When in Rome...[Sept. 1, 2014]

Got some interesting news on Saturday.


It looks like I will be leaving my first area. It is a little difficult because I have been living here for 6 months. I also had my first converts here and everything. It´s a little difficult to leave, but I suppose that that is just the way things go sometimes.


We found 2 different apartments to live in, not that it matters much because I will just leave anyway. :( One of them is the nicest apartment I have ever seen here in the mission so far.


I can't quite seem to remember any weird foods that I ate this week, so I will have to include that in my next email, wherever that will be at.


We have an investigator that my old companion and I contacted. She gave her name at the México City temple 3 years ago. Élder Suarez and I saw it and said why not. We knocked on her door 4 different times before she answered it. We found out that her husband/boyfriend because they still aren't married is a member, but less active. We asked him to come to church and he came that Sunday and everyone since. He said that he was really just waiting for someone to invite him back. He also drives a bus as work, so he has helped us out a lot with driving investigators to church and firesides with the mission president. Basically he is an awesome guy.


However, with his wife/girlfriend it has been a constant uphill battle helping her to get to baptism. She has very little faith and doesn't want to get married (it should be noted that this almost never happens. If anyone doesn't want to get married, it is almost always the man), but she does want to get baptized. It got to the point where we talked with President Christensen (our mission president) and said, "we need your help with one of our investigators." He responded "are you sure that I will be able to help?" I said, "absolutely." We set up an appointment when he would be able to come, but when the day came, he couldn't do it.


Flash forward to last Friday. We had a fireside with the President and we invited our investigator and her husband/boyfriend. We were surprised when she said that she would go. The fireside was on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and when we are at these firesides, anyone can ask the President a question. When we got to the point when he started to talk about baptism and our investigator asked, "can I get baptized even if I don't believe everything?" They talked about it for about 20 minutes and my companion and I were super excited. It was the lesson with the President that we didn't get earlier. They also talked afterwards and President Christensen said that he wanted to have a lesson with the elders that teach her (us).


I hope you all have a great week! I will tell you next week where I end up getting sent to.
Élder Seymour.





A photo with a member.




The preparations for independance day
(15Seor 16... I am still confused as to which).




Down a road in our area.
Élder Mendoza is in the picture.




Now the school is of Toy Story,
which happens to be my companion's favorite movie.




Statue of Ignacio Zaragoza, I think.




The rest of the statues depicting the
5 de Mayo battle.

That one sheep...[Aug. 26, 2014]

Another week is past; another day is done.


Well, we've gone through another week, this one has been more stressful than most, however.


One of our investigators went through a bit of an emergency. Up until this point, this couple had been telling us that they were married. She decided to be cool and actually tell us the truth. Her... boyfriend... is actually married to another person who lives in another area of the mission. His wife and him are both members and he had children with her earlier. They split up, but never got divorced, most likely because it is a nightmare to get a divorce here in México. When our investigator started living with him, she didn't know that he was already married. Of course, this means that she cannot get baptized until she gets married and she cannot get married until he gets divorced. Here, a divorce takes at least 6 months, according to what I have heard from the members here. It might even take a little longer because children are involved.


A month ago, he also asked the church for financial help because he can't find a good job. He told the bishop that he wasn't smoking or drinking and that he was married to our investigator and would come to church. He came one Sunday and we later found out that the rest of what he said were complete lies.


Our investigator wanted to be baptized, but until she separates from him, it can't happen. Just a few days ago, her boyfriend came home from work drunk and angry. He kicked her out of the house where she came to the stake conference we were at. We worked so hard to help her out. She said that she wanted nothing to do with him anymore and wanted to continue on alone. We found some members willing to help her, but just a few hours ago, we saw her with her boyfriend where she got on the combi with us. You could almost smell how awkward it was.


Through this experience, I learned that if we are willing to spend so much energy and stress on one person who is so obviously in need, why can't we see the need that everyone has to feel God's love in their lives and become better people. It is difficult, but this work wan't meant to be easy or quick. It requires perfect patience and love.


I hope everyone that reads this can find the need to go after that one person who needs them, perhaps at the expense of anything else.


Have a fun week!
Élder Seymour.


Our district with the zone leaders,
they are the ones crouching




My attempt at explaining pronunciation in English...


This rat must have been huge in life. Actually,
I have never seen a living one so huge.

Baptismal Interviews...[Aug. 18, 2014]

Time just seems to be flying by...

Last week we had a bunch of baptismal interviews... for other investigators, not our own. The thing about it is that we always had them pretty late. In the last one, we were supposed to start at 7pm, but the hermanas were late by almost an hour, and we had two of them at once. One of them wasn't sure if he would be baptized or not. He wanted to, but he felt he didn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet. Long story short, through no fault of our own, we ended up getting back at 11pm... which is ridiculously late for us. My companion was also pretty ticked off at the hermanas for not charging their phone beforehand, because it was off when he tried to make sure they got back safe.

As far as weird stuff I ate this week, I don't think I explained about chicharrín and chicharrón. It tastes far better than you would believe once I explain what it is. They make it by skinning a pig and then taking the skin and baking it until it becomes sort of like chips. Afterwards, they spice it. Chicharrín is small pieces of it that you eat like chips. Chicharrón is the larger pieces that you eat as a meal. You smother it in a slightly spicy green sauce and eat it with tortillas like any other thing here. I didn't like chicharrón at first, but I have grown to like it.

We also continued our search for a new apartment to live in, but still haven't found anything suitable. Basically we have tried every house in the area we want to move into, so we will just have to wait a bit.

It feels weird to be moving into the second to last week, but these things happen I guess. One thing I didn't understand before I left is how hard it is to stay in one single area longer than 6 months. Even though you love all the members and everything, it just feels weird. However, I also learned very well from my last companion that it also difficult to leave.

Well, Have an excellent week!
Élder Seymour.

6 months!!!!!!

The best Tupperware dinner
we ever had.
The brown stuff is tacos
with mole sauce.

Some sort of coke promotion.
This is the first name of
my companion.
Still looking for one that
says Roberto.

My new hairstyle...
I like it better this way honestly.

I ate a helpless rabbit...[Aug. 11, 2014]

Yeah, so I ate some rabbit for the first time this week. It was quite normal tasting, somewhere between turkey and duck and chicken. It was at a member's home where she specifically invited us over to eat it. She refused to eat any though.

I also passed my 6 month mark this week. It is so weird to think that I have already finished a quarter of my mission. Time flies by so fast and I still have so much to learn.

Sorry I don't have any photos this week. The SD slot on the computer isn't working and I wasn't able to bring the stuff I usually use to help me get around that.

This week, we were also looking for a new apartment to live in because ours is so far away from our main proselyting area that we have to walk for at least 15 minutes to get to the first appointments of the day. We also have to leave at 8:35 to get back to our apartment on time at night.

With the first one we looked at, we struck gold! It was about as perfect as any apartment gets around here and it was at a good price too. We we talked to the owner, she told us that she would rather have us live in than the other person that had looked at it because she has a niece that is a member of the church and knew that we would take good care of it. When we left, we noticed that she also took the sign down that said it was for rent. We have to have the zone leaders inspect every apartment before we move into it, so we set up an appointment for them to come the next day.
It was too good to be true...

The next day, she called us back and said that she decided to rent it out to the only other people that looked at it, even though we had a verbal agreement. So the search continued....

One other house we looked at started out as us calling the owner. He said that the house is in a different area than we expected which was super weird. He drove us to where it was and as he was driving, my companion and I looked at each other in amazement and he just kept driving and driving and driving. He eventually got to the house that is in a super sketchy area and we looked inside. It didn't even have a shower. He offered to drive us back, and we graciously agreed.

Another house we looked at had to have the roof redone before we could move in. The last one we looked at today wasn't even finished and the owner asked us for 5000 pesos up front, which is more than both of us receive in a month.

Needless to say we are still on the lookout for a house. Hopefully we find one this week.


Have a great week everyone!
Élder Seymour.

Sometimes I forget the US exists...[August 4, 2014]

Well... It was a good week.

The one thing with Elder Mendoza that is different than Elder Suarez is that we just aren't as efficient with time. We end up having half the lessons that I had with Elder Suarez, and I am not sure exactly what to do. 

We had a lesson with one of our investigators that has a baptismal date. On Saturday, we got her excited to get married and baptized. On Sunday, she didn't come to church with her 'husband' (who is an active member now), and later that day, she told us that she didn't want to be baptized or married and I just said in my mind, garbage, so close (I say garbage a lot now for some reason). This is the second time this has happened, but luckily we were more or less prepared for this. Following the spirit, we helped her to realize that she has a bit of pride and doesn't have the faith required to receive an answer to her prayers. Actually, that is really the only thing keeping her from following Jesus Christ in her life. I used Ether 12:6 to explain to her that we don't receive faith from our testimony, we need faith to receive a testimony. Hopefully, she will get to that point, and I know she can.

On a lighter note, a weird food type thing that I tried this week was a drink that tasted like chocolate chip cookies if you don't add the chocolate. It is called agua de amaranto. Amaranto is some sort of seed I guess.

In the Colonia Nueva San Salvador, there was something reminiscent of a block party. I am still a little confused why they had it, as with practically all parties, but it had something to do with a visitation of the Savior. Speaking of which, the Catholics here also celebrate baptisms and first communions with big fiestas and lots of drinking, loud music, and dirty dancing. Sort of interesting as it clearly can't be for the person being baptized and that they celebrate a sacred thing like that... oh well.

During the fiesta, we passed by one of our investigator's house. It was super awkward because they had the door wide open and were drinking alcohol. At least we still haven't taught them about the word of wisdom. I guess we know what we will teach them next. :)

Anyways, Have a great week!

Élder Seymour.

Ferris Wheel at festival

Merry-Go-Round at festival

Lots of information, so little time...[Jul 28, 2014]

Well... I guess I`ve got a lot of stories to tell.

First of all, Elder Suarez and I had a baptism the Saturday before last. It was with one of the investigators that we have had for a while and it was totally awesome. Her name is Mayra. We met her on the street, which really served as a gift from God because it was the only time we have seen her in the street. She accepted a return appointment and we taught her whole family. She is a single mother that lives with her parents who are catholic. Since that day, we have been teaching her family. She got her degree in crimonology but is having difficulty finding a job. Also, she can tell what kind of person you are from your handwriting... we tried it out with Elder Tonks and Elder Suarez.

The Saturday that we baptized Mayra, we also had 6 other baptisms in our district. It was pretty awesome. I ended up preforming the ordinance for one of the investigators of Elder Tonks and Elder Mendoza. It was a little weird because she is taller than most of the Mexicans here and it is the second baptism I've ever done. I actually almost hit her head on the side of the wall and I almost dropped her when she was coming out of the water because she lifted her legs up.

Needless to say, I got some tips from Elder Tonks afterward so that won't happen again. However, I should emphasize that nothing weird actually happened, it only almost did.

We also had changes and I got to stay here in Roma while my companion left to go to Amalucan. My new companion is Elder Mendoza who was in our ward, but in the other area. They also closed the other area and opened it up with two sister missionaries. However, in a strange turn of events, they put Hermana Lawson (Chanel) in the other area of our ward as a trainer. At least I ended up with two people that I know in the ward. But seriously, it is pretty cool and Elder Mendoza and I get along pretty well.

It was also a little sad to see Elder Tonks head back home after becoming friends, but I hope to see him again later.

During this week, we had a lesson with an investigator who is super excited to be baptized and learn and everything. Her husband is a less active member and they are going through a bit of a rough patch right now financially. We challenged her to prepare to be baptized on August 30th and she suddenly became excited. She told us that that was her birthday. So now she is really looking forward to that, just like we are.


Have a great Week!
Élder Seymour.

Photo with Mayra

Last photo as a district before changes

Last photo as missionaries in the ward.

Photo with all the people getting baptized

On our way to a fireside with the mission president
 when the taxi driver said he had to change the tire.
Elder Tonks, now at home, is the one smiling in the photo.

And then my companion left...[July 21, 2014]

Yeah... so we found out that at the changes we have tomorrow, my companion is leaving. It is a little sad because we have had so many experiences together and all. I hope he goes to a great area and all.

Speaking of which, I don't have much time to write because we have stuff realated to the changes to do. Sorry.

I also found out that I am the only one in my district that will stay behind in his area... and all the other areas in my district are getting closed and replaced with sisters... I guess that's how it goes. 

However, this also will create some issues that I will explain in the next email.

Have a great week!

Élder Seymour.