Last Transfer!

Hey family!

As expected, we didnt have any changes in our companionship, so its going to be me and Elder Macias in barrio Madero until the end! I am suprised that this changed ended so sudenly. It went by really fast and the end of it snuck up on me. We only had one change in the whole district. My district is in total 14 missionaries so it is fairly big, but that includes the assistants and zone leaders and I dont have to worry about them too much.

That is awesome that Kaitlyn got a mission call to serve in Virginia! I am really excited for her! Now she only has 3 more months to prepare so she better be studying Preach My Gospel like crazy.

This week was really rainy, and I even got cold enough to use a sweater some days. We have a gas water boiler but we dont have a gas tank but we will hopefully be able to get one soon.

We had a super awesome lesson this past week. We visited a less active sister the week before last and she told us to come back last week to teach her family (she is the only member) and we went with our Ward mission Leader and taught her husband and one of her daughters. The Spirit was super strong and we committed them to baptism and they said yes but they didnt feel ready enough to accept a date. Unfortunately they didnt go to church yesterday so we are going to see them again this week and see how well they have done with reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.

I got a haircut today and now I look 12% uglier but now now my haird isnt touching my ears so I guess it is alright.

oh and I signed up for my classes. I am still on the waiting list for half of them but I am #7 for one, #6 for another, and #23 for another. There was a writing class that I wanted to take with Ryan but the waitinglist has like 60 people and the class size is only 25 so it wouldnt be a safe bet to count on getting in through the waiting list I dont think. If I dont get into the classes then I will just have to make other plans. I decided to not do the honors thing because you have to sign up for them in an envelope so that just makes it more difficult and I would rather just focus on having a better GPA.

I gotta jet, but I am glad that Colin did well on his debate and enjoyed it and I am glad that Dad did well on his talk. I will probably have to give a talk in sacrament meeting when I get back won´t I?

con amor,

Elder Johns

Giving Things Away

Hello Hello!

Thanks for the pictures! Speaking on the 29th is fine, it will give me more time to learn how to speak english correctly again. as for my guitars, honestly I would LOVE to be able to play them and I am going to be home for almost a month so if it isnt too much of a hassle to transport my acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and amp home AND if there is room enough for it in Ryan´s car than could you please bring it home from Utah on the return trip after thanksgiving week? I have lost the callouses on my fingertips and I gotta get them back. If it would be too much of a hassle to bring the amp and electric then just the acoustic would be fine.

Also more questions about stuff like that: My short sleeve white button up shirts, do you want me to take them home? I probably wont ever need to use one again except maybe one just to have one in case, and I was thinking about giving the others (the others excluding the one I will bring home with me) to some companions who dont have short sleeve shirts or have realy bad quality shirts that dont iron very well.  So would that be alright if I gave them my shirts or do you want me to pack them home? My dress pants have been continually becoming undone at the seems and I have had to repair them so I am probably just going to throw them away or give them to my comp. I will look for a christmas nativity, but  they arent that big here. Ill ask around to see if I can find one.

Um well this past week was alright, it was really rainy and alot of people that we have been visiting couldnt recieve us so we didnt get to teach as much as I would have liked to. We finally had a ward council meeting yesterday and we should be having one everyweek from now on which is awesome because it allows us to work in much greater harmony with the members.

We got hot water this week! a member gave us the parts we were missing to hook the gas tank up to the boiler adn so now we have hot water just in time for the rain and cold weather.

Jose has been progressing really well but then he didnt come to church:( so now he is not going to be able to get baptized while I am still here. We are going to find him a better fellowshipper who can help him be more motivated to go to church. We also committed an investigator named Alejandra to get baptized, but she hasnt been keeping up with her commitments so far but we´re  still working with her.

Um I have to go, sorry I didnt tell you much about my week, it was a kinda slow week.

I love you all!

Elder Johns

Hot Water Optional

¡Hola!

This was an interesting week. To answer your question about hot water: for the vast majority of my mission I havent had hot water,  but that is most of the time excellant because it is so hot and humid that you dont even want to use hot water. But now that it is November there are some days that we wake up a little cold. Now we have a gas tank, but we still need a regulator thing and a short hose to be able to hook the boiler to the gas tank. We havent had that many cold mornings still but we need to get prepared for them.

My District got split up! We used to be 14 missionaries in total but then in a leadership meeting they realized that they made my distict really big, so they split it into two and now I only have 8 in my district, but I only have to talk to two companionships over the phone becuase one companionship is the assistants. I miss having a big district because the meetings were fun because we had alot of people but the calls everynight took foreeeeeeever        but now I only have to make a total of 3 calls everynight instead of 5 so that gives me  a little more free time and helps us to get to bed on time. Usually in the calls I ask them about how their day went and how they are feeling and how the people they are teaching are progressing and other questions to check how they are progressing and if they are putting in practice the principles that our mission is focusing on improving. Also  sometimes I need to ask for specific information about their recent converts that they are teaching.

One night while I was talking on the phone, I tried opening a window the sings outward into a right angle from the wall. As I pressed on the lever to open it, the bottom hinge broke and it fell of the wall! Luckily the window next to it was open so it got caught on it. There is a metal screen to keep bugs out so we couldnt grab it from inside so  I had to climb up on the roof to be able to grab the window so that it wouldnt fall from the second story and shatter (it was very safe and I was never inany danger). It was super easy EXCEPT that someone had come earlier that day to throw a bunch of tar on the roof  to keep it waterproof and it was still wet when I went up. the tar destroyed my sandals and I got some on my knee and arm, but I was able to get it off... after alot of pulling and scraping. but its all good now, except that now I need to find someone who can fix the window...

We had a cool training for new missionaries and trainers on Wednesday. I am pretty sure that will be my last meeting of that type which is wierd to think.

We took some time to go to downtown Tampico and I bought some clothes and recuerdos of Tampico.

We are starting to  find some more people to teach, but we dont really have anyone who is progressing super well. I am pretty sure we need to do better about involving the members in our appointments, but they are so busy and  there are so few active members in our ward.

hey a random question but its been something that has crossed my mind every once and a while. Are my guitars, amp, snyth, and all that stuff still  at Grandpa and grandma Andersons house?
    

Ok I attached the itinerary to the email.

I gota go, I love you all!

Elder Johns