Feliz Cumpleanos!!

Hello everyone,

As usual thanks for all of the emails and love and support. Good news...I got the shoes—one of the pairs at least, along with the granola bars and what not. They fit and everything...I´m thinking that these two new pairs that I´m getting should be the last new shoes that I need to get.  Also, good to hear that Saugus beat Hart (varsity football). In your face everyone that goes/went to Hart!! *cough* Sarmiento family, Jenny, Cindy, Elliot, Bryan Smith, Kevin Ten Eyck, Jeff Morris *cough*.

Also, that´s cool that you got the letter from the President* [his mission president]. He told us he was gonna send it to our houses. Did it come with that video? We use the Misionero Siempre video to ask members for references...it works sometimes. And I always thought that 140 contacts was a lot. The most contacts that I have had in a day is 35 or 40. A contact is defined as when we present ourselves with somebody. If they say NO they can´t talk and we really don´t even say that we are missionaries and all that stuff...it doesn´t count. And if we contact a family of 10...it counts as 1 contact. We can contact in the street, or knock doors and then contact them in their door. I usually prefer knocking doors to contacting in the street because if they want to hear more, we can just pass into their house in that same moment and teach a lesson.

*Here is an excerpt from President Villareal’s letter:

One of our goals is for the families of our missionaries to have a larger role in the future success of our labors, by knowing certain principles of this mission.  We focus on the importance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ; to “learn” about the Atonement; to “use” the Atonement and to “teach” the Atonement.

Other important points of focus in this mission are:  obedience, diligence, desire.

With the principle of OBEDIENCE, all missionaries are expected to live by the following guidelines—6:30am be out of bed—8:00am—personal study—9:00am companionship study—10:00am begin working—2:00pm lunch with members—3:00pm leave lunch appointment—9:15pm be in your apartment and begin planning for the next day—10:30pm be asleep—30 minutes maximum in members home and teaching a lesson—1 hour maximum teaching investigators.

With the principle of DILIGENCE, we have a weekly standard of excellence which is—140 contacts per companionship—30 lessons—10 new investigators—4 families/individuals with baptismal date—6 families/individuals to go to Church—1 baptismal service per week.

With the principle of DESIRE, we focus on Alma 29, the April 2011 General Conference talk by Elder Oaks and other sources.

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! Can you believe it´s your second birthday that you have had since I have been on my mission (and the last one). Hope you have a good one.

It was a good week. A little challenging for sure. We didn´t have a baptism this week, but don´t think that we didn´t try to have one. We tried all week to have a baptismal service...but it just didn´t pan out...and that´s how it goes sometimes. I think we did make a mistake during the week. We were focusing so hard on trying to have a baptism that we really didn´t have anybody that we were going to bring to church on Sunday. We didn´t focus a whole lot on finding like we should have. But on Saturday, we recognized our error and we went to work. I don´t know what happened, but we worked at like a whole new level. We had 8 lessons and found 12 new investigators in one day!! Of those 12 investigators we found a family of 4 that said that they would go to church with us the following day. We passed by for them, and the family went with us on Sunday and stayed the whole time at church. They really seemed to enjoy the time they spent in the church. It just re-enforced what I already knew, the Lord blesses us according to what we desire (as long as the thing we desire is good, see Alma 29). We really really desired investigators to go to the church with us on Sunday...We showed our desire with the way we worked on Saturday...working like our pants were on fire...and as a result the Lord blessed us. It would have been really easy to not knock that door at 8:00 at night, but we did it, searching for the miracles that the Lord always has waiting for us. We found it. A family of 4 going to church for the first time and feeling the Spirit of the Lord.

That is something that I have really learned on my mission. When I got set apart as a missionary, I was told to do things everyday of my mission that qualify me for the blessings of heaven. I´ve seen over and over and over again in my mission that if we work hard, are diligent, the Lord provides us with the miracles, and if we slack off, we have no promise from the Lord (D&C 82:10). It´s so true. If we want the help of the Lord in ANYTHING that we do, we have to qualify ourselves for it, do the things that he asks of us. And as we do that, He will provide the rest.

Today, we had a fun P-day. We played soccer verses another zone. We lost however. But it was still fun. We played on that same field that I played on when we had the Spain jerseys like 8 months ago. This time we had Italy jerseys. I was the goalie haha. So I have a sweet goalie jersey lol.

I love you and miss you all. Hope that you have a good week.

And this is my joy

Elder Peacock

A Little Southern Cooking

Hey Everyone!

So another week has gone by in Lerma, and it was a good one. More on that later. But good to hear that everything is going good back home. Sorry about the tie game bryce, and Happy Birthday Tyler!!! That Nike sweatshirt is pretty sweet, not gonna lie. As for the names [for the puppy we’re getting in a few weeks, she’s on the right]. I have more Spanish ones...they are cooler than Sugar.

Bonbón (Bone BONE (accent on the end) - Marshmellow

Fresa (like it looks) - Strawberry

Sandía (San Dee A (accent on the [ee) - Watermelon

Mora – Berry

Reina (Rain-a) - Queen

Zorra (like Zorro but with A) - Fox (feminine)

Zorrita (Zorr - ee - ta) - Little Fox (feminine)

Miel (Me el) - Honey

Galleta (Guy yet a)- Cookie

Novia (no vee a) - Girlfriend (cuz she will be sparkys gf)

So those are some of the names that I came up with. Personally I like Zorrita. Little Fox. That is an awesome name. But It´s your decision Mom haha. 

So this past week we had zone conference which was pretty sweet. President is always the man and I always feel super pumped after he´s done talking. So we got out and got to work. The Lord blessed us with another 15 new investigators which was great. The only bad part was that it was Stake conference, which made it super hard to bring people to church because it was in the stake center (the church I used to go to in Metepec), which is about 40 minutes away. But we do have a lot of investigators to work with now. 

Also, I found out that there is a Nike Factory Store in my area. Umm Awesome. Just something I thought you would like to know haha. 

So yesterday, it was stake conference and we baptized a young man named Jorge. He had been going to church for a while with his girlfriend in another ward, and we got the reference and we taught him and baptized him this past week. Talk about somebody being prepared by the Lord. He told us straight up that he wanted to be a member of our church, he was just waiting for us to tell him when he could get baptized. Ummm....this weekend, we responded. There is no investigator more perfect than that. haha. He was very happy at his baptism, and got a lot of support from the family of his girlfriend. The baptismal service was sweet. Because it was stake conference, like 5 or 6 wards baptized at the same time, and we got that sweet pic of us all in white.

After stake conference we went to eat....and Oh my GOODNESS. It was amazing. The Sister served her mission in Atlanta Georgia so she learned how to cook AMERICAN food. Cordon Bleu, corn on the cob, spaghetti, bread, and salad. There wasn´t even a tortilla on the table! It kinda weirded me out at first. And then I knew something was up when she asked me if I wanted butter and salt for my corn on the cob....How did she know that?? I thought. In Mexico they eat their corn with mayonnaise, cheese, and chili powder (actually pretty good but different). NOBODY knows that it’s better with butter and salt. So I asked her how she knew I wanted butter and salt and she explained that she served her mission in the USA and after we had a good laugh as she explained how she couldn´t understand the southern accent for the longest time as she learned English. It was fun. Oh and for dessert....BROWNIES!! awesome haha. 

But yeah, it was a fantastic week. I hope to hear from you all again soon. I love you and miss you all but....

This is my joy (Alma 29:9)

Elder Peacock

Rollin.

Hey everyone,

So another week has gone by, it was a good one. Thanks for all the emails, as usual I love hearing news from home.  As for the Spanish dad...yeah I would say I understand about 95% at this point. I`m not saying this to brag, but I have gotten numerous comments on how well I speak Spanish.  I think the native speaking companions really do help with that because I haven’t had an American companion since the end of December.  I am still working on speaking like a true Chilango (person from Mexico City). They have a distinct way of speaking which almost everyone else in Mexico seems to hate haha. Although, the stupid rolling your r`s thing is still tripping me up.  As for Christmas...nothing big really. What does a missionary need? Save it for when I get home haha.

It is way more flat and relaxing here. Not as crazy as Chamapa and not near as many people. The houses are a little nicer too, not as poor. The church is very close to where we live which makes it way easier to bring people to church. The members here are also really cool and I`m really liking it here in Lerma so far. My companion is from Lima, Peru and has 16 months in the mission.  His name is Elder Laguna. We are getting along well, he likes to work and we are working well together. He does snore though, but luckily Dad made me pack like 10 pairs of ear plugs, which I haven’t used until now...so thanks Dad. Elder Laguna kind of reminds me of Newman from Seinfeld. He has glasses, is short and husky, and I don’t know...he just reminds me of him. But he`s cool. In the picture of our baptism, just put glasses on him and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

As for the work, it went really well. We found 19 News this week!!! including 2 families of 5 that we are excited to work with. We also had a baptism which is always something special. I`m thinking that we can have a lot of success this change, and I am really excited. It is cold here though, it has rained almost every night so I`m usually pretty cold and wet going back to the house at night.  But it’s all good.  I`m a man.

In my district there is only one other companionship, so we only have 4 missionaries in the District. It makes it a lot easier though to focus in on the other Elders. I went on Exchanges with them this week. I stayed in with Elder Pineda in their area (Santiago) and taught with him and interviewed some people for baptism which was exciting and Elder Reynolds (from the district in the MTC) worked with Elder Laguna in our area. Their house is sweet...(see pics below). So I might be doing exchanges more often haha.

Umm but yeah that`s about it. I`m excited to be in this area and for the success that we are seeing. I love being a missionary. And I love you and miss you all!!

And this is my Joy (alma 29:9)

Elder Peacock

P.S.  We went and ate with a member WAY far away in our area...in this farmland place...these pictures are from the front of the member’s house.

 

And, some couches a member offered to give us....we said we would be alright without them.

New Shoes

Word to the wise.  If you are shopping for a missionary and can get a guarantee on shoes for the entire 2 years they’re gone, jump on it.  14 months in and Justin has worn through his second and third pair of shoes.  It’s not that they’re not good shoes—they’re designed specifically for comfort and miles and miles of walking.  In other words, missionary service.  Fortunately, we did purchase with that guarantee.  We are getting every cent out of that guarantee.

I’m Back

Hello family and friends,

We had a great week. It was a really really good one.

Ok, so I´ll start off with what you all probably want to know. Where am I writing you from? Well it´s not Chamapa, I did in fact get changed. I´m back. I am in Lerma, Metepec. It is in the same zone/stake as my first area in Mexico, about 30 minutes east. I don´t know how I feel about it yet. I would like to get to know other areas and zones...but the Lord obviously has something prepared for me in Lerma. I will still be serving as a District Leader, and my companion is Elder Laguna. He is from Lima, Peru.  He seems pretty chill, so I think we´ll get along. He also told me that they have one person with a baptismal date for this weekend and another 2 or 3 that are possible, so there is work to be done here for sure. The house is pretty big. Two stories with a lot of space, but its just that--empty space, no couches or anything. Just a couple of desks and beds. It is filthy however, so I´ll send pics next week haha so Mom doesn´t freak out...haha. [Does that mean he’ll be cleaning it in the next week??! I’m impressed.]

Ok,  so backtracking a little bit, the last week we had in Chamapa was REALLY good. We had 4 baptisms, which means we finished with 8 in the change which is a really solid number. On Saturday we baptized Elena, who we met a week and a half ago. We knocked her door. Started teaching her, she went to church...said she felt something really special there and we had her baptism on Saturday after the am session. On Saturday, David and Rosa went and got married, and the following day, Sunday, they were baptized following the am session of conference. Rosenda was also baptized on Sunday in the same service. She is the Mom of Erika, Araceli, Veronica, Juan Antonio and Elias. So in the Fabian Medrano family, 6 have now been baptized. I really do love that family. Last night, I went to say goodbye to them and it was a little difficult, I´ve seen each and every one of them grow in the gospel, and I have been with them every step of the way. But now I have to leave them and trust that they can keep pushing forward on their own.  It was hard. I think I might have gotten a taste for when I send my kids off to college or something like that...

Anyways, I am very excited to be in a new area and to keep working in the Lord´s work. It´s amazing to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands each and every day. As for conference, I too, enjoyed Elder Eyring´s talk the most [check it out HERE]. He was very emotional and it hit me hard just how important the Book of Mormon is in everything we do. He mentioned it over and over again in his talk. I only saw Saturday AM, and all of Sunday however, but I´m sure that Elder Holland was a boss as usual.

I love you all and miss you.

And this is my joy

Elder Peacock