Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 6

Darn well I missed Lake Powell once again, and this time by only 1 weeks, shucks well at least we´ve been having a lot of parties here as well, even if I did miss sleeping with over 50 people on two house boats, but I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year. I am looking forward to trying out the wake skate and picking out some "hip" clothes, today Elder Adams and I went to try and pick out my suit style we looked for about 4 hours and I’ve decided that I’m hopelessly lost in fashion or we just went to the wrong places. Most of which just had shirts that say the F word about 20 times and in several fonts and sizes, but hey I guess that is the new hip style here in Mexico. I also spent about 2 hours on Sunday with a youth as he tried to show me how to use the new smartphone software while I tutored him on mathematics, I don´t think either one of us learned very much...

This week was pretty great! (like every week, right? haha) we found a family of a sister that just barely got reactive and well she has 2 kids with the ages of 8 and 9 both of which have a strong desire to be baptized, the best thing is that while she hasn´t been attending church she although she has been keeping up in daily prayer and scripture study and family home evening, and she finally realized that she needs the church in her life and especially the life of her family so that they may grow up with a strong foundation in their lives. And well to make a couple lessons short if all goes well we´ve got 4 baptisms next week, and if not, the future missionaries have 4 baptisms. And that is quite the miracle! 

This week we also had interviews with president Montoya as we do every cycle, he told me that I was going to once again have changes this week (and I did only that we are in a group of 3, so it wasn´t too bad), I asked him why I’ve had so many companions (20) when the average missionary has around 12, he shared with me and I’m a lot like he was in his mission and that I’m a "mechanic" in terms of I get sent to an area to fix it or I get sent with a companion to help them realize their potential and love of the work. It has been an amazing calling that I’ve been blessed to have here that has not only allowed me to change the lives of many people, but also to change my mine. I´ve started to read my old journals and remembered how I used to think that I wasn´t ever going to change in my mission, better said I didn´t want to be changed. But over these past 2 years I’ve come to realize that missionaries that go and return the same weren´t the best of missionaries in their mission and although they may not have wasted their time they definitely did not learn completely what it is to be a disciple of Christ. Learning to be a disciple has been one of the greatest blessing of be on a mission, I’m not nearly close to being someone amazing or an amazing alma the younger story, but I’m happy with the changes that I’ve seen and the potential that I now have for the future. As the missionary that has had to deal with many youth that go on a mission for their parents, but not a strong desire to serve, I can give a great advice to everyone who can serve a mission. And that advice is to do it! Life is going to hard or suck at times, but one day you wake up and love the mission. It is an experience that has no equal, and everyone should serve even the girls, it may be optional but quite frankly the sister missionaries that work here have so much more success than the elders, and are super cool, even if they get super spoiled haha.

These two years have been amazing and I’ve come to realize why they call them the best two years. It´s not an easy experience, you won´t be happy everyday unless you choose to, you´re going to have challenging companions, you´re going to have frustrating leaders, you are going to meet confused people that dislike you, you´re going to have times where everything falls apart, you´re going to have times with sickness or danger. But that´s the mission! And with every sacrifice that one has there is a miracle you just need to open your eyes and count them. There is no other experience that brings someone greater joy then giving everything to help someone knowing that you will receive nothing and maybe even rejection. But it is amazing and I wish every person could have the chance to serve a mission and learn what their true potential is.

The best is yet to come,

Signing off for the last time,

con mucho amor,

-- 

Elder Kaden Thomas Bunch

La misión maravillosa

México Chihuahua Misión

Reforma

Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 5

Well this week was just great! My new companion is a white guy that doesn´t know much Spanish and quite frankly is super goofy and well I’m goofy as well so we have fun together here in the desert of Chihuahua. He studied in Utah State for a semester and lived in the same building as Scott (one of my friends that Maren knows well). We basically just spend the days messing around talking to everyone and teaching just about every creature that moves (this includes animals, we have become quite the dog and cat whisperers recently, unfortunately they don´t count for too much besides buddies).  It is honestly just super fun every day, this poor elder just says the most awkward things to people sometimes and then I just break out laughing and the poor people just get creeped out. One of the most recent ones was when it was his turn to contact (we switch off so that I don´t do everything) and a guy and a girl were walking in front of us and so my comp contacted them by saying "good afternoon, I’m a missionary, can I marry you two?" they both turned super red, and told us to give them a bit to think about it and ran off quickly.  My comp turned to me asking what he did wrong, meanwhile I was laughing so hard and then explained what happened. Turns out he was going to try and tell them that their marriage could last for eternity. Unfortunately, that is not what came out... and that was just one of the daily experiences we have, best companion ever!

Another fun experience was that today I was going to go to Chihuahua to buy my suit. Due to leaving my zone I had to ask permission from President so I talked to him and everything went well and he told me that it was fine and thanks for notifying him. About 2 hours later at about 9:30 in the night he calls me again and asks me "Elder Bunch I trust in you a lot, do you trust in me?" and of course I told him yes, he then proceeded to ask me why half of the missionaries in Chihuahua were asking permission to go to the same place I was heading to. This was news to me and they were all using the excuse to buy socks or underwear, so something was clearly up. I later realized that last week I mentioned that I was planning to buy my suit today and well to put it in a humble way, I’m pretty well known here in the mission and this would be the last time many would see me so they all wanted to come haha. The mission has been a fun one and even though I’ve been blessed with a couple blessings, the thing I’m most proud of has been the chance to help those in my zones, my districts, and especially my companions.  And well a lot of the missionaries I’ve met wanted to group up one last time, but I guess today was not the day, maybe in the future or Facebook, everyone uses that here.

This week was pretty normal in terms of the great work, we are working hard to find the future baptisms here in Reforma and we´ve found several that although I might not get to see I will have joy having the first opportunity to find and meet them. Most people get a little nervous to speak to us and will speak in Spanish because they think that we don´t understand. In reality it is kinda like when the cleaning ladies would come or the sprinkler guys and would talk in Spanish so that one can´t understand. The only big flaw is that they don´t realize that I have 23 months here in Mexico and even though I have a weird Texan Mexican accent when I speak (I have no idea in the world how I got that, but I’m known for it), they learn very quickly that I know Spanish and those that talk bad about us or those that talk about how good we look both learn very quickly that gossips in Spanish doesn´t work and they blush pretty hard or get angry, it´s great! 

In reality the area is growing great, now that I have a companion that is very obedient and that tries his best to give everything we have starting to see miracles instantly, we have been blessed with references that want to get baptized, we find people in the roads that want to change they lives and accept baptism and the book of Mormon on the spot, it´s been great! I guess we shall have to see how these last two weeks go!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Reforma

Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 4

Well we have now entered my month of departure.  I guess we´ll have to see how this goes haha. Well as always it was good to hear from everyone and everything that is going on.

It was great to hear about the farewell of Spencer and my Farewell! That´s fantastic that everything worked out in the end and I can attend his before doing mine.  I´ll have to start working on my talk to see if I can top Seminary graduation speech. On Sunday I gave my last testimony (a tradition here for one´s last fast Sunday), although it wasn´t quite a gem it still uplifted the spirits of many haha.  I sure hope that my siblings enjoyed their Rocky Mountain Oysters, sadly I have not yet tried that dish of food, maybe one day far away haha.  It sounds like the road trip was great! I look forward to the future vacations, and to go boating again, it´s going to be great!

Well this week was a bit surprising, because there were changes! and like every time there is changes I got to take part.  My companion was unexpectedly taken out of the area and a new Elder arrived, his name is Elder Adams, and he is a white guy. It´s always fun to meet and share in the life of another missionary and if you get to baptize in the process...even better! I was a little sad to say goodbye to my previous comp though.  He was struggling with why he was on a mission, but started to realize that he wants to be someone better when he returns home, and in order to do that he set several goals we were working on together.  

This week was super fun, but a little hard physically. The great part is the season of rain has finally arrived! Every day is cloudly and it sprinkles all day! It is amazing! I´ve never been one for the heat, so this cool weather is a game changer that allows me to work at a whole new level. The bad part of this week was I got a bad case of gastritis, well I wouldn´t say case because I guess it may be permanent... Anyways we aren´t sure what I ate because my comp was fine and well I’m the one that has higher resistance to spicy foods than my comp, so who knows. Anyways the first day was the worst it was just a constant pain in the upper part of my stomach that wouldn´t leave. I talked to the mission president´s wife and she treated me for a stomach ache, and well it worked! for a bit... then we were visiting an investigator when it returned, and I had to add to the discussion my stomach ache (he asked why I was using his bathroom so much hahaha, hard life). He told me that he had the same thing. Yep... great times, luckily I rarely get stomach aches now due to controlling how much I eat and how spicy. I always wanted to take a bit of Mexico home with me and now I have something to remind about Mexico forever! it also basically means it is easier for me to be skinny! So that is a major perk! Score!

This week we also had a branch activity for the missionary work.  It was going to be super cool, we had all the church organizations prepare a room for a church open house where the less active members could get to know the members and clearly the investigators as well. Anyways everything was prepared, we invited many people to come and many came, but at the hour that it said on the invitation. And well as we all know, Mormons are the best at arriving on time, especially here in Mexico. The activity was at 6, all the members decided to arrive at 7ish, it would have been fine, only that a lot of the less active and inactive members that came got super depressed and now they don´t want us to visit them, that was pretty painful. But it is all good because we are going to keep knocking on their doors until they let us in and let us help them out in their lives! The mission work is awesome! It´s hard, it´s fully of sadness, sickness, and deception, but there is nothing that brings more happiness than changing the life of just one person forever. The time here is short, trials will come, but there is an eternal reward that only comes when we give our all!

Have an excellent week, con mucho amor
-- 

Elder Bunch (new and improved losing weight by the day! Awesome!)
México Chihuahua Misión

Reforma

Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 3

Well the first thing I should say is in response to Caden´s worry about spicy food, well the best we I can put it is that he is going to learn to eat spice.  I don´t talk about it much because I’ve never had problems with spicy food, but to be clear the food here is judged delicious if it is spicy, and the more spicy, the more delicious it is. So be prepared when one comes to Chihuahua they should always carry a roll of toilet paper on them, and get used to standing up, because for the newbies it hurts to sit down. Well that´s your little tip on Chihuahua for today.  Well besides that it´s great to hear about the farewell of Carter! He´s going to have a great time on the mission and will return home a lot stronger for it. That is crazy that Keaton finished! Wow 2 years sure do pass by quickly (I feel weird thinking that 2 years have past...creepy). 

Well this week was great! We had a surprise baptism so that was pretty cool! It is a 15 yr old girl named Elizabeth.  She is from a remote mountain village where the missionaries can´t go, but luckily she moved over here and the missionaries before me were led to find her. We taught her a couple lessons and she realized that the church truly had the authority to baptize and that her baptism didn´t count.  She read the Book of Mormon and prayed and got her answer. Even though she has many friends who are against our church (gotta love those Christian pastors convincing their people the Mormons are the worst). But in the end, everything went well and she got baptized and confirmed! It was awesome! And she´s got a lot of friends and family members that have a whole new view on the church and have accepted for us to teach them, we should have some great coming weeks visiting them!

Another miracle, Mexico won against South Korea! For all those soccer fans out there, now that the United States didn´t qualify, I´ve had to shift my alliances.  Also for my personal health because quite frankly if I say anything against Mexico soccer, they will probably stone me. So go Mexico! 

Right now, in the area we´ve been finding lots of people but because of the other Christian pastors they don´t last too long.  On the bright side the weather is finally starting to enter the rainy season which means lots of fun in the rain and cool weather all day!  Everything starts to get super green, it is basically a paradise for one that walks all day in the sun, maybe not to find people... but we´ll just trust God on that one haha.

Well that was our week, Oh and I got the packages from you and Grandma Bunch, so I should be set for this next month! And that is too bad about the temple, but Wednesday sounds good as well, hopefully I can get set apart early then so we can have some fun when I get back haha.

Good to hear from you, have a great week,

con mucho amor

-- 

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Reforma

Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 2

Well to start out this week we saw a huge miracle! One of the biggest that I have seen since my changes, and that was Mexico beating Germany in the World Cup!  I think my presence somehow ended up blessing Mexico and allowed it to beat Germany hahaha. Do you remember the movie Rio or really any animated Mexican movie where they are always watching Soccer, well that basically sums up my life right now.  The people here let us in their houses often but right now if there is a soccer game on, they won`t let us share a message until the game is done, and well this global championship is going to last until I get home so we are going to have some interesting coming weeks.

Besides that, this new area has been great! In this last week I’ve probably had 5 people say no to our message when we contacted them, and well we had close to a hundred contacts so we`ve got a lot of people to visit! My mission son is super cool and super excited.  He contacts everyone and is good at teaching as well! He likes to mess with me a bit about my Spanish (like I mentioned in the last letter I understand about 50% of what he says), the good part is that the people understand me more than my companion so that helps me out a bit haha.  He is a good guy, he is my first companion that enjoys doing exercise.  So every morning we wake up a bit before 6:00 and go running up a mountain that is about 30 minutes away running, it has a cool lookout on top where you can see the entire town. It`s fantastic, my companion isn`t to use to running at high altitudes so he drags behind a bit but he works hard and doesn`t quit! We have been running with a little speaker in my hand listening to EFY songs, it`s a bit weird but fun!

This week was great but a bit hard in the end. We had 13 people prepared to go to the church after working the entire week, and well we got 3 that came and well they weren`t the 13 we had planned on attending.  I`ve seen that God likes to test us a bit before we achieve the great miracles, and if we keep working as we did this week we are going to see great miracles and great fruits even if I may not have the chance to see them, but right now the goal is to help E. Flores (my mission son) become the missionary that I have slowly become but a little quicker.  Hopefully this will happen so that he can achieve great things and have some fun experiences as well.

Today I taught the zone how to play ultimate frisbee, one of the best perks of the mission is that when you play a sport for the United States you don`t have to worry about being the worst, because with the knowledge of the sport you already have a head start and if all else fails you change the rules to your advantage and nobody knows. That is the perk when about 20% of the mission are white guys and the rest are Latinos!

Well that was our week here! Con mucho amor,

-- 

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Reforma

Reforma in Cuahtemoc, Week 1

Well first of thanks for the money to buy the suit! Odds are it won´t be the highest quality of suit but it´ll be a fun experience to grab either way haha. It sounds like the construction has started in the house in Logan and that it will be a fun project.  It’s a shame I’ll arrive for the end of it, but at least I’ll get to enjoy the end result! Oh and the other cool thing is the challenge from the prophet about social media.  A whole bunch of youth here are super into it and have used it to be missionaries. Due to the fact that when their friends ask them why they aren´t on Facebook or Twitter they can explain about a living prophet and what our church believes! It has been an awesome opportunity!

Alright well the biggest announcement of this week is that I got changed! And dang was this change intense...  I´ll start from the beginning when I was still in Del Norte. The biggest thing that happened is a golden investigator that we have her name is Mari, she is a sister that we found the first week that I arrived in Del Norte (the first week I didn´t write), we contacted her in front of a grocery store, when we first made an appointment with her she was not in her house. The thing here in Mexico is that everyone talks to you and tells you that you can visit them, so you make appointments to know if they actually have interest.  When she wasn´t at her home we took it as a sign that she didn´t want anything.  So we went on our way, however about a week later we felt the need to return back to her house, and good thing we did when we got there we had an amazing lesson in which she committed to go to church. That Sunday we passed by her house to give her a ride and she came outside with her spouse and they both came to church for the 3 hours and they loved it! We continued to visit them and this Tuesday we set a baptism date for her for the 23 of this month, and although we got changed out and there aren´t missionaries right now and for a long time, the members stepped up and are working hard with them. And this past Sunday they went to church! And have a great desire to be baptized!

The week was great up until Wednesday night, when we learned that someone did not want the missionaries around and went to extreme measures to show us his dislike through phone calls.  The following morning another incident happened that required the president of the mission to act and remove the 5 missionaries that were in this ward out of the city of Chihuahua! (I’m going to save the details until I get home, because I think mom will come and drag me back to Utah). But to share the best part, I was able to see first hand the power of God, it´s honestly a miracle to be able to still have the chance to write and breath... it´s honestly such a great story I can´t wait to share it when I get home, but right now is not the time or the place especially for those that are going to serve future missions, especially in Chihuahua. But I now know without a doubt the missionaries are super protected.  You just have to be sure to follow what the spirit says otherwise you probably won´t get as lucky as I did haha. Anyways for this reason, I got changed! And I’m training! Best changes ever! My kid’s name is Elder Flores and he has 2 months in the mission I only arrived to finish his training.  He is from Bolivia and I honestly understand about 50% of what he says, his accent is strong and he uses vocabulary from Bolivia, but he´s a great guy and we are going to see miracles together!

Right now, we have 5 people prepared to be baptized, 4 are members of 1 family, and the other is a girl who is an Indian from Chihuahua, she is super cool! a little crazy, but so am I, so it´s going to be great!

Well that was my week here! oh also my new area is called Reforma in Cuahtemoc (a.k.a the promised land)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Del Norte, Week 1

Well the biggest update of these past few weeks was that I got made a zone leader again... I was not super excited for that update when the president made it in a special conference, and it was super unexpected. Here in the mission Mexico Chihuahua missionaries don´t ever finish the mission as zone leaders.  The last one that did was about 6 months ago and before him about 10 months ago. It´s not something common and quite frankly I was really hoping to train in my super cool area in Cuahtemoc, but instead they sent me back to Del Norte the area I was in before I went Cuahtemoc. Every time I eat with the members they always ask where I’ve been because they thought I got changed, but here I am after 4 months. On the good side I’ve got a lot of good friends here in the ward, and well my zone... it´s pretty darn cool as well. They are a little disanimated, but i´m pretty good and getting rid of that!

These past few weeks have been full of work. My companion it a great guy but he changes with his companion, and well his last companion was the type of missionary that got our emailing privileges revoked for 2 weeks…. every day after eating he would take of his clothes and put on regular clothes so that my companion couldn´t make him work.  That took a toll on my companion and more than anything on the area and the zone because this same missionary was here for about 3 months.  So when I arrived my comp and I started to work super hard and we asked for miracles daily, and we´ve seen it! We´ve found people that in the first lesson they committed to be baptized and then come to church the following Sunday! It´s been amazing! The best part has been the ability to call down miracles, my personal favorite is that we prayer in the same way that the servant Abraham did when he looked for the spouse of Isaac, in other words specific prayers.  We pray for help knowing which people are ready to be baptized by asking for them to respond in certain ways. It´s been awesome, we found the strangest people that the Lord has chosen this way. Right now I have 7 weeks left, and we are going to see what we can achieve in such a short time.

Well it was great to hear from you all! Have an excelente week with the first weeks of summer!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Bunch

México Chihuahua Misión

Del Norte (part 2)