July 9, 2012--Week 19

1.  What time is your church?  I know you said there are two wards that meet in your building, but I don't know what times the wards meet.

Our ward (San Jose Ward) meets at 8 in the morning.  The Indeco Ward enters at 11.

2.  What are some of the mutual activities that the youth in your ward do?  Do the young women and young men meet separately or together for joint activities too?  What things are different for the youth because of the culture differences?

I actually don´t really know.  Since I´ve been here, the young men did a camp out and they play soccer every week.  I think they do mutual on Saturday mornings every other week or something.... But they are normal youth here just like in the States and they do a lot of stuff together.

3.  Jared wants to know if he would think the girls in Tapachula are pretty?

Hahaha again just like in the States.  There are definitely pretty girls here, but there are the "sweet spirits" too.  And they would love Adam and Jared too.  I can just hear it... "Ayyyyyyy mira esos gringos bien güerros y altos con cabello de oro. ¡que guapos!"  It would be great.  I think there would be a slight language barrier though. Their English here is pretty rough.

4.  Do you spend some time with other Elders or just your companion?

Right now actually I am on a division with the Elders of Indeco.  Elder Howell is in Tuxtla re-innovating his visa.  We do divisions every once in a while, and we see the other missionaries of the zone every week at district meeting.  Also, Elder Howell as of last Tuesday is district leader, so we have a lot more contact with the zone leaders too.

5.  Do you use a pillow and bedding with your hammock?  How does it work?

I just use a pillow.  Sometimes I get cold at night now so I use a blanket too.

6.  The boys LOVE the new EFY music.  This year they didn't give out CDs but a download card.  If we sent you the link and card, could you download the music on the computers you use?

That would be awesome!  I would be able to put it on my mp3 and everything.  The jovenes here have EFY in a few weeks two.  The week of the 23 is the first EFY in the history of Chiapas, so that´s pretty exciting.  All the youth in my ward are going.  The theme is "Levantaos y Brillad", so I think that would be "Arise and Shine Forth", right?


So, sorry to report I don´t have a ton to report again this week other than what I´ve already said in the answers to your questions.  The most exciting news is that Salvador did get baptized Saturday and was confirmed yesterday!  

We´ve had a pretty good and normal week with a lot of walking around in the sun and sweating.  We´re kind of short on investigators right now.... We´ve had to drop a lot of them because they wouldn´t come to church or keep any commitments, so the coming week is going to be a lot of contacting and searching new investigators.  We know that there are a lot more people in this area that have been prepared to receive our message, so our objective this week is to find them and invite them to come unto Jesus Christ by repenting of their sins and being baptized.

Something that we´ve been doing a lot lately is focusing a lot specifically on the example of Jesus Christ.  When people realize that they need to be baptized by immersion and by the authority of the Priesthood because that is what Jesus Christ did, it helps them to realize that that is why it´s such an important commitment to make.  So we´re going to keep doing that this week and I have faith that I´ll have some stories to share about that next week. :) Love you lots!!

Con amor,

Elder Nickerl