Elder Pugmire in Tuxtla: The First FULL Week

Hola Muchachos,

What a weeeeek!!! This was our first week where we worked through the entire week. We had much success and worked a lot.

Monday: Normal Pday hoedown I would say. We bought peanut butter in Walmart so now I can have PB&J sandwiches. That night I went on a Intercambio (transfer) with Elder Naranjo (orange tree) to his house in Indeco. He has been on his mission since October and I was really excited to learn from him. We did our planning and everything and went to bed hoping the best for the next day.

Tuesday: That night I did not sleep well because Elder Burgess does not have a pillow for his bed. We went to play futbol for exercise with our district and Elder Fackrell our DL made us go into my house to talk. It was kind of weird because we were supposed to be exercising. But then he dropped a big announcement. He had been told that he was being transferred to Tuxtla for an emergency and that he was going to be Zone leader there. We were all shocked and sad because he is such a good leader. He gave us all chocolate and our district tie. And then he said his farewell because he had to leave in an hour. So Elder Naranjo went back to his house to get ready for the day. We studied really well than left for our day. Elder Naranjo’s house had like 50 oranges and so I had eaten like 7 by the time we left. But we went and visited a few people and visited a really poor part of their area. We taught a girl who got baptized on Saturday. Then we walked like 3 miles to another part of their area and had no success. So we walked back and visited a few more people. By the time we were done I was so tired, I’m pretty sure we walked like 13 miles that day and my feet were hurting pretty good. But I learned a lot from Elder Naranjo and It was a challenge cause we couldn’t talk in English. But good day.

Wednesday: Was a day of learning. I was in a bad mood in the morning and throughout the day, probably because I was so tired from yesterday. I wasn’t participating in the lessons very much or contacting at all. Then I decided to change my attitude and start working hard. Even though I did this Elder Prows was frustrated and angry about something. So we got back to the house and I asked him what was bothering him. He brought up a lot of concerns about me and it turned into a great companionship inventory. We got out all the things that were bugging us and tried to find a way to solve them. I had to let go of my pride and take all of his comments and because when I did this, it felt nice to hear what I could do better. He said that since, "I am such a good missionary, but when I’m disobedient, it sticks out like a sore thumb." So that was really nice.

Thursday: We had an excellent morning. I studied really hard and we had an amazing weekly planning session. As we started walking a member passed us who sells this stuff Called Nieve (snow) and he gave us some; perfect thing for a hot day. We went to lunch and as we were eating I hear Star Wars playing behind me. And I was like OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE STAR WARS!!! IT just made me so happy to hear something that I love so much. I told Elder Prows that "nothing else in the world besides the Gospel, moves such feelings inside me as much as Star Wars." lol I love Star Wars. After that we went on divisions with two members Roberto and Hugo. I was with Roberto and he is really funny. He plans on going to go on a mission soon. But he is a really good teacher and we taught one lesson and he explained everything so well. After divisions we had a total of 64 contacts. A La Mecha. We could have done better though we were kind of distracted.

Friday: These past three day have been days of change for me and my excitement for the work is at 100%. I wrote in my journal that I feel like Jonah and that I’ve been redirected to where the Lord wants me to go. Friday we contacted a ton and got a lot of new addresses. By ourselves we contacted 60 people. A companionship record and it wasn’t even that hard. We didn’t even talk to half the people that walked by us. We had a really good meeting with Angela an investigator. It is really cool to see that she trusts us and I hope she gets baptized on the date 11th of April. We taught this new family who is so generous to us. They went out and bought us a 2 liter thing of OJ. They have 3 liter things of soda here so when I get back all the 2Ls are going to look small. We went and visited Romeo who needs to be baptized. He is soo ready. He defends the church and knows it’s true. But he told us a story of when he lived in the US and went and bought a burger and it was huge because he just said yes to everything. Pretty funny.

Saturday: Well we had another Intercambio, but this time it was with my ZL Elder Merrill (from Pokémon right) haha. So I was really excited to learn from someone with such experience. Elder Merrill is super funny but such a good missionary at the same time. Today all of our lessons fell. But oh well we taught a few people, and contacted a few. Elder Merrill gave me a challenge to go up to a person and the first thing I do was to invite them to baptism. So I went up to this one woman and said "Hola, Quiremos usted ser bautizado en nuestra Iglesia!" Translation for all of you who don’t know Spanish, Hello we want you to be baptized in our church. So yeah but she gave me a weird look and keep to herself. But then we got her address so all good. An investigator gave us a whole loaf of bread which was a miracle because we have like no food and no money. We then went and assisted an activity hosted by the other missionaries. We were flying to Hawaii in a plane and our plane crashed and we all died. So two angels (Elder Naranjo and Burgess ) showed us the Spirit world and the three Kingdoms of Heaven. Apparently the Celestial Kingdom has air conditioning. Then we went to the baptism and sang a song for them and left. That night Angela and her family had planned a big dinner for us and invited us six missionaries. They bought us these big pizza like things but loaded with different types of meat. SO good!! Then after I took a Tostada and put some beans and a lot of salsa on it. I didn’t know that the salsa was really spicy and was made from Habeneros. So I ate it and my mouth was on fire. So I said "Mi Vaca es en Fuego" and I meant to say "Mi Boca es en Fuego" So everyone started dying of laughter. Because what I said was “my cow is on fire” instead of “my mouth is on fire”. So yeah great day.

Sunday: Nothing really happened just your regular Sunday.

This week I learned that everything is about attitude and how you CHOSE to view things really makes a difference.