28 de marzo

hello

another week has passed and another pday goes by at the blink of my eye. today we went to this massive house that has kinda like a little rec center. we just chilled and played pool and ping pong and soccer. they are members from the stake that invited us over. it was pretty fun i guess, i had a good time beating everyone in pool. no one knew how to play.

we saw some things this week that were a little crazy. on tuesday we went to a members house to have fhe with them because its the family where everyone except 2 daughters and their husbands are members. it was at 7:30 but we went at 7 and they werent there yet so we just left. we went walking around and i said lets go talk to Augustin. he was an investigator that said he didnt wanna listen anymore but he still likes us a lot. we were almost to his house when there was a guy, his son Luis standing outside his lil house next door. we were just walking by him and he says, talk to me. we were like huh? then he said this is all the same house im augustins son luis. come in! we comp and i looked at each other and we were like ¡NO MANCHES! (which means no stains, but used as like no way or omg). we talked to him and he is progressing good! he has a calendar with the pope on it, but he practices no religion! so thats good. it wasnt anything big, but i know the spirit gave me revelation to go to that house. after we went to the fhe with the family and it was great. talked about the plan of salvation and there was only one sister and her husband there, but the spirit was there and he knows what he has to do to go to the celestial kingdom. we gotta go meet with them soon.

the other day we were walking from a lil house we contacted to santiago which was like 20 minutes away. this dude on a bike zoomed by and idk what happened exactly but i think he wanted to pass a truck illegally of course and i think at the same time the truck was dodging a pot hole. they didnt hit eachother, but the dude on the bike swerved left and it was kinda far away from us at this point but i saw the guy and his bike just all the sudden fly up in the air! once we finally caught up they were arguing and we were like do you need help do you need a phone and they were like no. ha but the guy was fine and walking. it was really crazy to see tho. later that day i saw something that kinda made me sad. we were talking to a lady and around the corner came a little dog followed by like 4 big dogs. one big dog caught up to it and grabbed it by the neck and swung it around then we ran over an the big dogs ran away but the lil dog was squealing and bleeding out its neck. it was really sad to see and if we were like 5 seconds earlier we could have stopped the big dogs because all the dogs in the street are scared of people! but hey one less dog in mexico right Cami?

on friday we finished with tianguis and as we were walking out a guy threw a pepper at me. i said gracias.

on saturday after a missionary activity for investigators we went to get hamburgers as usual and one of the hermanas that works at the stand was playing music from her phone first it was high school musical, in spanish! i was like wow i know this song....no manches its high schoool musical haha. then i heard Otherside from red hot chili peppers and Beautiful by james blunt.

yesterday a drunk guy hugged my companion and in church there was another drunk guy that was like talking really loud and a kid that kept kicking a chair in front of him and his mom told him to stop and he wouldnt stop so i got behind him and pulled his chair and he was kicking air. ha but then he went to the floor and did it more and i was like dude what are you doing. stop. long story short he never stopped and his mom didnt know how to discpline him. he was like 9. this was in the branch we have in tepecoculco. the people there are loco.

well time is kinda going fast i guess, faster than before. my comp is good. other day i bought him a snickers, yesterday i gave him some bball shorts that were a little small for me. he didnt say thanks, he said bueno. i think thats just how they are in argentina...

the mission is beautiful. and so are the blessings that we receive. they are all around us. read and pray everyday please

love elder inglish

1 the volcano smokin a lil

2 elder nuñez and i in tianguis teaching

3 i was doing intercambios with elder ferlin and we saw this tiny lil creepy crevise/calle

4 me and my new hat i think made out of bunny? its real nice.

5 preaching on a bike

21 de marzo

hola

elder inglish here again.

today this pday was pretty good. nothing too crazy happened. at like 9.30 we went to Amecameca which is just outside the city i am in and its a little bigger and we went to the center kinda where there is like stuff to buy and what not. its just like a market thing. pretty sweet. after that we were back in ozumba in my area and we went to La Bodega which is just a really small walmart. its a branch of walmart actually. but i heard some awesome songs! backstreet boys!! larger than life and right after followed the call. it was really funny cause elder ferlin and i started laughing so hard and singing. after we heard some green day haa... but ya my comp bought some toothpaste. i bought some as well. also bought some plain yogurt and oats and syrup! i dont know why it just sounded like a really good breakfast item! random i know. then we ate lunch at the bishops house and now are here at the ciber cafe. this day goes by sooooo fast... well so do other days too.

so tuesday we were in D.F. again for the last time for my companion and the dentist. finally. then wednesday we were in the poorest and farthest south part of the entire mission in our area called Tlalamac. and we found a lot more people to teach there. theres a lot of work but little members so its really big and hard to work there. especially since its far from where we live in ozumba. but we finally were able to meet with Alfredo again. and he committed to a baptismal date. which is awesome! so we need to work with that.

thursday we did intercambios (trade-offs) with the zone leaders and i was with elder aguilar in my area and my comp was with elder mendoza. it was good we went to santiago in my area and we found some more people to teach. elder aguilar gave his watch to a drunk guy named Raphael. we also went to a recent converts house and we decided to sing a hymn. he flipped thru his book and i flipped thru mine. he asked me what we should sing and the song that came to my mind was Lead Kindly Light or in spanish Divina Luz (which is like my fave) then he was like do you know 48? and i was like whoa i think thats Divina luz. it was. haha it was cool we sang and it definitely brought the spirit. then friday we had tianguis and after that i was with elder nuñez cause we had to do more intercambios cause my comp is district leader. but the days of tianguis no one is in their house! so we found none of our references... :(

saturday, once again, intercambios! and i think were gonna do more too!! but ya saturday i was with elder jimenez and we went to his area and my comp with elder lopez in another part of their area because they had a lot of work and a lot of appointments. after that there was a missionary activity for them where investigators and members go to the chapel and watch a church movie. we watched The Testaments. after we had amazing hamburgers! mmmm.... then sunday we had church which is always great. i have no reason why but before my mission i never went to church looking to feel the spirit. probably since i never paid attn. but since i have been a missionary i feel it every time! its sad to think that i was too stupid and ignorant and immature before the mission and ignored the spirit in church. now i love church. after priesthood there was an old guy that was out first and waiting for another old guy and the first old guy tried to trip the other old guy but just stepped on his foot. then the second old guy did it back to them and idk why im telling you this but it was really funny. almost all the other members saw it and laughed at them too. nothing too crazy has happened this week.

i am still learning a lot and sometimes i am just lost. its a lot harder to learn things in spanish than in english. like if i was in the united states i would know how to do like everything by now... but i have patience and im glad to be here in mexico! so its all good. :)

read and pray everday, plz.

love elder inglish

pictures: sorry they arent very good....

1. elder nuñez and my compa elder moyano.


2. elder ferlin and i sitting next to a borracho.


3. in ameca, theres a statue of a lion crushing a snake. cool.


4. the volcano: popocatepel, or something like that...

14 de marzo

hola,

¿como están mis amigos y familia?

im good here in mexico. sorry if this is boring, i feel sick. massive headache and stomach ache. but its all good.

so this week wasnt crazy or anything. nothing amazing happened. except for the fact that im a missionary in mexico and for the most part i really enjoy it.

this past week there is some thing going on where people walk somewhere for like a week to show devotion to the virgin mary or something like that. the catholics of course. and EVERYONE here is catholic. and people sleep in the back of like trucks and stuff. so ya we were walking to the church one day to use the baño and we see a really old lady hop out of the truck and go behind it and for some reason she was pulling up her dress and so we were like, whooooooaaaaaaaa.... haha then she squatted and starting peein in the middle of the street in front of everyone! it was really really weird and awkward haha.

my companion took the toilet off the other day because it was sucking again. we had a plumber come and he took it off and found a bunch of pesos and a marker in like the tube where the "stuff" goes and it was a lot better. but ya my comp took it off again and started like shaking it and stuff and a big rubber bouncy ball bounced out! haha it was really funny and ya i wanted to share that for some random reason....

i heard some amazing songs this week. only 2. in the tianguis. that i can remember. first: Let It Be by John Lennon. oh it was so awesome. i like, felt the spirit. haha its an amazing song. and it reminded me to just, well, let it be! also heard Loca by Shakira. one of my faves fo sho. haha. reminded me to not be loco.

oh ya this past tuesday was changes. but i stayed here with my same companion obviously. and so did elder Ferlin my friend from utah. he got a new companion, elder nuñez, and there are 2 other new elders, elder Lopez and elder Jimenez. elder jimenez is white too. super nice. oh and my companion became district leader. so he has a phone. he plays snake on it a lot. whatevs...

so i have this lil card called My Missionary Commission that i always carry with me. its way sweet and powerful. this is what it says:

I AM CALLED OF GOD. MY AUTHORITY IS ABOVE THAT THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. BY REVELATION I HAVE BEEN SELECTED AS A PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. HE IS MY MASTER AND HAS CHOSEN ME TO REPRESENT HIM. TO STAND IN HIS PLACE, TO SAY AND DO WHAT HE HIMSELF WOULD SAY AND DO IF HE PERSONALLY WERE MINISTERING TO THE VERY PEOPLE TO WHOM HE HAS SENT ME. MY VOICE IS HIS VOICE, AND MY ACTS ARE HIS ACTS; MY WORDS ARE HIS WORDS AND MY DOCTRINE IS HIS DOCTRINE. MY COMMISSION IS TO DO WHAT HE WANTS DONE. TO SAY WHAT HE WANTS SAID. TO BE A LIVING MODERN WITNESS IN WORD AND DEED OF THE DIVINITY OF HIS GREAT AND MARVELOUS LATTER-DAY WORK.

-ELDER BRUCE R. MCCONKIE

pretty sweet ehh? welp gotta go!

read and pray erry day!

elder alexander m inglish

photos:

1. my sweet sombrero


2. the new district


3. my yummy burger

7 de marzo

well this week was amazing. my first baptism was saturday! a husband and wife. Florentino and Teresa. actually her name is Augustina, but she doesnt like the name augustina so she goes by Teresa. haha she doesnt really talk that much. but shes way nice. they are a great family. saturday was the baptism and sunday was the confirmations and also blessings of the 3 kids. the bishopric and like 2 other hermanos did them all. i was happy because my spanish isnt all that good yet. but the spirit guides anyways so i would have said what was supposed to be said. daniel is the oldest, like 6. then rubi like 3 or 4. then a baby thats 8 months, Araceli. last night we watched the restoration movie cause Florentino wanted to know more about José Smith. hes really eager to learn more. its a sweet movie. we had english subtitles for me. after that we watched the testaments. which is kinda silly, but also really good. theres like a love story in the middle of it. and john the baptist looks like a caveman from geico commercials. it was really funny when i saw it.

so throughout the days we walk around a lot and talk to people and set appointments with them. with the references we get from tianguis we give them the video Finding Faith in Christ. its a sweet one. and its free so people love that. we have like about 6 investigators at the moment. which i think isnt that much, but we are getting more and more. and this isnt including florentino and teresa. these 6 are like more regulars but we have seen others that we need to go back to. they are all pretty good. Maria Magdalena and her husband i havent taught yet because we had changes both times my comp taught them. but he says they are good. and the last time we went over there they were just starting the movie we gave them. it was cool i was like hmmmm coincidencia! hahaha. then theres alfredo who we havent been able to talk to in like 2 weeks cause he wasnt there one time and he lives far and we have been figuring out the baptism stuff. but well find him this week. cause he wants to be baptised. hes really poor. lives with like the mom the dad and 2 sisters. and they are all super old. then theres Julieta who we only taught twice so far but her sister is a member. julieta is really smart and i think a high school teacher... and we gave her a book of mormon and she was like cool i love to read. then when we said we wanna leave with a prayer she was like oh ill pray. and we were like awesome! haha she kinda knows some stuff from her sister and her sister talks to her a lot about the gospel i guess so she is a good investigator! and we have Tomás. whos really old. and he says hes gonna die soon. haha hes funny. so i think we just need to make it important to him that since hes dying soon he needs to make sure hes in the right church and has the right baptism. because unless your born of the water and of the spirit, you cant live in heavenly fathers kingdom. so ya. thats kinda all that i can think of. we have given a lot of videos out to really humble people that wanna learn more. here in my area theres a lot of catholics. really strong ones. but i think a lot of them just are catholic because its tradition in their family. so they think its true. but they dont really know a lot about their church. so we need to find them and give them something real to believe.

the past week, monday night to wednesday afternoon we were in Distrito Federal where the mission offices are. like 3 hours from my area. i had to lengthen my visa for a year. so i got to see all the other elders from my generation. it was great seeing elder pickett, my comp from mtc, and elder ericksen. we took pics on the swing set at the presidents house. theyre darling. ha. we also ate pizza and spaghetti at the president house and he talked to us for a long time. hes crazy smart and knows A LOT!!! he talked about Obinidi and other ways of teaching that are really effective. it was way sweet. we sang army of helaman in ENGLISH! loved that too. also have the words in spanish tho.. so for like 3 days we didnt really do much. i like the area in DF. it looks like LA or something. and the people there look different because they arent as poor there as they are here. and theres like mcdonalds and malls and stuff! crazy, doesnt seem like mexico. but i like my area. its dirty. on our way back from DF we took metros and and a big bus that drives to my area in volcanes. the bus was actually really nice. the entire bus port was. it looked like an airport, had terminals and everything! but the metro was jam packed full of people. not one more person could have fit if they tried. haha i was the biggest one on the entire thing and i had my hands touching the ceiling and thats how i was holding on. it was so funny to me i was like laughing with my comp and people looked at us like we were weird or something. im even laughing right now cause im thinking about it. hahahaha. but it is totally normal to them. once the doors open people are like shoving and fighting to get in and sometimes people arent able to get in and also people arent able to get off. cause they get trapped. oh it was fun. really hot. but i enjoyed it. still laughing while typing this.... jajajajajajaja. so this week i heard, dont stop believin - glee version, obvi. Endless Love was blasting in the streets. thats the song from Happy Gilmore when they are ice skating. it was amazing. loved it. also heard Eye of the Tiger! then last night i heard More Than Words by extreme in a cumbvi. pretty sweet.

well having baptisms this week definitely pumped me up. i wanna have more! i know exactly what to do and i know the secrets, whats holding me back is the spanish. its not horrible, and i can teach stuff, and my comp is a good teacher, i just know that when i am fluent im gonna slay it here in mexico. ill probably get athletes foot for being in the waters of baptism so much! hahaha oh btw, the water in the font was sick. it was green. couldnt see the bottom and it was only like 4-5 feet deep. but it was only at like my waste... well i love the mission. and i love you.

read and pray everyday

love,
elder inglish

photos:

1. the lopez family and my first baptism.


2. me and my compa before the baptisms


3. elder pickett, elder ericksen, elder inglish from mtc


4. president chavez, me, uhhh....wife of president chavez??

28 de febrero

¡¿como estan my loved ones?!

this week has been pretty good. every day i write something down in my handy dandy notebook that i can put in my emails. i decided im gonna put all the american songs i hear in the email too. i love hearing the american songs. its just really funny to me idk why! this week i heard a great one, I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. haha it was great. some store had it on repeat and it played like 10 times in a row. we were sitten outside the store waiting for an hermano to pick us up. also heard HEY, SOUL SISTER, TEENAGE DREAM (my fav), CRAZY IN LOVE, and BABY by Justin Beiber!

theres a kinda big area by ours where there is a reformed church (RLDS) and a lot of its members live around it. and the streets that the church is on are LEHI and JOSÉ SMITH (josé smith is joseph smith). haha crazy or what?!?! they prob think they are really cool or something.... whatevs. LDS is the true church. we all know that.

so stuff that happened this week... umm... a really old guy got super mad at me and my comp because we kicked a can and it was not even that close to hitting him, but he flipped and cussed at us. also saw a drunk guy walking at night and started talking to a wall and then punched it. haha. oh i ate a really hot pepper at a members house. it was one where parts of it are really hot and others not at all. i ate a really hot part. woof. it was crazy hot. we put oranges, watermelon, honey, all sorts of stuff in our mouths!! pretty crazy. ummm my comp likes to sing mmm....bop by hanson. really random. we walk so much here! but i honestly dont get that tired! i picture an angel just constantly pushing me along from behind. i couldnt walk this much before the mission thats fo sho... i have the biggest area in the mission i think... i saw a lady dressing a dummy too. it was at her store. it was really awkward.

investigators: we had 2 baptisms for this sunday Florentino and teresa but there was no water so they will be this saturday i believe. we have other investigators like maria magdalena and her fam and tomas a really old man and others but i dont have time to get my agenda out and look. we have a lot tho...

mision life is good and it will only get better i know that for a fact. but i gotta go! love you all. read and pray erry day!!

love Elder Al

21 de febrero

well this week has been good and a little slow. actually, its like both slow and fast. idk. i cant explain it. time is weird in the mission.

so good news, already have one baptism! he was baptized before we even got here and so for some reason the bishop said it counts as a baptism for us. haha and 2 on the 26th. this saturday. oh ya already told you all that.. oh well! maybe im just that excited! and nervous..

so this week i have been kinda sick, but i still worked. and its getting better. it was like sore throat, stuffy nose, head ache, that yucky stuff.

so the investigator we had, augustin, went kinda crazy. the first 3 visits were great, but the last, yesterday, was weird. well his sister just died yesterday (everyone in his fam is old) and his wife has been in D.F. for a while now cause her sister is sick and so he is kinda alone i guess. but yesterday he said he didnt wanna listen to us anymore and then he asked weird questions like why did jesus have long hair and why was he wearing a red robe and ya just random and weird. so we wont talk to him anymore. we will visit him in like 2 weeks or so just to talk probably.

yesterday we gave 2 blessings! i did the oil obviously because i dont know enough spanish yet to give a blessing. and it would be extremely hard. but ya it was for a really old guy that came to church and in class he just felt like super week and so ya we gave him one. and later in the day he climbed up to the house of his family who we ate with and he felt great he said! sweet. then we gave another one to a really old lady. i think his sister. same kinda thing. then we taught the youngest brother of the family and he wants to get baptized. if you teach baptism first and the importance of it, people accept that, then the rest of the info later like restoration, plan of salvation, etc. so its great. we ate torrilas and chicken and canned sardines. they were really poor.

there is also another investigator that looks like wolverine. hilarious.

well dont have anymore time so i gotta go but im here and doing the work of the lord. do the same.

read and pray,

elder inglish

attached pics:

1. drinking coconut milk during the tianguis

2. member family. last night they gave me a bunch of medicine. they are awesome. the kids too.

14 de febrero

well my first week has been pretty crazy. me and my padre (comp, padre because he has been in mexico longer and he is my first companion, but i actually have more time in the mission all together than him because of me being in the mtc. haha) are doin work. 2 baptism dates for the 26 i think of this month. a husband and a wife. Florentino y Teresa. they are really good people. i had only taught them once so they were already prepared kinda but the lesson i was at was when we gave them a date. we are all excited. we also have some other investigators, but we nee to find more. almost all of them are references from the ward or that other missionaries get or that we meet and talk to in the Tianguis or Mercado (market where people sell stuff). we have our own little booth and play a church movie and give out pass-along cards or folletos (pamphlets about the restoration, gospel, etc.). i like it its way sweet and fun. after we walk around it for a while. we do it as a district so there is 6 of us. when people dont want the folletos or pass-along cards we sneak up behind them and slip them in their bags from behind. its way funny. this week i will take pics of it. we do it tuesday and friday.

as for learning spanish. i am talking pretty good. i mean not as fast as them but they say i am learning fast. at the beginning of the week i couldnt really understand people as well but its already getting better. they just kinda use words i dont know sometimes. but ya i understand people like 30 percent of the time. so its still bad. i can understand my companion tho.

in the morning we get free tacos from a sister in the ward! one of our wards. in the town Ozumba. she is way nice and the tacos are amazing. and no they arent dog tacos. those are in Distrito Federal. haha. we also got free food like milk and cereal and cookies and bread and jam from another member. she also paid for our laundry! theres 2 daughters of the hermana with the free tacos that arent members. Analitia y Teresa. sisters. between 20-30. the entire family are me mbers, except them. they both know its true and want to get baptized so thats good. but both of theirhusbands dont want it. one of them is scared of the family or something. i dont know. we are working on them. the other husband i dont remember what his deal is. but they sure need to get baptized.

there is another investigator we have. we went to this house cause we looked in our area book and saw someone named javier and he had good stuff written about him. so we went there and javier didnt live there. it was an older man maybe like 60´s. Augustin. he is way cool! he doesnt have a religion or probably even a belief for that matter. but he was like Oh please come in! i wanna talk to you! (or something like that, in spanish of course.) we have talked to him twice now and he pretty much does everything we ask. haha its great. he is gonna pray about what we are teaching him is true. like a good investigator should.

we have others that weve talked to that we are meeting with this week and next. 2 are testigos de jehova. or jehovas witness. so of course they talked to us first. out on the streets. they just wanna bible bash or as a say in spanish, luchar con biblias. ill ask them about there missing scriptures in their bible, which are great scripts, and we will see what happens.

mexico is so different. there are dogs EVERYWHERE. no joke. its so weird. in the mornings a guy drives around with gas tanks for like the showers and stuff and yells GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!! all day! so people go outside once the voice is close to their house. its quite funny. the first morning in the new house we showered with a bucket of water and heated it up with an iron. total méxicanada. it was great. but we bought gas. our toilet sucks, ill tell you that and that only.

well i gotta go! gonna go to a bday and play futbol and other stuff. itll be great. great fun. well love you all

read and pray

elder inglish