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
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