The Mission is Great

Hello People,

This week was interesting and full of fun!!

Funny story of the Week:

So for my entire life I have been a sleep walker, I will go do stuff in the night, make sandwiches, open doors, do random stuff, etc. So we live in a building with 3 apartments and we live on the second floor. And we have a window facing the street that is usually open and power lines pass right by our window but have a protective cover so you can’t shock yourself. So one night this week I slightly remember going and hanging something out the window on the power lines. So I go back to bed and about an hour later I decided to go check what I put on the power lines, so this time Elder Lambert was awake and he was like, “why are you hanging halfway out of the window... hey those are my ties!!!” Yeah I put both racks of Elder Lamberts ties on the power lines, he was not happy. I think that was my most creative sleep walk so far!

Painful story of the Week:

So this week I decided to go get my ingrown toenail #2 out. So Elder Fackrell and Gillingwater went with us because the latter had one too. So we went to a specialist to get it taken care of. Elder Gillingwater went first and came out and said it hurt a ton, and I thought he was just joking, so I get in the chair, she cleans it and since I’ve had two of these before I was waiting for her to use anesthetic, but nope, she just went and cut out my nail and a bit of flesh too. Boy did it hurt!! I was gripping the chair pretty good, but watched the whole thing! So yeah not going back there again. But she did a really good job and now it’s completely healed!

This week we had a bunch of lessons 24 to be exact, that’s 3 higher than standards of excellence. Let me highlight one lesson.

So usually every Monday we go over to the house of familiy lopez, and have a family home evening with them and their unbaptized daughter in law, Laura. So this week we went and it was their turn to give the lesson, but they weren’t prepared. So they asked us to give it, so we just chose a random topic and started teaching. We were completely guided by the Spirit. I had nothing to share so I asked if they had the Liahona from February because I thought of an article in that edition. Turns out that there were 3 articles directly related to our 3 topics!

So when we are in tune with the Spirit he will tell us all things that we should do!

“Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!”

That was a quote By Elder Richard G Scott that I absolutely love and is a quote I shared out of the Liahona on Monday! Reading the scriptures is more important than sleep!! Crazy but true!

So this week we were invited to one of our investigators birthday party. We brought them a pizza and chips because we are poor. But they were grateful. Her name is Anais and her husband Ivan, they both are chosen investigators and their parents were there, who are also investigating the church with other missionaries. But it is so awesome to see how much they have all progressed in a month since we started teaching them! They pray like any other member of the Church and read their scriptures!! Funny story as Anais went to blow out her cake, Ivan went and slammed her face in the cake. Pretty funny!!

I’m so grateful to be a missionary, and serve my God and other people. I have learned how to serve others and to love them how Jesus would!

Love Elder Pugmire

Anais y Ivan 

Elder Lambert playing hymns on a toy.

Average Week

So this week was pretty slow and not much happened, but let me share the highlights!

So on Monday we had Tranfers, but Elder Lambert and I are here to stay! But in our zone of 60 people only 3 companionships didn’t have a change. So the zone is way different and has a different feel, but ohhh welllll!

So this week we ate hamburgers with 3 different people.  Yesssssss! soooo good!

So funny story this week (not):
So the day was Friday, and we had just eaten lunch and I stepped off a sidewalk and rolled my ankle, so I fell to the ground like a looser, Elder Lambert swears he saw the sidewalk move(laughing his head off). Then throughout the day I went on to roll my poor weak ankle 3 more times, dumb Mexican streets!

This week we had a ward mission activity called, "Regresa a Casa" so we invited everybody. We guided people through the Plan of Salvation. We brought them into a room "la vida" and there they were able to choose the Word of God, or worldly things such as board games music, or video games. Then we took them into a "plane" where they then crashed and died! How nice! After that we explained the Spirit world and then showed them the three Kingdoms of Glory after they were judged. We ended in the Celestial Kingdom and we explained that there you could live with God forever. It was a really cool experience for our investigators and a good way to meet some members too.

So yeah not much this week. I would like all of you to know that I know that this Church is True, the only true church, and that if I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t be out here in hot sweaty Mexico. I know that through the Gospel of Jesus Christ you will have more happiness and joy than you would have anywhere else! And also that by reading the Book of Mormon you can come closer to God than by any other book!

Love you all,

Elder Pugmire

A Few Weeks In

Hello All,

Well this week was fun!! But not that much happened.

Let me illustrate Tuesday for you!

Tuesday: So we started the day as usual, but got nothing! So about 12 of the zone leaders called us and told us to come back to our house. We had no clue what was going on so we trekked back to our house to find Elder Giles and Elder Rowland, they also had no clue why they were there. SO we waited a little bit till the zone leaders got there. And they told us that one of them was going to accompany us in each of our areas. SO Elder Perez went with us (he is the trainer of Elder Lambert so they got along really well). Before we left we made a challenge, for whoever had the most lessons, contacts, references and other stuff won, and the losers had to shave one leg. SO we headed out and had a great day! Elder Parez is so awesome. The whole day he gave me tips on how to be a better missionary.

So we had a really good and weird lesson with this girl Melissa. So we arrived and seated ourselves and some of her sisters came out and greeted us and one of them who is about 16 went to give Elder Lambert a kiss on the Cheek as is courtesy in Mexico, but he kind of strait armed her and was with his facial expression "get away friend" and was as far back in his chair as possible. I started dying and Elder Perez was just kind of embarrassed to know him. She walked away a little hurt!

So still in that lesson, it was probably the most spiritual lesson I have had so far. I shared a scripture and then bore my testimony about how the church is true and so did Elder Perez and Elder Lambert, then I felt prompted to share another scripture, Alma 32:28, about the seed and how it will grow inside of you and if it is good you will know that it is good. Then bore my testimony again and Elder Lambert invited her to Baptism and she said yes!! But then we sang Nearer my God to Thee and it was so powerful and beautiful and the Spirit soooo strong!! What a great lesson.

So we continued to work and had a few other lessons and a few contacts. But we got back and Got Destroyed!! They beat us sooooo bad. they had 20 lessons and Like 50 contacts, so we shaved our legs. Yeah bummer.

So that was tuesday!!

It rained super hard this week one day. We got drenched within 15 seconds to the bone, it’s a good thing that my bag is sort of water proof!

This week all of the zones in Tuxtla came together to do some service, we formed teams of 4 and went around the streets only picking up plastic bottles, not all the trash only plastic bottles, good job tuxtla! But it was fun and I got to know a few more elders. But we picked up a good ton of bottles (2000 or more)! It was sooo nice to wear shorts and a T shirt around instead of my normal clothes!

We saw President George three times this week, which is odd. He came a baptism in our ward and to our ward the next day, I hope I didn’t do anything too dumb in front of him. But it was nice to see him.

Well that’s all folks!

Love Ya,

Elder Pugmire

Something from Washington