BOY do i love this work and BOY do i love my heavenly father for guiding us to these families!!!

family!! well this week was the week of the hour change, in which we all lost an hour of sleep. a lot of the people here in the village use this excuse for a lot of things! its pretty funny. "i wasnt able to read the chapter in the Book of Mormon because of the hour change". literally for which ever thing. its pretty funny actually. 

so this week when we went to the house of one our investigator families, the family Canul Ayil, we walked up to gustavo, a teenage of 14 years, talking to one of his friends. and it turns out earlier that week, gustavo shared a little bit with his friend about the restoration, of what we taught him the week before. and his friend Angel, another teenage of 16 years, was interested and wanted to hear more. he then joined us in the lesson and we talked about the gospel of Jesus christ and before we could finish, he asked us if he could be baptized. and we were soo excitted for him and we put a date with him the week after the baptism of this family. the next day we go to see Angel again in his house across the street from the family Canul Ayil and we talked with him and his mom joined us too and she accepted to be baptized too. i know that God literally put this family in our hands becasue he knew that they were all prepared. BOY do i love this work and BOY do i love my heavenly father for guiding us to these families. 

we did have zone conference this week in Ticul, we had to stay the night before in one of the houses of the misisonaries over their, and we had a pizza night. haha. its pretty much a misisonary tradition, when you have other missionaries over, you have to eat pizza! haha. the conference was great we made a lot of personal goals to accomplish our mission goals. at the end we all cut open this giant fruit to eat, this fruit was called a Yakah! it was super good!

And mom i did get my package this week. i found out that it was in the offices like last week and we never had time to go all the way to merida,and for the whole week i had to go thinking that it was soo close but not quite in my hands yet! haha. but WOW do you know me! all my favorite goodies. you are the best mom ever!! haha. maybe ill send you some snake skin, i remember how much you love that stuff, looking back on the experiences of the snake skin from justins mission that i always played with in front of you, hahaha. jk love you!

Well  im running out of time but i love ya all and ill be sure to send pics

ELDER WASDEN

Oink Oink! its a baby pig! bring on the swine!

here is one of the churches in Ticul, Yucatan

here is the fruit. i think it was called a Yakah

cutting it open

some awesome elders!

me and mi package!! thanks mom!!

walkin with the comp in the streets of Ek'nak kan.

best mom ever!! haha

this is pretty much our dog, we named her Pek (means dog in maya) who lives in our back yard and has 5 baby puppies, well now there ar only 4 because one died :( 

 

we dont have a can opener so we have been trying to open this can of pineapple with a knife for over 15 minutes! hahaha. 

DID YOU SEE CONFERENCE!!!

i know its been like 18 months in the mission, but i always have a troubles trying to find ways to start the emails every week! but hey, this one counts as a different way doesnt it!! haha. its funny that many people here, tell us that in other churches, they never feel like they can progress or that they are progressing. and this is the time when we come in and teach them how they can continure progressing even until to become a God like our heavenly father! thats actually a think i never thought of before the mission, that why i love learning more and more about the gospel the 2 hours i have everyday! 

last monday, we ended up doing service for a sister less active and she literally has like a  jungle forest in here property. and we just had machetes and cohuas! my comp and i attempted it in the morning thinking that we could finish it in no time, like 10 minutes in we figured out and came to humble ourselves more to find out that we are just 2 americans who have absolutly no skill with couohs or machetes. so we came back later that day when another brother would be with us to help out and boyi do they know how to chop and cut! haha. 

we still didnt finish it becasue there is SOO MUCH!! 

so this week, we also have our progressing investigators who we taught monday night the restauration and it went perfect! we also got the 14 year old son gustavo to go to the stake youth campout of ALL the youth! we prepared him the day before and he said it was amazing and he loved it! it was good to see that he met some other youth his age who have standards because here in the village we dont really have that much youth yet! but hey, we are working on it! the 2 days he was gone, one night we have a FHE in the house of a member and the mom, marcelina went and we all enjoyied an awesome lesson prepared by the missionaries and the sister anna! it was great, we ate tortas after and they were soo delicous!! 

This week during our weekly planning we did clean out the area folder and organized EVERYTHING a lot more and now it is more neat and awesomer! even if awesomer is not a word, it still is awesomer!! 

This week we also got to do divisions with the zone leaders! zone leaders in all the mission are trying to do divisions with eacher companionship in the zone! so we both went to their area to work with them for a day, and i went with Elder Bahr! elder bahr is like the peanut butter to my jelly! haha, i love that guy. we had a lot of spiritual experiences that day with the people we contacted in another pueblo that day. it got late there that we missed our bus, and so we waited at the entrance of the pueblo or village and waited for someone to take us.(yes we did hitch hike) we alwasy do it in the small areas, but this guy in a truck picked us up and we rode all the way back to Ticul in the bed of the truck enjoying the beautiful creation of the stars god made! it was soo awesome! when we go back, elder bahr and i both had the desires and impression to drink a natural juice and so we searched in many streets in center ticul looking for a place that sold natural juice. not just any bottled juice but natural homemade juice. we asked everyone, and contacted them as we went. as we go to a place, we ordered our juice. and we started talking to the worker and turns out he was from El Salvador, south america, and he has only been here for 1 year. but he took the discussions from the missionaries down there a long time ago and he went to church 3 times already! we gave him another book of mormon to read and take with him. it is amazing how the lord guides us to his children who are chosen and ready! it was a neat experience. when we finished after that we started heading home like 15 minutes early, becasue we remembered that it was APRIL FOOLS DAY! so we got to the house, we took EVERYTHING and hid it in the back room and knocked over some chairs and made it look like someone robbed the palce, we left the door wide open and with all lights off and hid in the back room,a nd just waited. when our companions got to the house they were scared to enter, they eventually entered and they had socked faces, we then opened the door really fast only to see faces of terror to yell APRIL FOOLS! haha, it was great! i love them soo much and i love the little fun we do in the mission! lol. 

one a more spiritual note! DID YOU SEE CONFERENCE!!! boiy was it amazing! we traveled to a city called Kanasin to go see it with some other elders! us american elders separated ourselves from all the latinos, and we watched the conference in a separate room with a flat screen and watched it in english! it was soo good!! i especially love the last talk, by Elder Jeffery R Holland! It just helped me understand more about the atonement of jesus christ in everything we do! it was very inspirational. The lord doesnt bless those who are perfect without trials, but he blesses those who are at least trying to improve in all they do! the atonement is for everyone and thanks to Jesus christ we dont need to be afraid of tomorrow but we can look into the future of tomorrow with a steadfast, faith and hope in christ! i am soo great ful for the privilage to be lead by a prophet of god in these latter days! i know thomas s monson is a prophet and i know he has 12 apostols who teach, testify, and show the love of Christ! i love this restored gospel and i have seen many of the blessing in my own life thanks to it! i challenge each and everyone of you to look for the blessings that god has given you thanks to the restored gospel and then give thanks to god for each and everyone of them. everything we do, it should be not to glorify ourselves but to glorify God in everything! i love you all and thank you for all your love support. have an amzign week! and WATCH CONFERENCE if you havent!!

honey bunches of love, (gasp! i want honey bunches of oats now i totally forgot about those, haha)

ELDER WASDEN

Alex helped me make my own weight set!! GYM TIME!!

divisions

The Nelson Family

So in merida last monday we were walking down town until we heard a "HI ELDERS" and we see an american family eating ice cream. so we met them and found out they were from Utah! its the Nelson Family. they are super nice and funny! they even have a daughter out on the mission. they offered to buy us something! and we of course accepted! i loved the american attitude and energy they had. haha. its was cool to see Utah mormons here in mexico!! haha

Hello!

My family is vacationing in Merida and ran into your son and his companion in the town square. We bought them drinks (chaya, our favorite here! ) and had a delightful conversation with them. I just wanted to let you know that they are doing really well and working hard.  They both have great attitudes and a sense of humor. 
You must be so proud. I'll attach a photo.

Best to you,
Julie Nelson

Buenos Tardes Familia!!

Buenos Tardes Familia!! espero que todo esta bien! i keep feeling, that i know it is the same work everyday, but more and more different things just keep happenign each week! there was an experience last week that i didnt have time to tell, but we were coming back to cuzama from another town/village we have and we felt to go visit the family Ayil was a less active family, and we went over there, and we visited them, and we found out that the mom was having trouble with finding work and she was about to accept a job to work on sunday so she could get back on her feet. this was of course after she just started coming back to the church after regaining a testimony and now the adversary is really trying to get her back by putting pretty offers in front of her face, but we reminded her of the sabbath day, and the faith in god. mainly about the promises that god gives us about the financial things. and we were able to help her feel the spirit to remind her what satan was trying to do, trying to keep her from going to church. she said she even felt a bad feeling just thinking about it. because the was thinking about accepting the job offer, but that ws when we came! i know the lord sends us to specific places because that is where we are called! God loves his children and is alwasy there to protect them from danger when we are truly willing to follow him. that sunday she went to church and denied the job for what the spirit told her! and we also had 2 other less active young women  who went to church last week too! so that was a blessing to see the start of their family! we are growing this village really slowly but only with the help of the lord! this last p-day last week, my comp lost his wallet in the back of a taxi here in mexico, we havent found it yet,after saying a prayer, we had to go back to the offices to order his new cards of the mission and his assurance cards, the that was a hassel. 

as a district we all went to a place called Sams Club which is kind of like a Costco, but it was soo amazing, it made me miss the stores in the states, but we of course had to eat all the samples! haha. the next day in our district meeting we ate a giant cheesecake that we bought for real cheap and we ate it as a distrct! just us 6 elder and what a great experience, to have real food! HMMMN!!!

we have this investigator that lives in a village named Homun and we have been going a lot with this family. this family, ever since we started taking the lessons with them, they have been made fun of and laughed at by other people because they see that they are talking with us. it makes me thing that it NEVER happens to any church other than us! its just because satan works hard against people to prevent them from entering the church of God. They told us about the other people, but they also told us that what they are hearing feels right and they know its true! and that moment my heart was just touched! they are soo amazing, we have only been talking with the mom and son, marcelina and gustavo, but carlos the Dad, always works in merida and is never home. we thought he would be the only thing that would prevent this family and they thought that too, but this week, we talked to him the 2nd time, because we found this fam because we contacted the dad one day but he was drunk. and the lesson we had with HIM and his family went good, but he said he was not going to be able to go to church becasue he would go to work, but he got sick that day in his stomach, so we picked up the wife and kids in a motorcycle taxi  and we went to church. and during the meeting, we see that carlos the dad, rode his bike ALL the way from Homun to Cuzama just to come to the church! that was a great sacrifice, and this day in the church, we felt it was just perfect for everyone because there whole family was together in the church! it was an amazing sunday!!  we could really see the blessing that god shows us and the miraces! 

this week my comp did get food poisoning and star-medica the hospital was really far in merida so we couldnt really go, so we had to stay in the house the whole day and i took advantage of this day to read my scriptures and study the WHOLE day!! boy did i love that too! 

this week we also went with the family Chale, some recent converts and we taught them the plan of salvation, but with my little cut out layout laminated images. but it would be fun if we didnt teach them, but that they would teach us the plan of salvation. so we gave them the laminated cut ots and we acted like investigators, so they had to put all of them in order and teach us about every part of the plan and boy it was fun! hahaha. at the end they even made me one of my favorite drinks here, Cebada, which is barley! ill show you when i get home! haha. but HMMN is it good!!

Lastly yesterday was Sunday,and we had a district preisthood conference, like stake preisthood conference with the president of the mission. and i got to see all my members from tekax my first area, they were surpised i could talk spanish! haha. but it was grat to see each and every one of them. including rodrigo and a little boy from a family i helped teach with elder McDonald, but they are working on getting sealed!! also my convert Leti Gongora from tekax, got married with another member in tekax!!!! :D and they are going to get sealed in the temple too!!!!!! but after their year mark as member!! i was soo excited to hear all the progression that has been happening over there! i honestly love this work and i have been able to see all the seeds that i planted in my other areas are starting to grow. i know if i just keep throwing the seeds, it will one day plant itself in good dirt and grow! i lvoe this work soo much and i love talking to people and serving God by serving others! i know that this is the only true church on the earth and i know that Jesus is the Christ and my savior! i will serve him for the rest of my life until i pass over to the spirit world only to keep serving just as He did. he is my example. He is my savior, He is my older brother, He is the center of my life!! i love you all with all my heart and im glad that heavenly father put me here on this earth with all of you, my loving family and friends! 

Lots of Love

ELDER WASDEN

PS. ill send some pics dont worry!! :D

This is our new motorcyle taxi driver friend we met! he is 13 YEARS OLD!!

                                                  selfie time! 

we are in a cenote, or a sink hole that dried up and is now just an underground cave!!

Add caption

we went in so deep we couldnt see! we used the flash from our cameras! 

                                           found this in our house! 

I PET A COW!!

                                     we just thought this was cool! at the same time!

after a big meeting in merida, all us missionaries boarded a bus and sang to everyone in the bus! haha. it was soo fun. this is elder Cadena

Only in mexico will you find a cow tied to  telephone pole in the public streets! hahaha

you wont believe what the primary did to me after church!! 

They tied me up!! i thought it was just for a lesson but they left me in the room to just sit there! hahaha. for a bunch of primary kids they sure know how to tie knots! 

This little guy was trying to enter our house!! haha, no no no... not todaay!! 

We took a little branch pic! these are some of the members, there were some that left, but when I started here, there was only 7 going to church. and now there are like 24 going

Our investigador Medardo who lives in Huhi! 

the bathrooms arent perfect but hey they work

MOM!! i finally made the bread that grandma mary sent me! we found an oven!!

two of my favorite kids!!

HMMMN!! Bread from the states!! thanks grandma!! i saved the box for 4 months just to cook it! hahaha

Quick Email

M!! whats going on. thanks for the email,this week was another one of those weeks that just made me happy. we had a pretty busy week this week. i feel like everytime i start a letter, its always the same! haha. anyways! wells to start off, we were suppose to have transfers last monday,but they changed the time stay in the MTC`s so we had this transfer last for 7 weeks instead of 6. so today was the day of transfers! you will never where i am right now!!! you want to know, I am in CUZAMA!!! thats right, none of our district changed this transfer, which is awesome, because just means more time with the people i love in this area! my companion is still Elder Foster from Utah, we are doing a lot better each day! This week we had a 2 day training meeting in Merida, so we stayed in merida 2 days, tuesday night and wednesday night, and went back thursday in the night time. in these training meetings with president and like 5 other zones, its was crazy awesome and spiritual and we learned a lot of things to apply in our areas! my comp and i tried a different way to help the members understand the importance of the sabbath day, and as a result, a lot of less actives went to church this sunday! it was great to see them refill themselves spiritually! i have come to know better of the sacrament each time i teach it, and have come to really understand more of why we take it, and its not really a tradition but its literally for our souls! (3 Nephi 20:8)  to be spiritually filled. wells its like, if we didnt eat food for months, what would happen, we would die, and the same with our spirits, if we dont eat or drink the body of Christ or the bread and water for months, we would be spiritualy dead!! i challenge each and everyone of you to keep filling your spiritual stomachs so you wont become spiritualy dead.

This week we had a lot of rain! like always which got us soaked but ill tell you one thing, i had a poncho so i didnt get as soacked, the rain would find a way to fall and then curve back up under my poncho just to get my pants wet! but ill tell you another thing, me socks were dry because of my new pair of shoes!!!! in which i love more now! haha. 

this friday we had a bid family home evening in another pueblo named Telchaquillo as a ward put on by us 6 missionaries in our district, to ty to strengthen the unity as a branch. and we watched zions camp, becasue it was a message directed to them, but after we played some fun games that EVERYONE enjoyed! and we ended with refreshments/ hot dogs. because its not an activity without food! am i right! :D 

during church yesterday, well before it started, we went with another member in his moto taxt to pick up a less active, and as we left back for the church, her dog followed us all the way back to the house of prayer, or our church house. hahaha. as church started, the dog just walks in our house and just chilled under one of the chairs, one of the members said, aww "the dog just wants to listen to the word of God" haha, its was funny though but the dogs down here are sick and infested with stuff, but after the 2ndhour, we see fleas crawling on the floors and on the walls, and we hurried and took out the dog, and started cleaning everything before the fleas would start spreading more. we hope we got all of them, because if we didnt, they would be getting on our hammoks as we sleep at night and we will become just as invested as the dogs, so keep praying that we got them all because there were a TON!! hahaha. 

after church we traveled to another one of our pueblos names Huhi and we visited our awesome investigadors there. one is a teen of 13 years old and he read a the first 11 chapters of the BOM!! i was soo happy!! 

IM sorry for the short emial, but our bus leaves in like 15 minutes to go back to our pueblo! ill send some pics next week! but i love you all and have an amazing week!!

LOTS OF lOVE!!

ELDER WASDEN

Rain, Rain!!

hola fam!! buenas!! espero que todo esta bien! escucho que todo esta bien alli en los estados!! that is amazing that you guys are getting a ton of rain, i have been praying for that a lot, that california would experience the rain that we get down here!! haha. speaking of rain, boy did it rain a ton this week!! not just rain but heavy down pour, and boy were we lucky to be walking under that, yes we did get soaked. but i took advantage of it, because for some of you that do know me... I LOOOOVE THE RAIN!! my comp though i was crazy as i never carry an umbrella, not only because it broke the first time used it in campeche during the heavy huricane we had. but still!! my shoes didnt even try to keep the water from touching my socks, because there are 2 big wholes on the bottom of them. haha. i probably have a picture! today we worked in the morning instead at night, and we went to another pueblo and we talked to this house and the people were really inviting and friendly, we offered to help them with their dishes and to wash the clothes, so we helped them a little with that, also as they showed us all their animals and there property, they even fed us, we got to share a little bit about our message and mainly about the eternal families before we had to catch the transportaion back to our pueblo, but we are going to go back wednesday with them! haha. that was a tender mercie of the love that God has for us, by giving us food and a wonderful family to work with. MOM!! also i have learned soo much piano out here on the mission weekly, but start looking for a place to put the piano in the house because i promise i am going to play it this time!! i know i told you this many times, but this time I'm for real.hahaha

 this week was also a strange week, there was a woman that elder echeverria and i met like 8 weeks ago who told us that she got involved in witchcraft. and this week we saw her in the street and this witch put a spell on us, so that was kind of freaky!! so im pretty sure we wont be going back there again. its a great thing that i know the lord is always protecting us from bad spirits that come our way.

there was one day this week, where pretty much every one of the appts we had rejected us. that really got to us that day, but it was also a moment to apply the atonement of jesus christ in our lives to help us and to pick us up again. the power of the atonement is a real thing and can help every person who is willing to accept him and let him change your heart!! boy do i love my savior!!. 

this week we have had many experiences here in the village, lets just say satan is working hard in our investigators, but in the end i know we are winning. we have a family, the family Canul Campos who is an excellent family in which i love a ton! we are starting to activate a lot of less actives that got baptized like 8 years ago, but the church left from this area and so everyone went inactive, except for 1 family, the family Pech. but it really showed to everyone, what it is like without the gospel in their lives and how they fell for the mistakes they have done, but that it is never too late to return to heavenly father and jesus christ though the atonement of jesus christ. we were able to witness in these past 3 weeks the atonement of jesus christ work in the heart of a less active member who is now beginning to be active!! i lvoe this gospel soo much and im so grateful to have the truth restored to the earth again and the opportunity to share it with all my brothers and sisters! i wouldnt change this experience for any thing!! i love my savior, i love my heavenly father and the plan he has for me, i know i will try my best every day to do his will and not mine, becasue in know in the end of his will is the eternal life and eternal happiness!! i love you all and i hope and pray that you experience this change of heart for yourselves to really see the hand of the lord in your lifes!!

i will be sure to send pics of this week!

ELDER WASDEN

This puppy is literally my best buddy! 

He studied with me in the morning!

me and Elder Foster walking back from an appt from another pueblos or village. we help do some service!!

Im pretty sure these shoes just about finished their mission! hahaha

WE GOT PUPPIES!!! this dog gave birth to 5 puppies in our back yard!

I hate cutting up onions because it always makes me cry!!

Me and the Big Guys!!

Im pretty sure i made papa cow mad!! :O

Selfies with the comp in the rain!

Boy do i love the rain!!!

thats right! i got chicks down here in mexico!

This morning, i caught a wild rooster out back after chasing it a lot!! Looks like we got dinner! ;P