Elder Ben Jarvis ~Mexico Guadalajara Mission~: March 2014

March 10, 2014

We had a good week and a fun p day today. We went and played soccer on a nice turf field, and ate quesadillas and horchata.

The rest of the week went well. Nate did not write to me. Jess wrote me a really nice letter. Several of our investigators came to church. I spoke in church, and the 4 missionaries sang again. We are going to start doing that every week. We played a large role in sacrament meeting yesterday. My companion and I spoke and we sang.

I have been lifting weights as intensely as I can with the weights we have. And I also set my record jumping rope for 6 minutes consecutively. Brandon Robertson is engaged, he probably already told you guys.

That is crazy that Nate is Zone Leader so fast, that is awesome! I did 1,000 reps with the weights today, but they do not weigh much. We went to Guadalajara for Mission Council this week, composed of the zone leaders, assistants, The Wagners and a few sister missionaries. We had to get up at 2 30 A.M. on Tuesday to get there on time.

We had a fun family home evening with Sister Valdez on Monday. She is the nice older lady, our neighbor. Our bishop has been really great. We are teaching two couples, both of the wives are members and neither of the husbands are, and neither is married. Cristofer and Gisell are going to get married the 21st of March and then he will be baptized the 22nd of March. We are hoping that Daniel and Gabriela get married the 28th of March and that Daniel gets baptized the 29th of March. Pedro went to Mazatlan this week and can be baptized as soon as he stops smoking.

That's about it for this week. Talk with you next week.

March 3, 2014

Everyone with a February birthday gets a treat!

First of all, I want to thank you guys for continuing to write to me, and for your patience with me. First of all, I want to talk about a couple of experiences from last week. So, last Sunday was a pretty awesome, crazy day. 7 high school students came to church as a school project sort of a thing. We convinced them to stay for the next two classes as well. The sister missionaries taught the Gospel Principles class, and really did a good job, at least I thought so. Anyways, at the end of the class, our ward mission leader made an interesting comment. So that you guys can get a picture of him, his name is Robert. He is 80 years old. He still plays sports all the time, and thinks he can beat my companion in a 100 meter dash, and my companion is pretty fast. He wears these awesome sunglasses and is always on time, and if we are not there on time, he just leaves. So, he could probably live about 120 years. And, he is probably the most direct person I have ever met. So, anyways, the sisters finish teaching the lesson, and he stands up to make a comment, and when he comments, you have to be careful of two things, 1. For how long he is going to speak, and 2. What is he going to say. Anyways, he gets up, and asks one of the youth, "How were you baptized?" knowing that almost everyone here who is not a member of our church is catholic and has been baptized by the sprinkling of water. So, of course, the young man says, "they sprinkled water on my head." Now, keep in mind this is the youths first time in church, and they came on their own. So, he tells our ward mission leader how he was baptized, and Bro. Roberto takes a pause and says, with emphasis, "that, is INCORRECT!" When he said that I looked at one of the sister missionaries who just had this shocked look on her face. So, that was the first funny story.

The second funny story about our ward mission leader happened on Thursday. So, we had the weekly meeting with Brother Roberto, and he says to me, for example, "Si Elder Jarvis, sabiendo que nosotros no hablamos ingles, nos habla en ingles, estaria demostrando su poca educacion." It is just funny because he is so direct. We also sang in church yesterday, and it went pretty well. I went on divisions with the assistants last week, I was with Elder Brighton in the Assistants area. We had a good time. It surprised me that they were really normal, like, sometimes their appointments fall through, sometimes they do not have a member to go with them, etc. But, I had a really fun time. Elder Brighton and I were companions for a short time in the MTC. We kinda stayed up really late at night talking too.

The Colima Zone!

We had a lot of investigators in church the last two weeks. Yesterday, 6 came. Pedro Omar, he is 32 years old, really smart, a computer genius, and lives his life, 150 miles and hour. He is really having a hard time to quit smoking. He has come to church 2 of the past three weeks. He is not married and needs to get to know more members of the church. He really wants to feel needed. Cristopher, his spouse, Gisell is a member, they are not married, they are living in "union libre" he is a fighter, a boxer I think, and was working for a mortuary, but kind of lost, quit his job sort of a thing. They are young and have 2 young boys, they have both been to church the last two weeks. Daniel and Gabriela, they are not married either, she is a member of the church and he is not, he lived in Utah for a time and saw the Salt Lake temple, his mom still lives there, and he wants me to give her a letter from him when I get back. He does not have a job, they are really poor and she is pregnant. She has two kids from another man, one of them is Ulices, he is 14, and I do not really know the other one.

We also found a less active member this week, Angela. She is 86 years old and her husband is 92, they were sealed in the Los Angeles temple. He is in bed all the time. My favorite members are the bishop, our ward mission leader and sister Maria Valdez. Maria is pretty old too. She is our neighbor, we have family home evenings with her all the time and she pretty much is willing to feed us dinner whenever we need it or want it as well, she is totally awesome. Bishop Ramirez is awesome as well. He is really smart and has a really good spirit about him as well. He worked at Benemerito for a time and is a biologist. His daughter, the only child he has, was just sealed in the Guadalajara temple. He is really good, we have ward council every week, and we have a meeting every week between him and the missionaries as well. We ate with him this week, and I had a fun time talking with him about Fernando Valenzuela, the famous Dodgers pitcher as well. He does a really good job taking control of his meetings in a friendly way.

We had a really stressful Monday and Tuesday. We fasted 2 times this week, on Wed. and Thurs. and on Sat. and Sun. During the first one, we ended up having to run a lot, because, if you guys do not remember, I pretty much lose everything I touch. One of the sister missionaries from our zone is from Guatemala, and we had to send some papers of hers to Guadalajara Thurs. Morning, or else she would be deported to Guatemala, so, I left the papers where we had our last lesson of the day, and we literally ran some of the way home. If I did not tell you guys already, my companion is really fast, even for long distances, it surprises me. I wrote letters to a bunch of my Guzman friends today and laminated them as well. I love to laminate. There are papelerias here all over the place and they do it for you. Elder De la Mora always joked, saying that I was going to go home and tell people that what I learned on my mission was how to laminate. In president Wagners letter today, he talked about not watching movies on buses, and not listening to the music either. I liked that. The majority of the missionaries I know watch the movies on the buses and I have always tried not to.

I have had some disagreements with my companion, but we will be alright, I have got to do my part to be more humble. Hopefully this will be enough for the week.

Elder Ben Jarvis ~Mexico Guadalajara Mission~

Monday, March 10, 2014

Mission Council and Singing in Church?

More details this week

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