Mission Council and Singing in Church?

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.

More details this 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. 

One sentence week

February 24, 2014

Hey, I am doing fine, we had a great week, I do not have time to right because of time and my companion is nagging me to leave, sorry, bye!

(really, this is all we got this week :)

Stake Conference, a visit from Elder Christensen of the Seventy, and first mission council

February 17, 2014

Muchas gracias por la carta que me escribiste. Esta semana nos fue bien. Cada semana tengo experiencias buenas, y otras que no son tan buenas. El punto es que quiero enfocarme en las cosas buenas que pasaron esta semana. Fui al consejo (council) de la mision por la primera vez y aprendi mucho. El dia siguiente tuvimos una conferencia con Elder Christensen de los setenta. Al estar en la conferencia tuve la oportunidad de ver a muchos de mis mejores amigos de la mision. Platique por un rato con Elder De la Mora, mi companero preferido. Aprendi mucho en la conferencia tambien. La mejor experiencia de la semana fue esta, fuimos a la casa de una hermana, menos activa para cambiar carpetas de area con las misioneras. Cuando llegamos a la casa de la hermana me dijo, "Elder Jarvis, tenia muchas ganas de conocerlo." Me hizo sentir un poco incomodo, pero despues me dijo porque. Entonces, estabamos sentados en la mesa, los cuatro misioneros, y la hermana me dijo que queria hablar conmigo. La semana anterior, habiamos hablado con el esposo de esa hermana, los dos fueron misioneros y el ha sido inactivo por 5 o 6 anos y tambien fuma. Solo hablamos con el por 5 o 10 minutos y no recuerdo mucho de lo que le dije. Lo que si recuerdo, es que mas temprano en ese mismo dia habiamos pasado a visitar a otros miembros, algunos activos, otros menos activos, y en casi todos los casos yo pude saber solo al ver a los miembros si eran activos o menos activos. Yo pense, que el esposo de esa hermana era un miembro activo, lo senti, y al final de la conversacion con el, nos dijo, " ustedes si saben que no soy activo verdad? Y le dijimos que no sabiamos. Cuando nos fuimos, yo lo abrace, como casi siempre hacemos con los hombres. 

Entonces la esposa de el me pregunta, "que dijo a mi esposo?" y le dije "no se disculpeme si le ofendi, y mi dijo, no "lo que dijo fue algo bueno." Cuando su esposo me vio, el sintio que ya me conocia, desde la vida preterrenal. El no quiere hablar con los misioneros ni con el Obispo tampoco, pero si hablaria conmigo. Me hizo sentir muy bien. 

I wrote letters yesterday night to Lola, the Diaz Lopez family, Magda, Carmen, Montserrat, and Lupita, from Tuxpan, and to the Alcaraz family from Guzman. 

The new apartment is nice, it is really big, 2 stories, the only thing I don´t like about it, is that we are separated sometimes, for instance, the bathroom is downstairs and we sleep and study upstairs, and I don´t like that, but the house is nice.  We have beds and bed stands and a table, we don´t have chairs yet, we took two from the church to use. We have an electric stove, and we have a microwave, we have one very little fan, and are planning on buying another one or two this week, we want to buy a fridge, but the only gave us 2,000 pesos to buy it with, and that is not very much. 

It is getting a little bit easier being around sisters. Elder Calixto and I cleaned the house for a long time, studied for Zone Conference tomorrow and ate some good food. We ate quesadillas and tortas and I had a milkshake. It has been a fun day, Elder Webb and his comp. called and sang me the mananitas. We also found a less active family of 5 yesterday that we are going to visit tonight, and one of our investigators Pedro came to church yesterday, so that was pretty awesome.

 Mananitas is the happy birthday song. Tortas are sandwiches, or something parecido. I don´t know the other word for sandwich. Did you read the article by president Eyring in the Liahona of January? I really liked it. It was kind of funny when we visited the large family because the three kids were there, 16, 12, and 7 years old, and the 7 year old was scared to death of me, I think because of my larger than the average Mexican size. Their parents were both sleeping. Zone Conference is here tomorrow, combined with the other Colima zone, we are going to buy Subway sandwiches, and my companion and I have to teach for 30 minutes. 

My companion and I get along fine, not too great, and not too bad. He gave me a blessing one night this week, I woke up screaming and had apparently punched the metal door as well, I do not remember doing that, but he says I did. But, after the blessing I was fine. We finally got our beds and bed stands this week as well.   I was dreaming that I was shouting, and  Elder Calixto as well, but turns out I was the only one shouting.

We are the Centenario Ward, in the Colima Stake. Our stake president served his mission in Salt Lake, was an A.P. and his wife was serving in Temple Square and that is where they knew each other. 

I was also able to get some weights set up this week that actually weigh quite a bit, and also set my record for jumping rope, I did it for 3 minutes and 45 seconds consecutively. 

Sorry I've got to go.  Thanks for the letters, have a good week.

Love,

the elder Elder Jarvis

Busy first week in Colima

(from Sister Wagner) "Here we are!! 219 Missionaries with Elder and Sister Craig Christensen, Elder and Sister De Hoyos, and Elder Martinez (area authority). I LOVE this picture!!"



Also from Sister Wagner:  "We are now 54 sister missionaries strong!"

This week was a good week, and absolutely crazy one. I am here in Colima with Elder Calixto. He is from Monterrey and has 14 months in the mission. He has three sisters. He heard that he would be receiving a missionary who had 21 months in the mission and thought I would be dead, he was in for a surprise. He walks really fast, as fast as I do. I have slept on the floor every night since I got here. We stayed the first few days and nights with the other zone leaders, Elder Webb, who you already know, and Elder Armengol, who is in his last transfer, and is totally wild and crazy. There are 12 elders and sisters in our zone. We are going to have our zone conference together with the other Colima zone. It will be next week, the 18th of February. We are 6 elders and 6 sisters in the zone. What happened with our area, is that they divided the area that Elder Calixto was in into 2 areas. We are 4 missionaries in our ward, us two and two sisters, Sister Vargas and Sister Zamora. Sister Vargas if from the state of Mexico and has 6 months in the mission, and Sister Zamora is from Tamaulipas and this is her first area. All three of the other missionaries in our ward are converts. We spent a large part of the week showing the sisters their area and introducing them to their members. They are now living in the house that Elder Calixto was living in. We finally moved into our new house on Saturday, but have very little furniture. I got to know a few members this week, but we had very few lessons because we were extremely occupied all week long. I did a lot of exercise this week. 

One of the blessings I received this week, is that I was blessed with the gift of tongues, my companion said that I had a little bit of an accent like the people from D.F. (Mexico City) I felt really comfortable speaking, and everyone was understanding me, it was totally cool, I just did not worry about it, and just spoke, and everyone understood me. We finally moved into our new house, and it is pretty huge. It is 2 stories, just huge.  A nice older lady, member, fed us pancakes before church yesterday.

Thank you for your nice letters I really enjoyed them. We had a nice up and down week this week. Sounds like Nate had a pretty crazy week as well. One fun experience I had this week was looking for all the new stuff we have to buy for our house. We walked into the store and I asked for everything, did pretty much all of the talking and it was totally awesome, and the kid helping me hardly ever had to ask, "what was that, I did not understand you." It was pretty cool. It was also fun that my companion has expressed to me several times who impressed he is that I am not dead. He said that I am the only missionary that he has known that has had 21 months in the mission and is not dead. It is so nice that other people see that in me, I just wish I could see it in myself.

I guess there is a lot that I should be positive about though, it is hot and dry here and I like that, we walk so fast that I do not have time to think, that is nice, and I will try to be more positive and not so pessimistic. We are teaching Pedro. He has been to church a bunch of times, and the only thing that is impeding him from being baptized is that he smokes. We also taught Christopher this week, he has also been to church and is reading the BOM and praying, he lives with a member and they are not married so that is the challenge with them. Those are the only investigators I know. We did not have a lot of time to work in our area this week. None of our investigators were able to make it to church. I spoke in sacrament meeting.   Our bishop is great, he worked at the Benemerito school for a long time. We walked more this week than I had ever walked in a single week in my mission, so that was awesome. 

When you talked about being tired this week I get where you are coming from. In the mornings we do devotionals. We sing, pray two times and read a scripture, we did several of those devotionals together with the elders we were living with. After having slept on the floor the second night in a row, Elder Armengol asked us to go and get the scriptures, and I frustratedly said in English, "we slept on the floor last night." But, I did exercise every morning. When I am really tired in the mornings and do not want to exercise, I try to think, when I am 24 and married with a kid up all night, going to school, working, I am not going to want to exercise either, but I am going to, just something fun to think about. 

I loved seeing the picture of Elder De La Mora.  He is one of the most loving people I have ever met. 50 percent of the credit for me developing the love I felt for Lola is because of him, in my 2 transfers with him, I do not ever remember him getting mad at me, not once. 

Oh, and I am right across the volcano from Guzman

Transfer to Colima!

February 4, 2014

Hey! I was transferred to Colima for the first time in my mission. I am going to be serving with Elder Calixto. We are going to be zone leaders here. I did not have time to do my hair in the picture Hna. Wagner sent you. We slept on the floor last night. Elder Hernandez is in my zone, the one I trained. We are opening up a zone. There was only one zone in Colima and now there are two. 

Anyways, I am very happy to be here, and I hope I have more time to write to you guys tomorrow for a little bit. Veremos..... Bueno pues, estoy feliz por estar aqui, espero que se encuentren con bien, a ver cuando les escribo otra vez. Hasta luego!

Elder Jarvis