Email from October 8, 2012

Hello everyone! Wow. I love general conference. I had never looked forward to it so much as I did this past weekend as a missionary. It felt like a vacation, or as much of a vacation as a missionary will get anyway. We went to the stake center to watch, since it isnt broadcast on TV here, not that we are allowed to watch tv anyway, and we cant watch on internet either. So we made the trip down to the stake center and to enjoy the whole day there relaxing. It was nice to relax, that is a rare thing for a missionary.

One thing was weird, normally in the stake centers they have the spanish broadcast for those members who speak Spanish back home, well, here they did the same thing for us. It felt weird to be one of 5 or so North American missionaries watching the english broadcast. It was weird to be the minority, but its exciting all the same. On Saturday I watched the three sessions in english, but on sunday there were more people, so they had to use the tv and room for more people, so I had to watch in spanish. It was cool, and I didnt have any problems understanding anything, but it just wasnt the same. It doesnt have the same impact. Just imagine listening to Elder Holland talk in a monotone voice. Its not the same. On sunday listening to the sessions in spanish something that really struck me was the hymn in the middle where everyone sings. The video that is broadcast to the whole world is the same, english subtitles and all, and they dont translate the choir either, obviously, and the sound that comes from the speakers in the intermediate hymn is the same, its in english, so everyone brings their hymnbooks and sings the songs in spanish while the sound is in english. It was a really neat experience. Everyone stood up and in the background we could hear the english song (it was the hymn Called to Serve) but I along with everyone else started singing in Spanish. It felt weird, but it made the fact that the Church is a worldwide one reality. It felt really cool to realize that as I was singing in Spanish millions of other people were joining in singing in their own language. It doesnt sound that exciting, but I promise it was.

As far as investigators go in the sessions of conference, for us it was a let down. We had more than 50 people committed to go. 5 came, including 2 who we never invited in the first place who a member brought. I felt really frustrated, but it really is ok. Two of the people that came are a really good family who is really interested in listening to us and I think I will see them baptized one day. I really like that family. Speaking of baptisms, we have one lined up for this Saturday! There are a lot of obstacles to work around this week for it to happen, but we have plans made to take care of them, so if all goes well we will have a baptism! I am really excited for it. I am pretty sure its going to happen. I will tell you more about the family next week since we dont have much time to write today. Thats all for this week

Elder Matthew Bray

Email from October 1, 2012

Hello everyone! This week was a good one. Because of general conference next week we have changed the focus of our efforts to trying to get investigators to general conference. Our mission president has set a goal to have 900 investigators in at least one session of general conference in total for the whole mission. This has been mentioned for a while now, even as far back as when I was still in Nativitas. Elder Veloz said it was a really good idea because he has had good experiences bringing investigators to general conference. He says when they go they always feel the Spirit and acknowledge that the speakers really are prophets of God. When Pres. Valadez introduced the goal to have 900 investigators at general conference he promised us we would see a lot of good results. We spent most of the week hunting down all the investigators we know in the area and teaching short lessons about prophets and inviting them to general conference. We are really hoping to see our efforts pay off next weekend. I am so excited to actually see general conference. I have never felt excited to see it before, but now I am not just excited to see it to see if investigators go, which I am, but I am actually really excited to see the prophet and apostles speak. Maybe its just because I am a missionary, who knows.

The branch I am serving in is really small, but Elder Santos and I really want it to grow. We really think that it is going to grow a lot really soon. We have had some interesting experiences recently. We have run into so many inactive members in the street who have moved here to Ajusco who didn't know where the church is (we don't have a chapel, they are renting a house that they use for their meetings) or who have simply gone inactive. We don't know a lot of them and they contact us and they ask us where the church is so they can reactive again. The other day we had a miracle. We were near our house with less then two hours of proselyting time left in the day and it began to rain. Hard. We ran back to the house and waited a minute. It didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon, so we grabbed our umbrellas and went back out in the rain already thoroughly soaked to look for one more person. We walked through the streets that were more like rivers because they are so slanted being on a mountain to go to visit one last investigator I had never visited before, but Elder Santos wanted to visit. We turned onto a street that Elder Santos thought he lived on, but then looked confused and said it wasn't this one. We went to the next street, but that wasn't the right street either. We checked every possible street and he didn't recognize which one it was, we even double checked. So, cold and wet we decided to give up and go home. We started walking up the hill when a car pulled up and the driver called to us, calling us elders, so we knew he must have met missionaries before. He offered us a ride and we accepted. He took us home and told us that he had been baptized about 20 years ago, been a bishop for 5 years and a counselor in a stake presidency too, he even worked for the church here in Mexico and his son served a mission. He had moved to Ajusco recently and had gone inactive. He told us he would like to start coming to church again and we told him where it was.
We realized from that experience that maybe we wanted to visit a certain investigator, but God had a different plan. He prevented us from recognizing the street so that we could meet that man. It was a really neat experience.

Other than that life goes on like normal. I have been eating a lot of corn tortillas, a lot of rice, and a lot of beans. I didn't think they were really that common when I first got to Mexico, but they really are. Ajusco is a poorer area than Nativitas and they eat a lot of tortillas rice and beans. I have gotten over my dislike of beans and now I like them. They aren't my favorite, but I eat them willingly. I would be rather miserable if I didn´t. I have also discovered something that I like a lot. Here in Mexico they sell crushed up chile peppers (think of crushed red pepper, but ground finer), so I imagine it would be called chile powder there, that's the translation anyway, but I know that's not it. Anyway, they use that a lot in their food, and they put it on fruit. Yes, on fruit. I have come to like it a lot. I didn't like it at first, but now I do. They also sell special kinds called Miguelitos, which is like chile, but flavored. They have lots of different flavors, and they are delicious. I bought a bottle of pineapple flavored, and I love it. I buy fruit just so I can use my Miguelitos. I am really going to miss putting chile on my fruit one day. I know it sounds weird, but its really good, trust me.

That's all for this week!

Elder Matthew Bray