February 24, 2014

Hey everyone! Another week in the mission field! Well, I guess that Ill start by answering some of the questions:

Question: will you get to go to the temple while on your mission?
   -I already got to go once a couple months ago. A couple weeks ago they closed the Mexico City temple which is the closest temple, and the next closest temple is in Veracruz, about 4 hours away. I can only go to the temple if one of my converts goes and invites me. And to be able to go to the temple they need to have been a member of the church for 1 year, so that means that I need to baptized them before i have been out for a year in the mission. Right now 4 of my converts have the possibility to go to the temple before I go home, so let´s hope and pray that one of them goes and invites me!
Question: are you working out on a regular basis?  If so, what do you do?
    -Well, for the past couple of weeks I have been bad about working out. But when I do workout, I usually do some push ups, sit ups, I sometimes use these elastic bands that they gave us in the MTC.
Question: what do the youth do for there Tuesday night mutual activities?
    -Right now, there is no young men´s president. And even when there was one they didn´t do any activities. Its kind of sad
Question: do the young men go on campouts or work on scouting?
    -They do nothing of the sort.


I have some mildly bad news, Isa, the investigator who is awesome, was going to be baptized this next week, but her sister, Teresa, had to leave for 3 weeks for her work, and Isa want to wait for her and get baptized together with her. I respect that decision, but Teresa needs to attend church 3 more times before she can get baaptized, so that means that i probably won´t be here for their baptism! But they are both awesome investigators, an I am sure that they are going to be strong members of the church.

Last week, the mission president, President Christensen, talked to us a lot about being excellent missionaries, not just decent missionaries or good missionaries. To become an excellent missionary, we need to pay the price, we need to sacrifice everything that prevents us from being better. Something that I have decided to do better is talk to more people, open my mouth and boldly proclaim the gospel to everyone. You guys know me pretty well, talking with people is a little bit out of my comfort zone, especially in a foreign language that im still learning. That is the price that I have decided to become and excellent missionary. I am sure that this priciple can be applied to your lives as members of the church and disciples of Christ. What is that price that you guys need to pay, and the sacrifices that you need to make to become extraordinary, better than you are today?

Oh yeah, last week, when we climbed the mountain, we got a quite bit higher than the last time (we ditched the sisters and the slow elders to go up higher). I´d say that we were an hour and half from the top (but it´s the most difficult hour and a half). I have already decided that I am going to go back there and climb all of it before I end my mission. One thing that was funny is the way we transported 20 missionaries to the mountain: one member of our ward is the owner of a cinderblock company, he offered to give us all a ride on the back of the truck that he uses to transport cinderblocks, and we went al the way to the mountain on the back of a huge pick up truck (It´s legal here in mexico). It was a pretty fun trip, I would say that we got up 15.000 feet up, we weren´t very far from the top, but there wasn´t any time left.

Oh yeah, and some birthday ideas...I have no idea what I want, surprise me!

Well my hours up. It always go by super fast! But the mission is an awesome experience! Thank you all for the letters. I am sorry, but I couldn´t send a lot of photos because this computer takes forever to download them, so next week i´ll send more! I love you all so much!

Love,
 Elder Davis