Cuauhtemoc, Week 1

Well it sounds like everything is returning back to normal over there in Utah.  So this week it is my turn to give the news! I got hospitalized! And it was awesome! It all started on Monday night when I couldn´t sleep all night due to a cough, so the next day I talked to the Sister Montoya (president´s wife) and she prescribed me a cough medicine and some ibuprofen because I had a slight fever as well. Everything went well through the night and through Wednesday. However, Thursday morning I woke up coughing up a lot of blood, so I took my ibuprofen ate breakfast and I felt fine, so I decided to leave and work hard (worst idea ever by the way). The more we walked the more I began to look like a "Simpson" in the words of my companion, we kept going until we finally arrived at the hour of lunch, and suddenly everything just hit me and I got super tired, lost my appetite, and started to convulse a little bit. By this point everyone starts to realize I wasn´t just messing around (that´s the bad part about being known as a joke guy). Anyways the sister that was giving us food me to call Hermana Montoya, and when I called her she ironed me and told me to quickly get to the hospital. Luckily the sister that was giving us food is super cool and gave me a ride to the mission approved hospital.  I got a check-up and then a MRI, I was then diagnosed with severe Bronchitis with a fever of about 103. They then proceeded to give me a very painful shot in the butt to lower my fever, they always do that here in Mexico and it is one of the few things I will not miss back in the states. Anyways they proceeded to give me a Nebulizer for around 2 hours. After that they returned to check if I could go home only to realize that my fever was only continuing to rise. So, they pulled out all the needles and gave me an IV and I had to have several bags of fluid and drugs injected into my body. Anyways this entire process began at 3:00 and ended up finishing around 11:00 in the night when they finally sent me home with my temp now around 101. The following 3 days I had to return to do tests and for a nebulizer session, and in the end, it was a pain in the butt, but it was a cool experience to have, although I would not recommend it for the adventurous spirits out there.

Also, a big thing happened this week! I got changes! I´m off to Cuauhtemoc, it is a village outside of Chihuahua where the mission has had a lot of success due to the humbleness of the people. And besides that, the food is cheap and the members are awesome! I´m also going to be in charge of an area that was opened this cycle called Anahuac.  It has previously been closed due to a massive problem that happened with missionaries about a year ago, anyways now days the sister missionaries are over there, but I get to be the guy to help them to open it up and create a strong area. Also, it sounds like my area is super cool as well with several people ready to be baptized these next couple of weeks! In the end, it sounds like it is going to be an awesome place to work, and it may possibly be my last area. So, let´s see how this all goes!

Well I was deathly ill this entire week so that´s all I can explain at this time! It´s been a great time in Del Norte and now it is time to move on and finish strong!

con mucho amor,

-- 

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Del Norte

Del Norte, Week 9

I honestly feel like when i lived back in Utah, there were a lot less injuries than what has happened over these past 18 months.  I missed some very exciting months recently hahaha.  I guess we shall see how the luck continues when I get back there in 5 months.  It sounds like the whole Charlie incident was pretty intense, well it is always good to get a fun new experience to wake us up at times, that is what life is all about haha. Anyways this week was a week full of contacts, splits, and a couple baptisms!

Well everything started on Wednesday when I went on splits with Elder Salgado.  I went to his area to help him pull out some baptisms to his area.  In the end almost all the appointments  that were planned fell through, but luckily the one appointment that was super important stayed intact.  It was moved to 9, (we enter the house at 9) but this was a super important appointment so we accepted it and we went. It was quite the interesting experience because this investigator is the pastor of a semi-large Christian church, only that now he has seen the errors in his teaching and the teaching of other churches.  After attending our church he felt and saw the truth restored and decided he wanted to be baptized.  The only problem is that he wants God to give him a sign. So that's where my part came into play, basically we went and showed him with scriptures that he is ready, and well to make a very long semi bible bash short, he is going to be baptized! It's a great experience when one can teach with the spirit enough to convince a Christian pastor of 30 years to be baptized! These are the moments in the mission when one notices that the church is backed up by angels that are preparing everyone to be baptized. Anyways on Thursday we finished our splits and started a new pair of splits.  I went with E. Lignell a white elder I’ve mentioned in a few of my letters (I think, I don't really remember). Anyways he and his companion were having problems so we had to interview the two of them and see what was going on.  In the end, it was small things that built up into a disaster for example; a disorganized desk and bed, one didn't know how to mop a floor, and one took 3 pieces of ham from the other... yep small things are often the reason we can't feel the spirit and have bad relations with friends, family members, and here in the mission our companions! Anyways we talked with the two of them and helping them to give service to one another, because until that moment the most service that had been given was one egg for that last 9 weeks. Just serve people it isn’t that hard hahaha. Anyways we did splits with the both of them and talked to them about how we can all get better! Afterword we had our weekly massive contacting activity.  I ended up going with E. Mendoza we had some interesting luck, we found a Jehovah Witness pastor, a Catholic leader, and Christian prayer circle, and a pair of Jehovah witness missionaries teaching a family. I guess it was just the day to preach! It was alright though because the Jehovah witness pastor gave me a book to teach me "what the bible truly means" I gave him a pamphlet. Trade is good haha.

On Saturday, we spent the entire morning helping the sister missionaries in their area, then after the lunch, the Elders from cumbres (an area in our zone) called us and told us that they didn't have baptism clothes for a baptism they were going to have in 2 hours, so we had to run everywhere to get clothes, and we made it 30 minutes before that baptism started! In the end, it didn't matter too much because the bishop arrived 30 minutes late, so we basically arrived a hour early! Gotta love Mormon time! Anyways I played the piano and taught some kids how to play some basic hymns to keep them distracted from running around in the church, and I think I got contracted to teach piano lessons from their mother hahaha, too bad it is not my area. Anyways everything went well and they baptized two children! Our zone is famous for baptized children right now, but like Christ said, the children will inherit the kingdom of god, so we go for whatever we can get! (their parents are members, don't worry, we don't baptize random children in the streets...yet...).

On can't forget, today we played paintball! we combined two zones and we played zone against zone! there is nothing quite like getting a nice paintball bruise to show the young women in the ward... but hey one has got to have a couple reasons to return back to their mission, nah just messing.  And even if I wanted to, I didn't get bruised this time, the hard life of the Mexican paintball sniper bunch.

Well that was our more or less interesting week, I want to give a shout out to all those secretaries and assistants of the mission Mexico Chihuahua that I recently learned read my blog every week! 

You guys are the best! 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Del Norte

Del Norte, Week 8

Sounds like it was a pretty normal week over there in Utah this week haha.  This week was a pretty fast week full of contacting, getting ironed by the President, and have an emergency mission counsel meeting.

Well this week we continued with our streak of knocking on lots of doors, and contacting everything that moves that includes the animals as well, it is not uncommon if we have 2 or 3 street dogs following us around, just so you know how hard we are working haha.  It has been pretty fun since we have been changing up our ways of contacting through interpretive dance, singing, magic, and scaring the people by sprinting to contact them. We have seen that some ways are better than others but they are all entertaining for us haha. And the best part about contacting is that one knows that with every bad contact where someone doesn't want anything you are just one contact closer to finding the person who is going to be baptized! And that is the reason why we contact everyone, you are always going to find some angry Catholic or Christian who you woke up from his nap even though it is 4 in the afternoon. But once or twice every week you find that golden family that has been praying for the missionaries to pass by! We just got to keep at it and we will find them even out here in Del Norte with all the gangsters haha.

Alright onto the iron of my mission. Well here in our zone there is an area where some investigators who were attending church since september and they finally wanted to get baptized.  The only problem is that they lived in the area of a different zone.  These investigators wanted to get baptized in the area where they were currently attending church.  The missionaries from the area of the other zone didn't like that too much. So we had a big ball of confusion about what was going on, and in the end the president had to get involved and well to make a long story short he ironed us all and fixed it all up, and so we are finally done with the problem and the baptism was great! I got to play the piano and it ended up pretty cool! 

Then yesterday we had a big counsel meeting in the house of president where we had a big facetime with all the zone leaders of the zones that aren't in Chihuahua. In the meeting we talked about how we can be more efficient as a mission. Because right now we are doing more than two times as much as any other mission in mexico but we have less baptisms than almost all of them. So we had to hold to a big meeting to see what was going on with that. In the end it was a great experience and we pulled together a large list of items that we are going to teach our zones! If all goes well that double work we've been putting in will amount to something more!

Well that was our week here in Del Norte! Full of work and soon the miracles!

Con mucho amor,

-- 

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Del Norte

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