"White Skin" Angels and Owen

Well, it's been a good one this week! AbsoFLIPPINGlutly full of miracles and surprises! And I made a drunk guy cry too. Pretty sweet I'd say! But we'll get to that in just a little.

Tuesday. Wow, what a gem it was to be with my mission loving comp. We weren't having much success. So after the food, we went to our house to do 30 minutes of paper work so we can find some less actives in our ward. The bishop asked us to, so that's what we did. We get about 2 minutes in and my comp leaves.  I figure he went to the bathroom. No biggie, right? WRONG! I finished my paper work in 20 minutes and he hadn't come back out to finish his. So I go and check and what do you know, he's sound asleep. I call his name twice. No response.  So I yell his name. Nothing. I don't know if he was ignoring me or what, but I went back in and did his paper work. All done with that, I checked him again, yelling his name over the chainsaw of a snoring he had. Nothing. So I go read some scriptures. 10 sections of D&C later, he waddles on out and I grab my bag and head for the door... and wait. 5 minutes go by and he comes around the corner and sees me. As if surprised he says, "oh. yeah?" I said, "well yeah! You've been asleep for 2 hours of the Lords time." and off we went. Good heavens above.

Wednesday was life saving because we had interchanges. Me and the district leader head off and wait for the bus. As we wait, I heard someone behind me yell, "Wedo". I don't know how you spell it in English, but it means "white skin" but not offensively. So being the only wedo around, I figure he's talking to me. So I turn around to see a drunk guy coming towards us. He starts asking us for a peso and we only had enough for our ride. We told him no 2 or 3 times.  After that he took an aggressive step at my comp and I heard my comp say, "hey easy man". So, naturally I stand up taller and fold my arms and look down upon this 5' 4" man. Now I don't know if angles were behind me and he saw them or what happened, but he looked up at me and slowly began to cry.  He told us, "God bless you" and went on his way.  Once he left my comp said, "did you see the knife?" DID I SEE THE KNIFE?!?!?!  THE GUY HAD A KNIFE!!!! You've got to be kidding me?  I almost got shanked and didn't even know it?  The Lord is here with us in Cuautla City!

Thursday. I'd like to think it was a pretty good day. Others maybe not so much. I sat down with my comp and finally let him have it. I asked him lots of different questions, like why he was here. Why he slept, and I promised him if he didn't drop the pride and change now, he'd go home early. To which he responded, "that's fine". You're joking me?  I asked if he wanted to go home and there was no response. So I told him that he can waste the time if he wants to but not to get in my way. So for the next 2 days, I walked 60 yards ahead of him. He didn't work at all... but there's a saying here in Mexico that fits perfectly. "No Me Importa".

Saturday was awesome. We finally dunked Owen! The 9 year old that we've been teaching forever. We put the date on Friday and he was baptized Saturday! It was a little odd because he began to swim in the font after the ordinance. so I threw him out and we continued the service. We had a total of 4 baptisms in this area that day and it was really cool to see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday not much happened. But one of the people who got baptized yesterday we know pretty good! He asked me to ordain him at the last minute which was cool to give that blessing and give someone the holy ghost! We also got our changes!!! I'm staying here another cycle and my lovely comp is off to the Valley De Chalco.  He may get shot... I'll pray for him. Oh and one more miracle happened! After church a lady walked in the chapel and asked if she could be a part of this church... WHAT THE WHAT?!  That doesn't happen! She told us she's been going to church in California for 24 years and never was baptized! Bunch of chumps in Cali! Thanks for the baptism!! I  mean glory hallelujah!!! Please pray for her. Her name is Sarah! 

Thank you all for the prayers! I feel them every day!

Stay Classy

Elder Johns

His Thursday Night 2 for 1 Frap Shop

 

I'm Givin' Up! I'm Givin' Up on Givin' Up!

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord... but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel..." 2 Timothy 1:8

Well if that's not the coolest scripture ever!  "Hello!  Welcome to the true gospel!  Here's your plate full of afflictions so the Lord can really see if you're ret ta go!!!" Flippin' sweet! I think I've eaten one plate just here in Cuautla haha

I'm going to be honest with you all, because I have no reason not to be. Tuesday, I gave up mentally. Straight up gave up. It's not hard walking all day anymore. But it is hard walking all day without even the slightest bit of success. And it's even harder doing that all week. So I just stopped. We continued to walk, but I wasn't mentally there. And I knew it, and didn't care. I didn't pray for strength. I didn't ask for help. I didn't want any. I was done. And just to add insult to injury, my comp has been talking about going home and has just been angry not wanting to work all week. So we got home, I didn't say anything to my comp and I went to bed.

Wednesday. I woke up knowing what I did was wrong. I've really never given up like that before. So I got on my knees and prayed for everything. Luckily we had a multi zone conference this day and I asked my president if we could talk after. I told him what's been going on and he told me he's driven around before and has seen me working so he knew that wasn't the problem. Which gave me some relief because I didn't know if my work was weak or what I was doing wrong. So we just got things worked out and he told me we might close this area  again if it doesn't have success. I also apologized for giving up, and I want to say sorry for giving up to you all. Because that's not why I'm here or who I am.

Thursday was a nice big bowl of nothing again! It's funny and sad at the same time. Funny because after a rejection you think, "haha it's your salvation!" then you think, "oh shoot! it's their salvation! and you want to chase them down, knock them out, take them to church and shove the sacrament down their throat, but that would be inhumane.

Friday was cool. We had an open house at the church explaining about the plan of salvation. The elders, of course, represented the celestial kingdom. So we were all dolled up in our white clothes and we looked good. I mean, really good! There were several non members there, but none in our area... It was a pretty lax day for missionaries I guess you could say.

Sunday was awesome because the 4 elders in our ward gave talks. None of us really knew each others topic, but we all talked about the same thing. It was cool to see the talks interlace about the atonement. And the sister who we ate with after asked if we could share the talks again with her daughter and grandson who are inactives. That was a cool experience as well!

Well, there isn't a lot more to report on here. We have changes next week and I don't know if I want to be changed or not. The president gave me a some kind of hint of what would happen but it could go either way. We'll see what happens!  Also, you can know that I'm not sad, or angry, or anything like that. I'm actually happy! And that's because of your prayers! Thank you!

Stay Classy

Elder Johns

Cuautla is Hard

I've got to tell you guys, I love this area so much, but it has been the least successful time of my mission so far. But this week has also proven that the Lord is looking out for us and if we work hard we will see his hand in our lives!

Well, Tuesday we had one lesson all day, but it was a gem. It was with a guy named Samuel! He's 78 years old and before we knew what the heck was happening, he started to hop and dance around his house to show us how he could still move. I'm telling you it was amazing! He attempted to do the splits in the air!! And because I don't know how to say, "sit down you old geezer before you blow out a gasket" in Spanish, I just asked if we could start our lesson. We had our lesson and it was actually really good! So we invited him to go to church with us this week and he said, "yes... but there's one problem. My neighbors have been trying to kill me for the past 14 years and I know that they are Mormon". Gosh dang it. Why do all the good ones end up crazy?  So to finish the lesson, we promised him that we would go over and talk to his neighbors to see if they would stop trying to kill him... but it all ended up pretty good!

Wednesday we had divisions. So I was with our district leader in the morning. Before we left the house to work, we get a call from our comps. "Hey so we are going to the hospital because Elder  Johns´ comp doesn't feel good". That was a pretty nerve racking call. So we continued with our day waiting for another call and about two hours in, a downpour of rain came upon us. We were 100% soaked in 3 minutes. That was good times walking around drenched. Later we got the call from our comps and the problem was my comp couldn't handle too much spicy food!!  So he has to lay off the chile. So that's a relief... and even though we didn't have lesson, it was an ok day.

Thursday was easily the best planned day I've had here in Cuautla city! Almost all were actually scheduled and not just planned and as we went throughout our day all we got was, "oh, I forgot and can't right now" or "aw man, I'm about to leave" or "it would be better another day"(then why did you scheduled it for this day?). It was pretty hard to hear and I mean I love this place so much, but it's very frustrating to be here. It's hard to want to work all day for nothing. Or at least what feels like nothing for right now.  But all we can do is press on.

Friday was awesome! We had the opportunity to go the the Mexico city temple!  It's my second session that I've done there and this time I understood all of it which was cool! It's so amazing in there! It's my second favorite by far. Right  behind the Gilbert of course! #gtownpride Then that night, we had challenged some investigators to play soccer against us and if we won, they came to church. We lost.. they were really good. But one ended up coming anyway for the other elders! 

Saturday, another solid day of planning, another solid day of sledge hammers to the heart. I really don't know what else we can do here. We are praying, we are working like dogs, everything. Maybe it's just not their time or who knows what. To cheer ourselves up, I bought a new cologne called safari leather, and we stopped by Romens to end the night off. It was cool because number one, the cologne was only like $5 in US dollars, and some member paid for our ice cream. #blessed!!

Sunday was good at church! We had 2 investigators there and some great talks given! Then our investigator told us that they wanted to stay for all 3 hours the next week! That was pretty cool. Then we just had a night of reporting and went to bed!

Thank you once again for all the prayers.  They're helping right now a lot!

Stay Classy

Elder Johns