Dec 14 - Staying in Topilejo!

Hey all!!

Well first of all the big news is that the whole district up here in Topilejo, we are going to all stay together! Nobody has changes! These next transfers aren’t going to be for 7 weeks so I am going to be here in Topi until February! That’ll be 6 months, wow!

Also, about the mission, the big rundown is that we are going to have another stake! Right now we have 6 and they are going to add a 7th one! No one knows what the cause was, if they closed a mission or opened one or anything like that. Also, no one knows if the missionaries from the stake are going to come with it, or if they are all going to go to different parts of their own mission and everyone will be opening area there. Also, no one knows when it’s going down or anything, but it’s all good!

This week was a slower week! Hmmm...well I took a ton of pictures with members and investigators because I didn’t want to go without having pictures of them, but now I won’t have to worry the next time changes come around!

We didn’t really have any luck finding new investigators this week. One super cool lesson that we had was with the Family Ramierez. We found out that the Dad is a low key alcoholic and so we talked about why God doesn’t want that, and he just like started to cry, and we were like uh oh did we do something wrong? Then he left and came back with a big bottle of whisky and was like take it, I don’t want it anymore I AM DONE! It was super cool to see how the spirit touched his heart and was able to change him! So cool!! Also, we put a baptismal date with Salome so it was awesome to see that progress as well.

We got to see the temple dedication of the Tijuana temple yesterday and it was super cool! I have now seen 2 rededications and one dedication in the mission! Elder Uchtdorf gave an amazing talk and an amazing prayer, it was an incredibly spiritual meeting that I loved!

The pictures are the view from Topilejo, the setting up of the Christmas tree and the Family Ramierez!

Also, fun fact the highest part of our area called Parres is at 3200 meters above sea level or just a little under 10500 feet! Wow!!

Have a great week all!

Elder Stout

Dec 7 - Happy December!

Hey all!

Well first of all a very happy December and Christmas season to all! I know that the Christmas season will be an extra special one to be on the mission during because it’s just so easy to remember Jesus Christ during this time of year! This week absolutely went flying by! I am going to try and remember all that went down!

We had a super cool district meeting last week where we talked about the importance of talking with everyone. We played a game where I had a chocolate bar and I went and hid and everyone had to look for me, the 1st time they couldn’t find me. The second time I yelled and they all found me super fast. When we got to talking about it, someone said ´´well that was dumb, why didn’t you talk the first time, we couldn’t find you!´´ and I said ´´well, that’s exactly the point! There are people out there looking for the gospel that don’t know where to find it, and they aren’t going to find it because we aren’t opening our mouths! It was super cool! We also made a contest to see who could contact more people that would accept to listen to our message this week. The loser had to clean the whole house...Well today Elder Bojorquez and I spent the whole morning cleaning the whole house because Elder Bautista and Elder Pech beat us out 26-25! But, this week will be different!

Also, on Wednesday we had intercambios with our zone leaders and it was super fun! I was with Elder Crocket, and he’s just awesome! We had a great time in San Pedro 1, we had a super successful day, I learned a lot from the guy, he’s just awesome!

This Saturday and Sunday were cool too because we had out stake conference. The Saturday night session was pretty good but nothing amazing. Sunday literally was one of the most spiritual meetings that I have attended to in my life. The Hermana Mecham gave a super cool talk that focused on missionaries and members working together and kind of got after them for not looking to be the friends of converts more! We also had a 70 here with us, and he just gave an incredible talk on obedience. Pretty much the whole talk centered on the stupidity of disobedience to the commandments. He talked about how when we took upon us the name of Christ that we signed away our agency and that we cannot afford to come short on what He asks of us. He talked about how too many people think that its hard or that it’s a sacrifice to keep the commandments. Then he gave us a powerful illustration of the atonement of Christ and said that was a sacrifice, paying tithing is not a sacrifice. Just a bunch of super cool things about how really wanting to obey God is the only important thing!

Lastly, we had a super successful week in the district. We have been working super hard to reach the goal that President had put for us to teach 40 lessons per week and not going to lie, I honestly thought it was impossible, our first week in Topilejo we had 25 between the 2 companionships. But, this last week we got super excited in our district meeting and we were just like, yeah this is the week, let’s go! We ended up getting 81 as a district 40 from one companionship and 41 from the other! A branch in the middle of nowhere was able to find more people to teach than some of the big packed wards, that was awesome!

Pictures: Last week for pday we ran into Elder Herrera who is now an RM and got to eat pizzas with him! Elder Pech and I suffering the cold at the very highest point of the area. And, Cesar a less active teaching me how to fix tires!

Best wishes to all,

Elder Stout