So this week I was looking back in my journal. And when I look back at some of the things I had written, it brought emotions to my soul, and I could see how much I have progressed in the past few years. I would like to share a few sections of one of my journals.
This is a poem Sister Grover shared with my seminary class almost 2 years ago.
Good Timber does not grow with ease,
the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees,
the further sky, the greater length,
the more the storm, the more the strength.
by sun and gold, by rain and snow,
in trees and men good timber grow.
Well I hope you enjoyed this poem. I know that my Savior lives, that he has a hand in each and every one of lives. And that he works in a way so different for all of us.
I love you all and hope all of you a great week!!
Love,
Elder Pugmire
Monday, August 3, 2015
Well this week has been good. We have a lot of investigators that are progressing. 8 of them came to the church this week. It has been super-hot here. I wore a long sleeve the other day and about sweated myself to death.
I have been sick this whole week, but I still worked.
We taught a cool lesson down by the river.
WELL THATS ABOUT IT.
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to email me or respond back to my emails. It really means a lot to me when I get emails from all of you. I also want to apologize if I have not responded, sometimes there does not seem to be enough time on our pdays to respond.
Well I hope everybody has a great week.
Bye!!
I have been sick this whole week, but I still worked.
We taught a cool lesson down by the river.
WELL THATS ABOUT IT.
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to email me or respond back to my emails. It really means a lot to me when I get emails from all of you. I also want to apologize if I have not responded, sometimes there does not seem to be enough time on our pdays to respond.
Well I hope everybody has a great week.
Bye!!
Ixhuatan Oaxaca , Wooooo
Hello all,
So emailing here from Ixhuatan, The internet is very ,very slow. So on Tuesday I was informed that I would be working in two areas, so 2 houses, 2 areas, 2 branches, 2 cell phones, and twice the work.
My new companion is Elder Davalos, he is from
Sinaloa , and has been in the mission for 20 months. He was zone leader in San cristobal and has a lot of experience. I’m ready to learn a lot from him.
So the area Ixhuatan 2, is kind of big, there are a few paved roads and a lot of dirt ones. Everything is really spread out here. Since we are opening the area here in Ixhuatan we have gotten lost quite a few times. The house is really dirty and we sleep outside. It’s not as hot as I expected, about the same as Tapachula, but it is super humid!!
Our other area 20 de Noviembre is super small, about 5 streets by 4 streets, I already know it. All the streets are dirt and only about 800 people live there. A lot of the people are members, but almost all of them are inactive. The people are super nice, and almost all of them know us. Our house there is an Oven. Sooo hot in the night.
But I love it here, it’s so much better than the big city, it’s much more relaxed and not as noisy. But I know that this is where I am supposed to be and the lord has a purpose for me here and I will find it and fulfil it!!
so funny story this week, Wednesday we were teaching an investigator, so there were small chilies on the table , so I ate one, and it was really spicy, but not too bad, little did I know that I had chilly juice on my fingers, so I wiped the sweat off my face and my arm, About 20 minutes later my face started to burn and my arm too, and it was burning really good. Elder Davalos started to laugh because my face was so red! So the member that lived there gave me lotion, which just made it worse, and then she fetched from her garden some aloe Vera which helped a lot. But for 40 minutes my face and arm were on fire!! Lesson learned: Don’t wipe your face with chilly stained fingers.
So yesterday I accompanied a member to the church in Ixhuatan, because we have to be at both churches and they start at the same time! So five minutes before the meeting started, the branch president comes up to me and was like Elder Pug you are going to speak in the meeting today, I was like ok thank you. I quickly found like 4 scriptures and gathered my thoughts. I was pretty nervous. But it was a good thing that the 2 speakers before me took a ton of time, so my talk was only like 5 minutes long. But if it had to be longer I know that I could have trusted in the Lord and he would have guided me what to say.
Well I love you all, trust in the lord and he will provide a way!!
Love,
Elder Pugmire
So emailing here from Ixhuatan, The internet is very ,very slow. So on Tuesday I was informed that I would be working in two areas, so 2 houses, 2 areas, 2 branches, 2 cell phones, and twice the work.
My new companion is Elder Davalos, he is from
Sinaloa , and has been in the mission for 20 months. He was zone leader in San cristobal and has a lot of experience. I’m ready to learn a lot from him.
So the area Ixhuatan 2, is kind of big, there are a few paved roads and a lot of dirt ones. Everything is really spread out here. Since we are opening the area here in Ixhuatan we have gotten lost quite a few times. The house is really dirty and we sleep outside. It’s not as hot as I expected, about the same as Tapachula, but it is super humid!!
Our other area 20 de Noviembre is super small, about 5 streets by 4 streets, I already know it. All the streets are dirt and only about 800 people live there. A lot of the people are members, but almost all of them are inactive. The people are super nice, and almost all of them know us. Our house there is an Oven. Sooo hot in the night.
But I love it here, it’s so much better than the big city, it’s much more relaxed and not as noisy. But I know that this is where I am supposed to be and the lord has a purpose for me here and I will find it and fulfil it!!
so funny story this week, Wednesday we were teaching an investigator, so there were small chilies on the table , so I ate one, and it was really spicy, but not too bad, little did I know that I had chilly juice on my fingers, so I wiped the sweat off my face and my arm, About 20 minutes later my face started to burn and my arm too, and it was burning really good. Elder Davalos started to laugh because my face was so red! So the member that lived there gave me lotion, which just made it worse, and then she fetched from her garden some aloe Vera which helped a lot. But for 40 minutes my face and arm were on fire!! Lesson learned: Don’t wipe your face with chilly stained fingers.
So yesterday I accompanied a member to the church in Ixhuatan, because we have to be at both churches and they start at the same time! So five minutes before the meeting started, the branch president comes up to me and was like Elder Pug you are going to speak in the meeting today, I was like ok thank you. I quickly found like 4 scriptures and gathered my thoughts. I was pretty nervous. But it was a good thing that the 2 speakers before me took a ton of time, so my talk was only like 5 minutes long. But if it had to be longer I know that I could have trusted in the Lord and he would have guided me what to say.
Well I love you all, trust in the lord and he will provide a way!!
Love,
Elder Pugmire
Goodbye Tuxtla!!
 |
| Happy Independence Day from Tuxtla Gutierrez Mexico!!!!!!! |
 |
| Las hermanas in our ward |
 |
| the three munchkins Mary, Maria, y marie |
So I’m getting transferred again. I’m really going to miss this area I’m in. The members are so nice and its such a pretty area. But I’m really excited to go to my new area.
I’m headed to Chahuites Oaxaca, and my new companion is Elder Davalos, Finally I get a Mexican companion!!! So that’s exciting!
This week not too much happened, Tuesday we had a good day, Alex the joven joined us for the day and we had some fun with him.
Then the next three days I got sick with a stomach infection. So that wasn’t too fun.
Our investigator Gabi is really progressing, she really wants to get baptized, but her mom and dad are like "NO" so that’s frustrating. We showed her President Monson’s talk and she loved it.
So that’s good. I’m really going to miss this ward but i know that our Heavenly Father has a plan for me and I’m going to go with what he says!!
Love you all!!
Elder Pug
Hello everybody,
What an amazing week!!!!
On Monday I was really prudent with my shopping and only spent 60 pesos on food, that’s less than 4 dollars!!! So I really didn’t eat much breakfast in the mornings!
We had a family home evening at a family’s house but for nobody showed up, until like an hour later, so that was kind of disappointing. Turns out that nobody received our text about where it was going to be. So shucks!
Tuesday was really amazing!!
We had a multi-zone conference with President George and the assistants. The assistants had a really good section about how we should invite people to baptism and president George roasted all of us, he told us that we need to clean up our language and that our thoughts and words need to reflect who we represent, Jesus Christ!! But after that we had a few fun activities with the zone leaders and Sister Trainers. It was really good to see my trainer Elder Prows again, he’s an amazing elder and I look up to him a ton, he received a kind of disobedient companion last transfer but it looks like he’s straitened him out! The stake fed us some really good lunch!
So Tuesday night we went over to the zone leader’s house to sleep and the next morning we were going to go plant a ton of corn as service. SO we ordered a pizza, and it came and was missing the Mango sauce, HOW do you forget the mango sauce!!!!! So they came and brought us a new free one WITH mango sauce!! So twice the Pizza. The next morning we woke up and the service canceled on us, so yeah disappointing. But fun sleep over.
Friday we had an amazing lesson with our investigator Gabi, She Told us some amazing news, She Decided to get baptized!!! But that her parents still haven’t decided if they want her to get baptized. (we have not met her parents yet cause they are never home, and are both doctors and work from now to forever) So yeah she told us that she wants to get baptized this coming Saturday the 4th of July and we were like OK Sounds good!!!
Friday we also had a baptismal interview that we needed to do in suchiapa about 35 minutes away, so we went to a spot where all the conbies (bus van things that fit like 20 people in them and are really cheap) going to suchiapa pass, but ALL of the Conbies were full so i just start flagging down every single car that passed, and eventually about 10 minutes later, a car pulls over, and we hear "Elders!" and then in English he said "where you going" we told him where and he said hop in. So we hitch hiked to our baptismal interview and had a great conversation in English for 25 minutes. He lived in North Carolina for 9 years!
Saturday was Truly Phenomenal
We had an amazing baptismal activity were our zone baptized 9 people!!!
So the activity started at 5 but we had asked the investigators to be there at 410 so we could take pictures and so that they could change and that we could start on time. SO Chari scared the heck out of us by showing up 7 minutes before 5, but we got everything taken care of. It was a really beautiful event, all of the missionaries, sisters and elders were dressed in totally white, and our zone leader Elder Fackrell ordered all the elders White Paisly tiesa that Had our zone name embroidered in gold on the back!! So we looked good! But we had a little devotional before where the stake president spoke and also our bishop, we then proceeded with the baptisms, Elder Lambert baptized Chari and after she finished she was like "That’s all, oh that wasn’t bad at all" pretty funny, but she had a really good experience.
Love all of you
Elder Pugmire
 |
| Here’s Elder Lambert and I very high up |
 |
| And me riding a horse |
So this Week:
1. I bought a six pack imported root beer from Chedrauis Last Monday (they don’t have root beer here) we went back and I also made German pancakes for our neighbors, they really loved it, then I shared my root beer with them, and even though they lived in the US for years this was their first root beer, and they looooved it!! So that was fun.
2. I bought Popcorn flavor Blueberry and it was sweet and salty and pretty good.
3. I ate something bad on Monday and got really sick Tuesday. Tuesday I stayed home all day, and all I ate was a PB & J and 10 pretzels, everything just went through me, so that was fun. In the evening we went down to our neighbors and they let us watch Meet the Mormons in Spanish!
4. Friday Elder Garcia (our zone leader) accompanied us. He’s been in the mission 16 months so he knows a lot. He kind of planched me in the morning that I need to Study my Spanish with more efficiently. But we had a really good day of learning with him. He is always saying Elder Puuug, Elder Puuug, He thinks my name is just brilliant and that I should marry a pug, Kind of odd but whatever.
5. Friday night our ward had a talent show, and the performances were really funny. A bunch of our investigators showed up, and people we had never met so that was good.
6. Chari: We have had a difficult time teaching Chari, because sometimes she just doesn’t understand what we are saying, but finally this past week she accepted the invitation to be baptized this upcoming Saturday!!! We held the interview on Friday and everything went smoothly!! So we are super excited!!
7. Gabriela: She is just gold, pure gold. We found her 2 weeks ago and in that time she has come to church twice, come to three church activities and performed in our talent show!! Wow Just wow!
8. So the other day our neighbors the Pozo´s asked me to prepare a musical number with my ukulele for the former president of the mission. That made me kind of nervous cause I suck at ukulele and can hardly sing at the same time. But I practiced and practiced and got it down. The next day I preformed my one verse of Brightly Beams our Fathers Mercy. It went pretty well, I only messed up once.
This week I really liked the General Conference talk by Linda K Burton, here are three quotes,
“There is so much more of happiness to be had when we can rejoice in another’s successes and not just in our own.”14
"When we seek to “complete” rather than “compete,” it is so much easier to cheer each other on!"
“Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together.”
This talk is really amazing of how we can work better with our spouses, companions, or just friends I encourage all of you to read it, here is the link https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/well-ascend-together?lang=eng
I love you all and wish every Father and future father out there a Happy late father’s day!!!
Love,
Elder Pug
1. I bought a six pack imported root beer from Chedrauis Last Monday (they don’t have root beer here) we went back and I also made German pancakes for our neighbors, they really loved it, then I shared my root beer with them, and even though they lived in the US for years this was their first root beer, and they looooved it!! So that was fun.
2. I bought Popcorn flavor Blueberry and it was sweet and salty and pretty good.
3. I ate something bad on Monday and got really sick Tuesday. Tuesday I stayed home all day, and all I ate was a PB & J and 10 pretzels, everything just went through me, so that was fun. In the evening we went down to our neighbors and they let us watch Meet the Mormons in Spanish!
4. Friday Elder Garcia (our zone leader) accompanied us. He’s been in the mission 16 months so he knows a lot. He kind of planched me in the morning that I need to Study my Spanish with more efficiently. But we had a really good day of learning with him. He is always saying Elder Puuug, Elder Puuug, He thinks my name is just brilliant and that I should marry a pug, Kind of odd but whatever.
5. Friday night our ward had a talent show, and the performances were really funny. A bunch of our investigators showed up, and people we had never met so that was good.
6. Chari: We have had a difficult time teaching Chari, because sometimes she just doesn’t understand what we are saying, but finally this past week she accepted the invitation to be baptized this upcoming Saturday!!! We held the interview on Friday and everything went smoothly!! So we are super excited!!
7. Gabriela: She is just gold, pure gold. We found her 2 weeks ago and in that time she has come to church twice, come to three church activities and performed in our talent show!! Wow Just wow!
8. So the other day our neighbors the Pozo´s asked me to prepare a musical number with my ukulele for the former president of the mission. That made me kind of nervous cause I suck at ukulele and can hardly sing at the same time. But I practiced and practiced and got it down. The next day I preformed my one verse of Brightly Beams our Fathers Mercy. It went pretty well, I only messed up once.
This week I really liked the General Conference talk by Linda K Burton, here are three quotes,
“There is so much more of happiness to be had when we can rejoice in another’s successes and not just in our own.”14
"When we seek to “complete” rather than “compete,” it is so much easier to cheer each other on!"
“Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together.”
This talk is really amazing of how we can work better with our spouses, companions, or just friends I encourage all of you to read it, here is the link https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/well-ascend-together?lang=eng
I love you all and wish every Father and future father out there a Happy late father’s day!!!
Love,
Elder Pug
 |
| Elder Garcia |
 |
| Talent Show |
What a Wonderful Week
Buenas Todos,
Woah so much happened this week, its feels like it’s been a month since this past Monday.
Cool story of the week:
So Tuesday we get back from working and our neighbor downstairs Omar asks if we would like to split a 2 for 1 pizza deal with them, of course we took the offer. We went out for another 20 minutes to finish the day and come back and the pizza hadn’t come yet, Dominos here has a 30 minutes or free policy, so we waited another 20 minutes and it finally came, so Omar was very intent on getting a free pizza, so he went out there to get our free pizzas. Being a lawyer he went and used his negotiating skills, 5 minutes late he came back in with 2 pizzas and a huge smile on his face, free pizza is sooooo good!!!
It has been raining nearly every day here and overcast, which is amazingly better that the sun! But since it has rained there has been a transformation here in Tuxtla. It used to be slightly brown everywhere, but now everything is green, anywhere a plant can grow does grow, so yeah nice and green.
This week we finally received the Liahona from May, the edition of conference talks, so I have started to read a talk every day, it is modern scripture and is specifically applied to you and your family. So I encourage everybody to read the conference talks every day and study them thoroughly!!
So this past Monday we had a huge family home evening in our neighbors house, 17 members came and 3 investigators too!! It was a little cramped but it worked out. We talked about how missionary work is done by the members with the assistance from the missionaries and not the other way around.
President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: “So many of us look upon missionary work as simply tracting. Everyone who is familiar with this work knows there is a better way. That way is through the members of the Church. Whenever there is a member who introduces an investigator, there is an immediate support system. The member bears testimony of the truth of the work. He is anxious for the happiness of his investigator friend. He becomes excited as that friend makes progress in learning the gospel.
So heed the words of the Prophet and go out there and find people for the missionaries to teach, it could be a relative a friend anybody! The best converts are references from Members!!
So we ended the lesson by showing them the Church Video The Hope of Gods Light ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w49_1a9X0Q ) Thanks President Kasteler for that one!
Tuesday was a great day, we had the goal to contact 50 people in the street, which implies sharing the gospel with them. We crushed that goal with 70, time flys when you aren’t just walking around.
Wednesday was also pretty good, Hermana Itzel went with us for a couple of hours and then we ended the day by helping her start her family history. She had nothing, but after 15 minutes we ended up a few generations back!! Wooo!! It felt so good to help someone start their family history. I’ve been really excited about Family history lately! I found my first name last week for the temple... But it was a girl so I’m going to let someone else do that one. But I’m going to find a man’s name today so I can go to the temple and do his ordinances. Family history work is the same work as the missionaries!! So get out and start your Family history!!! Here is the Link https://familysearch.org/ Woooo
So I think it was Friday we were with Family Martinez, so we asked them if they had anybody we could share the gospel with, they said no, they had talked a little bit about their land lord, so I asked if we could visit him, They replied " well he’s a grump and is very catholic" so I said we would share a message of Peace and joy with him.
We went and found him reading his bible. He said he didn’t have very much time, we said ten minutes, Ok! We started to teach a little about the faith in Jesus. He knows a lot about that. I shared Ether 12:6 with him because he has had a lot of struggles in his life! He went to another room and brought us a very old copy of the Book of Mormon! Still had the pictures in the Scriptures, and he said a friend had given it to him a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... But it is cool to see how he could progress, we left happy.
Saturday a Hermano Charly left with us. He is super funny, has the best facial expressions and served a mission in Guatemala. We went to the House of 17 year old Gabriela. She is gold, the first time we were with her she asked if she could come to church with us!!! (never happens) So we taught the first lesson to her and she was like " yeah I’ve been searching for the truth for a while now" )but more properly because she is very intelligent) we were kind of stunned!! So she came to church with us a though it was really good!!
We had 6 investigators in church!! They slowly trickled in though. At about 40 minutes into sacrament a guy came in that we had contacted in the street, he’s a little crazy, but he walked into the room while we were listening to a speaker and said very loud "buenas Dias" a few members directed him to a seat, but I heard him tell them that he’s a member of our church, which i don’t think is true. In the next class he told us of how he had talked with god and had a story to share with us! Two weeks ago he told us we were in the United States, and we were like no this is Mexico. so yeah a little bit weird!
If I have learned anything on my mission so far, it would be about attitude. Your attitude changes everything. It all matters on your perspective, you can choose to be happy or sad, see the good in someone or choose to see the bad. Your personal happiness is up to you, how you choose to react changes everything!!
This morning I finished reading Jesus the Christ, I would like to bear my personal testimony, that I know that he is our savior, redeemer, Messiah. I know that through him everything is possible, that through him we can receive a remission of our sins. I know that he lives!
Love you all!!
Elder Pugmire
Woah so much happened this week, its feels like it’s been a month since this past Monday.
Cool story of the week:
So Tuesday we get back from working and our neighbor downstairs Omar asks if we would like to split a 2 for 1 pizza deal with them, of course we took the offer. We went out for another 20 minutes to finish the day and come back and the pizza hadn’t come yet, Dominos here has a 30 minutes or free policy, so we waited another 20 minutes and it finally came, so Omar was very intent on getting a free pizza, so he went out there to get our free pizzas. Being a lawyer he went and used his negotiating skills, 5 minutes late he came back in with 2 pizzas and a huge smile on his face, free pizza is sooooo good!!!
It has been raining nearly every day here and overcast, which is amazingly better that the sun! But since it has rained there has been a transformation here in Tuxtla. It used to be slightly brown everywhere, but now everything is green, anywhere a plant can grow does grow, so yeah nice and green.
This week we finally received the Liahona from May, the edition of conference talks, so I have started to read a talk every day, it is modern scripture and is specifically applied to you and your family. So I encourage everybody to read the conference talks every day and study them thoroughly!!
So this past Monday we had a huge family home evening in our neighbors house, 17 members came and 3 investigators too!! It was a little cramped but it worked out. We talked about how missionary work is done by the members with the assistance from the missionaries and not the other way around.
President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: “So many of us look upon missionary work as simply tracting. Everyone who is familiar with this work knows there is a better way. That way is through the members of the Church. Whenever there is a member who introduces an investigator, there is an immediate support system. The member bears testimony of the truth of the work. He is anxious for the happiness of his investigator friend. He becomes excited as that friend makes progress in learning the gospel.
So heed the words of the Prophet and go out there and find people for the missionaries to teach, it could be a relative a friend anybody! The best converts are references from Members!!
So we ended the lesson by showing them the Church Video The Hope of Gods Light ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w49_1a9X0Q ) Thanks President Kasteler for that one!
Tuesday was a great day, we had the goal to contact 50 people in the street, which implies sharing the gospel with them. We crushed that goal with 70, time flys when you aren’t just walking around.
Wednesday was also pretty good, Hermana Itzel went with us for a couple of hours and then we ended the day by helping her start her family history. She had nothing, but after 15 minutes we ended up a few generations back!! Wooo!! It felt so good to help someone start their family history. I’ve been really excited about Family history lately! I found my first name last week for the temple... But it was a girl so I’m going to let someone else do that one. But I’m going to find a man’s name today so I can go to the temple and do his ordinances. Family history work is the same work as the missionaries!! So get out and start your Family history!!! Here is the Link https://familysearch.org/ Woooo
So I think it was Friday we were with Family Martinez, so we asked them if they had anybody we could share the gospel with, they said no, they had talked a little bit about their land lord, so I asked if we could visit him, They replied " well he’s a grump and is very catholic" so I said we would share a message of Peace and joy with him.
We went and found him reading his bible. He said he didn’t have very much time, we said ten minutes, Ok! We started to teach a little about the faith in Jesus. He knows a lot about that. I shared Ether 12:6 with him because he has had a lot of struggles in his life! He went to another room and brought us a very old copy of the Book of Mormon! Still had the pictures in the Scriptures, and he said a friend had given it to him a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... But it is cool to see how he could progress, we left happy.
Saturday a Hermano Charly left with us. He is super funny, has the best facial expressions and served a mission in Guatemala. We went to the House of 17 year old Gabriela. She is gold, the first time we were with her she asked if she could come to church with us!!! (never happens) So we taught the first lesson to her and she was like " yeah I’ve been searching for the truth for a while now" )but more properly because she is very intelligent) we were kind of stunned!! So she came to church with us a though it was really good!!
We had 6 investigators in church!! They slowly trickled in though. At about 40 minutes into sacrament a guy came in that we had contacted in the street, he’s a little crazy, but he walked into the room while we were listening to a speaker and said very loud "buenas Dias" a few members directed him to a seat, but I heard him tell them that he’s a member of our church, which i don’t think is true. In the next class he told us of how he had talked with god and had a story to share with us! Two weeks ago he told us we were in the United States, and we were like no this is Mexico. so yeah a little bit weird!
If I have learned anything on my mission so far, it would be about attitude. Your attitude changes everything. It all matters on your perspective, you can choose to be happy or sad, see the good in someone or choose to see the bad. Your personal happiness is up to you, how you choose to react changes everything!!
This morning I finished reading Jesus the Christ, I would like to bear my personal testimony, that I know that he is our savior, redeemer, Messiah. I know that through him everything is possible, that through him we can receive a remission of our sins. I know that he lives!
Love you all!!
Elder Pugmire
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