" Remember press forward with a steadfast faith in christ!!"

Whats going on fam!! i know its been a while since i wrote for this blog an im sorry. i know im a slacker when it comes to this stuff. hit me... its sure a good thing im here in mexico! haha. Everything is going well here! and yes we did have transfers like 3 weeks ago the first day of february! and i am stil here in Cuzama en el pueblo, but my compi went home, echeverria already finsihed. but my new companion is Elder Foster. he only has like 7 months in the mission! he is from Utah! we are both going pretty well, we are like 2 peas in a pod. i love it here in Cuzama. the first week of february, they had a huge carnaval here for a whole week. so it was like a party in the pueblo and nobody was in their houses becasue they were all in the center of the pueblos in the afternoon! haha. but it was cool to see some of the events that passed here. i got to touch a bulls butt!! haha, it was close to the fence. it was a bull of our recent converts and he invited us to see it! so it was awesome! haha. sunday i gave another talk, we pretty much have to give a lot of talks here. haha. but i also teach the gospel principals class every sunday, and last week, i was giving an example of how innocent kids are and had a book of mormon and a stuffed bunny, and i called Matias who is an adorable 5 year old, and told everyone that he would grab the bunny, and so i called him from our primary bedroom and he came out and i told him to pick one and he picked the Book of mormon. and i thought to myself that was a complete fail, as they were laughing. and then like 10 seconds later he comes back out and tells me, that he didnt want the book of mormon and that he wanted the bunny instead, and so we switched and i pointed to my class and said, "HA"! my example worked. its was a funny moment. we are activating a less active member here that got baptized a long time ago and she recieved a testimony again as we taught her the restoration, so she is now comeing back to church now and that was soo awesome to see. 

did i tell you that we were in another pueblo and we saw a van full of utah mormons,  their license plate even said utah. and they all rolled down their windows and shouted HI ELDERS!! haha, it was super awesome to see them! 

we are also prepping out recent convert nelson chale to recieve the priesthood of melchezedek! i am soo excited for this family, i love them soo super much!! last sunday, our power went out becasue we didnt pay it. we just forgot, it always happenes to all the missionaries becasue we just get soo busy. have you ever tried planning in the dark! yeah it doesnt work! haha. well ima go because ima see if my computer is fast enough to send pics t send you!! i lvoe you all soo much, and remember press forward with a steadfast faith in christ!!

ELDER WASDEN

mexico yucatan, every year in february they have whats called a carnival with a bunch of events in the villages. with school competative dancing, bull chasing, singing, lots of floats that pass and its awesome!!

here are some of the schools dancing, im sure thise were the elementry school

in spanish, "fish" is pescado and "sin" is pecado. so i told my president that i commited a pescado! thats right i kissed a fish! but we broke up, but i know its all good because like they always say theres a lot more fish in the sea!

GUESS WHAT!! i went to a meeting in ticul and i saw a lot of members from my first area Tekax!! its been more than a year! soo crazy!!

always have to throw in that other pic! haha

Elders of the Zone Tiul

silly pic with my Tekax family

here is the bull chasing that they did at the carnival! it was soo awesome. after my mission i am soo totally going to do it!!

my comp elder Foster and I walking down the street.im too lazy to make a cool caption for this but maybe ill do it later! haha

We have a dog, that always follows us and protects us hahaha

every year here they have a thing called Carnaval! where all the schools have selected people to dance for the pueblo and they have a village king and queen and everything and they perform it in town center. its a big event! and pretty awesome

I LOVE THIS DOG!!

some of the family Puc Cua. the 3 girls are our converts and the others are the future ones. but not the bird, becasue we cant baptize birds!

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!

i just felt i should send all the pics this week. from the last month and transfer! but we already had transfers last week,and i stayed here in cuzama. my new come is elder foster! and ill tell morenext week. and send more pics from this trasnfer

>Love you all!

Elder wasden

my comp sleeping! he was just about finished with his mission already!

entering the cenote, Maria ester

the baptisms of our converts! thats right in the cenote!

baptism of dulce maria

baptism of maria victoria

baptism of maria ester

hermana Ellgen shared her gushers with me!! they were sooo amazing!!!

in a cenote in the back of a house of one of our less active members

beans, rice, and some other stuff we found to make! soo good!! 

district meeting in the house of the elders in the village of Acanceh! 

divisions with elder smith! we got stuck at night in another pueblo far from acanceh and all the transport vans had already finished for the day. so we started walking like 30 minutes and an ambulance saved us and offered to take us back to our pueblo! what a nice guy! hahaha, but it was an amazing walk and a lot of the spirit we felt ask we talked! 

divisions with elder smith!

heading to the baptism of our 3 converts. maria vicoria, maria ester, and dulce maria! truck bed life!

after cutting hair

we entered a cenote! a cenote is a hole in the ground where there is like an under ground water hole. i dont know what their called in english!

exploring the cenote

Manuelito from Campeche came to visit me 

Went to Los Trompos Pizza!! 

look what kind of cookies we found! love being in the offices and love sister garcìa! in which is our mission mom, haha

looks like daliana is going to drive Barney around! haha

This is literally the 2nd mirror i broke in a week, after repeatedly asking the offices for a new one! UGGHHH!! lol

my comp found a wall with his name

in these vans you are suppose to be able to stand up straight in it. welcome to the american greengo life in yucatan! :P

before cutting hair

driving the moto taxi with my best bud Matìas

our recent convert family, Nelsy and Matìas! I LOVE THEM!!!

we teach an english class every thursday, some of our member family attends and looks like they already learned how to form sentences! haha. ana and beto are brother and sister! lol

Daniel, one of the children of our investigator wants to be a missionary like me. haha. he already has the good looks ;)

Daliana and I at church! 

my comp and i, were walking home and we felt to stop and stand outside of this little church and so we listened for a little bit and then a random guy from inside invited us to enter to listen and so we did. we listened until the girl preacher, who was the head of the church to end her speech and then he asked us if we had anything to say, and my comp and i looked at eachother surprised and excited and we accepted the invitation and took turns preaching to all of them about the real nature of god and a little about the restoration and the priesthood. and they asked us to finish the prayer with them so we did. it was a little different in the way they did stuff, but we are actually teaching the girl preacher head of the church and many of its members. it is a pentecost church. so that was a neat experience

us in the moto taxi with alex

spraying my comp with silly string

our zone of Ticul

selfies with the Echeverria

goofy face

Blessings

what happening fam and friends!! a lot has happened this week, but i will try to sum it up really fast so that i may be able to send all the pics from thsi past month!! haha. boy have i been stenghtening my relationship with my heavenly father a lot this time in my life. i am able to see the blessings we recieve when we just strip ourselves of all our pride and just be humble unto the lord giving him ALL the glory. this week we were able to see a lot of the blessings from our actions and our humility to the lord, and he has blessed us with the opportunity to participate in the baptism of 3 of his precious daughters. it was such a beautiful experience, especially to baptized them in a cenote! you'll see in the pics. we have been having a lot of divisions this week to really help the zone accomplish its goals and prepare for the baptisms. this week when i went to acanceh onother village, i met this little girl and her family, and the little 5 year old girl was in her ballerina outfit and she won me over with her adorableness. but she taught me son of her ballerina tricks and i did them with her, copying her moves, you could now say that i know how to dance now! so be prepared for when i get back. hahaha. we ended up teaching their family after they saw my awesome dance moves, lol. ill try to send some pics when i can. but i got to go, i love you guys!

ELDER WASDEN

It's about time!!

 BUENAASS!!! hola como estan familia! i know i know i know, i hardley write anymore, but we usually write in merida, becasue in our village we got nothing! and sometimes we cant afford or we dont have time to go all the way here to merida! but here i am! boy these past 4 weeks have been super busy! i am in the pueblo or village of Cuzama, in which we pretty much have no members. so many things have passed that i can hardly remember everything. like 3 weeks ago, elder acosta got special transfers and went back to merida. so now it is just elder echeverria and I. i was really hoping to kill 2 missionaries but that wont be happening now. haha. for the new years my comp and I got to the house and we cooked some awesome food to feed our hunger and we have our great new years feast with these gringas we made, or more easier for you to understand, quesadillas with the things we combined from our frigde, like corn, eggs, mayonaise and beans!! it was SUPER suprisingly delicous! haha. my comp also showed me a tradition that they do in guatemala in which they write 12 goals 1 for everymonth and then they eat 12 grapes. so we got grapes in did that. never heard of a tradition like that but it was fun! after new years, you wont believe who i saw. i saw my papa, or my trainer, elder judd. he came back to the mission to visit and we went out to eat with him. it was super great to see him. Here in the pueblo, my companion and i have been working super hard. we are trying to make this pueblo into a branch. this sunday we had 23 people in the church today, or our house today. 7 of them were our investigators, and some were other members that come from the other branch of telchaquillo to preside and also some recent converts and their families. when we started, we only had like 6 people in the church. it was soo amazing to se our investigators going. we are actually preping a baptism for this saturday. ill say more about that in a bit. Here in the pueblo life, it can be pretty hard, the problems of the people that we hear as missionaries its just depressing and it gets you thinking 24/7 about each and everyone of them, but you dont know how much i just love it soo much, because i have been strengthened soo much. i have come to love the people even more down hear! and it is amazing to see the changes in everyone and the true eternal peace, joy, safety and happiness they recieve as families. i just LOVE the lord work sooo much!! it just makes me want to record myself dancing super hard so that i an send it to you to see how much i love it! haha. As i have also said in the past, my companion is dying, his mission is coming to an end. he is also working right now in pathway, because he is going to go to BYU-I! im super stoked. eventhough i dont know which one im going to yet. here in Cuzama, the weather is super crazy donw here, it gets down to live 60º F. i dont know why but it is SUPER cold!! we are walking around in our sweaters and in our suit jackets! its super crazy!! the worst part are the showers we have to take in the mornings, super cold. we would rather just not shower and spell bad the whole day then suffer the cold shower. but it sure wakes us up! haha. so i was also headed to the other pueblo of Ek'nakan this week, and in the convi or the transport van, the song cotton eyed joe came on and that pretty much killed me in that small moment! i explained the song and the dance we do at church dances and i promised to teach him it when we got home that night! so ladies at byu, my companion, soon to be Ex missionary, now knows how to dance the cotton eyed joe so be ready because hes coming!! hahaha. boy do i love him soo much!! So we have this family that we are teaching, that is such a HUGE family. its a family of 18 children, already sounds like a future mormon family, huh? hhaa. but on top of that, the grandchildren they have too. but we are teaching them, its hard to find them all at home at the sme time. but we are currently teaching the parents and 3 of their daughters. pretty much all the girls names are maria, but their 2nd name is different. we have grown soo close to this family, and we are preparing 2 to be baptized this saturday. maria ester (22) and maria dulce (20). we are working with the rest of them fam. but we are going there every single day with them and they love to have us over to learn. i love this family tons!! many of them have received their answers from the holy ghost as we invited them to pray and find out for themselves. i guess heavenly fathe answered their prayers! it has been such an amazing experience, and i just hope that i will be able to stay here for the bapstims of more of their family, becasue we have transfers next week, and president wants me to train this upcoming transfer in another pueblo near by, but i really want to stay here, becasue it will be super hard for all of our investigators to find out they have 2 new missionaries! especially after the trust we have finally gained with them, where we know their needs. i have been praying a lot for them!! but i guess we will see what the lord really wants this next transfer, and i will accept his will. becasue he knows his children a lot better than i do.  Well its about time i close up, but i want to say something in which the first presidency said of which i totally agree with, "There is no more compelling work than this, nor any which brings greater satisfaction. … We challenge you to rise to a new sense of commitment to assist our Father in Heaven in His glorious work". i love this work, i love this gospel, and i love my father in heaven! i know this is the only true gospel of jesus christ restored to the earth once again. i love you all and i hope everything still well at home!

con mucho amor y cariño, 

ELDER WASDEN

PS: you could say that im already mexican, i just dont have the mustache yet. im workin on that one!

Elder Judd and the other missionaries who came back to the mission

Me and my Dad