I Don't Know What to Call this Email

My old zone.  :(

Hello everyone and welcome to week 13 in Mexico. Today we are going to start off with a quick game of question and answer. This week you guys asked me:

Are you still in Nuevas Casas Grandes with Elder Moya?

Answer: Yes. We have a whole nother month and a half together!

Do you know yet when and where you will be calling home on Christmas Day from?

Answer: Christmas day sometime in the morning! 

Did you get the package I sent you a few weeks ago with all the supplies and treats?

Answer: An Elder in my zone said that I have a package wating for me in the church, so I think it's a yes!

Do you have enough gas to get through the month with hot water and cooking?

Answer: I have no idea, so I'm relying on faith. But I think we might.

Are you getting along well with your companion and your district leaders and zone leaders? 

Answer: Yes I love everyone here!

Your green card looks like it expires in September of 2015, do you need to renew it every year?

Answer: My temporary citizenship does expire in 2015, so I will get it renewed for another year, and it will expire in July of 2016, so my mission is actually a month shorter than 2 years. It's really sad actually.

What is your favorite authentic Mexican food now that you’ve been out for a few months?

Answer: I really like Gorditas, tacos, Chilie Colorado, and we have this thing here called chorizo and it's like a tube of meet that you cook with anything you want. I usually cook it with eggs and it is super delicious. 

Are you having a special Mission Christmas Conference this year?

Answer: Yes but it's only for the people in the Juarez area so I'm not invited to the confrence or to dinner with the President Christmas Eve. :(

So now that all the questions are answered:

This week was fairly average. Monday was the last day our zone had together because others got transferred. And all the days blend together after that.. so this week also I went to some weird Young Women's award ceremony with 3 of my investigators because we thought we were going to have a normal day of mutual.. but it was especially weird because its was kind of a girls only thing and Elder Moya and I went with these two young guys and their mom... (our investigators) but we had tamales and hot chocolate so it was worth it.

This sunday was our big choir performance and it was awesome! We sang in an old train station which was super cool and there were like 200 people there. We played Church movies like "He is the Gift" and others, so even though I thought all we were going to do was sing, we also preached. And at the end of the concert, we handed out copies of the Book of Mormon and that was awesome, also free cupcakes and hot chocolate so we scored big time.

Umm my spiritual experience this week is a short quote that I can't remember who said it.. but the quote is, "Find someone who is having a hard time and do something for them." So that's what I want for Christmas. I want you all to find someone having a hard time and do something for them and tell me about it. Because I really want to hear it! 

That's all for this week! Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder St John

Me with a big picture of the Virgin Guadalupe. It was her birthday this Friday. It's too bad that the people here don't know commandments numbers 1 and 2 because they have parties and stuff for her.. It's really weird; they worship her.. But Friday we saw a dance for her, and the dance is super bizarre because everyone dresses up as devils and dance for Guadalupe...

New cycle, New life

Hello everyone, and I´d like to say a very special Hello to Elder Zesiger and Elder Kasteler who have recently joined us. I decided to add them because I get their weekly letters and felt that the they deserved mine. SO bien venidos Corbin and hi Cam.

So today is a big day. It's the begining of a new cycle, and that means that I might have a new companion tommorow, or that I could be writing you in a different place next monday because the transfers start tommorow. I COULD be doing all that, but won't because luckily the President thinks Elder Moya and I were made to be in Nuevas Casas Grandes Laguna 1 forever. So I have a whole other six weeks with him here in my area! What a blessing.

This week was good, not too many special things happened this week but I do have a lot of pictures to send because Elder Moya and I thought we would have transfers so we took a bunch of pics with the families in our ward and some of our investigators.

This week we had divisons so I was with our District Leader (Elder Almaraz) for a whole day as the senior companion in our area. It was super stressful especially because all our appointments fell through. So I had to contact, the whole night. The morning was better. We had an appointment with a woman we found while contacting a reference we got. Turns out that she has a family of seven, and they all are super prepared. Elder Almaraz asked them if they would be baptized if they found our message to be true and they all said YES! That was a really cool thing.

Also, our recent convert Angel fed us dinner Saturday night and gave us presents! It was super awesome and I know Angel will be a faithful member his whole life. He is super awesome. Also because he didn't have a white shirt and tie to wear to church we gave him a little gift of our own! A slightly used white shirt and ties! 

My Spanish is getting a lot better. I watched the Joseph Smith Restoration movie this morning in Spanish and understood like 65-70% of it and that was awesome. But I'm starting to get compliments on my Spanish from people here so I´m feeling proud of my Spanish, so the Lord will probably humble me sometime this week, so keep me in your prayers.

Choir is going great, we perform on the 14th and I think that's this Sunday, so wish us luck!

Christmas is coming soon and it's going to be a little bitter sweet, because it will be my first Christmas away from home, and also because I won't be getting a lot of presents this year.  :(  But that's not important because I have the greatest gift ever, and that's being a missionary. So I have the gift of giving this year, and will be giving all my time to others, and that's better than any present, even an iPod.

Love you all and think of you all every day! I hope you're all doing well!

Love,
Elder San Juan

 Family Duran, members from the ward.

The Sanchez Family! A family of less actives. 

Hinojo Family. The daughter in the blue jacket is our investigator, her mom in the pink is a member, and so is her aunt, the other woman, and I don't know the boy. He was just there...

The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Christmas swaggy.

Hermana Molina, the mother of Paula, with her son Jeremy, who is seriously nutz.

The family of Hermano Chavez, the ward mission leader.

Angel, our recent convert; Claudia, his girlfriend; and Brian, the son of Claudia.

Elder Moya and me with Brian and our presents.

Elders Moya, Almaraz, Gonzalez and me relaxing after a big meal. (Gonzalez laying on us, from left to right on the couch:  Elder Moya, Elder Almaraz, and Elder St. John).

Elder Moya and me with Familia Serna. 

My green card. I'm an official Mexican. :,) 

Week 9 Million in Mexico

Paola before her baptism.

Angel before his baptism special guests, the Bishop and Brian, the son of Angel

The last week of November was absolutley awesome! First thing I´d like to say is HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAIGE, I felt really bad once I left the computer last week and didnt say that, so Paige, even though I'm super far away and don't know how to send a package I'll give you the best gift you can get that's not in a box. The gift of knowledge. Here is your gift: the word Pantuflas in Spanish means slippers. Enjoy your gift and remember, with great power comes great responsability.

The 2nd thing I want to say is WELCOME HOME HERMANA SAN JUAN! I can't believe it's been a year and a half since you left on your mission.  It's crazy to think you're home partying with the fam and I'm just starting my mission! I hope everything at home is going great and that college treats you well! And I hope you know I'm super proud of you for serving a fulltime mission and serving it honorably. Keep up your Spanish skills for this next year and a half so we can hablar when I get back.

So this week was amazing. There is a new thing that the Church is trying to push now for the Christmas season and you guys all probably know about it but its El es la Dadiva, or in English I think it's He is the Gift? But it's awesome and also the 7th of this month, so this Sunday I think, the Church bought YouTube for a day so the first thing that comes up is the new video which is amazing and holy cow the 2nd coming is soon guys. The Church is spending tons of money to push this. But I hope you guys all #sharethegift. I think that's the hashtag in English.  If not I hope you guys all #ComparteLaDádiva because I've only had this program for like 3 days and I can tell it's going to help a lot of people.

This Saturday was something really special for me. It was my first baptism of the mission, and my first time baptizing anyone ever. And let's just say it didn't go as smoothly as it should have.. So I was lucky enough to baptize Paola Jacklyne Enriques Molina a cute little 9 year old. It should have been easy but turns out she has a fear of water... So every time i tried to dunk her she wouldn't go under. I tried 8 times. 8. times. And then the bishop eventually had to do it because I didn't want to drown her and she didn't want to go under the water. So the bishop did it and she was finally baptized. She came up out of the water clean from all her sins and chocking on water. It was a beautiful first baptism. Then we had Angel and after 2 quick dunks he was baptized. Even though the day didn't go as smoothy as I'd planned I'm glad for the opportunity we had to have 2 baptisms and it really was a special day. And even though I technically didn't baptize Paola I like to think one of my 8 times counted and the wittnesses just wanted to be 100% sure.

So a big blessing this week. Elder Moya and I keep praying for more families and God keeps answering us. This week we found a family of four. Taught them one powerfull lesson and now they all want to be baptized. I'm so grateful for this answer God gave us and that He is willing to trust us to bring the Gospel to more of his children.

Choir is going great, still no tapdancing, but what can you do. We are singing "Let It Go" from Frozen and we practiced it for the first time this week and it was awesome. It's in Spanish so we are all singing "Libre Soy" which actually means I'm free... So it's a little different but just as inspiring. Also practice was in Dublan which turns out to be the closest thing to heaven I've seen here in Chihuahua Mexico. It's full of English speaking white people and the houses are all super nice and the streets are paved. And that just made choir that much better.

Thats all for this week! Love you all so much and pray for you all every day!

Love, 

Elder St John

They say the bigger the sombrero the bigger the ego.

This is what happens to your house when you say you dont want to get baptized. 

Hola From Mexico

Awesome week this week! But first off I'd like to apologize for all the bad spelling and grammer in my letters... Spanish keyboards are a little different so it's harder to backspace. Also spell check is in Spanish so it underlines everything I type and because I don't read in English anymore I forget what proper English looks like. But anyway, back to what's important, me. 

This week was great! We kept praying to find a big family and God finally answered our prayers! We found a huge family of 11 this week! Right now we are only teaching 6 of them but the others will come around. 

Monday night we had a FHE with a less active family in the ward and they gave us dough to make our own flour tortillas and they where delicious. 

A picture of the tortillas we made.

But Tuesday morning we found out that we used all our gas making tortillas and no longer could have a hot shower. But all is well because today, one week later, we have money for gas and can have hot showers again. But this whole week we just put water in cups, heated it up in the microwave and used that... really fun... 

We had divisones this week and I went with Elder Gonzalez to his area and that was fun, nothing too exciting happened that day. 

New up date on packages, if you want to send one, put a list of what's inside on the outside of the box, so my mission president doesn't get arrested for taking somthing illegal across the boarder. If it's something like candy or food, just write missionary supplies but everything else you can list.

So I met someone this week and I think im in love. Her name is Calentador. And she isnt actually a person.. The word calentador means heater, and that's what she is.. a heater.. But she is beautiful and really warms the room whith her smile. 

Me and my new girlfriend.

TIME FOR THE BIG NEWS. I decided to half way  follow my dreams of becoming a word famous singer/tapdancer and joined a chior. SO i get to sing every week with a bunch of missionaries and other people and its great. The only problem is that we don't tapdance so I'll have to practice that on my own time.. But the choir is amazing because its the whole stake, and in our stake there is an English ward so I heard and had my first conversation in English in three months. Absolutely beautiful. Also I love to sing, I'm a bass if anyone was wondering. 

Last thing on the list. If anyone wants to get in the Christmas spirit with a delicious fruity drink you're in luck because I know exactally what you need. There is a Mexican drink here called Ponche and it's amazing. Its like a cider, but it has fruit in it and is delicious.

Well that's all for this week. I hope everyone at home is doing well. The house looks amazing Dad. I bet Katelyn will love it when she comes home, I'm glad Paige still loves me. Hayden hasn't written me yet, so I'm assuming he is dead... And I think that's it.. Love you all.  

Love, 

Elder St John

Christmas cookies because Thanksgiving doesn't exist here.

El Solo Gringo

A young boy in the ward was baptized and after we had cake.

This week was pretty good! not too much happened but it was good! Spanish still is a little hard and I have forgotten what good English sounds like.. Today I tried talking with an American Elder in our area and it was harder than it should have been.. I swear, how do people learn more than two languages and tell them apart. It's crazy. I'm learning one and can't even.  I'm switching between Spanish and English all the time so my main language here is Spanglish... 

But something cool happened this Friday. There is this girl in our area we are teaching and she is going to be baptized in two weeks.  When we first asked her who she wanted to baptize her like 1 1/2 weeks ago, she didn't know.  Then her mom asked me and my comp how many people we had baptized.  My companion said he had baptized two and I said zero. And she said, "Good, you'll do it to me, and then whispered to me that Paula wanted me to do it originally.. So I get to baptize her!! Woot woot, she is awesome, she is 9 years old and we call her menonita because she has light skin, like lighter than me... but both her parents are dark.. But anyway that will be cool!

This week my companion left me alone with this young couple in their house for an hour while he was in the bathroom. And I expected it to be super awkward, BUT it wasn't because in  that moment I was blessed with the gift of tongues and talked to the family for a whole hour, and understood like eighty percent which was a huge blessing because I hate feeling awkward. So yeah, that's the language update. 

Spiritual experience: I went to seminary this Friday--me and my comp made up half the class--but it was great! The class was in the house of a member.  This member is a single mother with no priesthood in the house. This member said that she could feel something different whenever we were with her, and then she asked me to bless her house... So I gave her house a blessing. It was really hard to get on the roof so i could put my hands on its head, but it all worked out and I gave a great blessing.. in English... but it was still great and its the spirit that counts. 

Sorry there wasn't much to say this week.. I'll try to have more things to say next week! 

Love you all so much and pray for you all every day!

Love,

Elder St John

Me about to jump the grand canyon.

Me being a child again.

Mexico?

I got on the roof and looked like a super hero.

This week has been pretty good! a lot of ups and downs this week.

This Saturday we had a training meeting with the President and that was good, but he made everyone turn in their iPods or mp3 players and that was sad. He told us that there are some rules that we won't understand and it's important to obey them. So I'm trying to look for the silver lining in this, i may have to look hard but I'm sure it will be there. 

So this week was FREEZING at least Tuesday through Thursday... but it's all good because I found a sweater in the house and was warm. But also this Saturday I bought some more warm clothes. And of course Saturday it got warm again... But it's not important because it will be cold again. Maybe...

Elder Moya and my face on how we feel about the weather. 

Lots of good lessons this week! Elder Moya doesn't talk as much anymore so I do a lot of the talking, which is good! It helps me learn Spanish easier and it's always good to practice. I sent grandma a little more about this and how it was a baptism of fire, and how in the MTC I learned that there is no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone, and judging by how uncomfortable I've felt I've probably been growing a lot. 

The moon this week was rad.  

Me casually drawing Jesus on the car of a member while we wait for church to begin.

So we have anothing baptism date! Paula Molina, a 9 year-old-girl who is adorable. So we are teaching her so she can be prepared to be baptized on the 29th of this month along with one other person, Angel.

We did some service this week, if I can call it that.. We chopped wood for a family here, but mostly just broke their axe and hammer... so im not sure how well of a service that was..

Chopping Wood

A Beautiful Sunset

Spiritual thought for this week: 3rd Nephi 2:7 [I'm not sure but perhaps he typed the reference wrong.]  I shared this after eating with a member family this week. It's a really amazing scripture, because God is always with us, even though at times it may feel like He isn't here, He always is. When I shared this I compared it to a mother teaching her child to walk. If the mother wants her child to learn to walk, she can't hold his hand his whole life, even though she is afraid her child will fall, she has to let him learn on his own. This is just like God letting us learn in this life. We were sent here to learn and grow, and we can't do that if God carries us the whole way through; He has to let us ¨fall¨ sometimes so that we can learn to ¨walk¨ or grow. So if you ever feel like you're alone, just remember that this is God trusting that you can do it.

Love and pray for you all lots. 

Love,

Elder St John 

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Me in my casual preaching outfit with a Book of Mormon. 

The title to this email is a little misleading.. because they don't have dia de los muertos where I'm at, so sorry for the lie... But this week was pretty awesome.

The lessons and everything have been going pretty well this week, our investigators seem to be progressing which is awesome. And I now have 3 drawings of myself from the kids of the families we teach and they are awesome. And we also had 6 people at church this week which was awesome as well! 

We also got a new washing machine so we don't have to walk for an hour with our clothes to get to a laundromat and pay 100 pesos for a taxi and the washing. Which is good. And we should be getting our house sprayed this week so no more spiders! The weather here is finally cooling down which is also awesome. It's perfect down here. It's like Utah in the Fall now. But also that means I'm in trouble.. because I was really dumb before my mission and thought I could handle it here and that it wouldn't get cold.. I have a lack of warm stuff. So Dad I will be using my Chase card a little more so I can buy some more winter-appropriate clothes..

But Friday was Halloween and was really spooky. I got Grandma's [St. John] package and it was perfect. I got it Thursday and it was full of halloween stuff so we decorated our house and it was 10-10 spooky. I'll send pics. 

Some pics of the house.

This week we ran out of food and money so all we had to eat for 7 days was half a loaf of bread and the rest of the snacks I had from the package Dad sent last week. It's just a good thing the members here are nice enough to feed us every day, and also because it's a rule.. but we have money now and it feels great! Every month my companion and I get 1,200 pesos each which is a little less than 100 dollars each, but it goes a long way here. I usually spend about 250 or 300 pesos a week so it lasts well.

Not much left to say this week.. We got some candy while we where preaching on Halloween and that was fun, even though every candy here has chilies in it. I'm starting to get used to it..

Spanish is coming along really well.  Elder Moya says all I need is an accent and I'll be fluent. So I just need to eat more peppers and I'll be set.

Love you all so much!

Love, 

Elder San Juan