Christmas Eve

Hey I had a few minutes left after writing all my friends so I figured I would send a short letter to you :) Christmas was good. On Wednesday we had a meeting with 3 Zones close to Tampico in the Madero Stake Center. We had a talent show (I obviously didn't participate :p) and a Christmas devotional which was way good and then we ate tacos and went home. On Thursday we got to play volleyball, I talked to you guys, which was weird not gonna lie, we got to watch How to Train your Dragon 2 which was also weird watching a movie and we ate Carne Asada. That was all just with our Zone. It was fun and it is the best Christmas I have ever spent in Mexico :p I was able to grow my testimony of the savior and feel even closer to him. My companion was asleep all night Christmas eve so I just studied and listen to Christmas hymns and spent a lot of time just thinking and meditating and it was one of the best experiences I have had on my mission, so don't feel bad thinking I didn't do anything for Christmas haha! I hope you are all doing well still. I forgot to ask if anyone was pregnant haha. Jenni and Ali If you wait just a few more months to be pregnant I will be home when it comes! Send me pictures of what you all did for Christmas!

Oh yah, we recycled the felt Christmas tree you gave us into a shower rug so thanks for the shower rug haha! We didn't have one before...

Everything is going great here and I love being a missionary! Love you always!

Elder Skalla

Three Zone Christmas Activity

This is Ryan's Zone

Christmas SKYPE!!!

Not gonna lie,  Skyping this boy was the best part of Christmas for me!  He sounds and looks so good and his Spanish is amazing!  He sounds like a Native!  We met his cute companion who speaks very little English but you can see they love serving together.  I am so grateful for Technology and the Church Wifi!!  I am so proud of this boy!!

7 More Weeks in Villa Cuahutemoc!

Hey mom!

So I will be in my area for this next cambio and I will be able to finish training Elder Lopez! I am super excited but after this I think I will be super ready for a change haha. I love it here and all but after a while you have been to the same houses and walked to same streets and talked to the same taxi drivers a bit too much. This past transfer was only 5 weeks and the coming one is 7 for Christmas. The church doesn't like transfers very close to christmas. So I will be here till February 2nd. I am hoping I will be here for the baptisms of Karen and Naydalin, more members of the Ponce family. We don't have anyone here in our area that is close to baptism, but we are hoping to find a family this transfer. I really hope Elder Lopez can have baptisms in his first area. It helps you love an area so much more but it is very hard right now in the area because we don't have much member support and everybody is working more because of Christmas. They say the work is always a lot harder in December because everyone works more.

This week was pretty good. We worked hard and got some good results! We are finding new investigators but also having to drop some that don't progress. We are focusing a lot on less actives because there are TONS! We taught 21 less actives this week. Unfortunately we are hearing lots of stories about passed elders who... didn't treat the area very well. They were lazy and disobedient and now the members that they visited are used to the missionaries just coming to chat and mess around and not to help them come back to the church and it is just very hard. There is such a lack of true conversion here and it is so hard because as missionaries we can only do so much, the rest is up to the agency of the people and they just don't make very good choices.

I am almost positive we will be able to Skype on christmas. I will call you guys as close to 1 as I can but just always have the computer ready haha. If I cant Skype, I will call you from one of the ward phones on your cell because its the only one I remember.

I am glad you liked our pictures this week haha :) we had fun decorating the ironing board but we had to take it down to... well, iron. I was thinking about buying a few things for Christmas presents for my converts from the lds.org store. I will put it on the southwest card and an extra english hymn book to share with my companions. They like learning the EFY songs better haha so I usually write out the lyrics and teach them how to pronounce it and its fun.

I am glad that Amanda is still doing so great! The best part of being a missionary is seeing how the gospel changes peoples lives, and you don't even have to be an ordained missionary to do that!
I am so proud of James and the rest of our missionaries leaving from our ward James will be a great missionary.
On the 24th we have a Christmas devotional with the other stakes here close in Tampico (I will get to see Elder Flores again :)) and on the 25th we are together with our zone and we get to play sports for a day! Next Monday is NOT P Day because the 25th will be P Day so don't expect a letter. Haha but you get something better so don't worry.
Thanks for all the pictures and the updates! Love you lots!
Elder Skalla

Christmas Plans and humbling experiences

Hello!

Just you and Dad wrote me this week so I have more time to write you :) To answer your questions: Yes I did get the hymn book and its great :) Just not too much time to practice :/ but when I can I am using it. I love the music! But my CD player broke and I haven't been able to fix it and President just changed the rule that we can no longer use our USBs with the DVD players we all have in the house for the training videos because they keep breaking and he doesn't want to keep buying new ones. So I bought a speaker that can play MP3 and gave my USB and all the discs to a youth in the ward that downloaded them all and put them on the USB for me haha. So yes I love all the music! Especially the children's primary songs! Elder Lopez didn't get to go to primary so its fun singing the sunbeam song and book of mormon stories and I hope they call me on a mission haha. I hope I answered all your questions... TO make it easier and more likely that I answer your questions if you put them all in a line at the end of the email in bold or something, that way I can answer them quicker.

I am glad you liked the video haha. I wanted to do something fun for her birthday but I couldn't think of anything. It wasn't raining haha it was the fan in our house I think. And we don't have very many light bulbs in our house so its kinda dark sometime haha. But I thought the video was pretty funny and I hope Adalynn loved it :) 

Looks like you all had way too much fun this week! Haha I will lie and say I'm not jealous haha. Looks like Disney is milking all they can out of Frozen still. Didn't that come out over a year ago? And its still like the biggest thing ever. Haha but that's fun the pictures were cute. Poor Tate has to be tortured by Santa Clause while his cousin is in Disney Land having fun haha! He isn't a big fan of the holiday people so far with the Easter bunny and Santa. I love the picture of Adalynn with Pluto. He was always my favorite :) And the pic of Jenn in the hat made me smile. I bet Jenni was just dying the whole time. Should've had dad take the pictures of Adalynn's face and Greg the face of Jenn and see which is more excited haha.

This week was pretty good, but we had a ton of meetings :/ Tuesday we went to the temple and we got back to the area late and we were in a big rush to get P Day stuff done and we hardly got to rest because when we got back to the house finally at 5:50 we had to go into Tampico and bring Elder Arcela a bunch of his clothes. He is still with the secretaries and we don't know whats gonna happen with him. He goes home in a week. Either he will be with us in trio from Wednesday till he goes home, or he will stay with the secretaries. This transfer is only 5 weeks long because the church doesn't want transfers so close to Christmas. There is a probable chance that I will leave the area next week. I have already been here 4 transfers and its very rare that they leave a missionary more than 4, but I also am training and would need to finish training Elder Lopez but they could put him with another trainer. Its all up to president and his revelation but I'm kinda worried. I don't want to leave. I am ready for a new area but I want to finish training with Elder Lopez. We have gotten along really well and I love training and I wouldn't mind being here in the area for Christmas. But we will see what happens next Sunday!

Did dad read you the rules for the Christmas calls? I will call on the 24th and we can call on Skype. Send me all the information with your account and my account. I don't remember what my Skype account is so if you just make a new one that's fine. What time do you want to talk? We can only talk for 40 minutes on the 25th and we have to be done talking at or before 4:00. When is the best time for me to call?

I don't know where I will be for Christmas but I am hoping I am here in Villa Cuahutemoc! I will let you know Sunday through camera what happens!

This Friday we had our meeting with trainers and trainees. It was nice to see Elder Flores again and Elder Lopez liked seeing all his MTC friends. Haha my family is very brown, no? At least my grandpa is white haha. He just when home when Elder Lopez got here. His name is Elder Bartschi (I think) from Las Vegas haha but the rest of my family is latino!

The Christmas tree you sent me broke but we found something even better. I'll send you the pic haha.

We did watch the Christmas devotional. It was good but I honestly expected better. I had never seen one before. 

I cant think of anything super special that happened this week so I will share something I forgot to share last week.

The first day of this transfer I was with Elder Castillero, a missionary from Panama that is in Elder Lopez's generation. We were walking around exploring the area a bit and contacting and we saw a man working on his car and I told Elder Castillero to contact him and give him a Book of Mormon. It was his first time contacting but he did good and we gave him the Book of Mormon and put an appointment for later in the week. Elder Lopez and I later went to teach him and invited him to be baptized and he accepted and we invited him to church and also accepted. We left happy and with a return appointment. When we went for the appointment he wasn't there, so we kept passing by hoping he would be there but he never was. So last Saturday we said Okay we are just gonna pass one more time at Jose Luis's house to see what he says and so we went and he was there and we put another return appointment and got his phone number and invited him to church the next day. He said he might be working but he would try to come. I was thinking oh well he isn't gonna come, his loss. 

So the next day in church I was playing the piano and Elder Lopez said ¨Hey lets send a message to Jose Luis and remind him about coming to church and I just said well okay if you want to you can but he said he couldn't come, and I just thought it was a waste of two pesos haha our minutes our really valuable! But we waited and finally sacrament meeting started and I had to bless so I was sitting up on the stand and After the opening prayer the door opened and a ton of people came in, including Jose Luis and his wife and 5 daughters! I was in shock and I just looked at Elder Lopez, who hadn't notice, and he turned around and his face just lit up haha. It was humbling for me and made me happy to see Elder Lopez so happy. We went to see him this week and put another baptism date and invited him to church again and invited him to invite the rest of his family to talk with us (They were all in another room watching soap operas) and he said again he was gonna try to come. Well he didn't come to church this week but we have high hopes that he will progress and the whole family will be baptized, if not while I am here but while Elder Lopez is still here. Its hard because I want him to have success in his first area and his training because I know how big of a motivator and up lifter it was for me to have baptisms that I felt like I actually had a part in in my training. But since we are opening an area we have to be a bit more patient, but things are looking up.

I hope I wrote enough to make up for the last two weeks!

Love you!

Elder Skalla

Exact Obedience

Hi! Again I didn't leave much time to write you this week! Sorry! Lots of people are writing me haha but I will try to fit everything in. Everything you listed I did get,  just forgot to tell you haha. One thing I didn't get were pencils...? But the rest yes. Jeez I don't need anymore packages haha You can hold off for a bit. 

Yes I have read about dad putting money in the account I just didn't say anything about it. I am thinking of ways to use it still...

The temple today was great! 

I have been wanting to write to Pres. Doman but I just don't have time! Tell him I say hi!

I´m glad everything went well at the funeral. Sounds like it was beautiful. 

I am so excited for James! I bet Brad is super jealous! Will he get to meet Brads President? That sounds like the perfect place for him and I am so proud! Ya he will be teaching the other elders in his district in the MTC haha. There is no better training than in the field!

Everything is going well here in Mexico! For thanksgiving I ate quesadillas and forgot that it was thanksgiving until later haha. But we ate with the Ponce family and I love quesadillas so everything was great! Brads girlfriend is pretty. Can he wait 18 months!?!? Elder Arcela left on Friday for his surgery and everything went well. He will stay with the secretaries for 10 days and then come back with us until the end of the transfer when he goes home. Pres wanted to send him home but Elder Arcela wanted to stay. 

Have fun in Disneyland! I was actually thinking this week that you should invite grama to come with you to Disneyland haha! I'm glad you did!

I don't have much time but I wanted to share something with you that I have liked a lot this week.

I really like the book of Ether, but there is one part in particular that I like a lot. If you read the last Ensign it will sound familiar, but I think of it in a different way.

Read Ether 2:16-18

The Jaredites needed to get from point a to point b, and the Lord instructed them exactly how they should build their boats to get there.

We want to get from this life to eternal life, and the Lord, through the scriptures and Prophets, has shown us exactly how we need to "build our boats" to get to the other side.

Now read Ether 6:5

To make it to the other side, the Lord sent a furious wind. That wind tossed them ALL OVER the sea, but without it, they wouldn't have made it across. It was necessary.

We all have trials and difficulties in our lives, but they are necessary in carrying us to eternal life and exaltation.

Now read Ether 6:6

It describes the waves not just as little things, but MOUNTAINS! These waves, in our lives, are like our trials. We cant control them, they come from God, and they push us down into the depths of the ocean or the depths of sadness or whatever you want to say.

BUT, now read Ether 6:7

Even when they were sunk in the water, below the surface of the ocean, surrounded completely in their problems... No water entered. Why? Because they had followed EXACTLY the instructions that God had given them to build their boats. EXACTLY. What would've happened if Jared had wanted to put a window so he could see the ocean, or something else that God had not instructed him to do. What if he had cut corners and not made the ship so tight? THEY WOULD HAVE DIED! They still would have been sunk in the depths of the ocean, but the water would have entered and they would have drowned. But that didn't happen, because they followed exactly the instructions from God.

We will always have problems. We will always have trials. Even as big as mountains. BUT, they can only hurt us if we have a weak spot in our ship. A window that we wanted to put in. Something that God told us not to do. That's the only way they are going to hurt us. But if we are tight, and if we follow exactly the instructions of the Lord, we will arrive at the promised lands.

Now think... What are your windows? What are the things in your life that are against what the Lord has instructed us to do? It doesn't matter how big or how small. It could be a drinking problem, or it could be keeping the sabbath day, or it could be not magnifying your calling, it could be not doing family history, it could be any little thing.

I love this story and I love inviting the people to think about the little things in their lives that they need to patch up, and I love doing it with myself too. I make the same invitation with all of you. To think of the little things that we are doing (or not doing) that are against what God wants for us.

That's my spiritual thought for the week :)

Love you!

Elder Skalla