Well hello hello hello otra vez

This week started off literally insane. After I wrote you all we went back to our house. In the evening before bed I went to go clean out the water tank. SURPRISE!!!! Out came 200 freaking cockroaches.. so that pretty much sums up my week. Fighting them and asking permission so that someone can enter our house and help us take care of the plague. Gross. If you can all just remember the movie the Mummy and when all 10000 of the bugs start leaving the pyramid and the guy gets eaten alive.... that's basically what happened to me. ok. yep. but it officially broke my companions fear of them. Now she kills them with me. Its a real bonding experience.

This week was super poderosa!! Seriously I love teaching with Hermana Ramírez! Sometimes I think we are just so on the same page that we are literally Reading each other's minds. Love it. First of all, had another lesson with our inactive member and it was awesome. We decided we were only going to talk about prayer. We had him share his testimony about prayer and as he really isn't praying now it got him thinking. The spirit was so strong and at the end of the lesson we invited him to pray again and for the first time in like 3 months he finally prayed at the end of the lesson again!!!! I was super happy.

Later, we found these 2 Young girls, whose mom is inactive and they were baptized in the catholic church.. don't really get how that happened... but it did. We have been teaching them this week and they have literally loved everything! They had awesome experiences praying and we showed them the DVD of the restoration, and I can't even tell you, the spirit was just there so strong. At the end one of the girls said the prayer and it went something like this "I really liked that video Heavenly Father, and I like how I feel and I just want this". Que poder (that power). We ended the lesson. The only thing is that if the mom doesn't go to church the girls may or may not have permission. So we are going to work with the mom, its just that she doesn't really want to listen... problems am I right??

Tapachula fun facts (just to copy Sister Lindsay)

Here every Young person is mamita or papita... Like no no mamita right now I don't have time for you.. (happens every day)

We drink every type of juice ever know to man, but coming up in February and march is mango season I'm pumped. And People here eat mangos "Green" like before they're ripe with salsa and salt. Tasty

Sorry That my updates are getting shorter and shorter, I think I'm going to start paying more attention to the big stuff that happens now..

pics! Hermana from the bakery gave us a rosca. It's famous for the day of the 3 kings the 6th of jan. Its when kids get there christmas presents. Inside of them there are 1 or 2 hidden baby Jesus. if you find the baby Jesus, you pay for the tamales! It was a miracle that she gave us one because they are super expensive.

Love the members here.

Our cockroaches. We sprayed alcohol and lit them on fire. We got a Little out of hand...

That's all folks!

Love you

Hermana McNaught

 

Well first thing to note this week is I'm officially dreaming in Spanish. But I'm pretty sure my brain makes up a bunch of words, because I had a dream about harry potter and I have no idea how you say lots of magical words in Spanish, but in my dream I knew them.. so there's that. Which is pretty crazy. And I also 90% of my dreams are teaching people about prophets or another subject of the gospel, Which is hilarious. My comp and I were talking about how when we don't have lives this is what happens.

But on to the good stuff! This week! We had a big zone fast and we were all going for the goal that we could somehow have 2 baptisms on Saturday. Right now we don't have investigators that are going to church, and since they have to go to church 5 times before they can be baptized, it seems as though that would be impossible! But we took a look at our old investigators and we found a family that went to church a bunch already but never got baptized. We went to go find them, found them, and have an appointment with them today! It should be interesting, and I'm pretty excited to see how it goes. 

Saturday we went to go eat with Hermana Maria, and as always she wanted to visit every single one of her neighbors with us. She is THE best member missionary in the whole world. 

New years eve was fun! We didn't do much crazy, but you can refer to my pics in a second to check out what went down, and the tamales chipilin con polloooo was super rico and I ate 3. Hope you all had a great New Years too!! Love you!

Hermana McNaught

Pics- Hermana Ramirez and I both complete months in the mission the same day because we entered the MTC on the 25th of the month! This day one of the ladies in the ward didn't have time to feed us, so she gave us money to go buy something, which never happens. And we had our own little party in the plaza for an hour.

Also new years eve a lady in the ward invited us to the hospital with her to give out tamales to the people waiting outside for their loved ones. Here new years is more of a family day which is pretty cool. Pretty much every holiday here is  a family day, not a day to leave with your friends. So it was fun to go teach or share small messages with the people who were a little sad to be without someone on a family holiday. 

Also instead of kissing on midnight they stuff 12 grapes in their mouths as they count down the seconds and make a wish on every one! We didn't have grapes so we just stuffed our mouths with sweet tarts. Fun times.

My life is just getting better and better, seriously!!! Missionary work is all sorts of crazy, but we are working hard to find people and keep track of them at the same time! I think it would be safe to say this week was my favorite in all my mission! We had TONS of activities. To start of we had a ward christmas dinner, which was really more like a party. And our new investigators showed up!!! It was awesome! think they really liked the activity! J was there too, and we are prepping him for baptism and he is super gung ho, but he needs interviews with president and everything. It was fun to watch all the people in the ward that I have really come to love sing and dance and show there talents in the ward Christmas dinner. I was just thinking about how much I seriously love this ward.

On Saturday we had another awesome activity with president George! J was supposed to have his interview with president George at that time, but he didn't show up. Later we found him and asked him what happened, and he said he got there 15 minutes late because the only way possible to get there was on foot all the way from the center of tapachula and he walked the whole way! So he missed his interview and now President George is back in Tuxtla. So we are just waiting the next possible time. But J is excited for baptism. 

AND!!!!!! probably the best Christmas present of my whole life. V was able to have his interview with president on Saturday and told us he would tell us what day he could have his baptism this week. Well, Sunday morning we got a call from him and he said that he wanted to get baptized in like 3 hours! SOOO we may have ditched out on relief society to make things look nice. It was a little crazy, but awesome. And Alejandra, his daughter, is SUPER happy. In Sunday School Gospel Principles, the missionaries always end up teaching the class because our ward mission leader is menos activo.. which is not awesome. But the class was really good. Only JA and V were there so we talked about baptism. I might have cried a little out of super joy that I feel for V. But I felt pretty good because A and V were crying too.. V told me that he feels like we're his daughters and he is just super happy for the angels that showed up at his door to soften his heart. Obviously we didn't do anything, but it feels really good to feel like you are doing your job as a missionary. And we are going to eat dinner at his house on Christmas as a district!!!!! We had to get all kinds of permission to do it, but yeah!! I'm way excited. Christmas is going to be great. Can't wait to see your beautiful faces.

Also, spiritual thought for you all because I just finished the book of mormon!! You should read it. There is just no other way to put it. I've got a pretty firm testimony that if we are reading the book, we won't go astray! I love love love how when Mormon is writing his son and the end of the book he talks a ton about love and charity. If we are living worthy of the Spirit, the spirit can give us these gifts of love and charity that we seek. We just have to be open to it and clean ourselves out and the Spirit really can do the rest. I love this gospel and my mission. Wow can NOT wait for Wednesday!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

LOVE

Hermana McNaught

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, because there is lots to be grateful for! This week went by REAL quick, just like all the other weeks.

Monday: We had family home evening with a Family! His daughter was there too, and it was the first time she heard her Father had accepted a baptism date. She was so excited!! She lives with her mom, so she didn't know. But it is so great, because she is super excited to have her dad come to church with her. Right now she is the only member of her family.

Wednesday: We had intercambios! This time I was with Hermana Taylor, one of our sister training leaders. She is 6ft 2" and is from Utah! My first day in the field with a gringa and let me tell ya it was so much fun! In the night we even spoke in English which was a nice difference. Also in the night we found another monster spider and it was pretty funny to here English phrases like "holy flip" instead of a la mecha as we took 30 minutes to kill the stinking thing. 

But during intercambios, The most amazing thing was that nearing the end of the day, we were in a lesson with 2 female investigators. We planned on just having a short lesson because we only had an hour until we had a family home evening at Hermano Abadia's house (picture from last week.. same family) and we had to teach another investigator before the Family home evening. But the first investigator confided a lot of stuff with us and had a lot to say, so we were at her house for the full hour! I was starting to get a little panicky (on the inside, outside super calm obviously) because I really didn't know what we were going to do. We had already called the other investigator to tell him we were going to be late during the day, and I didn't want to call again and cancel.. BUT then at the end of the lesson hermano abadia sent me a message saying that he wanted to invite the other investigator to his Family home evening! Wow, the lord knows what we need and will not leave us without help!

On Friday we helped hermana Daisy (who was at church AGAIN this week!!!) an inactive member of many years set up her Christmas stuff. Her house is tiny and the front looks totally decked out. Its great. 

On Sunday we had an activity for the stake about missionary work! It was to help other youth get excited to leave, and I felt like I was in the MTC again. It really is exciting this whole missionary work thing!

Also we have been teaching this 20 year old girl who is a little rebellious, but wants to change her ways. We've been helping her quit smoking and partying and stuff. Saturday night she went to a fiesta and kind of fell through.. but on Sunday when we visited she was like "yeah I'm done partying,I don't want to be like this anymore. It was really great. She is going to be amazing!

And that is pretty much my week! Hope everyone has a great week!

Asi es, in the mission you just do weird stuff. Here's the stats:

1 tarantula killed (I thought I would start off big for you mom) The garbage collector came with his machete to cut our lawn (yep that's real life here) and he said that we've got rats and lots of animals in our backyard!!! yay!! So later that day we came home to a lovely little surprise. Thank goodness for bug spray not even kidding.

10000 cockroaches killed (maybe exaggerating)

1 scared out of her mind companion (hermana Avendaño)

35 tortillas eaten (probably not exaggerating)

1 interview with president George

17 lessons taught

2 amazing investigators rolling

1 french guy I found in the grocery store (the most diversity I've seen here) turns out he's atheist... bummer

7 miracles (at the very least)

There you have it! This week was pretty good!

So V! I said that we were going to invite him again to baptism and guess what he said...yes!  We shared Moroni 10 with him and he told us he was waiting for a sign from God that all of this was the truth. After we shared the scripture I told him that the peace we feel from the spirit is our sign. And then he said "I'm so happy that you told me, because I have felt so peaceful this week, and I didn't understand why. Yes I will be baptized." It was like one of those mormon messages you see where everything is literally perfect and it felt so good! the spirit is real and really can testify that the truth is the truth! He is already to go, just needs to quit smoking. But that's easy right?

Also J (20 years old) was at church this week too. He lives alone in Hermana Oralia's restaurant type thing. It was perfect because we went to pick him up for church and we caught him with alcohol in hand ready to drink, and he put it down, and came to church instead! yay! He's pretty golden. Him and V have changed so much from the first lessons! V was super catholic and told us he already had is saints and everything. J was pretty guarded, but now we are his best friends! It is so great to be a missionary. Sometimes I feel more like a counselor, but its a privilege to be here! 

I'm just nearing the end of my book of Mormon, and I know every missionary says it, but holy cow that book is good!! We had a lesson with an inactive family, L and I and L. Her husband J has cancer, and they started going to a different church that is giving them more service than us. I have never felt so sad in a lesson. Literally crying, I bore my testimony of Joseph Smith. Probably the most dramatic I'll ever be in my life, but I felt so sad!! People who have the blessings of the temple and know what is true, but then say it doesn't matter where you go to church have forgotten about the restoration. The book of mormon is the only way we can keep up our testimonies of the gospel. It's easy to doubt, but if we continually gain more faith, we will always be okay. So read your Book of Mormon. If its true, than this whole gospel is true. its "The Keystone of our religion". I love this gospel and I love being a missionary!!! 

Love

Hermana McNaught

November 17th

Well hey

This week was so great! The first couple weeks of the transfer were really difficult. Learning to lead out the area and introducing my new comp to everything and learning to live with someone different again was a lot to handle all at once. During these weeks we were having a hard time teaching lots of people and it was just a little frustrating. But this week in general was a miracle. Our new District Leader Elder L always asks what was our miracle of the day in our daily reports, so I've become fine tuned to saying that everything awesome is a miracle. But seriously! Monday was kick started with lots of teaching and finding. We found three new investigators on a Pday! And the whole week was like that. Its not that the numbers matter, but I felt like we were doing our job, inviting everyone to come to Christ and literally invited SO MANY PEOPLE to be baptized. Its pretty hilarious how that has become part of my normal day. Just inviting people to come church and be baptized and its so  great. 

We are now teaching A's dad (14 years old in young woman's) who isn't a member. He was at church on Sunday and knows a lot already. We are going to invite him today to be baptized next Saturday, so I will let you know what happens! We are also working a lot with a family we found last Sunday. We have been meeting with a wonderful family, and they are progressing. Tonight we have a family home evening with them and family and we are having lasagna. If there is one theme from this transfer its families! We have been finding and teaching a lot of people where there is a member in the family and someone is interested! Its the best kind of work! 

By the end of the week we had met EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR GOALS!!! We were going to have our names in the monthly periodical whooo... But what happened is that we only had 3 investigators show up to church and we needed 4. UGH. The worst is that during the meetings a contact we made on the street was calling us to try to ask what time church was because he wanted to come! But overall it was a super great week! I've got some pics but these computers are bad, so I'll send them next week.

Fun fact. Taught a lesson last night to a man who is a Mexican singer, famous and also announces for fighting like in nacho libre. If you want to know what he looks like you can look up any picture of these announcers.. seriously the most typical of typical. It was awesome. He was showing us his photos from the fights and I just could not stop smiling because it was so funny! The people actually do what they show in nacho libre. Down to the tricycles that they ride around in the streets. And Corn with cheese and mayonnaise (which is super delicious). Mexico's great. 

Love you all! 

Hermana McNaught

Hola amigos, familia, and fan club

Just kidding. Well we didn't teach a ton this week, but let me tell you, I witnessed some of the craziest miracles of my life!! not even kidding. this new companion of mine is something else. To start off we had this super good day and we went to go ask hermana D if she could come with us to teach somebody. she couldn't, so I thought, "hey lets go check if hermana B wants to come" so we did. And we showed up and it was like no other time I had ever been at hermana B's house. She is always smiling and joking but this time didnt say anything until she got to the gate. It turns out we showed up at exactly the right moment and her husband was drunk and wanted to fight her son... so she was crying and we ended up just singing some hymns until the husband actually came and started listening to our message too. by the time we left the husband had apologized for everything and was normal again. Hermana D had just mentioned B's name and that's why we went to her house. It was really weird because she wasn't in our plans for the day or anything. No doubt the spirit seriously led us there. Wow.

One more really cool thing, we started working more in this one street me and hermana canalizo were rarely around. And we found some super special stuff!! There are 2 different families there where someone was baptized and went inactive and their families are not members. Both of this families we just contacted on the street. Alberto and his wife are superstars for baptism. Alberto is a member but his wife accepted a date for baptism in our 2 minute contact in the street and was super pumped. She has been trying to get him to go to a church for quite some time now, and this is exactly what they needed. They also have 2 kids of 10 and 8 years. I am pretty sure we're going to have another family baptism by the time I leave tapachula. Which is so exciting.

Sunday was good, we didn't have any investigators at church really, but david and javier were there so I feel good about that! There's not a ton to note this week. Oh, just to make everyone's day, I think I had my 3rd most embarrassing moment yesterday. We were on the colectivo (bus) and they are always super bumpy and rough but this time the driver stopped extra hard and I just tipped right on over which caused 4 different men on my sides to try to help me and all of them started yelling at the driver to not be dumb which just made me feel more uncomfortable and I think it panicked my comp a little because she couldn't stop talking about it. People are good. But if you could just imagine that and laugh a little for me it would make me feel better.

Hope everyone's week is super great!

Love
Hermana McNaught

GUESS WHAT. We baptized a couple this week!!!!!! Yup, Aurora and Jose got married on Tuesday because the government was helping out this month with free weddings. When hermana Canalizo mentioned this to them they jumped right on it and then they got baptized the following Saturday! They have been waiting 6 years to get married, they just don't have enough money. It was literally the best part of my mission thus far. This family doesn't have enough money to pay for their food let alone pay to get to church, but they made it to their baptism and to their confirmation yesterday. They are so grateful to us, which is pretty funny, because we literally did nothing because they already knew everything there is to know about the missionary discussions. But their baptism was awesome. We made a big sign and while they were changing their clothes everyone went back and signed it for them and most of the ward members already know who they are because they have known the gospel for so long, so it was really special! and our district leader (now Elder Leon from Mexico) And Elder Ipabary (from Bolivia, the same) bought Jose 3 ties and me and my comp went and got them a cake to celebrate their wedding slash baptism, which was pretty hilarious, because we didn't have enough money left for this month to buy a really nice one.. so it was a bunt cake and a little Halloween themed.. but we did what we could!  I felt like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when they try to fix the bunt cake by putting a flower in the middle. We ended up putting a big bow on top so that the Halloween was less noticeable.. It was so awesome though, when we presented the gifts Aurora started crying again and they were literally just soooo happy. I love this. And they invited me in 1 year to be at their sealing!!!

And I'm sure everyone is just dying to here about my new companion am I right? Her name is Hermana Avendaño, which took me about a year to be able to pronounce, but I've got it now... she mostly just calls me hermana Mick, which is fine by me. She is a convert of 3 years, and is 22 years old. She's super clean which I really like, but she isn't putting up as easily with my American breakfasts.. which is unfortunate. But its not difficult. At first she reminded me SO MUCH of Raven! And sometimes still reminds me a crazy amount of her. She's this tiny little thing. She has back problems and its really hard for her to walk a lot, this week we have 3 doctors appointments for her and she'll be in more pain with them. And for this week have been talking a lot with President George and at first he told me she was probably going to get transferred back to Tuxtla and I was going to get a new comp. But I didn't want that. Its different with her, but its a good different! I'm going to learn a lot. And it turns out she actually has two transfers left, so I might be here only for one more transfer. feel really bad for her, but she has literally been such a trooper! We walk A TON in this area and its literally huge. They didn't send elders for our second area, but the zone leaders keep asking about the area which means that they next transfer more than likely yes. Not going to lie I've gotten us lost about 5 times which is only bad because we are walking more than we should and my comp cant do that... but we always find a way, its like we have the spirit or something. Not a lot to note today, but Just so everyone knows, nothing crazy happens the day of the dead. I was disappointed so I'm sure y'all are devastated. Love you all keep on keepin on

Love

Hermana McNaught