November 16 - Eating Habaneros!

Hey all!

Well first of all what a bummer that it sounds like everyone was sick this last week, especially well right now! Bleh that’s the worst!! Actually it’s kind of funny because I was super sick last week too! But I will get to that later on.

So we had a pretty interesting Monday night last week. So Elder Perez was packing up all of his stuff and we were helping him, and then he reminded me that I had made him a bet that if he woke up on time every day that when one of us left we would eat a chile habanero (the hottest one here in Mexico) haha I wasn’t so glad that he remembered. But, a promise is a promise, and a deal is a deal and so we did it! We also roped in the Elder Bojorquez and Elder Bautista too, and it was actually super funny. I have a great video to show you guys in when I get home of the whole event, haha but for now pictures will do. But it was literally the hottest thing that I have ever eaten in my entire life! Wow, but now like nothing is hot so that’s pretty cool.

Work wise we had a great week. Socorro is still progressing strong and we might try to change her baptismal date because it’s going so well. She also introduced us to her friend Salome who is now a new investigator and she is also super awesome and super chosen! She lost her legs about a year ago so the gospel supplies her with a ton of hope! We have seen a lot of help from the branch to like help her to get to church and stuff like that because well she is in a wheel chair, but its gone super well and we are going to try and put a baptismal date with her this week.

Also, last night we found like two college aged kids named Andrea and Gerardo. They have A TON of questions and a ton of weird notions. Like to quote one that they told us, Gerardo said I think that the only real bible is nature man. Haha he reminds me of the Volkswagen bus from Cars. But they are super awesome and they are friends with Angel Linares from the branch so he has been helping us out as well.

So on Thursday this week we were doing our weekly planning and I just started to feel awful. Needless to say that I spent the rest of the day throwing up into a bucket so that was no fun! But at least it passed by in just one day. I still don’t feel 100% but little by little. The one bad part was that we had a leadership training from President on Friday but I still didn’t feel great so I had a hard time paying attention and learning. That was rough because he always gives such great trainings that I am usually hooked on every word, but this week I can only remember what I have in my notes.

Well, I think that’s a wrap this week from Topilejo! Have a great week!

Elder Stout

Nov 9 - Staying in Topi!

Hey all!

 

Well the big news is that with the changes that we got last night, I am going to be here in Topi for 6 more weeks with Elder Bojorquez so no changes on our side. In the district Elder Perez is heading out which is a bummer because he was only here 6 weeks and he was always here to lighten the mood so we will see who the Lord sends with Elder Bautista for these next 6 weeks!

The other big thing that happened this week was Melany’s baptism! The super cool thing that happened with all of that is that Elder Hamilton baptized her dad while he was here in Topi and when it came up that her dad wasn’t going to be able to baptize her we thought about how cool it would be to have Elder Hamilton come and do the baptism. So, on his last Saturday here in the mission he got to come and baptize Melany! It was a super cool baptismal service, we had a ton of less active members there and they all told us that it helped them to remember their own baptisms which is kind of the whole point! haha so that was super cool! A bunch of them were crying especially Jose Luis, Melany’s dad and we just all felt the spirit super strong.

Then on Sunday Melany asked me to do the confirmation so that was a super cool experience. Also on Sunday, the three people who were supposed to give talks all didn’t show up. So last second Elder Bojorquez, Elder Perez and I all had to speak. This was honestly the first time I have given a talk completely unprepared but it was a super cool topic about covenants and their importance in our lives. I literally had the spirit teaching me as I was up in front giving the talk about how our covenants should literally be our guide and motivation behind everything that we do, so that was a cool experience!!

We are still working hard with the other people that we have too! Socorro looks like she is progressing the best here in Topilejo. She came to church again yesterday and is loving the gospel! She told us yesterday, I have been to a lot of different churches and I have left a lot of them feeling good, but never as good as I feel when I leave this church. I know that there is something different here. What a wonderful sentence to hear from someone to know that the spirit is truly changing their heart and opening their spiritual eyes!

Well I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Stout

Nov 2 - Dia de Los Muertos

Hey all!!

This was a pretty good last week! It actually went flying by, so it will be kind of hard to remember the important things that happened but I will do my best! First of all, the biggest thing this last week was that we passed day of the dead here and we all survived. Up here in Topilejo it was actually a ton more chill than we all thought it would be. It was actually just like the states, they all just literally trick or treating and so it was just all a ton of little kids. not going to lie, being up in a small country mountain town we were all kind of hoping to see some like black magic or something, but nope it was all super calm.

This week was a little bit of a harder week work wise. It just seemed like we were walking a ton, but we also got some super good investigators this week. One was an hermana named Socorro. When I was intercambios with Elder Crockett she was outside laying cement and we were like what the heck is an old woman doing laying her own cement, haha so we ran over and we helped her out for a while, so she accepted that we would come by to teach her. So this week we went by twice and she just fell in love with the gospel she already has a date to be baptized and is progressing super well. She came to the chapel yesterday and even got up to bear her testimony on her very first Sunday!! Wow, that was incredible!

Also, we found a young man named Alejandro. His girlfriend is a member in San Pedro, small word! Haha but, he already has a super strong testimony of the book of Mormon from what she has told him, and his first question was just kind of like, so when can I get baptized! Wow, is the Lord putting people in our path or what??

The district is going great. I had intercambios with Elder Bautista this week so I got to go to the scenic Topilejo 2 area so I got a ton of cool pics up there! As you can see we also celebrated Halloween here! Hahaha nope just the pictures this year, but next year yes we will.

The investigators we have already have are progressing well but for some reason the family Ramierez just fell off the map and we have like no idea what happened to them so that was a huge bummer. But Melanie is still getting ready to be baptized. Her dad decided he would rather her be baptized sooner instead of waiting until he can do it. So we will see what ends up happening!

Next weeks is changes and for some reason the whole district thinks that I am going to be heading out. I really hope not but we will see! I am going to everything that I can to be able to get ready for the changes if we have them and leave a super strong area if needs be!

Well, hope y’all have a great week,

Elder Stout

Oct 26 - Hurricane???

Hola!

So apparently it sounds like there was a hurricane?? I don’t know, everyone said something about it, but we never hear anything here haha. We did have a couple days where it was kind of windy, and the rain has carried on for a little more time than usual, but I had no clue that we were having a hurricane here in Mexico! Thanks for filling me in haha.

This week was a great week! Last Monday we had an awesome district meeting focused all on obedience, and it helped the district get super excited to do it. As a group we set a bunch of goals so that we can truly get better in that. Then, I watched as our whole district followed through this week! I watched as we not only became more obedient but as our whole attitude towards the importance of obedience shifted! It was super cool!!

So our investigator that is doing the best right now is Melanie Villanueava that we started teaching last week. She is super smart and just wants to follow through with everything that we teach which is awesome! She is super excited to be able to get baptized soon, and last night even asked me if I would do it! But we are going to try and get her dad worthy before her baptism (if possible) so that he can do it!

We had a bunch of success finding new investigators again this week! We found an awesome family, the Ramierez Family that are the parents and their 5 kids. We had a super spiritual lesson with them and they are just super ready for the gospel, they have passed through a ton of difficulties and they have had a ton of bad experiences with other religions but just from the beginning we have had a super cool connection with them. We are super excited to keep working with them.

Also this week I had a super cool intercambio with our zone leader Elder Crockett, he is a super cool guy and it was good to get to know him better! He is such an awesome missionary too who has so much enthusiasm for the work, I learned a lot from him example about how we can just always be super excited and give it our all!! I am going to work hard on applying those things that I learned from him this week!!

Well, that’s all from Topilejo this week folks,

Elder Stout

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