Busy Week, new investigators!

Hi Mom!

Sounds like we have both had a fairly busy week!  I am glad everything went well with the baby blessings! They are all so cute and big! Cant wait to meet them!

We have had a pretty busy week too! We had to drop most of our investigators because they just aren't progressing. They don't read or go to church or anything, but they just always say they will and that they want to but then they just put up excuses and it's hard and sad, but sometimes it just isn't their time. So we are left with Bricio and Gloria and her family. I don't know if I told you about Francisca last week but she is progressing now too! We found her in the area book and the missionaries found her and talked to her a bit but then never went back! We found her and she almost told us not to come back but we insisted and taught her the restoration. She loved it! She said she has looked in all sorts of churches but they have never "filled" her and she accepted to prepare for baptism on the 26th of march. We went back and taught a bit about the Gospel (Faith, Repentance, Baptism) And she really liked it and said she was going to get everything in order to go to church on Sunday. And she came! Woo!! Gloria and her family couldn't come because of a family emergency but they are still progressing well... They will probably not get baptized on their date because they still have to get married and to do that Gloria needs to be divorced. They already started the process which is great but it usually takes at least a month and a half. But her husband got a better job now which is awesome! But he works on Sundays :( he is going to ask for it off or trade with a coworker. Bricio had to work a 24 hour shift from 9am Saturday to 9am Sunday but he still came to church at 11 on Sunday! Hes a stud! We are excited for him. His wife's baby is due March 6th so that's exciting too! Her name is Dania and his sisters name is Naxieli. They are a great family! They know Sister Gonzalez.

We have been finding some new investigators this week that I will probably tell you more about next week because I don't have much time. One of them is Rosi and we contacted her in the street and she was super interested and said she had never been baptized (SUPER uncommon here in Catholic Mexico!) and that she wanted to learn more! She couldn't go to church yesterday but said next week she will be there for sure. Another one is Margarita who is the wife of a recent convert, less active that we found last week. They came to church yesterday and they are excited to keep learning! We are seeing miracles in the area and the zone and the mission! Last week we had 27 baptisms in the mission which hasn't happened in a long time! Fun stuff! Love you lots and take care of those babies! 

Love you!

Elder Skalla

México Tampico Mission

No transfer! 3 months left!!

Hey mom!

First of all... We don't have changes! We are both staying here together haha. We were both pretty surprised but we are excited! We will have been together pretty much 5 changes now because we were with each other all day every day in the office. Its a good thing we get along haha.

Sounds like you had a fun week! Yes they do celebrate valentines day here... the same as at home. Just hearts and candy and  junk haha. They also call it "Love and friendship day". 

Sounds and looks like the parade was fun! That's crazy that nobody got hurt! Gotta love Colorado!

Sounds like next weeks going to be a crazy fun week! I hope everything goes well!

That is an interesting topic haha... Teaching others how to teach! Teaching the Saviors way is a lot harder and we aren´t always going to get it right, but it is always worth it in the end. Something I have had to remember a lot in the mission is that I am not really the teacher. The spirit does all the real work, I just have to create an environment in which the spirit can be present. But we can never be perfect at teaching the saviors way because we are not perfect like he was. Maybe the point of that lesson wasn't so much that the kids learned but you did! Sometimes in lessons I feel like I learn way more than the investigator or less active!

Our investigators are going pretty well... We have dropped pretty much everyone besides Bricio and Gloria and her family because they dont progress... Bricio came to church again and Gloria with her kids but her husband did not come. He works nights and got home and was too tired to come to church. They are in a rough spot right now... They haven't had electricity for 3 weeks and they are about to get kicked out of their house because they cant pay the rent and the little money they make every day they spend it on their needs for that day. Its a sad situation but the gospel is helping them a lot. And the member that is fellow shipping them is going to take them to the self reliance center and see what can be done for them. Its hard to see and not be able to help but they will be okay.

Bricio is progressing well and is still great. We are excited for his baptism! We are in the process of finding right now because we had to drop all of our investigators... we have some good leads though from some members who are going to give us some references. It was a pretty boring week compared to some other ones we have had haha. We found out the transfers on Wednesday which was super early. There wont be very many in our zone. 2 elders and 1 sister are leaving and 2 sisters and 2 elders are coming. One of the elders in our zone is going to be training which is cool. It is his 4th change and he is a great missionary. His name is Elder Ramirez. We are going to have a trio of sisters which could either be a miracle or a nightmare haha we aren't sure yet! You never know with sisters!

I am guessing this will be my last area and I will stay here two more transfers... Who knows though! Weirder things have happened!

I don't have much to share this week... It has been pretty normal haha. Hopefully I will have some better stuff to share next week. 

Have a great week!

Elder Skalla

 Divisions with Elder Marsden (Elder Durrants current companion, great missionary)

 Zone pics with our zone shirts

Awesome Week and GO BRONCOS!!

Hey mom!

Go Broncos! I´m glad they won! I even wore my orange and blue tie but I forgot to take a picture... Bricio was sending me score updates all night haha. He´s a funny guy. He said he wants to come to Denver and going skiing when i get home haha. So this week was just awesome and the Super Bowl win was just the cherry on top...

The beginning of the week was pretty normal... the best part though was... Bricio accepted a baptism date! Whooo! He said he has been thinking and praying and he finally decided he wants to be baptized!! BUT... he doesn't want to tell his wife or his sister haha. he wants it to be a surprise until the week before when they announce it in sacrament meeting. He is so funny haha every time we go and his sister/wife are around you can just tell he loves the fact that they have no idea haha. He is totally committed now to go to church every week and keep reading and praying. We are super excited. His date is for March 12th. If I get changed this transfer I wont be here :( I hope I stay but I think its likely that I get changed. at least one of us will go. But who knows! We find out this Saturday. I'm kind of missing being in the loop in the office haha.

So Bricio went to church for the first time in our ward on Sunday and it was great. He even wore dress shoes which he said he wasn't going to do haha. He is going to be a great member.

On Thursday, Elder Arnulfo Valenzuela of the Seventy came and gave us a training which was awesome! We had the worldwide training a few weeks ago and he basically just talked about the same thing but also about the Mexico plan de area and some other stuff. Afterwards he interviews some missionaries too which was interesting... My friend, Elder Funke, got interviewed and said that he just asked him about the mission and shared some scriptures with him but that it was really cool. So on Thursday we had that with all of the zones in Tampico and on Saturday we had Mission Council with just the leaders and Elder Valenzuela gave us a little training and kind of guided the council. It was really cool. He didn't take a picture with the other groups but with the leaders he did which was cool. I learned a ton and we are already seeing results applying it in our area. Too bad it took this long to learn haha!

Saturday after the mission council we went to the chapel to get everything ready for the baptism. We couldn't get the water heater to work so we filled the font with cold water and heated up some water on the stove but even then it was still pretty chilly haha. the good thing was it was a nice warm day so it wasn't too big of a deal. Yanelis mom came to the baptism which was cool and she also came to the confirmation on Sunday and was super interested and stayed all three hours! She had never really been interested in the church before but now we are going to start teaching her. Invite your friends to baptismal services! 

On Sunday it was a miracle in sacrament meeting! Starting the meeting we didn't have any investigators there besides Yanelis mom and we were bummed because we were expecting lots! But after the opening prayer Bricio walked in with his wife and that was awesome to see :) He got off work at like 10:00 in the morning after a night shift and got changed and came to church! Then we went up and confirmed Yaneli and after the confirmation Gloria and her whole family came in! I cant remember if I have told you about them but this week we finally met her husband Luis Fernando (well, soon to be husband) and their kids Daphne (10) and Jesus Alexander (8). A complete family! It was their first time in church ever and they LOVED it and the kids loved primary and that afternoon we went and visited them and they accepted a baptismal date for march 19th! They are super excited, especially Gloria and the kids. We still need to work with Luis Fernando to get him going but he accepted the date and said he would get prepared. Pray for them! So besides them, a young woman brought a friend to church which was great! He seemed mas o menos interested but we are going to teach him and see how he does. So we had 7 investigators at church which is awesome!

We also found out there is a girl going to institute who isn't a member but who wants to get baptized and she attends church in the Tampico stake but lives in our ward! A YSA from another ward asked us about the ward boundaries and told us that she lived in our area and then we talked to some other YSA in our ward and they all freaked out when they heard she was in our ward. Apparently she is super awesome and ready to get baptized. We are hoping to meet her this week.

The ward is progressing and everybody is really loving the missionary classes we are giving. The stake is all on board and everybody is studying preach my gospel and every first Sunday in the third hour the lesson is from PMG and it is awesome! The stake president is super excited. We should have around 8 baptisms this month and like 15 or more in march in the stake! The most this stake has had in one month in over two years is like 7. We are pumped!

I'm worried I will get transferred to another area but I hope not. I will be happy wherever but I feel like my whole mission I have gotten transferred after just one transfer and right before lots of baptisms... but that's okay. I guess like Paul said, "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel."

I love being a missionary and I don´t like thinking about this all being over. It's the only time in my life when a prophet of God as well as millions of other people will pray for my well being specifically and over the altar of the temple. I will never again be able to call myself a representative of the Savior Jesus Christ. But for now, I am and I will give it my all til the end. I love this work and I love my Savior. Thanks for letting me come :)

Elder Skalla

México Tampico Mission

Progress in the Zona

Hey mom!

Looks like you had a fun day in Scottsdale... That's great you got to see Elder Gilbert... or Brenden. Weird. You guys are crazy for going to Roo's apartment haha but I bet she liked it. Don't worry about me haha we get spoiled enough as is. Haha I wouldn´t "chastise" you I would be "disappointed" in you. haha just kidding :p

Those kids are way too cute and growing up way too fast! I cant even believe it! Addie's scripture and prayer were adorable and Tate is all boy! Spoiled!

Sounds like you had a great lesson... I like Come Follow Me too. I feel like there is a lot more participation and the students can kind of guide the lesson and teach one another and the real teacher at the end of it all is the spirit and everybody learns what they needed to learn, even the teacher! 

I think in the January Ensign there is a talk by Elder Holland about the Godhead that he gave to mission presidents a while back... It talks about how important it is to really understand the nature of God and Christ. That's why it is the first principle we teach as missionaries. The world has such a skewed idea of who God is and what he expects of us. Sometimes as missionaries we just kind of skim right over it and get right to the restoration, but if the investigators don't understand the true nature of God they can never comprehend the need for or the reality of a restoration.

This week has been a good week. We haven't been able to work in the area much because of lots of meetings, and stuff we had to do. On Tuesday we were in the office all morning because Elder Tipton had to renew his Visa and Wednesday we were in the stake center all day because president Ramirez showed up to our district meeting and afterwards missionaries wanted interviews and we had to stay because we were the only ones with keys. Thursday we had a meeting in the office with the assistants at night and planning in the morning. Friday we worked all day which was great and then Saturday the other elders in the ward had 2 baptisms and we gave a tour of the chapel to Oscar. He came to the baptisms and was super interested. he has so many questions. He really wants to learn more but it is hard for him to progress because of his job. We have been pretty direct with him and he knows he has to have faith and do whatever is necessary to not work on Sundays but... he is scared. 

Bricio is doing well... He is making small steps of forward progress so we cant really complain. He told us a few weeks ago that starting February he would let us know if he wants to be baptized or not, so we are hoping he says yes! He has to really get going though if he says yes. He is reading and praying and he has stopped drinking too which is great, but he still hasn't come to church. Yesterday he didn't work and said he was going to come but didn't show up. I think he sees us too much as his friends, so we are going to try and help him understand that we can be his friends but before that we are missionaries and if he doesn't progress we cant keep visiting him. Its always hard doing that but it usually helps. We will see. He is a great guy and one day will be baptized but he just needs to get goin!

Yaneli passed her baptismal interview and is going to be baptized on Saturday! yay! She was kind of a freebie haha but we are excited for her. 

Jose Luis, the guy who needs to get married, us going well... We kinda laid back a bit on the marriage thing and that seems to have helped... He is reading more often and has gone to church the last 2 weeks. He knows what he needs to do he just needs to have the faith to do it. So pray for him!

The ward is progressing and the zone too. We have a goal to have 20 baptisms in March. the goal for February is 15 and I think we are going to have somewhere around 10. The most the zona has had in a year is 7 so we are excited for the improvement. We really have awesome missionaries in the zone and the stake has supported us so much and the wards are super excited and we are just blessed to be here and witness it all. Its definitely a fun time. Elder Tipton and I are pretty sure they wont leave us together another change so who knows what will happen next change, but for now he have two weeks left to keep working hard.

Anyways I don't have much time left but I love you lots and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Skalla