Elder Perrin - 28 May 2008

So basically, nothin' much is happenen over here. Corn, corn is growing. It's pretty boring, and on top of that my comp never talks, so everything is boring around here. Nothing really new, same old flaky people that don't want to change their lives. So anyway, not trying to be a pessimist, or whatever it is you call it, but just letting you know nothing much is new. We gave Jieme a date for baptism, and he would be easily in the water like , today, except he works Sundays. So he's been asking and hopefully he'll get them off. Other than that we don't have any investigators, which is sad I know. I'm sorry, It probably seems like were just horrible missionaries, but we really are doing everything we can. So that's all I can think of for this week. Oh actually I need the recipe for The Potatoes tam would make that I love. I need to make them for the meals we eat on Sunday with Daniel. We eat there every Sunday, and he always gives us a ton of food, and we as missionaries never bring anything. So I decided I could bring something, and Potatoes sounded the best, and I think they're do-able. So please, Tam, I need you....again....sorry.....your just so wanted down here in Chicago. Will you come be my secretary? And hey! Remember what I said about the whole "I should pack you in my suitcase so that whenever I need an uplifting song I could have you sing me one," thing I said at my farewell. Well ya, you would just make the best secretary for me. That would be tight am I right? Yep. Well, tell Charlie I love him tonz and I miss him all the time, and I hope he has a fun summer playing with all his friends. Love you all! Love Elder Perrin

Elder Fox May 26, 2008

Ok so im officially poor... Yeah im not sure where all the money went but its just not there (dont worry mom and dad, the debit card still has money just practicing a little self dissapline). So all that we bought for this week to eat was a bag of oats, sugar, and water. Thank goodness we have a microwave to warm up it all up fast. That was our breakfast and dinner for the whole week, except yesterday night (sunday) when we took the sacrament bread home and ate it.

we changed houses at the start of the week. We were living with 2 other elders that are here in Hidalgo also. Now we do have a little more peace at night since it was 3 americans! Yeah we couldnt stop talking, in a way it was good though since ive lost alot of english vocab, i got some practice in.

Ive done alot more walking in this area than i have done in the past and im not used to it since i have always been on my bike. Ive got two good shinning blisters on both of my feet and i just cant wait until the calus over so i can stop walking like a crazy duck. Ive learned alot about when to open your mouth.

We started a fast as a district on Thursday which went really well. Me and my companion didnt have time to start it in the house so we found a patch of brush off to the side of the rode and did it there right in the dirt leaves and rocks, we ended it there also. We taught a young mother this week named Bety who had gone to church about 4 times but was only interested because her kids liked to go and participate. We worked with her alot this week and put some awesome goals with her to learn and start with her conversion process. Long story short, she is excited to be baptized this 1st of June! More than anything i have learned from this experience that we dont make the change in their lives, we just push them into the circle of conversion where God can get ahold of them and then he makes the change.

Me and my companion were riding down the highway on Friday (i was pedaling and he was on the back pegs) a bunch of semi trucks starting coming towards us and i totally had a little kid revelation... I told my companion in that same moment ¨hey lets get them to honk their horns!¨ So right as they went by we stuck our arms up in the air in the square form and had the whole arm motion going on up and down to try and see if they would do it. and they DID!! haha it was AWESOME! I totally felt like i was 5 years old again! I seriously think that was one of the highlights of my mission so far haha.

Its kinda different having an american as your companion, im not really used to it. But its also way cool! We talk all the time and i really do enjoy it because we joke around all the time and we just understand each other better. He is really humble and makes me want to be better. I help him a ton with Spanish and he helps me with English haha. Until next week thats all i got. Thanks for everything! Elder Fox**

Elder Fox - 19 May 2008

Hola Everyone!

Elder Fox cut his hair again... Yes it was way long. Monday night we got transfer phone calls and since our zone leader didnt have a companion he had to stay with us which ment we got to see first hand whereeveryone was getting transfered too. It seriously is always like Christmas time. I had no intentions of leaving Obreas Monclova since i only had one change. While Elder Torrez was writing down all of the names and areas from the phone i was watching what he was writing down. He got to about the fifth person and i saw him write my name down!! haha then next to my name he wrote Hidalgo (the new area) and then next to that he wrote L/D which means District Leader!!!! haha yeah i about passed out and fell out of my chair! I didnt even have time to soak up all of my senor compaion experiences, they just kicked me in the behind and moved me right up to District Leader. I think i was ready for it though because it didnt make me nervous at all. That same night i heard some wierd sound in the kitchen and went to see what it was, when i arrived in the kitchen there was the biggest bee i have ever seen in my entire life flying in the air! It scared the crap out of me. I called over Elder Torrez and Elder Mendoza to come and look when they came it the bee flew beside as and started to attack us!!!! haha it was like world war 3 mission house style! It was out hand so i decided to take it to the next level. I grabbed a can of Raid (Bug killer spray) and lit a match and then toasted that bee to charcle! the first time it just burnt of his wings, it took about two or three times to kill him! it was pretty intense. The pictures and video dont do justice to what we went though. Tuesday morning i took a bus to Monterrey to meet my new companion and ride to my area. Elder Niebergall is my new companion. He is from Rosavelt Utah, which is crazy because i probably drove by his house like a million times going back and forth from collage in colorado last year. He has 3 months in the mission and his spanish is a little rough but its alright because i totally remember how i was 8 months ago! Im helping him alot. My new area is called Hidalgo which is a little tiny tiny tiny town about and hour north of Monterrey. they dont have bikes in this area, so i was glad that i brought mine. We just bought pegs and my companion rode around on the back of the bike all week. Yup more exersize for my legs! There is a ton of trees in my area and i really do like it. Its small but there is alot of potential here. Friday was my first baptismal interview for one of the Zone Leaders...Pretty Crazy! It rained all day that day and didnt stop at all. We spent most of the time walking and yes i was soaked form head to toe!! Sunday was a good stressful day again trying to get people to church and a baptism set up. My companion and his old companion had been teaching a little kid a couple of weeks ago but didnt want to get baptized. So i tryed to give it a try and did everything i could and i dont know exactly what i did right but it worked and we baptized him on sunday after church. (we have a portable baptismal font which is pretty sweet haha). Hidalgo doesnt have a ward, its a branch and there is only about 33 active members that go every week, which is pretty rough since mission work is so much easlier with alot of member especially when they have cars and none of them do! Its all good there is just a lot of work to be done here to get this Branch growing. I gave a talk in church again. I didnt have much time to prepare so i used the talk i gave last week in Obreras on Obedience. We take care of the sacrament every week, Im am the Young men and young womens sunday school teacher and also the president of the Elders Quorum! With that and being a district leader while trying to take care of my own area i will be busy enough to not slow down for the rest of my mission! Woooo!! Bring on the STRESS!!! Thats about it for the week. Life is awesome dont forget it!

Elder Fox

Elder Perrin - 21 May 2008

May 21, 2008

Well, let me see if I can figure out what we did last week. I'll pull out my planner.... Oh, that's right. I remember.

Well we had a progressing investigator come to church this week!

I was excited! He stayed all three hours even with his noisy child. Javier is his name. Anyway, so while we were all in priesthood, hermano Calics is giving the lesson on priesthood and what their duty's are. Well, It was a fine lesson, nothing wrong at all, but he started talking about how we need to wear white shirts and ties to church, and if we don't, we're not fulfilling our priesthood duties... bla bla bla... just went off on that for like five minutes. Meanwhile, I was listening the whole time just saying to myself, "Please lord don't let Javier hear any of this, lest he should feel excluded from the rest of us." Because, of course he wasn't wearing church clothes, he's the investigator! So anyway, I really wanted to go up and stop hermano Calics from talking about that. Anyway, he stayed all three hours and yesterday, we called him to see if we could drop by his house for a quick lesson. Well, he basically dropped himself, said he felt way wierd in the church, felt way dumb without church clothes and felt way awkward. So we're done with that guy now. I don't even blame him, I would've felt the same thing. We have a couple of intense members here. Sad story.

We also officially dropped a lady we've been teaching for about two months, because she won't come to church. We kept saying "Oh, she'll come this week." So finally, I just told my companion, "No, we need to drop her. She won't keep her commitment." So we dropped her. But we do have one investigator that's almost progressing. We've taught him like 5 times. Keeps his commitments as far as reading. Right now he's trying to get Sundays off so he can go to church. He already asked his boss once and got declined. So yesterday, we taught him
about fasting and he said he would fast with us today and tomorrow so his boss will give him the day off. If not, he'll have to be really bold and say, "Fire me if you want!" But he's really nice and were fasting today for him starting at 4. Hopefully his boss will be nice. So that's about it over here in corn land. The corn is poking out of the ground and is getting taller. Pretty exciting. Anyway, thanks for the email. I'll read it later today.

Love you all!

Love Elder Perrin

Elder Fox - May 4, 2008

So this week started out a little stressful... Monday night i got a call from the Secretary in the mission offices telling me that Alma Mendoza (one of our baptism´s last sunday) had already been baptized when she was really young. Before we interview Alma last week, she told me that she might be a member so i told her that we would find out for sure. The sister in the offices put her name in wrong when she investigated it, so obviously it came back that she wasnt a member. So we went ahead and baptized her on sunday. Since she was a member and you can only baptize someone once, it didnt count. Which ment that i only had 4 confirmations and couldnt go to the temple on wednesday. I was felt like Crap! but then remembered that we still had to confirm Ricardo ( the little kid that we baptized 3 weeks ago) So monday night we hurried home for the District meeting and went and sat in front of his house until he got home so that we could confirm him . Talk about pushing it to the last minute! I swear that should be my middle name here in the mission! All in all it all worked out so that we finished the monthly goal of 5 confirmations. Which mean yes i still got to go to the temple on wednsday! It was an awesome get away for the day in Monterrey. We at with all the Zone leaders at the Zone leader conference before our session which which made me feel pretty special cuz not everyone gets to do that. We spent alot of time and money ridin around in Taxis to get to where we needed to go so i did get to see alot of pretty sweet sites at night. The temple was awesome and gave me an extra spritual boost to start again this week. The last time i went to the temple was 8 months ago in Provo while we were in the MTC. I bought the Mendoza Family a triple combination at the book store beside the temple. I wrote my testimony in it and gave it to them of Friday with some of my favorite scriptures that i had marked for them to read. They loved it, and Alma wanted so bad to give me a hug, but i told her she couldn´t. She was mad and said,... why does it matter!?.... I kindly explained to her and she understood, but pretty much made me promise her that i would come back after the mission so that i can give her a hug.My companion takes alot of things i say a little too seriously so i decided to play a joke on him friday night haha. After we had turned out the lights i told him that i thought i had seen a Cucaracha (cockcroach) that was crawling up the side of his bed. haha he spent 15 minutes tearing apart his bed looking for one. haha. Yes he forgave me and we both laughed afterwards.On saturday we found and taught a guy whos name was ELDER!! How sweet is that!? Yeah i was pretty stoked too! Im pretty sure not every single elder in the mission finds someone whos first name is Elder... He even had it tatooed onto his leg, like i do on my chest!......... ok that sounded bad..... Its really just my name tag thats on my CHEST everyday haha.Sunday was another good one. Not because we had a ton of baptisms but because we finally got enough confidence with the Son of Alma Mendoza, so he came to church with us. We should him the baptismal font and excepted his baptismal date for this next sunday, the 11th. Now we just need to get the dad involved. We cant find anytime to teach him because of his work sceduale but hopefully something will work out soon.After church we starting contacting people in the street to finish our 100 contacts for the week. After i finished talking with someone in the street i got on my bike to ride over to my companion who was also contacting someone in the street. We i spread my legs to get on my bike i totally ripped the back seam of my pants!! haha yeah im not going to lie i was pretty embarresed. And it was the 3 pare of pants that i have ripped! Dont worry ya´ll im not really fat, my pants have just gotten really worn out from all of that hard mission work ya know :)Well thats about it for the week... Happy Mothers day to all this coming sunday!Elder Fox*

Elder Fox - May 4, 2008

So this week started out a little stressful... Monday night i got a call from the Secretary in the mission offices telling me that Alma Mendoza (one of our baptism´s last sunday) had already been baptized when she was really young. Before we interview Alma last week, she told me that she might be a member so i told her that we would find out for sure. The sister in the offices put her name in wrong when she investigated it, so obviously it came back that she wasnt a member. So we went ahead and baptized her on sunday. Since she was a member and you can only baptize someone once, it didnt count. Which ment that i only had 4 confirmations and couldnt go to the temple on wednesday. I was felt like Crap! but then remembered that we still had to confirm Ricardo ( the little kid that we baptized 3 weeks ago) So monday night we hurried home for the District meeting and went and sat in front of his house until he got home so that we could confirm him . Talk about pushing it to the last minute! I swear that should be my middle name here in the mission! All in all it all worked out so that we finished the monthly goal of 5 confirmations. Which mean yes i still got to go to the temple on wednsday! It was an awesome get away for the day in Monterrey. We at with all the Zone leaders at the Zone leader conference before our session which which made me feel pretty special cuz not everyone gets to do that. We spent alot of time and money ridin around in Taxis to get to where we needed to go so i did get to see alot of pretty sweet sites at night. The temple was awesome and gave me an extra spritual boost to start again this week. The last time i went to the temple was 8 months ago in Provo while we were in the MTC. I bought the Mendoza Family a triple combination at the book store beside the temple. I wrote my testimony in it and gave it to them of Friday with some of my favorite scriptures that i had marked for them to read. They loved it, and Alma wanted so bad to give me a hug, but i told her she couldn´t. She was mad and said,... why does it matter!?.... I kindly explained to her and she understood, but pretty much made me promise her that i would come back after the mission so that i can give her a hug.My companion takes alot of things i say a little too seriously so i decided to play a joke on him friday night haha. After we had turned out the lights i told him that i thought i had seen a Cucaracha (cockcroach) that was crawling up the side of his bed. haha he spent 15 minutes tearing apart his bed looking for one. haha. Yes he forgave me and we both laughed afterwards.On saturday we found and taught a guy whos name was ELDER!! How sweet is that!? Yeah i was pretty stoked too! Im pretty sure not every single elder in the mission finds someone whos first name is Elder... He even had it tatooed onto his leg, like i do on my chest!......... ok that sounded bad..... Its really just my name tag thats on my CHEST everyday haha.Sunday was another good one. Not because we had a ton of baptisms but because we finally got enough confidence with the Son of Alma Mendoza, so he came to church with us. We should him the baptismal font and excepted his baptismal date for this next sunday, the 11th. Now we just need to get the dad involved. We cant find anytime to teach him because of his work sceduale but hopefully something will work out soon.After church we starting contacting people in the street to finish our 100 contacts for the week. After i finished talking with someone in the street i got on my bike to ride over to my companion who was also contacting someone in the street. We i spread my legs to get on my bike i totally ripped the back seam of my pants!! haha yeah im not going to lie i was pretty embarresed. And it was the 3 pare of pants that i have ripped! Dont worry ya´ll im not really fat, my pants have just gotten really worn out from all of that hard mission work ya know :)Well thats about it for the week... Happy Mothers day to all this coming sunday!Elder Fox*