One Big Crazy Week

Well I'm going to start out by saying that this week was a really big and crazy week for me!! the beginning of this week which was Monday, happened to also be a holiday tradition they have down here in Mexico! part of this tradition is starting from 3pm to dark, a ton of people and teen have water balloon fights and throw water balloons and eggs at random people. they also have wars with other people who do the same. but let me tell you, my companion and i were on the look out the whole day, as missionaries, i don't know if you noticed but wearing a white shirt and tie, really makes you stick out, so we avoided a lot of roads which the people were on! jaja. their was a large group starting to come  towards us, and we happened to be close to this hermanos house and we banged on the door asking if he could hurry and let us in, because he was old he slowly made it to the door but eventually we were saved and we taught him a lesson about the plan of salvation which he need to hear. our investigators maria y flor are progressing, and i cant even describe how awesome they are! this week also we did some service for some members in the branch, did a lot of chopping with machetes and you wont believe how many fires we light every time we do service! its kind of fun at the same time! after doing so much service with machetes, after today being our pday, i can now say im an owner of a machete... that's right i bought one! this week we also had a Noche De Hogar, which is family home evening, and we had it at this amazing family's house in our branch, and they invited a family that weren't members and had some other members and friends their and all us 6 missionaries in tekax and we watch the stone cutter, shared a lesson and ate lasana, i forgot how to spell it, and i could care less, but the stuff with a flat noodles and tastes like heaven, okay now you know! but it was a really fun night. we also have this hermana in the branch that feeds us soo good every Thursday, i almost sure every time i go there i gain like 5 pounds! so Mexico earlier this week, had a tone of parades again on out street! also this week we also had consejo de zona, zone meetings, and presidente came to Ticul and spoke to us, and we did a lot of practicas, but after like 8 hours of being there when it was time to end, president had a surprise and told us that we were going to see meet the Mormons... none of us believed him because he always said to us that we could not watch that movie, but when they played it, all of our mouths just dropped, so being me, i had to give my president a big American bear hug! but yeah meet the Mormons was amazing, and even better in Spanish! this week i also went on splits with elder McDonald in his area, and we talked to many people, and met a guy that spoke a little English, also talked to this baptist pastor that hates us missionaries for some reason, also this boracho or drunk guy ran up to us, and started yelling asking us if we wanted to pass, and he then tried to swing at me and missed and as we were walking away, his brother came out and yelled at him for bothering us, so that was an interesting moment. after that we made it to our appt and i met this family, alan, dora, and emily. i cant really explain that lesson in words but it was so strong in that room because all the problems and trials they were going through. all that brings us to today, which is Tuesday, my pday for this week because we had the opportunity to go to the temple again! it was such an amazing experience! but what happened yesterday before we left to merida where our temple is, we got a call from president which was rare and notified us of special transfers, and my papa elder Judd is now the assistant to the president and my new companion i have is elder rodgers! so yesterday after the call, we had 2 hours to say goodbye to everyone and leave to ticul. after he packed all his stuff up we all met at the bus station where we missed our bus, so we had to wait for the next one at like 10pm so we bought a pizza and ate in the buss station and talked to this member from ticul that was there too. we slept and hour in ticul and took a convi to merida at 2 in the morning, and went through the temple. after today, elder Judd and i said our good byes and i welcomed elder Rodgers, and took him back to tekax. where i am now the senior companion. i love change soo much and i know this is going to be a great experience, i already love elder Rodgers and i cant wait to work hear with him! 

also a little bit off topic again, but i did get letters from some amazing people this week, you know who you are! also i finally got my birthday package that was sent on December 14, 2014 with chocolate cookies, and when i got it i opened with all us elders in the bus station and knowing that they were 2 month old cookies, attempted to try them, because we were hungry, and surprisingly 2 month old cookies were very delicious! so i thank you very much grandma Mary! jajaja anyways that was pretty much my week, ill send some pictures!
Love Elder Wasden

Goodbye to Elder Judd

Hello to Elder Rodgers

 

 

pizza party in the bus station

Enjoying my cookie

Finally got birthday cookies from Grandma Mary

Pictures!!

Our casa de oracion, or house of prayer which is our church every Sunday

what a moto taxi looks like

MEET THE MORMONS in our area!!

 

 me riding a member taxi

 

 me and some homemade gym weights

 our little church in xaya

 the ambulance that saved our lives!

 the beginning of our 3 hour walk back to tekax

 basketball with our branch president and our district

 by the way mom, i found your pen you were missing! gracias

 

our zone meeting

 

Spider!!

 

companions awesome lizard towel

 

ana, our branch presidents daughter

Who needs a Taxi when you can ride in an ambulance

Hola!! this week has been a great week. we have these investigators named maria y flor. we have been teaching them for a while now. flor is a little girl who has 9 years old and she is one adorably sassy girl. but we honestly love those two. the first time we met them was about 4 weeks ago on the street,and flor was really shy and didn't want to shake our hands when we first met them both, and now i can say we are pretty much besties. jaja. but this week we invited them to a baptism with us in oxcutzcab, and they came, we picked them up and took amoto taxi or motorcycle taxi to the church where we all took a convi to go. when we got to the church in oxcutzcab we gave them a tour of the church and later watch the baptism. they loved it and thought it was beautiful, and we also invited them to church again after many times the past few weeks but they finally came with us, and when they came they were immediately greeted by members. maria and flor made many friends and totally felt welcomed. i couldn't have been more happier to see that. they were involved in the classes, the members told me and also asking a lot of questions. and we are going to teach them again this week. i love that family. as a missionary, church is just not the same, we are always thinking about our investigators and how they are doing. its awesome at the same time. we have been working with the members a lot on family history. also for valentines, there was a parade out side our apartment, it was pretty fun and funny to watch. plus we got free candy. this week we went to Xaya again, this pueblo in the middle of nowhere. but its really easy to get there but its hard to come back. so we took a convi to xaya, did our stuff there, met with a family there who are members but nobody there can afford to come to tekax, neither that family to come to church every week, so we have a sacrament meeting and a little class in the house of the members. we are going to build xaya and introduce them to the  gospel. It is the first time missionary's have ever stepped foot in that pueblo. so we are very thankful to be the ones that start it, just from this little hut as a church. but we believe we can do it. eventually when it was time to go back to our other pueblo, the convi that said he would be there at a certain time, never showed, so we were stuck in xaya. so we hitched a ride in this car with 3 other old Mayans that spoke nothing but Maya and a little English. and tried to have a convo in that tightly packed car with 5 men. jaja. they dropped us off in a pueblo called tixmueak. and we got stuck there but we were about 20 kilometers away from tekax, so after trying to wave down the 3 cars that passed by and having none of them stop, we decided to start walking after many coin flips to try to find an excuse to not walk but the coins never lie so we started walking, we predicted we would hopefully be back in tekax in about 2 or 3 hours after walking for a long time we got to know each other a lot better. jaja. eventually after a long time, we were saved by this only car that passed by. and this car that picked us up happened to be an ambulance. so we rode in an ambulance back to tekax! it was a pretty interesting week. but yes that was my week! by the way i want to let you know that i did get all the letters like last week, and thank you everyone. it was really fun to read them! also mom, can you please give grandpa my email. gracias! well hope you have a great week because i know i am loving it more each week. pues ima close cuz i need to go, so peace out for this week.

Lots of love

Elder Wasden

 

Another Amazing Week

Ba'ax ka wa'alik (whats up)! I'm still trying my best to learn some maya and Spanish at the same time! there are these members in our branch that we went to this week, and as we were all talking, they started talking in maya to each other, so i was like woah woah woah, hey no maya because that is soo not fair! (but in Spanish) and they laughed and kept going and trying to talk to us in maya, so we twisted things around and talked to them in English! yep thats tekax, it was pretty funny. they are teaching us some maya every time we go over there for lunch! this week was an amazing week , and i know i say that every week because they always are, but i loved this week because Monday we had the opportunity to go to the temple at like 4am Tuesday morning!  and i thought English was confusing, Nope! it took me a while to figure out that the session would be in Spanish. i understood most of it, and it was soo beautiful! Monday night when we arrived in merida, we went to this restaurant in merida that almost every missionary knows of, but since it was out pday we ate there and it was the best food we had in a while! this week we have been trying a lot to contact the less active members and we obtained a big list of members so this week. i have been getting a lot better with a machete because we did service one morning and chopped a bunch of plants and tall weeks at the casa de la familia basto cab. Jose their son said that i was a natural! good thing i practice a lot playing with my brothers machete before the mission. this week we met this boy named Amilkcae who had only 15 years. he is such a pretty cool guy and he accepted a book of Mormon, and he wanted us to come back for another lesson. also there is this little boy named leonardo who has about 11 years, and he has been coming to church a lot and reading the book of Mormon and he told us that he wants to get baptized, we are still working with his mom and she inst very interested, he has his aunt who is a member and we want him to have family in the church that will help him to stay active. he is such a great kid, we are like best buds. he wanted to get his own quad of scriptures so we are helping him with that. this week, and amazing young man who is so close to all of us missionaries and he came to a lot of meetings and appts with us, he left on his mission this morning to the Mexican state below California that right this very moment i can not remember the name, let me ask my companion......okay he doesn't remember the name either but he thinks it started with a T. hay esta! he gave his little farewell talk at the noche de hogar (FHE) Friday and it was amazing, he is going to make such an amazing missionary! i love our branch president here, he is such an awesome guy. hilarious too. he told me that is i return to tekax after my mission that i can stay at his house and live with him! that's a long ways, but mom start looking for plane tickets because i heard they are cheaper the more in advance you get them. jajaja. well that was pretty much my week! estoy muy agredido que puedo servir un misión aquí en tekax! yo se que esta iglesia es verdadera y que dios tiene un plan por cada uno de nosotros y yo se que supone que debe estar aqui en esta parte de mi vida! amo a todos ustedes, nos vemos! BUENAS!!!

Mucho Amor

Elder Wasden