Oct 19 - Winter in Topilejo!

Hey all,

So first of all, winter has arrived to Topilejo! Oh my gosh it is so cold!!! One member told us that it hasn’t gotten above 45 yet this week, we are just freezing to death, but its way better than the heat that I was in 6 months ago in Iztapalapa! But seriously we are all bundled up every day. On top of all that, for some reason the rainy season that was supposed to end in September decided to come back and so that made the cold a little bit worse. But, its only gonna get colder so woohoo!

So, after all that happened with the health of Elder Riggs, well as far as I know he is still here in the mission. We went down to the offices on Wednesday and he right now is in a trio with the assistants so that he can go to the hospital whenever he needs to for checkups and stuff like that, and its still not a 100% sure if he is going to stick it out here or not, but the odds are looking a lot better than they were a week ago. This Wednesday I received my new comp, Elder Bojorquez! He has about 4 months in the mission, he got here on change after Elder Hilario, and he actually started in the district right next to me in Iztapalapa so I already knew him! He is super awesome, he is from Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, and is a convert of only a year and a half and the only member of his family. He has a super strong testimony and i am super pumped to work with him!

This week we had a lot of success finding new investigators again. We did a ton of contacting because Elder Bojorquez loves to do it, which is super awesome because it has been a long time since I have been with a comp that likes to contact. So, we found some new people. The two coolest ones that we found were two part member families. First of all, there’s this guy named Carols Orozco who is less active and we just found out that he has cancer, so we went to visit him and see if there was anything that we could do to help him, and while we did that we got to know his wife Edith Peña and she is super awesome!! She accepted baptism with a date in the very first lesson, and seems super excited. Her husband is an amazing man too with a strong testimony that really wants to come back to the church.

After that, we were contacting this week and we found a man crying on the side of the road and it turned out to be Jose Luis Villanueava who is another less active, he has made some bad decisions recently and opened up for help. We ended up going to his house and teaching his family and his daughter has also accepted a baptismal date. So, we are loving it right now up here!

This last week we had our quarterly interviews with President Meacham and I had an awesome one. We talked for a long time about the importance of revelation and how we truly need to do all that we can to serve the Lord because this is literally our only shot to do it. I just love talking to him because he shares my excitement for missionary work, and sometimes it just makes me really sad that not all missionaries can feel this same way and love the work. But, I know that President Meacham will be able to help all the missionaries in our mission to increase their faith, obedience, and diligence!

Well, I hope that you have a great week!

Elder Stout

Oct 12 - a slow week

Hey!!

So I am getting really tired of saying this, but once again, not a lot happened this week because my comp was sick all week again! Bleh, its super hard sometimes. I just want to be out working and helping people, and the Lord keeps sending me challenges like this. I know that my comp has nothing to do with it, and that it’s not his fault, but I just want to be able to have a week again where I can finish up and be like Yeah, right on! I feel like I used every minute to the max this week! But, I just really haven’t felt that way for a while.

I mean literally nothing happened this week, we weren’t even able to go to church yesterday but the other elders brought us the sacrament and everything. I was able to read a ton of conference talks and learn some pretty awesome things! I have learned to love some old talks by President James E Faust, they are awesome! We had the cool experience of being able to go and meet with President this week to talk about my companion’s health and I had an awesome talk with Sister Meacham, she is an awesome lady, and super spiritual. But, she’s also super funny haha she like didn’t sugar coat anything about the mission, it was more of like what is that elder thinking or we are having problems with this and stuff like that, but it was honestly a pretty fun couple hours just to chat with her, and here all about her family and stuff like that. I really love President and Sister Meacham! I know they were called of God to be my mission president and mission president’s wife! It was really cool to receive a super strong testimony of that this week.

I also had multiple opportunities to share with Elder Riggs my testimony and I really realized for the first time in my mission, how much it has really grown in one year. I truly know that God has a plan for every single one of us. I know that He loves us. I feel His love every day. I know that even though we are small and insignificant compared to Him that He cares about every single one of us individually. I know that prayer is a direct connection to our Heavenly Father, and that He answers us! I know that. I know that we are and will always be in debt to Him and our Savior, Jesus Christ and that we need to put forth our best effort every day to be able to try and pay it all back. That is my mission in life, to deserve the Atonement. I have so many other things that I have come to know in my life, but all in all, I know that this is the true Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that true happiness comes through this and only this.

Have a great week all!

Elder Stout

Oct 5 - General Conference aka Christmas

Hey all!! So this was a great week!

So first of all an introduction to my new comp! It is Elder Jay Riggs from Pleasant Grove Utah! He just barely got here to the mission, so I am here in Topilejo with a greenie, but he is super awesome, we get along really well and I am excited to have this opportunity to be with him! He doesn’t speak like any Spanish so that has been something that I have had to get used to, but he has gotten a ton better in just a week, so I am super pumped to see what we are going to be able to do here together!

This week there wasn’t a ton to report. A lot of showing Elder Riggs the area and training him too. It’s a lot different to have a greenie that doesn’t speak Spanish, it’s like another cool add on of a challenge, but through the help of the Spirit, his progress is going to be super-fast! We didn’t have a ton of progress with the people we are teaching this week which is a bummer. I am teaching more investigators than I have in my whole mission right now, but no one is progressing very well which is super frustrating because in other areas it’s like I didn’t have very many, but they were all doing well so it kind of made up for it which is hard! It’s frustrating, but I was talking to one of the other elders from another branch, and he told me that in our areas sometimes it’s just like that, and that’s when we really learn a lot about ourselves, and the Lord and grow a lot as people so that was super cool!

Then we had an awesome general conference this weekend! I loved Elder Hales talk! I loved Elder Lawrence’s talk! I loved Thomas S Monson’s Talk! I loved Carole M Stephens talk! I loved Vern G Keetch’s talk! I loved Neil L Andersons talk! And I loved Elder Stanfil’s talk!! Haha I loved conference as a whole!!! Oh and Elder Durrant’s talk too. A lot of really cool talks on obedience, faith and how we can grow them both in our lives. I really hope to be able to apply these things to my own life, and put a special focus in helping all of the people that I am teaching to apply these inspired words to their lives as well!

Elder Stout

Sept 28 - Welcome to Disneylejos!!

Hey all!

Well to start off the big news is that Elder Andablo is going home Wednesday! So tomorrow I will have a new companion! I am excited for the opportunity to stay in Topilejo for another change but I honestly cannot believe that i have already been here one change!! It’s crazy!

So there’s not too much to report this week because sadly in his last week Elder Andablo got pretty sick so we didn’t have much of an opportunity to work. But there were two cool Mexican adventures this week worthy of an email note! First of all, this last week started the Topilejo Festival, that goes for almost 3 weeks! Its like a bunch of live bands and carnival games in the streets all day every day! We call it Disneylejos because there are ALWAYS fireworks going off, a bunch of people screaming, and you can take free pictures with Mickey Mouse (that’s actually just what a drunk guy told us his name was, but I think it almost counts)! Haha but we have been keeping super safe, don’t worry. We have had to come back to the house early almost every day this last week, and probably will have to continue doing so next week too, it’s hard to not be working, but I know the Lord wants his servants safe, so it’s alright.

Also, we went to the coolest little town the other day! We had to go to the dentist so that Elder Andablo could get some work done before heading home, and we headed to a little town that’s like built on top of a lake, it’s like a really run down version of Venice! Haha it’s called Xochimilco! I hope that at some point of my mission I get to go over to this area, because it was just a super cute little town! It reminded me a lot of Jackson Hole, and I literally fell in love with it at first glance!

So that’s pretty much all that happened this week, I know a pretty lame week! I will have a lot more to write next week because I will have a new comp and we are going to hit the ground running with him as soon as we get back up to Topi!!

Love and miss you all, hope you have a great week!!

Elder Stout

Sept 21 - One year down, one to go!!!

Hey everyone!

 

Well, I was glad to read that it seems like everything has gotten back to normal more or less back with you guys on the plat!

This week we had another super successful week! The first really cool thing that happened was that on Tuesday President Meacham came to our zone training, and he is just a spiritual giant, I love every time that he talks to us, it’s so awesome! He just taught us again about the importance of obedience and how it’s really helping ourselves to be obedient. He just delivered the message with such power and devotion, just every time that he speaks, he inspires me to be a better missionary and person. I feel like it was really the message that our district needed to hear because I have been a little worried lately with the devotion to the work of the Lord, and the obedience of some of the members of my district, but I think this really helped them.

We got a big announcement, that from now on in our mission we will only be allowed to listen to music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so if you guys could please put a ton of music from them on my dropbox account because my music library went from like 300 to 50 in one day, but I am really happy because I know it will help us focus on the work even more!

Another cool thing that happens this week was the 16 of September! So everyone in the states thinks that 5 de Mayo is the independence day of Mexico, but it’s actually in September! There was a bunch of cool things all over the city and a ton of fireworks sounding literally all the time, we kept thinking people were shooting at us or something! But, we didn’t get to enjoy it  much because they didn’t less us go out to work during that time because a ton of people just get totally wasted and during their independence day some people don’t really like gringos, but it’s okay! They eat a ton of corn here to celebrate, but they eat it weird! Its corn on the cob with mayo, cheese, and chili! 

 

Last but not least, the thing that we saw this week was the hand of the Lord guiding us to his elect. We had one of the most successful weeks of my whole mission in finding new investigators! One of them is a pretty strange situation, the hermana Elpidia Rodriguez. She got baptized like 5 years ago but she never went to church to be confirmed so she never officially became a member of the church, and she needs to be baptized again, so that’s super weird! I hope we will see a ton of progress with them so I will keep you all updated!

Well, that’s all for this week!

Elder Stout

Sept 14 - Bday week and mission "hump day"

Wow, so this was a super packed week!

First of all, like I said, last Monday we headed to the center of the city and it was super cool! Awesome to see that there are actually some touristy things here in Mexico so maybe someday I will come back and visit it! We spent all day out there, it was super cool to see a bunch of old historical sites. I don’t know what most of them meant because we were just missionaries wandering around the center aimlessly. But, it was super cool! We even found an olive garden there to eat, so I didn’t even miss out on the bday tradition!

The cool thing that happened in the work this week was finding the Alvarez family. So me and my comp were walking one day and we ran into some drunk guys (way more common than it should be up here in Topi) but usually I don’t like to talk to drunk guys. My comp on the other hand loves it. So he literally starts like Southern Baptist preaching them, screaming at them to repent and quoting the bible and stuff, and I was just kind of saying oh boy to myself in my head. Until the next day we were walking by the same spot, and saw one of the dudes more sober. He told us that he really liked what he heard and wanted us to pass by. We passed by last Saturday, and we taught him, his 2 sons, and his daughter in law. They are super ready to receive the gospel and it was a super powerful lesson with them. They accepted baptism and everything and we are super excited to help them change their lives.

My birthday was awesome! My comp bought me a little cake in the morning and later on in the day two women from the branch both bought me a cake and so I was super stuffed that day! They sang me happy birthday in Spanish, which is a song really different, that I didn’t even know existed so it felt even weirder than the awkwardness of happy bday at home, and I even got to participate in the Mexican tradition of the mordita! That’s where you take a bite of the cake before anyone else, but you take the bite straight from the cake. haha, the only thing is that everyone else that’s there trying to take advantage of it to smash your face in, haha so that happened to me twice, but I guess i am more Mexican now! It was awesome!

 

The last thing from this week was the temple dedication. Saturday in the night time we got to go down to San Pedro to watch the cultural celebration and it was super cool! Cooler than that was staying the night in the house of San Pedro 1bis (my old house) and seeing everyone from the ward! The coolest to see was Abigail Romero Lira, she was the hermana that got baptized my first week here when I was with Elder Lewis. She literally started cry

ing when she saw me and I almost did the same, she told me how hard it’s been these last few months, but how she really wants to get sealed to her husband in the temple soon, and how much it helped her to see me again to remind her of her baptism. It was super spiritual to be able to talk to her, and everyone else again, and see that I really did help people when I was there!

Then yesterday the temple was dedicated by Henry B Eyering and he was here with Jeffery R Holland, they gave some awesome talks about the sacrifices of the temple, and how important it is. I really hope President lets us go again soon!

Well, I hope you had a good week, I love and miss you all!!

Elder Stout

Sept 7 - September!

Wow, this will be my last September in the mission. Haha I still have every other month to do too, but that seems like something at least kind of big, right?

So I am writing super early this week because my comp got permission to head into the center of the city! It’s a super cool place that’s outside of our mission and usually people only go like right before they go home or if their comp is about to go home, so I get to go today! I am super excited to see all of the cool things that are in the center of the city, plus I have heard that it’s like actually super nice and clean over there, so that will be a nice change from the mountains here in Topilejo.

So this week was a good week, probably the best week I have had work wise in Topilejo, which really isn´t saying much haha. But we met a bunch of cool new people to teach this week. One of them is Juan Jorge Sanchez. We contacted him while he was super drunk in the street, but Elder Andablo has a saying that the drunk people always lead to someone. So, we went to his house the next day, and he was actually sober. So, we had a cool lesson with him and he is actually super intelligent like wow, he knew like everything that I ever studied in high school but like from memory! But, then we went back for the second lesson with him, and we had left him a little book about the plan of salvation, and we were like, so how’d it go with your reading, and he literally gave us the lesson on the plan of salvation, he remembered everything!! Wow!

 

Also, we met Alan Mendoza this week. He is 16 years old, and his mom is an inactive member of the church. The kid LOVES electronic music, and at 16 is already organizing big electronic events, like huge ones with like 20,000 people! But, he is super interested in the church because he wants to find a good influence to counteract all the bad stuff he is surrounded by in his electronic events, so he came to church with us this week and he already has a ton of friends in the branch and it was just super cool to see that! I am super excited to work with these two to see how it all goes.

This is a super hard area. To give a little run down on the branch. We have 200 ´´members´´ in our branch, but our assistance is about 70. Of those 70 45 are women, 8 are men, 4 are missionaries, and the rest are youth and children. But I am in love with it!! It is literally the most beautiful area in the mission, the members are few here, but they are so faithful. They are the best people I have met in my entire life, they are just so humble, so loving, so kind. They just love the gospel here, and I am so excited to work with them. I just really want them to have a ward, so I am going to do all I can to grow this tiny branch!!

I hope you all have a great week,

Elder Stout