Time is Flying By!!

Man this is going by way too fast. Now that I am leaving this area and this ward I have been thinking a lot about the time I have spent here. I got here not speaking Spanish at all and not knowing how to teach and just a completely different person. I have grown so much and come to love so many people and learned so much while I have been here. I am sad to leave but I know I will be back one day to visit my family here in Pueblo Viejo. When I got here I never could have imagined loving it so much. I have become a different missionary and a different person thanks to the experiences I have had here. I know that it was divine inspiration starting my mission here and I will never forget the experiences I have had here. This last week I will do everything I can to help as many people as I can and leave this area and this ward better than I found it. I know that God is involved in this work. I have been a part of this ward and the lives of these people for more than 7 months and I have seen how he works in their lives. I will probably never be in any ward or area for longer time than I have been here. Its going to be hard saying goodbye.

This week was a great week. Busy, tiring, a bit discouraging at times, but at the end it always turns out great. We had meetings or something occupying our mornings every day of the week and didn't have as much time as normal to be working in the area but that happens sometimes. I wish I could just tell you everything that has happened but I would have to write a book. We have lots of new investigators and families that have so much potential. I will share about two families in particular.

One day Elder Lopez and I were walking down the street in Las Margaritas, one of the Colonias or neighbourhoods in our area and a woman was outside of her house and yelled "buenas tardes" at us. We responded with the same and kept on walking, then I turned to my companion and said Wait that was weird, usually it's us that say buenas tardes and they respond, not the other way around they hardly ever say it to us first haha so we turned around and contacted that lady and taught her a bit about the plan of salvation there in her yard and she invited us to come over on Saturday to meet her kids. That Saturday we went and taught them Lesson 1 about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and the daughter, who has a friend who just barely moved into our ward from another ward close by was super interested and was asking a bunch of questions and wanted to go to church and the mom looked a bit skeptical but they committed to read the Book of Mormon and the daughter accepted a baptismal date. They told us to come back the next Saturday but later cancelled on us. We had been trying to put another appointment with them and with the daughters friend but they kept cancelling so Friday we passed by and the mom was outside so we put an appointment for the next day. The next day we went and the mom had gone to the hospital to visit her mom who is sick but we read Alma 32 with the two kids and they loved it and told us that their mom, who can hardly read nor write, was reading the Book of Mormon and wanted to come to church. The only problem is they always visit their grandma on Sundays but the daughter said she was going to come to church and her friend was going to take her. Well later that night apparently her grandma got more sick so they all went to the hospital but we are hoping that she gets better so they can start coming to church because they have lots of potential!

Another family we had found through a reference from a young woman in Anahuac, the branch that is close to our pueblo. We went to teach her and taught a bit about the Book of Mormon on her porch and put an appointment for that Saturday to meet her parents. We went and taught lesson 1 to them and invited them to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it and to come to church and they accepted but wouldn't accept a baptism date because they are catholic and have always been and always will be catholic. We put an appointment for the next Saturday (the day before yesterday). They later cancelled the appointment because they had forgotten and were going to go to Tampico so we were bummed but invited them to come to church the next day and they said maybe. OH and between the appointment we had passed by to just check their commitments and the mom told us that the dad was reading the Book of Mormon! Which shocked us a bunch because he was super closed and didn't seem super interested. But Saturday night the District Leader called and asked if we had gone and visited them (they are in Anauhuac and the young woman had told them that we had visited them) and we said that no that they cancelled the appointment and then the DL asked me if Gabi, the young woman, had told us what happened to the dad and we just said no, what do you mean what happened and he asked us if we had invited him to say the kneeling prayer after the lesson and we said yes and he said that apparently the family was having financial problems and that they didn't have any money and didn't know what to do, but that after praying, the next day their grandma came and gave them some money and the moms job paid her early and the contributed all that to the prayer! So I am super excited to go and visit that family again. They couldn't come to church but we are going to visit them ASAP. I am excited for the progress of this area and sad I won't be able to see it but I am confident that Elder Lopez and his new companion will do great things here in the ward.

That's crazy about gas! I don't remember it ever being that low! Sounds like you enjoyed yourself in Cayman.

Can you believe its been a year since I got my mission call? Crazy!

Sounds like Brad is really serious about waiting on this girl. And seriously I didn't know she was going Spanish! But is there anyone in Tennessee that speaks Spanish haha? That's cool I am excited to have someone to talk to then. I hope Tate gets better! He is in my prayers!

I wont give my shoes away then haha. My feet still feel fine haha I feel like a cheater because me feet never hurt or anything because these shoes are super comfy.  (He wanted to give his extra pair of new shoes away since he thinks his one pair will last him the whole 2 years!)  I told him it was very hard and expensive to send new shoes to him so to keep them until later in the mission just in case and leave everything there when he comes home) 

Yah the RV thing made me happy I was in Mexico where they are just a bit more receptive. There are still the people that say no thanks I'm catholic, but they are a bit nicer about it.

I am excited to speak Spanish with them too (my cleaning people) haha! I want to speak Spanish lots after my mission so I don't forget it!

I like that question... What gift are we giving to the Savior. But isn't it a bit late to be talking about Christmas haha. We are in the new Ezra Taft Benson book which I LOVE! I am almost done reading it all. In Spanish. I think I have like 2 chapters left. I already told Jenn about it though so ask her haha.

I was going to tell you another story about fasting but I don't have much time so just know that fasting works and I love fasting! Maybe I will tell you next week if you remind me. Love you lots!

Elder "Eskalla"

Pizza!!!

Muddy Shoes and Canadian RV's??

Man you're just going all over the place haha.  Adalynn sounds like she just doesn't stop getting cuter. Does she like stop it because she hears it from her mom a lot haha. Jenn said you would send me pictures of cookies but you must have forgotten. Better yet just send me cookies :p no just kidding I eat too much. Haha no it hasn't been cold just the people are all bundled up and I'm just in my windbreaker. It gets to about 45 when it is raining and windy and cloudy but when the sun is out I'm walking around in short sleeves and the rest of the people have big winter coats hahaha. I haven't been taking many pictures so I just took some of random stuff I thought of. My nice shoes are still in super good condition I have worn them maybe 10 times but they just got super muddy one time and I thought I would show you. My big ones that I wear all the time I cleaned real good and put them next to the new pair that I haven't ever put on to show the difference and there is hardly any. I think my first pair will last my whole mission. I wish my feet weren't so big or I would give the new pair to someone here, but they all have small feet. 

 

Haha its a flu shot! Don't worry they all come from Mexico City and Sister Jordan makes all of us get them haha I thought you would like the picture. 

Don't worry about sending the stuff because the D and C discs I can download from LDS.org and the hymnal I can buy in the temple store, its just a matter of getting a chance to go there. I don't need English hymn CDs.  If you want to send music the best way is sending Mp3 files by email because I don't have a CD player anymore so I have to download all the CDs to my USB and then convert them to MP3 so it works on my speaker. Its kinda a pain. But I heard that David Archuletta did a CD or a few songs in Spanish or something, could you investigate that for me??? 

We are working harder and harder every day and seeing progress every week. We had 12 less actives in sacrament meeting yesterday, some that haven't come in a long time :) Still no progressing investigators because nobody seems to make it to church but we are really working hard with both less actives and investigators. We are finding new investigators that have LOTS of potential. I am happy for the future of this area. 

Funny story for you... On Thursday we were in a lesson with a new family we found (Super catholic but I think they are interested... the dad started reading the Book of Mormon! We will see... :)) and we walked out of the house to see like 5 RVs and a few cars and a bunch of white people running around speaking English! It was like 7:00 and it had rained that day and the "highway" that passes through our area was full of semis because there is a big hill they all have to climb and they always get stuck and its a big mess. But a caravan of RVs from Canada on their way to Cancun was passing through my middle of nowhere pueblo and they got impatient waiting on the little highway and tried to take a shortcut through the neighborhood and they couldn't find their way out and nobody spoke Spanish and they were super stressed out and so I helped them translating and gave them directions of how they could get out fastest haha. A few of them made it out but a few had RVs that were too big for the narrow and bumpy roads so they just stayed the night in the middle of the neighborhood haha. All the people went out of their houses to see what was going on and it was funny. The Canadians let them come in their RVs (Which are WAAAYYYY nicer than their little houses) and it was just odd. A few of them asked what the heck I was doing in Mexico and I explained that I was a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. A few were nice but didn't want to talk and one lady right as I said that she just said Oh you don't need to convert me I'm already christian as she walked away haha. I like the way the Mexicans reject me better haha. I didn't have any pass along cards or pamphlets in English but hopefully they will remember the Mormon missionary that helped them in middle of nowhere Mexico.

Hope you are all doing well!

Love you!

Elder Skalla

Great Week...lost in the work!

Hey!

This week was super great! It started out super lame because Monday we didn't do anything productive and Tuesday we had a meeting in Tampico a sort of Zone Conference but with 3 zones and we talked about the things that were achieved in 2014 and the plans for 2015 which was cool but we didn't have much time to work that day. They showed a slide show with the names of all the people baptized in 2014 and it was way cool to recognize a few names :) I'm hoping to recognize a bunch more this coming year, both in this area and in my future area. But after Tuesday we were bummed because the week was looking pretty gloomy and it is "Cold" right now and nobody is in the streets and nobody wants to talk to us but we just worked harder and harder and we really got to see the fruits! The members are FINALLY trusting us and starting to come back to church. We had 9 less actives at church and all of the recent converts! They are starting to introduce us to their friends and family and its just awesome! We have 17 people with a baptism date right now! The hardest part is getting people to the church. The chapel is in the highest point in the town and a bit far and nobody wants to come to church but we are working on that. Once we can get a family to church once or twice, they usually get baptized eventually. But its scary bringing investigators to church because.... Well we have some members that are a little weird and say weird things and a family in particular that is a little rude sometimes. They are trying to be funny but its awful. For example one of the investigators from the other area (one of my old investigator) came to church and this sister asked her Oh hey are you a member? and the investigator said No but I think that I soon will be and the sister responded Oh so you re still a sinner! and so the next week she didn't come to church. It is awful. We are finding lots of less actives that stopped coming to church because of things that were said to them in church. Its super tough because they don't feel comfortable in the church anymore and who wants to come to church when you feel judged and cant feel the spirit! I wouldn't want to! So we are in the process of getting that fixed. But seriously like 5 people just this week have told us they stopped coming to church because of a certain group of people. Ugg. This Sunday one of the speakers didn't show up so the second counselor stood up and just looked and me and I just smiled and nodded and he said that Elder Skalla would be the speaker today so I spoke about love and having charity and how we have to show love to everyone in the words we say and in our actions and that "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples". It went pretty well and I hope we can be a little more loving in this ward. One funny thing that happened this week... We were walking in the street and Elder Lopez was asking me where my parents are from and I said my dad is from Wyoming and my mom is from Utah and he said I think one of the elders in the MTC with me was from Wyoming... But isn't everyone from there really big and dark? your dad isn't that big... and I was just like ummmmm no I don't know what you're talking about... and then he just said OHHH I think I got Wyoming mixed up with Tonga hahahah I was cracking up the rest of the day. Hahaha. 

Ya Ana sent me the picture. Pretty funny. I'm glad they still remember me haha. That's funny you ran into Will. He took Spanish in college and we have been writing back and forth. He is pretty good! 

I haven't tried the Southwest card in a while. I took out some money from my checking account just to have just in case. I gave some of it to Ismael because he and his friends bought a bunch of toys and handed them out on Christmas to poor kids. I think I gave him 20 bucks. I am still waiting for a good opportunity to really help someone out. 

Crazy how fast the time is flying! We are doing great here and I am having a blast and learning tons! Love you tons! You are always in my prayers!

Elder Skalla

PS Sorry I haven't sent any pictures lately. Our first counselor (the rock of the ward here) Left on vacation and he is the only one that knows how to turn the wifi on so it hasn't been turned on. I know how but it is locked in the bishopric office and I don't have keys there haha. But he is back now. Maybe Wednesday I will send some. I just forget sometimes that I have family that also wants my to see my pictures haha. Sorry! Love you but right now I cant think about you too much!

Happy New Year

Haha Don't feel bad for not writing, I had some time to write to Chandler and Natalie and Logan and a bit of time left over to write to you. I loved all the pictures you sent me! I liked showing Elder Lopez the tubing ones. He has never seen anything like that before haha it was funny. Sounds like things there are quieting down a bit. Here I think New Years is bigger than Christmas so there weren't many people to teach but we got a few lessons in and we had a lot to eat from members that gave us dinner to take to our house.

It is very true that missionary work is hard in December and the beginning of January. Nobody wants to let us in and everybody has family over and nobody comes to church and its just a mess. Oh and Mexico celebrates with a ton of Little Fireworks and all the Little kids throw em in the Street and ALL NIGHT and its super obnoxious but finally they are settling down a bit with the Fireworks haha. In spite of the hard week we were still able to have success. Every week here we are having a Little bit more success and the area is progressing well. Every week we are locating more and more less active members and families and finding more and more people to teach. I have high hopes for the future of this area after I leave. We are finally starting to gain the trust of the members again and the future looks bright. I am still praying that Elder Lopez will have a baptism here and we have a few investigators that have lots of potential for progress. We still don't have "progressing investigators" Because nobody comes to church but I think that once the holidays are done We will see much more success in that front. I am looking forward to my last month here in the Ward. It makes me sad to be leaving but I am ready for a new area.

Ismael sent you the video he took of me making tortas right? Haha we go there pretty much every Monday to make tortas and tacos and I love it haha its super fun. He told me you were writing him but couldn't understand anything haha but he got the idea I think. He showed me a picture of the snow. Thanks for all the pictures!

Love you lots!

Elder Skalla