10/6/14 "The Church of Jesus Christ always has been, and always will be, a missionary church"!

Mom, thank you for the cinnamon rolls, I shared them with my whole district. We are leaving tonight so I get to email today. Oh, and yes,I know elder Welburn! I forgot his name because toward the beginning of being here, he said "in Utah we don't say our 't's so it's uhah", so we often just reference him as "uhah"! Yeah, he's a funny guy, and he bore a great testimony last night.

General conference was great! I really enjoyed Christofferson and Uchtdorf during Saturday morning and Holland in the afternoon. Also Callister was talking about Ben Carsen and I was just thinking... I wonder if he is still planning on running for president haha. And of course Bednar sunday afternoon was great  "The Church of Jesus Christ always has been, and always will be, a missionary church"!

What were some of your favorite things from conference? 

I imagine that Dad thought of me in Quentin L. Cook's talk at priesthood session.

My luggage are both about 42 lbs. aeromexico. Yep, our flight is straight there, it is about a 6 hour flight. I'll get there around 5:50 AM

10/02/14 Christ Like Character

Yeah I've been emailing with Austin and Holden. Welburn, hmm I recognize the name but I'm not sure who he is. But that sounds like the same flight I will be on. (His mom is on the FB Missionary page so I asked Chad if he knew him) I don't know how many missionaries will be on that flight but we're supposed to have a lot. The temple isn't open until next year from what I heard so we haven't left the walls since last time we went and we definitely have not gone on the streets proselyting. That would be fun. We all wish we could leave the walls sometimes and just see what the city is like.

Haha, yeah we've talked about that scene in Best two Years here plenty. I can guarantee I will have trouble with the language, but it'll work out. We'll see if my first companion even speaks English haha

Well tell Ally and Atalie thanks for me. That's funny! (For remembering him in their prayers!)

So one thing that was funny...  earlier this week we were in one of the fake investigator lessons with our teacher as "Rodrigo" and when he asked "¿Cómo están?"  My companion, meaning to say ocupado (busy) accidentally said "preocupado" (worried). After we cleared up what he meant, I decided, because of how Rodrigo was acting to ask "¿está preocupado?" and he said he was and told us about a friend who was having some difficulty and we had him pray right there and it turned fairly spiritual and one of our better lessons.

Let's see... the most spiritual of the week was a talk by Elder Bednar (on video) wherein he was talking about the character of Christ and a certain relief society president who had such character. She had called him while he was serving as stake president because three girls were in a car crash and were going to a hospital near him. She was asking him to go identify them. He could hear that she was talking to a nurse on a second phone and and that nurse, during the conversation, positively identified her daughter as the one of the three who was dead. Rather than make any mention of it she simply asked him to go identify the other two and notify their mothers. Later on, the day of her only child's funeral, a member-- I believe Elder Bednar used the phrase "self-entitled member"-- of her relief society (unaware of her daughter) called her and chewed her out because she was sick (Bednar said a cold or something of that sort) and no one in the relief society had brought her food. Rather than get angry, she simply picked up some food for her on the way to her daughter's funeral (she being a single parent to that only child). Like Christ, she was thinking outward when most would think inward. This, as he referred to it, is true conversion: beyond having a testimony of the goodness of Christ and truly emulating him. 

Oh and as to my prayers they're certainly getting more real than when I first started doing them in spanish. 

I remember your cell phone number mom haha okay I'll remember to call your phone if we are allowed to call from the airport. 

How is Holland doing? when are they doing the surgery? 

I don't need anything. Umm I have a haircut appointment today. By the way, I never realized how soon after the people who would eventually be called Zoramites left jerusalem after the Lehites, about 11 years.

Here is a picture from this week.

Here is Chad's email to his dad:

I'm just glad I have Conference this week, if it were just a week later I'd have no clue what they're saying haha. Well I'd know some things but I would not be able to keep up with 2 hours of talking in spanish. Elected to donate platelets? By whom? I'm sure next week will be a particularly humbling week in the proselyting profession as well, but it'll be great. so we leave the CCM on Monday evening. I can't wait until such time as I kind of figure out what I'm doing. But in the interim I'll enjoy how much I'll be forced to learn.

Also I made my first tie trade this week. And here's another picture from the Temple, it's our whole district plus our teacher Hno. Gomez. Hasta luego. 

9/25/14 "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

I sent this picture to Chad today... here is his email to me.

She is ridiculously adorable.   What's that in her mouth?  It looks like metal. 

My favorite scripture hmmm.  I really like Matt 5, Alma 17 (If I recall correctly) the part where Ammon is teaching Lamoni, D&C 95:1-2, D&C I do not remember the section.. umm "and the very jaws of hell gape wide the mouth after thee. . . All these things shall be for thy good. . . Art thou greater than he?" that's probably my favorite.

What does Diana teach in joy school?

Yes I saw the letters, thanks.  Tell Blake I really liked his and thank you to him.

We had a devotional this morning and in passing one of the speakers said "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." and I liked that quote a lot.  Also, I was reading in the ask questions and listen section in Preach my Gospel and that had lots of good stuff not only for missionary work, nor even solely for teaching, but for just talking to people in general. 

As far as gym, my favorite thing is probably "cage soccer" which is in a fenced off outside basketball court that is underneath the hoops.  It has smallish soccer goals so it's faster paced (and with less running since it's so small--it's seems even a little small for basketball) 

Spanish is coming along pretty well.  At the devotional on Tuesday we were passing out translator things (does he mean headphones?) to those who didn't speak English so I grabbed one of the extras and listened to the devotional in Spanish in one ear and English in the other and it was surprising how much I could figure out in Spanish also how much faster the translator had to speak because every word is like twice as many syllables than English.

I'm excited for conference, although I wish I could have cinnamon rolls during it. (family tradition, I am going to send him some from HERE)

How was Paige's homecoming talk?  What did she talk about?
I haven't got the chance to take any more pictures. 

Here is his email to his dad...

I took a pic (close up) in front of the temple that I sent for the plaque last week.  That's a cool story from brother Pexton I would like to have seen it.  I don't think I'm gaining weight but I haven't weighed myself, even if I did I'd have to convert it from kilos to pounds to know the difference. It depends on the day whether I have much food anyway, last night was good they served corn dogs.

Yeah the whole district is pretty good and all.  It's funny, when someone wants to know something, someone in our district almost invariably says something like "oh just let me look that up on my IPhone... oh wait" as a joke.

On the subject of shirts... those shirts-I cant recall the brand name-that Dallin seemed to love so much don't have pockets haha so I mostly wear them with suits and stuff. 
My companion and I went to get our suits dry cleaned today so we could get one this week and the other next week so they're ready for the field and they charged us 60 pesos or about $4.70ish it's funny both how cheap things are here and how much less a peso is worth.. anyway haste la proxima semana. (Until next week)

9/18/14 To reach a goal never before attained, you must do things never before done!

We usher every week, on Tuesdays and two or three on Sundays. I'm warm and fine.  Yeah, the computers here have a temperature thingy so I saw it has been hot there.  Sorry.  I've written in my journal every night but it gets repetitive.  We went to the temple today but it is under renovation so we really just got to go in the visitor center.  Here are some pictures that I took while we were there.

  

 

The guy in jeans es nuestro maestro hermano Gomez.  Today was his day off (since it's our p-day) but he met up with us there, he is really cool.

You were asking about the food, here is a picture.  We had a good lunch today.

There are so many people here, they stack houses on the hills.

It rains plenty

It's a pretty nice looking place 


though odd.

The New York thing is just something made by New York Times that we use so we can think of what points we would focus on in teaching the people because we "teach people not lessons".

As you saw in the early pictures the visitor center has this thing where you swipe a book of Mormon in whatever language and the screen shows what countries have missions that speak that language.  I didn't get a picture but it's funny how the Arabic one has 2 countries which is funny and sad considering how many more countries than that speak Arabic.

I memorized part of the first vision in Spanish this week from " there came a pillar of light" (vi una columna de luz) to "hear him" (escuchalo-- the computers don't do accent marks when it's typing in English by the way) with like one sentence cut out. 

I gave my first talk in Spanish on Sunday.  They said "one more" after everyone else had spoken "Elder Berkeest" or at least that's what it sounded like haha. 

I suppose I would rather have doughnuts than cookies,  are you planning on sending some or something?

I had two short emails from Holden and Austin, they were just like,  hey what are you doing? It was good to hear from them.  Yes, I have a great time with my district.  Most of them are from Utah but one is from George, Washington.  That would be pretty cool to say (he's the one who has pole vaulted 15 feet, also I guess while pole vaulting he tore the meniscus, and ACL, and one other thing in his knee from falling and his spikes sliding in the pit) 

I'm starting to learn how to actually construct sentences rather than just follow the patters for how to pray and bear testimony in Spanish, which is good.  ¡hasta luego! te amo.

Oh and umm, I just started 2nd Nephi, just about where he's quoting Isaiah 51 to his brothers.  (I had asked him where he is in this reading so I can read along with him)

(I asked him if he is speaking up and this was his reply) I still usually prefer listening. I speak up sometimes though. They often ask me to explain how Spanish works (either me or the hermanas) I'm happy, yes. I don't think I need anything. 

Oh and this Monday was Mexican Independence Day so we had this big thing where we watched a bunch of Mexican dancing and performances and stuff and since our district ushered we sat in the back in chairs just outside the auditorium.  We were standing up with the teachers and they were teaching us the dances and having us shout viva Mexico and arriba in unison.  They said we could have our cameras for it but they didn't tell us until dinner so i didn't have enough time to go back to the casa to get my camera sorry. It was pretty fun.

Here is his email to Brad...

haha classic Weston. (Brad had told him about Weston's soccer game and how Weston had said, "yeah, and nobody knocked me down!")

In a talk this past Tuesday Elder Scott said "don't just have a good mission, have a blast!" he also said--to those learning languages--"to reach a goal never before attained, you must do things never before done" and the talk was majorly about prayer so I'm going to focus on those last two things (I've got the first one down just fine) 

oh and we have Costco pizza on Tuesdays....

 Yeah I've got to work on relying less on the arm of flesh and more on the power of the Lord which apparently in Spanish is el Señor which was odd to get used to, I just think of it as being like when he's referred to as Master since sr. is like Mr. and mister comes from master like master of the house.  Also many times, especially in the Old Testament, where it says the Lord, in Spanish it says Jehovah (like Psalms 23).  Of course that's because, if I recall what "Jesus the Christ" said all (or at least many, I don't remember) of the times it says the Lord it originally said, "Yahweh" in Hebrew and they made it The Lord to avoid repetition which is funny because that's also part of why YHWH was made Jehovah instead of Yahweh.

9/11/14 The possible potential of the next two years!

(In his email I told him about doing a pretzel/prayer activity with the young women so he starts his email out responding)

That's actually the origin of pretzels, they were given to children for praying and it was meant to look like arms folded (if I recall correctly, I can´t confirm that out here).  Sorry there´s so little time to take pictures since we can only do it on P-day so I don´t have one but I´ll try to get one by next week.  Yeah I´m still reading Jesus The Christ, but I decided to start The Book of Mormon over, having read my Patriarchal blessing and noticed an emphasis on such.  My week was great.  Our district has been asked to be ushers now at devotionals. and on Tuesday we had one in which we watched a talk by Elder Holland that he gave to the Provo MTC in 2013 (in which he rededicated the Dan Jones building and two others which I don´t remember).  It was a really good talk.  Also in one of our classes we watched the Mormon message "The True Story of Todd Sylvester" which is pretty good.  Did I mention the New York Times 8 million stories or some such thing?  They´ve incorporated them in the teaching on several occasions and the ones I´ve seen are interesting.   (I have no idea what he is talking about, I'll ask him next week)

The language is a little difficult just because it´s hard to memorize vocab but its not too bad as far as Spanish the grammar is easy to get.  Marleigh is full on walking?  Wow that´s really cool. I wish I could see that.  Yes, they have milk here and chocolate syrup so yeah, but I haven´t had any yet.  My companionship is cool Elder Larsen is cool we do pretty well together.  It was funny the other day we did a little practice where each person taught one other person in our district about prayer then a few minutes later we did a similar thing as companionship's, and in the second one my companion shared the same scripture that I had earlier (it was an obvious one: Moroni 10: 4-5 but still it figured into the lesson at the same spot and all).

(I asked him when he felt the Spirit the strongest this past week) During Holland's talk.  He spoke about how we must have at least one convert when we get home, and that had better be ourselves.  I cant remember how he worded it but he said something to the implication that his mission was the most spiritually powerful time of his life--for an apostle!  That sets the bar high for the possible potential of the next two years!

Yes, it does seem like EFY a lot except that how the genders are to interact is the opposite (in some ways but not all: the hermanas have to go to the font of the line at meals in el Comedor). The days aren't too long, no I haven't gotten any more pictures sorry.  Krew was right both times, it's plenty of fun here, with so much to learn.  Plus we have gym time most days where we play basketball, volleyball, etc. (Brad told him that we had forgotten to take the garbage out to the street) That's weird that you forgot with me gone, when I'd forget the majority of the time myself.  I haven't written Holden yet I was just about to after this. 

9/4/14 First Preparation Day!

I knew Chad, or Elder Bergquist, had arrived but I had NO idea when his Pday would be.  I looked every day, okay honestly, I looked several times a day to see if he had written... finally, on Thursday his email arrived!!!  Okay, Thursday is now my new favorite day!!!  Here is what he had to tell us!

Yes, I took the Typhoid pills, they said I didn´t need any more. Elder Larsen, my companion is from Idaho. We have 4 to a room in the casas. We have bunk beds, I am on the bottom bunk. We have10 elderes y 2 hermanas in our district. Elder Humphreys who is in my room is our district leader. We taught an investigator (pretend/practice), Josue Angulo, who will now be our teacher, Hermano Gomez. Hermana Garcia who was our teacher will be our next investigator. I love my district. They´re awesome. We had an awesome spiritual unofficial testimony meeting as a district in a circle on Sunday night after everyone in the CCM went to the auditorium and watched the John Tanner story and a video of the Crucifixion and atonement. We have been praying in Spanish and trying to speak in Spanish but it´s funny because there´s always a lot we don´t know how to say so it´s a lot of Spanglish. We took some pictures today...

But yeah I love my district. Elder Bushman who is also in our room and is ridiculously good at yo-yoing and apparently vaulted 15 feet in Pole Vault. It was really weird when we first came from the airport, it is an extremely packed city with really constant traffic and building stacked unorderly. Then you come to this huge wall with barbed wire around the whole thing and inside there is all this grass area and these suburban style little houses on I think they said 90 acres. And there are always people working on the lawns and stuff. We try to speak to them a little bit in Spanish and they´re all really friendly. Oh our Branch president served his mission in Riverside. He said he was going to talk to me about it but we´ve not gotten to yet. for each Sunday (except this coming week being fast and testimony) we all have to prepare a talk in Spanish and we get called to the stand right after sacrament. I was surprised when learning how to pray that we address Padre Celestial in the tu form which is informal and everyone else we address in usted. it was a shock. Last Thursday when our teacher gave us a tour of the campus in pure Spanish. We do a lot of our studying without the teacher just as a district. I suppose to get us used to studying on our own. When getting on our bus to come here a girl told us to tell you about this website  www.missionarypackagemx.com I guess to send us select things to the MTC not that I really need anything but knowing you you´d probably want to know about it. Sometimes I forget we´re actually in Mexico (despite the Spanish) until I look at all those buildings on the hill and it looks really cool. as you can tell my p-days are Thursday. All the elders were really excited last night saying its our first p-day eve. The food is pretty good. plus they have cereal as an option at most meals. Elder Clouse in our district eats like 5 bowls per meal that they have it. It´s kind of awesome having like 13-15 minimum prayers per day. And having a lot of personal study time is great since there´s so much to study. I´m only about 14 pages into Jesus the Christ because even when not studying Spanish there is so much scripture to cover. I really enjoyed Acts I think it was chapter 5 or 6 where the saints were rejoicing that they were worthy of being persecuted in the name of Christ. And continued to preach of him regardless of how much the council in Jerusalem put them in prison and told them they could not. Also for some reason I never realized the saints just after Christ ascended, lived the law of consecration. Why isn´t that talked about more? Hermana Garcia was pretty impressed with a few of the others in our district and myself when we were getting ahead by studying the preterit together.

Adios, Elder Bergquist 

I was on line when the emails came through so I quickly asked him a couple of questions and here are the 2 replies...

yes happy. yes having fun. yes learning plenty. no not stressed do you know me? love you too

I did…

learning Spanish

teaching fake investigators

drinking yogurt at breakfast

studying the scripture

most recently reading Acts

watching while my district plays pranks on the other elders in our casa et