Dead Weight, Dead Barrios, and Dead Lizards
3 Months in the Mission!!!!! That’s freaking nuts if you ask me but still going strong!
We have soo much money its not even funny. We aren’t trying to save either. Everything is just so cheap that we have like $180 between the 2 of us and we are both getting our biweekly payments of $145 each this week. We talk to other missionaries and they have like $20 between a companionship. Idk if its because of our area or because I’m cooking but fetch.
We taught this one lady named Judith who works at a sports store with the Branch President and his wife. It was a great lesson and like most people and especially women here, they say they’re Catholic out of nowhere in the middle of the lesson. Like yeah we could surmise that based on our region but that has nothing to do with what we are currently saying. Luckily though, the BP’s wife used to be a Catholic and so Judith asked her “You said you used to be Catholic, what’s different about this church?” I guess she wanted to get posterized by Michael Jordan 🤷♂️. The lesson ended great but then the next day she was just like “my boss doesn’t want you guys teaching me while I’m working” so we asked when/where we could teach her at her house and she ghosted us 😔
We are trying to help reactivate members that have family that isn’t baptized and the 2 families we are teaching would be goated if they just clutched up. One’s name is Lourdes. Her husband works like 3 months at a time in Mexico laying train tracks, and she has a daughter of baptism age but has been inactive for a year because she was Primary President, paid for everything out of pocket, and then no one came to the Primary Presentation 2 years in a row so she got pissed and hasn’t come back. We made a deal with her that if she goes to church we will make TikTok dances with her. More on that in a bit.
The other one is this lady named Florencia. Both her and her bf work at the hospital so they always get called into work and it has just become a habit to not go to church. The boyfriend has actually never been and is Catholic but like always, is not active or anything, but he is so interested in temples. We have taught him a lesson and he says he wants to be baptised and married to Florencia and then be able to go to the temple, so hopefully we can get the legal marriage and baptism done by the end of this transfer🤞🤞
There are a TON of Jehova’s Witnesses down here for some reason and we are teaching the cousin of a member family that is an inactive JW. She works at a like cellphone repair store with 2 other JWs and while we were teaching her, Lina, the Restauration, her witch mom or someone comes up and is like “would you guys be offended if I called you ‘Chicos’ or by your first names?” To which we replied no because literally everyone calls us Chicos, but she didn’t care and was just like “well God has a name and it’s Jehova” and then wouldn’t let us talk while she spewed about how there are no more Prophets and why they don’t celebrate birthdays and like Christmas which there was really no good reason. We got some points out but it is definitely true that Bible Bashing brings the spirit of contention because I was just so annoyed and pissed because none of her points made sense. But anyways we went back on Thursday because we noticed that the JWs have their meetings and taught Lina the Plan of Salvation and gave her a BoM. She agreed that she’ll read it and if she’s not convinced of it’s truthfulness by the end of reading it, we have to go to a JW meeting but if she is convinced, she’ll come to our church.
This week was definitely a test of my spiritual thought last week. Nobody was home even if we confirmed the lesson time, they just wouldn’t be there. On Friday we were baffled because we went through all of our plans in like 1 ½ hours and hoped our last one would work out. As we were about 2 blocks away, Florencia and her daughter drive past on their moto and my comp and I just look at each other and are like “what’s protocol here? Like we aren’t putting stupid plans and we are working. Fetch it let’s call the ZL’s.” So that’s what we did and got some words of encouragement, said a prayer together, and went to a house where we new a snake lived. We got there and found the Dad so we decided to teach him. We taught him the Restoration and chatted with him for a sec. He’s already married, is interested in the church, already has a Bom he thinks from another member, and has 7 daughters. He told us Saturday night that he was gonna go to church but then forgot in the morning.
A few of my friends and my brother Bryant told me I look skinny so I found a scale and weighed myself. I weigh 200 lbs which is more than I thought but fetch I’ve lost almost 20 lbs in 3 months. So the cooking is doubling down.
We were trying to find a super inactive member at this one house, and there were some bums out front laughing at the fact we were there. My comp reminded me of Ether 12:26 that one of his old comps would quote all the time “Fools mock, but they shall mourn” so we’ve been saying that a lot.
My comp was reading in Jeremiah which he was a crashout and so we’ve also been quoting Jeremiah 18:21 “Therefore deliver up their children to the famine” if someone isn’t home. We are nkt serious about either of these but it’s just funny.
Church was unexpectedly great. We had 3 people show up that we haven’t met. 1 is a bf of a member, 1 is probably like 10 but a friend of a member, and one is 11 and a grandson of a member and then we had all of the active converts show up. So hopefully we can find those 3 and bap’em and hopefully get some other baps by the end of this transfer.
Short Highlights/ my pictures of the week.
Found some pics on some other missionaries’ albums of my District in the CCM.
Figured out I think of what I wanna put for that Quad Cover. Kinda looks rough but its just what I want on it. The guy has worked with worse and made better.
Been making ice cream cookie sandwiches because we bought a fat tub of ice cream and my comp has been making cookies and they’re soo good.
Found the Mecca.
Got to a lesson early so my comp and I went to the cemetary near the house and looked around. The door I knocked on was an empty room.
Beautiful sky but a stupid missionary.
There’s a Christis in the bottom of this pueblito and it is so cool for being in such a horrible part of the town.
Lourdes didn’t go to church so we went to her house to yell at her but she wasn’t there so we sent her a picture.
We were teaching this convert kid and his cousin was running around with 2 dead lizards and we have no idea where he got them. He started chasing kids around with them.
I made some marinated chicken yesterday and holy nuts it was soooo good. Haters hate but what other missionary is eating marinated chicken. My comp was very excited about it.
Spiritual Thought:
I keep watching the Joseph Smith movies on Gospel Stream because that’s like the only thing to watch and tbh it’s not that bad. But the one scripture that is directly quoted in the movie is Doctrine and Covenants 64:33
“33 Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”
A lot of these first 2 transfers with the language and these past 3 weeks in this area have felt like this. Learning the language seems tedious at times. Like right now I am learning Subjunctive and it is a pain and will be even worse to apply. And because of the work we have put in the first half of this transfer could result in a ton of success at the end of this transfer. With both in the moment it feels long winded and tedious the work we are doing, but when looking back and seeing how far I’ve come is insane.
It is the same with being a “Lifelong Disciple of Jesus Christ”. Many times it is easy to feel like the daily, simple things are annoying, tedious, and unneeded, but as they stack up over time it is a miracle when looking back and seeing the blessings that have come from them.
I encourage you all to read the Book of Mormon, say your daily prayers, attend church, and when possible, attend the Temple, even the Temple grounds. They are so simple but so profound in the long run when they become habits.
PLEASE SEND ME EMAILS!!!!!! Hope everything is going well at home!!! Love you all!!!
— Élder Curtis
