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

Happy New Year!!

So 2015 is all over, my only full year with the name Elder.. kind of sad to think about that. But 2016 has many more great things to offer. Who knows what lies in store. But basically this week was pretty good and normal.... Tuesday Elder Moya got to Alamedas so we got to start the year like we did last year, together.  It's good to be back with Elder Moya.  It makes me think back to my first months as a missionary a lot. But we get along well. 

New Years was good.  To start off the New Year I had a whole bowl of menudo. And the funny thing is that I liked it this time... Elder Moya says I'm very Mexican, which I take as a compliment because I've been here for more than a year and it would be embarrasing if I wasn't Mexican by now.  I even have the mustache. Also next week I get to go back to Juarez for another meeting so that means another four-hour bus ride and another stay in the real inn (the hotel we stay in) and that wil be fun. 

But that's about all for this week, we keep contacting and keep finding people so that's always a blessing. I love you all and hope you have a good new year!

Love,

Elder St John