Too many packages???

Mom,

Man you are sending a ton of packages! I cant say I don't like it but man! I got one on Friday after the interviews with president and the other one yesterday when we went to the mission offices! Thanks for everything you sent! If you can, send me the pictures with my converts again because I already gave the ones you sent me away. I wrote a little note on the back of each one and gave them away haha. Sorry!   (I sent them over a month apart!) 

I am glad you got to see Papa one last time and say goodbye to him. You are all in my prayers! Give everyone a big hug from me and tell them I love them! My interview with President Jordan was good. He just asked me about papa and my family and it was nice. I know papa is in a much better place doing much better things. I am sure its hard for you and grama and your siblings. Give them a hug for me!

In the thanksgiving package there was...

Kit Kats, Reeses, A bunch of leaves, pictures, t shirts, turkey toes, a talk, and the cards with the things you are thankful for. I think that was it... oh and the card

In the Christmas one there was a flash drive, a bunch of CDs, a ton of sticky notes, a tree (which was broken by the way :/), lights, decorations, snow. I think that's it.... Oh and index cards. 

I think that was all but I might have forgotten something!

President also told me in my interview that before my mission ends we will have tablets which is exciting. With all the stuff about not chatting and other stuff that we have to do differently to prepare us for the tablets, I asked him about my wifi camera. He said that it was okay as long as it cant receive anything. You lucked out :p

Nothing too exciting happened this week. We are seeing progress in the area little by little. 

Oh yah one thing that happened... Yesterday Elder Arcelas companion had special transfers to another part of the mission so right now we are in a trio covering the whole area again! Yay! We don't know how long but Elder Arcela has a surgery on the 1st for his hernia. We thought they were gonna send him a new companion to teach the area and take over when Elder Arcela goes home but now we have no idea. Everything is kinda crazy right now and I'm stressing out,  but its all gonna be okay. We are gonna have fun with it and I am happy because I can see all the families that I love again. We will see what happens and I will update you next week!

It still hasn't registered that Andie is getting married and its weird every time you send me pictures haha. send me one of her husband I still have no idea who this guy is!

Everything is going great here in the mission!

Love you all and you are in my prayers always!

Elder Skalla

Elder Lopez and Elder Skalla

His new apartment

 A package from home!

Primary Program

Wisdom beyond his years...

 His new companion Elder Lopez from Western Mexico

This must be his District.  He told Ali it was a little cooler.  He loves it but others are freezing!  I think it was a low of 57 degrees.  

Sorry I only left myself 5 minutes to write to you! oops! (it was more important that he write to his Grama--letter below) Ummmm this week has been good. A bit difficult but we are seeing progress in the area. We found a few new less active and part member families and a few new investigators. The weather has been a bit colder than normal but I like it. Elder Lopez is awesome and will be a great missionary. I have learned how much progress I have truly made on my mission until now, and how much I still have to go to be a truly effective tool in the hands of the Lord. 

In this group of trainers I am the only one that hasn't been in the mission more than a year. most of The rest are district leaders and zone leaders. I feel very unqualified to be in this group of great missionaries training a new generation of missionaries. president is hoping to "baptize" the mission starting with the newbies and training them to be great and sending them off afterwards to change their companions and change the whole mission. I have learned so much this week. Sorry for not being able to write much! See you next week!

Love you!

Elder Skalla

Hi Grandma! 

My mom updated me on a few of the things that are going on with papa. Know that you are always in my prayers no matter what! Prayer has an incredible power in our lives if we take advantage of it. It helps us understand the will of the Lord and align our will with His. Understand why things are the way they are. Learn what He wants us to learn. Just remember that this life is nothing more than the tip of a needle on a string with no beginning and no end. We have the peace of knowing that we will be eternal families, without pain, sorrow, or affliction. Just joy and happiness in its fullness in the presence of our Father. With an eternal mindset, death is just one more step of progress on the way to our eternal reward. Rely on the Lord for your strength to make it through this tough time and remember that He is always always always by your side. Papa will be a GREAT missionary. Something my mission president told us last week is that sometimes we have to walk hand in hand with the Savior through Gethsemane, suffering the smallest fraction of what he felt, bearing a bit of our own cross, but remember that he has already suffered our pains and heartache so that we don´t have to..

         Love you and you are always in my prayers!

Elder Skalla

I couldn't be more proud of this boy and I know his Papa Doc is proud of him too.  

Called as a Trainer!

Hey Family and Friends!

So this transfer I´m going to be a trainer! I will stay in Barrio Villa Cuahutemoc but I will be in the área Villa 2, which is the opposite side from where I started. I´m a bit sad because the Ponce Family and Brandon and a bunch of other members I love live in the other area and we will only see each other on Sundays but that's okay. Norma lives in this side of the área and Ismael also. There aren't many active members in this side but there are a few families and TONS of less actives! We were looking at MLS with the 1st counselor and there are almost 600 members in our Little Ward! I'm sure that the majority are less active and don't even live here anymore but LOTS live in my new área so we are going to search em out and rescue em! There are 4 families that I know that are less active that I really want to active because it will help the Ward tons! I am really excited for this transfer! We might not have baptisms or many investigators but we are gonna work hard and rescue some less actives and "echarle ganas" like they say here in Mexico! I am excited to train but super nervous! We will be learning together haha. Elder Flores is training again too at the same time as being Zone Leader which is crazy but we are going to see each other more often. Today I am here in the área with Elder Castillero from Panama. Just for today we are going to work together and then tomorrow we go to the training and get our new companions. Hes a greenie but he isn't my companion. Well he could be but we wont know til tomorrow. 

Thanks for sending the scripture! We use Jeremías 1:5 tons in the misión to teach The plan of salvation and the vida preterrenal (I cant remember what its called in English, Pre Earth life, right) but I had never read  the verses after. 

Sounds like you had a crazy week! I want to share with you one of my favorite scriptures that has carried me through my misión thus far. Its in Doctrine and Covenants Section 6:33-37. I love the words of comfort and counsel the Lord gives to Joseph and Oliver in the midst of their trials and persecution. Even when it seems like everything is against us, if we are doing good, we cant fail.

I will keep Pam and Dean in my prayers for sure! As well as the Elders!

Oh ya I almost forgot! In zone meeting this week they were talking about a few announcements from President. One of them was about no chatting I wasn't sure about the rule but they told us that its not allowed to chat. BUT, they told us that Our misión is on the list of Mexico missions that could potentially be one of the trials for tablets! They said that probably nothing bad will happen if we chat with our family BUT we should start practicing integrity now so that when the tablets come we can show that they will be a good addition to the work and not a distraction. So no chatting, but maybe tablets!

Nothing super exciting happened this week. Did I tell you guys that last week we got to cross the Tampico Bridge to go to Stake Conference? Our whole Ward went in a bus across the river and it was pretty exciting haha. I have always wanted to cross it since I saw the pictures on google haha!

You didn't send the simplified hymns. But maybe I can order it from store.lds.org to have it sent here if you want. 

That's all I have to tell you for now! Love you lots!

Elder Skalla

Tampico Zone T Shirts

 A reminder of home haha

Weird Week

This week was pretty weird... In between finding a new house for the other half of my area, moving all the furniture and junk from one house to the other, and cleaning both houses, and then doctors appointments, stake conference, and a 3 and a half hour long ward council, we haven't had a whole lot of time to work unfortunately. It stinks but there isn't really much I can do about it. The good thing is we found a house and that is a gigantic weight off my shoulders! We are about to get 20 new missionaries in the mission this transfer so President needs as many areas as possible so he told us it was very urgent that we find a house. We were looking and looking like crazy and we aren't allowed to contact while we look for a house so that was lame but every single house we found was good with just one problem, whether it be that there isn't water, they want a deposit and the mission doesn't pay deposits, or the house is too close to another church, or they don't want to rent it to us because we are missionaries and tons of other problems. We wanted to find it before the end of the month so we didn't have to pay another month of rent in the house we aren't using and so we have been praying and searching really hard these past few weeks. Finally on the 31st we found a house! Its a house that the daughter of the 2nd counselor in the bishopric was going to sell but we asked her if she would rent us the house and she thought about it and told us yes! The house is awesome, nobody has lived in it and its perfect. The very next day we cleaned the house and changed everything over to the new one and called the crazy landlady from the other house to tell her we weren't going to rent it anymore haha. But I am so glad we found a house because having 4 missionaries in the ward again is going to help a TON! I am thinking that I will stay in the area this transfer and that they will change Elder Arcela over to the other area and give us new companions since we both know both parts of the area. I am hoping that happens at least. I love this side of the area and will be a bit sad if i have to change over to the other side even if the house is better haha. 

This week we got some great news! One of our investigators, Karen, who is Emilias sister and also Leo and Maris sister, hasn't been able to progress because she works on Sundays, but she is reading and we teach her once a week on her break day. Her daughter Naydalyn is 8 years old and always comes to church with the rest of the family and wants to be baptized but we wanted to wait till her mom could be baptized too. Karen always said it was impossible to be able to have Sundays off and that there is only one position in the whole store that can have Sundays off and its already filled. Well yesterday morning before stake conference we passed by their house to go to conference and Mari told us that they changed Karen into the position that has Sundays off and she was going to go to conference! I was so excited! Later that night we went by to visit Karen and she told us the whole story of what happened and how Naydalyn and her always say their prayers before going to bed and usually she helps Naydalyn but she started doing it without help and a few nights ago she prayed that her mom could have Sundays off so they could both be baptized and two days later her schedule changed! She was crying and told us that she wants to be a better mom and a better daughter and a better person and that now she is sure that this is true and will help her accomplish that! It was awesome! So now we just have to wait a month or so to teach her more and so she can go to church a bit but she is going to be baptized soon! 

We also have another investigator named Ada. I don't remember if I have told you about her but she is a former investigator that we visited and started teaching again. She is as Seventh Day Adventist and has a really strong testimony. A lot of times when we go it turns into a bible bash about sabbath day worship or something but the last few times we have actually been able to teach and we had a few really good lessons and she committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray if it was true. We came back for the next visit and she had read the introduction and the testimonies of the 11 witnesses and she said she was confused but was willing to keep reading. We answered her questions and talked a bit about the apostasy and Restoration and how the Book of Mormon came to be and she said she would keep praying and read more. When we came back we asked if she had read and if she had any questions and she had read the beginning of the testimony of Joseph Smith and had all kinds of questions about the plates and angel Moroni and why he wasn't in the bible and all kinds of things and the spirit was kinda lost and we started getting into bible bash again and I just kinda sat there quiet because I don't like bible bashing and I am not confident enough with the bible to do it, but eventually we just realized that she wasn't going to progress and we both bore our testimonies and told her that if she reads the Book of Mormon with faith and sincerely prays to know if it is true than God will answer her and told her that we don't come to visit her to argue about the Bible and told her we wouldn't be coming by as often but invited her to read the Book of Mormon (the actual scripture) starting in 1 Nephi and to pray about it and that she was always invited to come to church. She said she understands and that she just can't accept our doctrine and that she knows what she believes is true and that she isn't looking to change from that right now. After that lesson I just felt really bad and was thinking a lot about what we could have done better. I don't know how to explain why the sabbath is Sunday and not Saturday or anything like that and I just tried to bear my testimony about the Book of Mormon as much as possible but I guess she still has her agency. I think the only thing we didn't do was teach the doctrine using the Book of Mormon instead of the Bible and actually reading with her. I feel bad but I think eventually she will join the church its just not her time yet.

Stake conference yesterday was great! President Jordan always speaks in the conferences and he spoke about obedience, sacrifice, and consecration and it was great and an area seventy Lester Johnson came and spoke about the work of salvation. After the general session there was a meeting just for recent converts, bishops, ward mission leaders, and missionaries. Elder Johnson called each wards bishop, WML, and missionaries up and read their list of recent converts and asked if they were active, if they had a calling, and what plans they had to retain them. It was awesome because everybody realized that a lot of their converts had fallen away and that the ones who hadn't didn't have callings and then he bore his testimony about the importance of retaining our converts and the three things they need to stay active. I was glad that all 6 of my converts were there haha. none of them have callings still but our bishop now knows he needs to get on that! The ward has the greatest responsibility for the converts, not the missionaries. A little bit of public humiliation is good every once in a while for the bishops and WML

Well that's all I can think to tel you and I don't have much time. Love you and talk to you next week!

Elder Skalla

Ryan bought Leo this cute scripture cover

Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico