Letter #11

Hey Guys!!

 

This past week wasnt the best week, but it was still good i guess! We didnt have to much success finding anyone to teach and a couple of our investigators flaked out on lessons but i guess thats just what happens. Good news on Nestor and Nidia! They are doing awesome, we did find out that they arent married tho...... but we can always fix that. We asked them if they would wanna get married and they both said, "whatever God wants us to do, we'll do it!" It was awesome. So it looks like me and Elder Roylance are planning a wedding this week! Haha, that'll be interesting!

 

Chris was confirmed a member just yesterday, that was pretty sweet! He calls us everyday like 10 times asking when he's gonna become a mormon and be able to teach like us. haha! He's awesome. But the only bad thing was that me and Elder Roylance were late to church and didnt make it in time for his confirmation...whoops! So the bishop did it for us. Chris was super mad and disappointed that we didnt make it, ut we do have a pretty solid reason for being late. So before church, we went to our investigators house to go wake them up and get them ready for church and we went to this one guys house and knocked on his door. He came out and he was all beat up. We were like "What happened!" And he told us that last night he got mugged by the cartel. So we did all we could to help him out and then we lost track of time and thats why we were late to church. Pretty interesting right?! haha.

 

We did find a new investigator named Miguel this week. He's like 20 years old and he's a musician. He's really nice and has a pretty dang good voice im not gonna lie. Our first visit with him was like our own personal concert haha. He brought out his guitar and just started playing all these Christian hymns and we sang along, haha. It was pretty sick! He gets called all the time by all these churches to go play for them and stuff. He said he loves it. But we did set a baptisimal date with him and hopefully he progresses!

 

Transfers are next week, im pretty positve that me and my companion are staying in our area. But who knows! I let you know more about that next week.

Hope everythings going great!

 

Love Elder Brian

 

Letter #10

Hello Hello!!

 

Good news!! I was able to baptize Chris!! It was so awesome. It turns out, he did get released from probation and he only has to do some community service or something. Pretty sweet experience for my first baptism. I only messed up twice on the prayer haha!

Other than that, the week was pretty good. Nestor and Nidia are continuing to progress and they ended up coming to church yesterday too! Theyre so awesome. We did find a new investigator, i cant remember if ive already talked about Daniel or not. But hes awesome. We had some really good lessons this week with him, and it sounds like he is really interested and wants to progress. He has a wife and 2 kids. The wife isnt that interested at all, but hopefully we can get her interested this week or something.

On a different note, we went on exchanges this week, and I went with Elder Ferrel. Another Elder i live with. I was in charge of my area, which was pretty hard haha. I still am struggling to find my way around. So we were going by some people i knew and while we were walking, we hear blasting music, so we pass by and a bunch of guys are having a big cookout and drinking and stuff. As we passed by, they yelled at us and told us to come back and have some food and hangout. We shouldve kept walking, but i was hungry, so we went back and joined them haha. They were all totally wasted out of their minds, asking us all these weird questions and getting in our faces. It was hilarious. They all kept talking about how they wanted to become better people and stop drinking. Which was awesome, but i doubt they even knew what they were saying cause they were so drunk. They fed us Cameron, its like some shrimp food. It was alright. But, we did end up setting a return appointment with them, so hopefully we can catch up with them sometime this week when they arent totally drunk. Haha. So that was some funny experience that happened this week.

Everything is going great down here in Brownsville. Hope everythings good with everyyone at home. Thanks for everything!

Love you all!

Fiesta!

Brother and Sister Oliva

Sister Padron--she feeds them every week.

Letter #9

Hey Guys! This week has been good. Nothing too crazy or anything. The only bad thing is that Chris's baptism didnt go through. I was super bummed. We found out that Chris is on probabtion for something he did in the past. We all were pretty bummed, even Chris! His court date is this Friday, so if all goes well and he gets released or something then he can get baptizedthis Sunday! So were praying super hard that everything works out for him.

This week we found a really awesome couple named Nestor and Nidia. Me and Elder Roylance used to many miles on our car so we had to bike, and while we were biking, we passed a guy smoking a cig, so we decided to stop and talk. This guy was Nestor. He put out his cig and we sat down with him and had an amazing lesson and he accepted a baptismal date! It turns out that he had just gotten out of jail, and while he was in jail he started reading the bible and he knew that he needed to get his life in order. So he's accepting everything and is so eager to learn, its so awesome! Two days later, we went back to teach him another lesson and this time his wife was there, Nidia. We invited her to join in on our lesson, and she accepted a baptismal date too! They have 2 little kids, a little boy and a little girl. As of right now, theyre both doing amazing and want to learn more. The only problem in they are living on close to nothing, and Nestor walks about 10 miles to work everyday cause they have no car. So it might be a little tough to get them to church, but thats what members are for, right?!  

Thats a little bit of whats been going on this week. Thanks for everything! Love you guys!

President & Sister Maluenda

Letter #8

Hey Guys!

 

This week has been awesome! We just barely got back from Downtown, right next to the border. Its pretty crazy down there. Lots of little mexican shops and stuff, it was pretty sweet to see the border haha. We did just buy 100 pounds of ties though! And only for 50 bucks! The elders go crazy for ties down here. They are all about the nice brand ties. And also all the locals will notice if you are walking around with a nice tie. So when you buy a bundle (100 lbs worth) you can get all kinds of ties, its all random. So if you get lucky you can find really nice, expensive ties. And then the elders trade. Its pretty sweet, hopefully i find some nice ones today haha.

 

Oh, and Dad, i did try an Elote this week! The corn on the stick with cheese and chile. The stuff that they eat in Nacho Libre haha. It was pretty good i guess. Not as good as i thought it would be, but for 1.50$ i guess it wasnt too bad. Trucks drive around all over town selling them. They call the trucks, Elote men. Haha, but everyone buys them down here like crazy!

 

 

Anyways, so this week we've been working a lot with Chris. the 15 year old. He actually came to church this week and we were stoked about that! This was his second time he's come, so now he's back on track to being baptized! Im super excited for him, his baptismal date is set for September 15. We havent really had too much success finding new investigators this week. But on Wednesday, we were talking to some less active youth and we convinced them to let us sit down with them, but they said only if we play them in a game of basketball. Haha, so we did. It was awesome. When we got to the court, there were two other kids playing, and we asked if they wanted to join our game, and they did! And we actually ended up teaching them a lesson after too! The kids that we met at the court were Juan and Andrew. Juan is 17 years old, super nice kid, pretty short and he's really into dancing. And Andrew, he's 12 years old, also pretty short but definately a lot bigger than Juan. We asked them if we could come by some day this week and they said yes! So im hoping all goes well with them this week. Its been raining a ton down here the past couple days. I dont know if its anything close to the storm that you guys had just barely, but its been pretty crazy.

 

I dont have much time to write, but hope everythings going well back at home! Thanks for everything! Love you guys! We'll talk next week!!

 

Love Elder Brian

Letter #7

Hey!

 

The field has definately gotten a lot better since the first few days i was here. It was tough, i wasnt really used to my surroundings at all, but now ive kinda taken everything in, and im looking forward to an awesome time here in Brownsville! So my area is one of the most ghetto parts here in the McAllen mission. Our area, Cameron Park, isnt even owned by the city of Brownsville because of how ghetto it is. Haha, pretty crazy, but there are some awesome people here. The members are all so nice and help me out with my spanish, which i do need a lot of help with!

We set a baptismal date with a little girl named Annette. I cant remeber if i told you guys about it or not. But she's awesome, super energetic 10 year old who loves the gospel. We went over to teach her on Friday and out of the blue this old lady comes out of the house and just starts raggin on us in spanish. I had no clue what she was saying but i could tell she was furious. I later find out that she says we cant come over anymore and teach Annette, and she was saying Annette doesnt want anything to do with our church and all this other stuff. My companion got a little heated, so i kinda pulled him away and we got outta there. So bad news is, i dont think we can go visit Annette anymore. Pretty sad, cause if it werent for that Grandma, im sure we would have her baptized in no time.

We had so many investigators that commited to come to church this week and none of them came, it was really frustrating. But were hoping that this week is a lot better.

Oh, we got invited to a 50th wedding anniversary of a couple in our ward. Theyre are so cool. So we went. My companion said that they had been planning this wedding anniversary party for like a month now. It was awesome. They had a live mexican band, all the men were wearing their mexican cowboy tuxedo's and the women in big dresses. Tons of food. Tons of people. Everyone was taking pictures with the couple, it was just a huge party! I have a picture, ill attatch it too. I make the couple look so short haha. That party was definately the highlight of the week.

Not much more went on this past week that i can really remember. I went shopping for food for the first time. That was cool i guess. i bought a lot of cold cereal and milk and oatmeal haha. So hopefully i can live off that for a while. We get fed pretty good down here by all the members, so im not too worried.

Anyways, its been an awesome week, im looking forward to more! I hope everyones doing good! Sounds like you guys are having a blast back at home. I dont have much time to write, so i have to make this quick.

Love you!!