Returned With Honor

Is there anything better than greeting a returning missionary at the airport!!!

Katelyn and Paige were adorable.  Such great sisters.

Friends forever.

They drove up from St. George this morning and will be home again tonight.

Jamie and Challis brought their little ones.  

Paige made this great sign. 

Here he comes!

Greeting with love from Grandma Bonnie. 

Randy and Hayden with Spencer

All together again.  For a little while.

Chantel, along with Paige and Katelyn helped with the lunch.

Wayne gives Spencer another hug. 

It was so great to have Lauren here.

Katelyn and Luke made this day so much fun.

Katelyn was so excited at the airport she could not stand still.  

It's been over three years since she has seen Spencer.

Now Spencer, Luke and Katelyn can all speak Spanish together.

It was great having so many of the St. Johns come.

Julie had to work, but made it to greet Spencer at our home.

Love this missionary beyond words.

CU Soon

So this was my last hot week in Juarez. Pretty sad to think about it. But it's cool to think that in just 2 short days I will be back in good old Bountiful and I'll see all the people I love all over again! I hope you all still like me just as much as I like you! But this letter will be short,, sorry.. 

But I was basically trying not to think about going home this week and did great untill the president called a meeting on Thursday for all the missionaries who are going home and it was pretty cool, but made me realize I can't avoid it, so I just mentally prepared myself to go home and see all of you. And of course I worked harder than ever, we contacted and we taught and we had investigators at church and it was all fun. Working was the best way to spend my time this last week. But the time has come and in 2 days we will be reunited. I can't wait too see everyone! 

I love you all. 

Untill we meet again.

Love,

Elder St John

Still Love Saint Rose

So all is well here. This last week we worked a lot with the members.  It was really fun. 

Wednesday we took an 18 year old with us to do visits and we ended up contacting. But it turned out great! We contacted one family that let us in right away! I was excited. We shared the restoration and they loved it.  We should be back this week to visit them!  We also contacted another family and they told us to come back Thursday, so we did and the WHOLE family listened to us, and we will be back this week as well. I love contacting.  I hope I can still find investigators and continue being a missionary at home.. because I love it soo much! And that's about it for the week.. Sorry for a short letter, but good news. I now have pics!! Hope you enjoy!

Love,

Elder St John

Elder Christensen with Elder St. John

Me and a horse.

Pic of Elder Gonzales next week por que no tengo! Perdón... 

Week Two in Saint Rose

So It's been a week since I got here to Santa Rosa, and I like it here a lot! It has a lot of hills and it's pretty high up.  If you ever look at pictures of Ciudad Juarez there is a mountian that says "La Biblia es verdadera Leala".  It's written in big letters on the mountain.  I'm basically right under that.  It's soo cool here, and the food is delicious.  I'm trying to load up on enchiladas and mole before I go home so that I don't miss it soo much.

But the highlights of this week are: 

Contacting, a lot. We are always looking for those new investigators. 

DIvisions, I went with Elder Lenis to an area called Mauricio Corridor, an even more hilly area.  It was soo pretty, you could see El Paso from the house and it was beautiful. But we had some funny experiences in divisons, like a guy looked at his wrist and said, "Well it's time for me to go."  And he left.  But the funny part was that he wasn't even wearing a watch.  And he stared at his wrist like 3 seconds flat.. Lol But we also contacted this girl in her house and she wouldn't let go of my hand and stared at me the whole contact.  And when I shook her hand to say goodbye she WOULDN'T let go of it so I had to pry her hand off of mine. Also we went to a store to go to the bathroom and on the way out this crazy old woman grabbed my arm and started asking me if I lived in the white house and if I was related to Obama.  So lots of weird things happend on Friday and Saturday.  But it was really fun. 

Another funny thing about being in Mexico right now is that people always bug me about Donald Trump. Many think I'm related to him and many just complain to me about him, and the funny part is that I probably know less about him than anyone else.  So it's pretty weird.  But if you thought racism was dead, it isn't, because everyone stares at me and calls me gabacho, I think it just means white person but its pretty funny. I love Mexico.

Anyway, that's about it for this week, just thought I'd share with you some of what goes on in my everyday life here in Mexico. 

Love,

Elder St John

Saint Rose

So this was an eventful week!

Monday I had an awesome experience with the Spirit. We were walking through a park and I saw a woman sitting on a bench and felt like I should talk to her.. I though it would be awkward and I wanted to go to the appointment we were going to instead so I kept walking and I felt the same thing even stronger, and I thought that it would still be uncomfortable to bug her and kept walking till i passed her.  Then I felt an impression too strong to ignore that I HAD to talk to her. (I guess I was being a little too stubborn...) So I thought, well I guess I have no choice. And instead of the awkward conversation I was expecting, it was a very comfortable talk with her. Her name was Emilia, and she opened up to us and told us that her grandaughter who was playing in the park had had a seizure the week before and she told us that her daughter was sick, and that she had no idea what to do. So we talked to her about prayer the the gospel and she accepted it with an open heart. She was very excited to hear about it and so we got her information and were going to visit her this week. 

Tuesday we had interviews with President Derbez and I gave him a large picture of me and him (the one we took during Christmas time) and he seemed happy about it. The interviews went really well and I got to say my goodbye because the president is leaving this Friday. 

Wednesday was just a normal day full of normal things.

Thursday was also a normal day full of normal things. 

Friday was Irmas baptismal interview and it went really well! She passed great and is super ready for her baptism. 

Saturday I got a very sad phone call. The zone leaders told me that I had a special changed and that I was going to a ward called Santa Rosa with Elder Gonzales. So that's where I am now.  They called us at 11:00 and told us to be at the offices at 12:30. Elder Christensen and I were very sad to get the news because we got along really, really well. And I'm sad to be away from him and the ward.  It was heart breaking.  But after 2 days in Santa Rosa with Elder Gonzales I feel better and it should go pretty well here for my last 3 weeks. 

Sunday I met the ward and everyone accepted me pretty well! Oh and I forgot the coolest part about Elder Gonzales, Do you remember Elder De Olarte? He is the only missionary i have trained.  Well Elder De Olarte started the training of Elder Gonzales and I will be finishing the training of Elder Gonzales! So that's pretty cool.

So that's about it for this week! I hope you all have a great last week of June and I hope you all have a great start of July!! 

Love,

Elder St John

Hacienda Fun

So I don't have much time to write so this will be quick.

This week we worked really hard, even though it was hot. It got up to 106 on Saturday! But that didn't keep us down. we visited Irma and she is super ready for her baptism next week and we also got to contact some really good references like one from the sisters and one from a member who brought a friend to church. So work is starting to come out. 

We are very happy, and a cool story is that yesterday a member gave me a challenge to eat a Carolina reaper chilie... so I did. And I regret it very much. It was hands down the spiciest thing I have ever eaten and I think I almost died. I have a video but you will have to wait till I get home to see it. lol. But it was a good week!

I love you all and wish you a great late Father's Day and a great week. 

Love,

Elder St John

Workin Hard in Hacienda

This was a pretty good but normal week. We continue contacting as always, and we are focusing our attention on Irma because she will be baptized very soon. We also try working with the members, even though it is hard with their busy schedules and sometimes the members don't want to work with us, but we keep on trying to have them help us the best that we can. 

We had a big event yesterday with the members. We had a meeting with all the members and we talked to them about the missionary work of members. So it went well. We showed them a video, and after went out with the members to visit. it went great. We met many new people and we also had a lot of success. We visited lots of people and the members seemed very happy with the activity! 

But sad to say that's about the only thing worth talking about. My new companion Elder Christensen is very cool. We get along great. He will be a great last companion. 

Well thats all for today. Love you all.

Love,

Elder St John

All is Well in Hacienda

Soo it was a good week here in Hacienda. We enjoyed teaching many people lesson 2 and enjoyed doing service as well. 

This week we also walked a lot in the hot sun. But I should be losing weight due to the sweat so I'll have my summer bod ready for the beach.

On Monday we had a normal P-day. 

Tuesday we visited 2 less actives and contacted a lot.

Wednesday we helped a man put a door on his gate outside, and he was grateful and we even put an appointment with him for the next day. 

Thursday the man we helped wasn't home.. But we still visited some people and contacted much.

Friday, more hot sun, and we had a great time visiting investigators. We visited Irma and she is still excited for her baptism even!

Saturday we continued working hard and were able to visit the man with the gate! His wife was there and she was also very happy that we came. It was a good week! 

Sunday Irma went to church and we visited a recent convert here from Elder Evans!

And Sunday night we got the calls for transfers! My last transfer - I will be here in Hacienda with Elder Christensen.  I don't know who he is very well but he should be a good companion. I wil let you know all about him next week!

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder St John

Elder St John's Email Memorial Day Edition

So this was just another normal week. 

Tuesday we contacted a few normal people and visited as always some less actives.

Wednesday we had a meeting in the offices. And I finally got Grandma Cable's package. It was great. The meeting was about reporting. And after, we continued visiting more people. We found an interesting family last week.  They believe in reencarnation and mental energies and stuff like that so it's weird going with them.  But we are trying to bring them to the truth. 

Thursday we continued with the pattern of contact, teach, contact. And it went okay. 

Friday we had a pretty good morning, especially becasue while contacting we talked to a cool family outside gardening and we answered a lot of quiestions that they had and we are going to visit them this week as well. We also got to go to a BBQ that an investigator invited us to. His name is Luis, his wife is Irma.  I'm not sure if I've told you about them, but they are awesome, and in the next few weeks, Irma will be baptized! Which is very exciting. 

Saturday was a very hot and sunny day, and a few of our appointments fell through. So I got very sunburnt.. but i have recovered now. 

Sunday was a great day because we had many appointments and many people to visit so we stayed away from the sun. 

SO that was the week. I hope you enjoyed! 

Happy Memorial Day! 

Love,

Elder St John

Here is a picture of when Elder Evans and I got tattoos. And became bikers. 

Week 4 in Hacienda de las Torres

So this week was very normal. So I can't complain. But we had lots of fun this week too. 

Monday was just a normal p-day. We bought food and shopped and stuff.. 

Tuesday we visited some less actives and had lots of good time to contact.

Wednesday we contacted a lot, and we did divisiones with Elder Medeiros and Elder Ocampo, our zone leaders.  It went well, I was with Elder Medeiros (one of my companions in the MTC!) and it was really fun.  We had some good lessions and found two new investigators!! It also rained.

Thursday we ended divisions and continued visiting many people. And I was reunited with Elder Evans.

Friday we continued contacting and taught some lessons. 

Saturday we helped some investigators paint a house. And we found a less active that had 15 years of being less active.  We also ate steak which was delicious, and continued visiting people.

Sunday I gave a talk in church; it went well. Everyone applauded at the end of my talk. And we did divisones with two adults from our ward to continue progressing. 

And today cleaned the house and haven't done much else.. but write..

Thats all for this week! I hope you all stay safe and I hope someone puts a Band-aid on Angel Moroni.  I heard he had some bad luck.. 

Love you all.

Love, 

Elder St John

Working Hard in Hacienda

So this week we had a good time working hard. Our president talked to us and motivated the zone to work harder so that's what we did. Elder Evans and I contacted a lot as always, and we started trying to work with the members. We have found some good people to teach, and we never get ourselves down. 

We had a cool experience with one of our investigators this week. So what happened is that our investigator, Irma, decided to watch a scary movie, but she got scared and took the DVD out and the movie kept playing so she thought it was the devil and called us to visit her to get the "devil"out of her house. So we visited them and I figured it was just a DVD malfunction, but we talked to her, calmed her down, and taught her about baptism. She told us that she knows the Church is true and on Friday in our next visit we put a baptismal date with her. It was a very good experience.

But that's about all for this week.. I love you and hope you have a good week!

Love,

Elder St John 

Week Two in Hacienda

So yesterday was a great day, and it was great to talk to the family! It was sad that it was my last video chat, but in 2 short months we will all be reunited. But in the meantime, I will be here in juarez working like crazy.

This was a pretty good week.  We still contact a lot, but it always pays off when we find people to teach! This week someone even contacted us! His name is Enrique and he seems pretty interested.  He is 23 and has a ton of quiestions. It was cool to know that if we are working hard we will find people to teach, or they will find us. 

Umm.. we didn't have anything too crazy happen. We have a zone meeting today, which is cool.  It will be the first zone meeting that I will have that I won't give since November, so that should be pretty fun!  But you will all hear about it next week! I love you all and hope you have a great week this week! And I heard that Elder Evan's family reads these emails so a quick shout out to the Evans fam! 

Love,

Elder St John 

It's Good to Be Back

Spencer and Bennie the Bonzai

So I'm back in Juarez and it feels great. The coolest part is that to welcome me back, Juarez gave me a HUGE surprise. It was a stomach infection! It was the best thing ever. I was puking and had diarrhea and I had never been happier in my life with a welcoming gift! We stayed home most of the day on Wednesday and by Thursday I was fine, and now I'm at 100%. 

But it's good to be back. I missed the city.  My companion is awesome. He is from Layton, Utah, and he loves Mexico more than anyone I have ever met. I will send a picture with the email. 

Elder Evans and Elder St. John

We had a cool experience with prayer this week. We were contacting one day and had nothing to do so we decided to say a prayer, and right as it ended, the child of a recent convert talked to us in the street and asked if we had visited his aunt. She is an investigator of ours, so we hadn't. So we decided to visit her. While with her, we had one of the coolest lessons ever with her. It was a true miracle that she was even home! But the Lord answered our prayer. So I invite you all to pray because you can recieve the answers to your prayers. 

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all! 

Love,

Elder St John 

Words From Elder St. John - Birthday Edition

SO yesterday was my birthday and I'm now 20 years old, and as they say in my country "ya estoy rufles" so I'm old now. And i feel soo.. normal... guess that I'm still the same.  I was actually pretty disappointed when I didn't wake up with a beard and a deeper voice... so I guess I'm not very good at aging (I forgot how to spell that sorry).  But I guess that's okay so that you can all recognize me when I get home.. 

This week was a good one. I got to eat cake yesterday, and I got to speak in church also so that was fun too. And I also got transfers for my birthday, so after some of my best months here in Casas Grandes I will be moving to the big city of Ciudad Juarez in my new ward Haciendas.  I will be District Leader, and my companion is Elder Evans who I don't know but I have heard that he will be fun. So I am very excited, but it is sad, for this may be the last day I'm in Casas Grandes, a small town that I have learned to love. Well out of the 20 months of my mission I have served in Casas Grandes for 15 months.. So you could say that it's been good. I will miss very much all the great people that I've met, and I will miss smelling like dust all the time. But as all good things do, my time here had to come to an end, and the big city is calling me.

But if you want to know how my week was this week you can read my letter from last week, because I feel like I say the same things every weekk... We contacted, we taught and we had fun. But we did have a cool experience when we visited one of our investigators and she had told us that she was fasting that day. It really impressed me to see that she was truly acting with faith to recieve an answer. I hope that the next missionaries that come to Libertad will find out what happens to her so that I will know, but it was still a good story. 

Well I think that's all for today.  I hope you all have a great week.  Thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday! Have a good day!

Love,

Elder St John

Not Abandoned in Cases Grandes

SO this week our beloved President Derbez came to visit us here in Casas Grandes. It was great.  He told us all we are doing wrong, and he also told us how to fix it. So things will be better. We had interviews as well, those also went well. It was a good time. 

Also this week we kept on working with all the future missionaries. And that also went super well. The young men showed us some less actives' houses and some old investigators. It  went really well, and one of them will get his mission call this week! But this week was a pretty good and average week, nothing tooo exciting to tell.. But I will talk to you next week! 

Love my fans. 

Love,

Elder St John

I Went to Juarez -- And Survived!

So we went to Juarez this week and the trip went flawlessly. We got there safely and we went to the meeting which was very good. The president called the entire mission to repentance witch was fun.. But the meeting was basically about how we need to keep better track of all the numbers of the zone and how we need to help the zone get more lessons, new investigators and baptisms.  So it should be pretty fun in the zone meeting today. 

But this week other than go to Juarez, I also was able to take an entire inactive family of 5 to church last week which was very cool, and we also kept on contacting and contacting and stuff like that. But the week was very enjoyable.

It is starting to heat up over here, we got up to 90 degrees on Saturday, and that's very cool in comparison to what it usually is in summer of about 105-110 daily. But the work moves forward. 

Elder Camacho and I get along really well with the ward we are in right now, so it makes it fun to go to church and see all the friends we have made.  This week we have some lessons planned with some young men from the ward. I like doing visits with the young men, becasue its fun to prepare them for when they become missionaries. And I also think about Hayden for when is one as well.. 

Well I'm sorry for the short letter.  I hope you all enjoyed it. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder St John

General Conference

This was a very good week and the best part is that we got to watch General Conference! 

This week we worked hard as ever and we found some more cool people to teach! This week we started working with the young men from our ward and it worked super well! The youth in our ward are really cool, and we  will continue working with them.  There are about 3 people in our ward filling out their mission papers and it makes me think about how Hayden is doing the same thing. It makes me so proud of him and excited to think about him as a missionary. 

But umm. We just had a normal week, we didn't have any too cool experiences. But if we did I would tell you about them. We did put a baptismal date with an investigator which was pretty cool.  We just decided to knock on a door and we found a family of four. The mother is the only one who seems interested in the Church, but she likes it a lot. She went to Conference on Sunday and her baptismal date is the 23 of April. We are hoping she makes it.  I think she will. 

But that's about all for the week. I love you all and hope the best for you all this week!

Love,

Elder St John

Semana Santa

So this week was a little interesting. Because it's Easter, and here they don't just celebrate on Sunday, but the whole week. And they don't celebrate by remembering Jesus. They celebrate by drinking alcohol. So... we basically didn't have very much work this week. Most people were gone on vacations, or drunk... so we worked with what we had.

Knocking door by door is always fun, because you never know who will answer. But yesterday we knocked a door and a man answered and let us in.  He had tatoos and looked pretty buff, but he wasn't scary. We talked to him, and his wife came in the room also (at first I thought it was his sister, but after further investigation I found out they were married).  But we got to know the both of them and we showed them the video of #aleluya and they loved it.  The wife also told us that she and always wanted to be a Mormon. So we told here we could help her and we will be visiting them tomorrow! I'm excited.

Also last week we were walking down the street and a man stopped us and told us he wanted us to baptize his children, so we started teaching them and they seem like a cool family, but we wil see how things go further along the road. 

Also on Saturday we had a baptism, because a member lost his membership account and it's like he was never baptized.  So we did the favor of baptizing him under the direction of President. It was a good experience. It all worked out well. 

I hope you all are as excited for Conference as I am. It should be a good one! Plz watch it and take notes.  I learned that that helps me a ton. But enjoy the week, and enjoy the snow (cuz i heard it snowed over there).  That's all for this week! No pictures because I don't take very many, but I'll try harder for next week! Luv you all.

Love,

Elder St John

Week One in Liberated

So this was our first week in our new ward, and it went pretty well! We started off basically by contacting everyone that we could and that went pretty well. We put a TON of appointments for the weekend and a few for this week also, we got changed so that we could be in the area in the zone with the most baptisms, and this area has a lot of work. 

But while contacting we visited an investigator that the Elders before had contacted. The investigator wasn't there but her daughter, Marisol,  was and we started to contact her. We eventually showed her the video of the Easter initiative (watch it if you haven't) and she really liked it. We then invited her to church, gave her a pamphlet and left to go contact some more. And the coolest part is that she went to church!! It was good to get to a new ward and bring an investigator to church, and the funny part was that she was one of the few people that we knew while sitting in sacrament meeting. But she enjoyed church and we are excited to see her progress.

Contacting is one of my favorite things right now, because all we basically do is make friends. We learned that the best way to contact is first make a friend so that they open up to you, and once they open up and tell us their problems, we show them how the restored gospel can bless their lives. It's really, really fun. 

I really, really like my new ward, and I hope I finish my mission here because it's such an amazing ward! The area is really cool as well. But I hope you all had a good week! Happy Easter! That's next Sunday right?? l hope so. I love you all and.. yeah... bye.

Love,

Elder St John

Spencer Translating Video

I hope this works because it is so fun.  

Liberty

So this week was very good. The zone meeting on Monday went well, and on Tuesday we had a normal day of contacting and working hard. 

Wendesday Ivonne and her 2 kids got interviewed for their baptisms! And on Thursday we went to Ascención, a small town like an hour and 15 min. away from Casas Grandes by bus, to interview someone for their baptism. We stayed there the night and had a good time with the two Elders over there. And on Friday we got back to Alamedas! 

Spencer, Ivonne and children, Elder Camacho

Ivonne and her children

Saturday was a very good day because Ivonne and her 3 kids were baptized!! It was a great expeirence I got to baptize Ivonne, and my companion baptized her 2 kids. And on Sunday I confirmed Juan Pablo, her son. It was a very cool expierience because I have never given anyone the gift of the Holy Ghost! I was very happy to see this family progress and enter the baptismal waters.  

 Saturday we also had a meeting with the President here in Casas, and he talked to us about the new Easter initiative called #Aleluya. After that he took us home but on the way wanted to buy us tacos but we were fasting... :( so no tacos.. 

That's about it for the week.  Yesterday night we got the transfers for the zone and Elder Camacho and I are going to go to a different ward called Libertad.  It's still part of the stake and it's actually the area right next to ours... But its okay, because I'm excited to go over there! It will probalby be my last area! So i will have to make good friends with the members so they all give me dinners before I leave.

But now I'm done. I hope you all had a good week!

Love YOU. 

Love,

Elder St John

We Went to Juarez! Again

So this week we went to Juarez.. Again.. So in this transfer we have gone to Juarez 4 TIMES. Almost once every week... It's fun, but I miss being a normal missionary. It usually takes all day Thursday and Friday becasue we leave early Thursday and come home late Friday.. but all the things we have been learning are important.

Tuesday we did divisons and I went with Elder Wilson from Spanish Fork, and we had a good time. He is kind of new so we tried contacting and other things like that. 

Wednesday Elder Wilson and I went to go running to a river. And when we got back home I was dead tired and for the rest of the weeek was sore.. But also on Wednesday we found a super cool investigator! He is a shoe shiner and he is awesome. We taught him a little about the restoration and invited him to stake confrence. We even offered him a ride! When Sunday came we went to his house to pick him up and he had already left walking to go to the conference! I was very surprised when I heard that. Especially because the church is like a half hour walk! But he made it there and I was very happy!  

Thursday and Friday we learned about contacting, being friendlier people and stuff like that. While in Juarez I ate green enchiladas (my fav tipe of enchilada) and then we did lots of other things, like wait in the offices, walk around Juarez and stuff like that while waiting for the meeting to start. 

Saturday, we had to deliver a cell phone to an Elder whose phone broke. He is in a little town like an hour away from Casas Grandes.. and we had no way to contact them. We only had their address. So we left Saturday morning and got there at about 11:30. We looked at the address and asked people if they knew where it was. We were lucky becaue the house was like 3 seconds away from the bus stop so we found it super fast. But.. the only problem is that the Elders weren't there... Luckily we had a knife and Elder Camacho knows how to use it, so we broke in.... We left them their phone and then left to eat some chicken while waiting for our next bus. It was a fun day. 

When we broke into the house of the Elders in Buenaventura. 

Sunday we had stake confrence and because we have some only English speaking members in the stake a translator was needed. and.. I and two other Elders from the Zone were lucky enough to do it.. I was scared but in the end it turned out well, and I realized that I am slowly forgetting English.... 

So that's about it for the week! I hope you all enjoyed and have a great week this week! 

Love,

Elder St John

Happy Leap Year

Hello everyone! This past week was pretty good!

We did lots of contacting like always, and we had lots of lessons. And we really don't have many stories for this week... it was very average... But Saturday we had a meeting with the President here in Casas Grandes.  It went well.  

This week we also had to record a video of a contact that we did in the street, and that was really uncomfortable... But I helped us out. And uh.. well there isn't much to say. 

It's starting to get hot now.. even though it's cold at night... but I'm getting used to it... umm. Next week we go to Juarez and have Stake Conference so I will tell you all about that... umm but that's all! 

Love you all!

Love,

Elder St John

Tambor

This week was a very good week! We did many fun things. like:

Contact, A lot! 

We caught a rabbit in our back yard.

We went to Juarez.

I met the Pope.

And many things more.

So we had to contact a lot this week because we don't want to visit members, less actives or anything that has been baptized, so that we could bring many unto the waters of baptism. We spent almost the whole day on Saturday contacting and i loved it. We met many people and set a lot of appointments. It was worth it. 

While studying one morning this week, I was thinking about how it's almost spring and I thought about Easter and while looking out the window we saw a bunny! What a lucky early Easter surprise! And naturaly as any other human, we decided to catch it. After about 10 minutes of hunting and chasing we finally caught the bunny. The owner of our house (also our neighbor) told us the night before that she had been trying to catch that very bunny the day before. So we gave her the bunny and she invited us to eat with them. The best part is that she gave us burritos made from bunny meat. So our reward for catching the bunny was a big bunny burrito. It was a good day. 

We went to Juarez AGAIN this week and had another meeting. It was good to go back and I even got to meet the Pope. I even got a picture.  It might even beat the picture my dad got with Will Smith`s son. 

This week went by really fast, and it was a very good week. Our investigators are progressing, and we keep on finding more people to teach.  Also in our mission we have a weekly bulletin and every week the President chooses his favorite spiritual experience to put in the bulletin. This week Elder Camacho and I were chosen. (I wrote the experience.) And even though it is in Spanish I will send you all a copy so that you can see what our mission bulletin is like! Katelyn and Luke can translate it so you might be able to understand. 

That is all for this week.  I hope you enjoyed my letter! Love you all!

Love, 

Elder St John

La Papa Mas Grande

This week has been good! It is my second week with Elder Camacho, and it's awesome! So if you remember the person that I told you about last week, who said that she wants to be a member of the Church and all, we visited her this week and she had finished the WHOLE Book of Mormon including the guide in the back and everything.  We put a baptismal date with her for the 12th of March. So we will see how that goes! We are super excited. 

On Thursday we got a call in the morning from the assistants and they told us to get on a bus and go to Juarez that same day.... So at 5:00 p.m. we left for Juarez... There was a Military check point on the way there and we waited there for an hour while they checked the trailers in front of us. So we got to Juarez at about 11:00 at night. We were hungry but all the food places were closed and we had nothing to eat, so they let us go buy some stuff at a store nearbye.. so we bought sandwich stuff and got home, ate and went to bed at like 1:00 a.m. We had a meeting Friday morning about the changes in the mission and we will be going back this Thursday.... It's a good thing I love traveling or this would kill me.

But big news! The Pope is coming to Juarez this week so that should be interesting.... I'll let you know how that goes next week... Love you all and have a good week!

Love,

Elder St John

Week One with Elder Camacho

Elder Moya

Elder Camacho

This week was awesome! On Monday Elder Moya left ):  And then on Tuesday Elder Camacho got here at like 5:00. Wednesday morning we had a meeting with the 2 zones in Casas Grandes and then we went out to preach. We found a super cool person who told us she wants to be a member of our Church!  I will let you know more about her if it goes well. On Wednesday night they told us we had to leave on Thursday morning to go to a meeting in Juarez, so at 9:00 a.m. Thursday morning we took the bus to Juarez.  We got there at about 1:00 and then ate and had a meeting with the President for ZLs and Sister Training Leaders. it was a really cool meeting and we took a test to see what kind of leaders we are.

Friday we got back home, and we visited Ivonne Carrasco.  She is the investigator who went to church last week.  We set a baptismal date with her for the 5th of March (you're all invited) and we invited her to a bapism that we had in the zone on Saturday.  She loved the baptism and was talking about her baptism the whole time. It was great, and after the baptism we ate tacos de tripitas which, if I'm not mistaken, are made of intestines... but they were delicious.

Sunday we watched the Superbowl all day and... Just kidding, we actually didn't even watch a second of the Superbowl... but it would have been fun.... And that's all for the week! 

Love you all.

Love,

Elder St. John

Elder Camacho and Spencer

Elder St. John and Elder Camacho

Good Morning!

I'm staying here in Alamedas, and Elder Camacho from Monterrey Nuevo Leon Mexico is going to be my new companion.  Tomorrow he will get here so I will send you a picture next week! 

We taught the Young Women's class yesterday and it was... awkward because we had to teach about temple marriage and stuff like that.. but it was good too. We also brought a family of four to church yesterday which made me super happy! They told us they want to be baptized so we will be working with them over the next few weeks to bring them closer to Christ. 

I'm glad that Hayden is filling out his mission papers. You have no idea how happy I am that he will be going on a mission. It is really the best thing ever. 

Love,

Elder St John

TEMPLE

This last week was super good.  We had a few meetings.  The assistants came over and did divisions with us. And lots of fun stuff.  But the coolest part was when we went to the Temple of Ciudad Juarez. Elder Moya has a convert that is going to serve a mission, and she went to the temple on Saturday and invited us. We talked to the President and he gave us permission to go. It was amazing. It was cool to hear a session in Spanish, and the coolest part is that I understood EVERYTHING and actually I understood better than I did in English when i went before the mission.. It was the coolest thing. I was very happy to go especially because we don't usually go to the temple in this mission. But I would just like to remind anyone who reads this, if you have a recommend, GO.  You never know how much of a blessing it is untill you go.

But that's it for this week.  Today is the first day of the last week before Elder Moya goes home! Thats also super crazy. But that is all.  

Love, 

Elder St John

El ayuno es numero uno

Mexico is good. It's getting hot in the day and cold at night, typical desert weather. There are 19 missionaries in the zone, and only five are sisters. All are doing well, and I love helping all of them. 

This week was pretty uneventful untill the weekend. 

We were pretty low on work this week so we decided to fast. On Thursday we fasted and on Friday we contacted. And on Saturday we had an appointment with one of the people we contacted. Her name is Melissa. When we knocked her door on Friday she was with a bunch of family and didn't seem too interested.. But on Saturday when we went to the appointment, she opened the door and seemed pretty unexcited to see us.. But I think that God softened her heart and after thinking a little, she decided to let us in. We taught her and her son about church and the restoration really fast and invited her to church and she even said the closing prayer. She was verry happy after the visit and she told us to come back Sunday to meet the rest of her family. She didn't go to church because she thought she needed a dress or skirt to go.. But she read the whole pamphlet we gave her and taught her husband to pray!! It was super cool coming back Sunday and finding out that her husband wanted to know more also! It truly was an answer to our fast. I have been super happy since.

But that's the experience of the year so far. It's been pretty good!

I love you all!

Love,

Elder St John

17 Months

SO last week I hit 17 months  Pretty crazy, but sad because I don't want even to think about going home. 

This week we went to Juarez for a training meeting and we also had an area confrence that was streamed by satellite, which was also cool. We didn't get to do much this week because I was in Juarez for a few days, but we had a good time while we were here. 

The work is good here.  We are trying to work more with the members so that we can have references and it seems to be working well! 

But that's about it for the week, because I don't have much time! Love you all! 

Love,

Elder St JOhn