to figure everything out this week and
be baptized on Saturday. My comp. and I see it happening and we're
getting ready for the baptismal service, so no worries.
I definitely learned a lot this week about following the spirit, patience, and other such things. Let's share an experience!
Okay, so I told my comp. about this one time where Elder Porter and
I, my last companion, had a great experience with praying about exactly
where to go and we went and found people, and told him we should do the
same. So, we prayed about where to go, like which colony in our area,
and we both decided on the colony of Pinal, which is right above where
we live. So we started out, like Nephi, not knowing exactly where we
were going or what we were doing beforehand. We just started walking,
and knocked a few doors. The people seemed generally nice and we set up
appointments for other days, but we felt like that wasn't the reason we
were up there, so we kept climbing (because it's ALL hills here). We got
to a point where my comp. had never been before, and he asked me if I
wanted to keep going, I said yes and we plunged into the unknown! We
climbed up higher and got to this really foresty area that reminds me of
Washington about where uncle Randy and them live.
Well, once we got up there, we got to a street we felt good about,
but we didn't know where to go from there. We stopped for a second and I
prayed about it, and about what color the house we should go to would
be, ''azul'' came clearly to mind. Which is funny, because there aren't
many blue houses here, but I just decided to go with it. I turned to my
companion, and he told me we should go left (which I found out later was
what HE was praying to know), so we turned left on the street and
walked.
At one point I looked right and saw a really really blue house,
I'll take a picture later of it from where I was standing. And I told my
companion that we should go to it, which we both didn't know how to do.
It was on the side of a hill, with no road that we could see that would
get to it, and had a fence around it. But, we hiked around and
eventually found the way down to it. We knocked and were quickly
accepted in! Ask Jason and Sean (or anyone that's served a mission), but
it's pretty rare that people let you right in without complaint when
you knock doors. But they did, and we talked and taught about a few
things.
Well, it was a spiritual lesson, and it was with a young mom and
her daughter of 11 years old. We set up another appointment and left. We
felt awesome! And long story short, from there we've been able to also
teach the woman's mom and her husband, who are both accepting things
very well also, which is pretty rare, AND as it turns out they're
married and not just living together (also VERY rare here in Mexico).
They were also able to come to church on Sunday, which was awesome, and
actually the whole church was filled with people we've been working
with.
It has been one of the best Sundays as far as church attendance
goes I've had in the mission. Just goes to show that when you're living
right and following the spirit, the blessings come. Even if you have to
have a hard week or two before it happens.
So anyway, this week has been good and I'm happy to be here. The
spanish is coming really rapidly now and I really don't have to think to
switch from it to english anymore, in fact my companion and I a lot of
the times get tongue tied in english so we just switch to spanish. We
also have forgotten a lot of simple phrases in english, and so we just
use spanglish a lot as well.
But yeah! That's the life of the mission at the moment,
those who have the chance to go that are reading this and haven't
made up your minds yet, please DO IT. Trust me, this is coming from
someone that hasn't been the most churchy guy all his life, nor the
hardest worker, and yet here I am working harder than I ever have,
completely focused on the gospel, and I'm having the time of my life. I
wouldn't trade these experiences for anything. PLEASE go on a mission!
There are hard times, yeah. Some of the hardest you'll ever experience,
but it makes the joy that you feel that much sweeter, and I already feel
the change I've gone through. I'm a different person from the one that
left, that's for sure. I'm just so glad I am here.
Thank you so much to friends that have encouraged me, my brothers,
my sister, my parents, and leaders of the church. Without all of you
together, I'm afraid I might not be here, but with the combined effort,
here I am and I wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
I love you all so much, I pray for you all, even when I'm almost too tired to think, and I know I've got your prayers too.
Look forward to hearing from you all next week!
Elder DeFreese
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