Monday, January 25, 2016

Week 63 - I have my own Bathroom. I´M THE KING OF MEXICO!!!

New Area, New Companion!
Hello my beloved friends and family!

So sorry about the short email last week, I´ll try to make up for that this week!

So my new area is in a ward called Pradera in the Vergel Stake. My ward boundaries actually touch my old ward, Allende where the Temple is, but on the southwest side. I´m still about 10 minutes in a bus to get to the temple, but still REALLY close! On the other side of the highway to my east is my first zone, Plazas!! My first ward was Bosques in Anahuac and the ward below us actually shares a chapel with them! Fun to be so close to everything! 

The house is actually a really nice house. It´s on the second floor, we have our own little entrance and little staircase! The only problem was it´s just really got a lot of junk, dirty, etc. Actually my companion and I cleaned the house the WHOLE P-day except for when we went to shop at a store owned by WalMart called Bodega Aurrerá. We bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and went AT it! The house is actually looking great. It has 3 bathrooms, two of them have showers! I HAVE MY OWN BATHROOM I´M THE KING OF MEXICO!!! I feel so rich. We need to clean the bathrooms though...I've been working on that! The house has a little kitchen, a dining room (both with really ugly old tile) and a study room, 2 bedrooms each with a bathroom and a little bathroom in the hall. It´s bigger than my other apartment for sure! Just a little old...but I´ve got the bedroom feeling like home now!

My last house was one of the only houses in the mission with a laundry machine, so we rent one here. I didn't know that was possible, so I´m glad I found out now! We call a guy and he comes by at 7AM ish in the morning and will come back for it the next day. It´s just a round one we have to full up and drain with a house, but it is great! We pay 50 pesos for 24 hours with that bad boy so we are looking at $2.50 USD. WORTH IT!

Now let me tell you a little about my new COMPANION! Elder Pérez has almost 9 months in the mission and is from Jalisco! We realized that he and I have been in 4 zones and they are the SAME zones! And in two of the zones we have been in the same area! He was in Azteca, Aragón before I got there with the Elder I trained, Elder Arenas, and we are in this ward together! Oh, speaking of Elder Arenas, he trained an Elder named Elder Hernández and then Elder Hernández is training now! I´M A GREAT GRANDPA IN THE MISSION! I feel so blessed. I will maybe someday take a picture with all my posterity! (For those that may not understand, they have a tradition in the mission that you have a "child" when you train a new missionary. When he trains a new missionary, they you are a Grandpa, etc)

Back to Elder Pérez, he is the best! He had an accident a while back so he had leg surgery and the doctor messed up so he only has about 60% rotation in one of his legs, but he works hard! We have been working like crazy here in Vergel.

So we found a book (the previous) Elders left in the house and it had this really cool idea about how to get INTO houses when you knock on them using a 10-question survey and being really bold! Well, it WORKS! We knocked a door and said hi to the guy and explained we wanted to hear his opinion on some questions we had in a survey. He said yes so I said, "Okay, can we come in real quick?" We were so confident he just...let us in! So we got in, did the survey, and then just jumped into the first lesson with a prayer! And he accepted a baptismal date for the 21st of February! We invited him to church and he came at 8AM in the morning in the FREEZING cold! Stayed all three hours and loved it! His name is Sergio, so pray for Sergio that he can keep progressing!!

We are teaching a family called the Mares family and they are ready to be baptized! The parents need to get married though. Pray for them and I´m gonna see if I can pull some strings and get them married this weekend. Anything´s possible in Mexico! They are a Mom a Dad and 3 little girls, two of them are old enough to be baptized!

We had the chance to listen to the World-Wide Missionary Training this week which was INCREDIBLE! I learned a lot from our inspired leaders!

I love you all so much! I know that God lives and that he loves you, too. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that The Holy Spirit will testify of that to whichever person honestly seeks to know God. I love a scripture in John 17:3:

"And this is life eternalthat they might know thee the only true Godand Jesus Christ, 
whom 
thou hast sent."
Love,

Elder Davies
Elder Perez & Davies - Ready for action!






Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Week 62 - Transferred to Pradera. Rootbeer Birthday Cake? 20 years old!

Lunchtime on Kelson's Birthday - Happy 20th, Kelson!
Hey Everyone!!

Rootbeer Can Birthday Cake :)
So I got transferred! More details coming next week, had LOTS of things to do this week!

I´m in an Area called Pradera in the Vergel Stake and I´ll have the chance as serving as Zone Leader with my new companion Elder Perez from Jalisco, Mexico!
Thank you all for the birthday wishes, I love you all dearly! I got to celebrate my birthday with a cake Elder Nobmann bought me in District Class and Root Beer Floats with my companion!! We drank 24 cans of root beer in 6 days. #BestBirthdayEver

The church is true, I love you all so much!!
Elder Davies
A Temple Picture with a family they are teaching
Spencer (Kelson's Brother) & Wife Sierra. Spencer
is apparently pranking Kelson by spelling his name wrong. HAHA!
Happy Birthday Kelson!



A Messy eater?


The Birthday Cake made of Rootbeer cans :)

 


Interesting electrical job. Yikes!






Not sure if this is the old or new apartment?

But I am guessing it is the new apartment :)

Monday, January 11, 2016

Week 61 - An answered prayer, and new shoes in the nick of time!

Axel!
Hola!

This week was GREAT! We had a lot of really cool experiences and found some great people to teach!!

My companion and I have been praying specifically for people to find and we prayed for someone to find that we could set a baptismal date with immediately, and we found him! On Friday we got a call from a Sister in the Visitors´ Center and she said he you have to go with this guy, he´s great!! So after a couple appointments we went and found him at his house. As we got close to his house, we saw the door was open and there was Luis reading the blue pamphlet with the Testimony of Joseph Smith!! As we got closer we saw on his desk on the porch he had a Book of Mormon and the Restoration Pamphlet!! Wow!! He not only read the two pamphlets but he was on his second round to be able to understand better!! He is so great!! Two years ago he fell in the metro and suffered severe brain damage and lost all his memory! About a year ago, it came back, and now he is still working hard even though he isn't at his 100% since his accident. He said there was a reason why God let him live and we told him it was to be baptized! So he has a baptismal date for the 31st of this Month! Yesss! He came to church too all by himself and loved it all!

Ruperto & Adriana & Family at Temple Visitor Center
Ruperto and Adriana and their cute little girls are also progressing a lot! They came to church and we also watched Meet the Mormons with them in the Visitors´ Center yesterday and they LOVED it! Once they can get everything worked out with a past marriage/divorce they are super ready to be baptized!

I also got NEW SHOES from my wonderful family! Thanks so much for sending those! Funny story....coming home from divisions I was getting off the micro bus and the heel ripped my only pair of still somewhat usable shoes and I fell off the micro kinda hahaha...when we realized that the heel of my shoe was still on the micro it was flying away but then I got my new shoes!! Wahoo! Perfect timing!!

Well things are great here, I hope you all are happy and healthy. I know this church is true and I know the Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know that he was sent by a loving Heavenly Father to remind us why we are here and how we can get back to him. I know the Book of Mormon is true and simply reading it changes our days and our weeks and our lives! I invite you all to read and prayerfully study the Book of Mormon and I promise you your life will change, because mine has!

I love you all!Elder Davies

Sunset over Mexico City East Mission

Monday, January 4, 2016

Week 60 - The big 6-0! New Years in Mexico


Adriana's family at the Temple Visitor Center Sunday night

Hey Friends and Family!!

I´m so sorry I haven´t written you all since last year....

That was a dumb joke, sorry.

This week was a good week! Even though it was New Years Eve we managed to have a very successful week! On New Years most people were busy but I was far busier than I was last time this year, not sure why! My companion and I bought Sangria (a red non-alcoholic version of another drink!) and drank it at 10:30 before sleeping but we woke up at 12 because some Elders called us to wish us a Happy New Year haha and everyone was just yelling outside! I really didn't believe it was New Years until we were eating at a restaurant with the family who gave us lunch and I saw the count down on TV in New York or somewhere in the States...I was like what?
Bowling for a Preparation Day activity
Today for P-day we went bowling and that was way fun! Bowling just feels like America! I couldn't stop thinking of Jim Gaffigan and how he talked about bowling as his favorite sports because it´s the only one that, while you´re playing, you can eat nachos! Yes!! Didn't eat nachos though...

So our investigadores are coming along really great! Ruperto and Adriana BOTH came to church this week and they loved it! They were really into the Gospel Principles class my companion and I had to give and then later that night they came to the Visitors´ Center and we taught them the whole Restoration! The hard thing is we can ONLY teach them on Sundays because they work ALL week, but we are making progress! There baptism got pushed out to February because they need to get divorced and then married to each other, but we have faith it will all work out!

Everything is great here in good ol´ Mexico! I hope you all have a wonderful week and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Love,

Elder Davies

P.S. I think that´s Katy Perry photo-bombing us in the back of the first picture...but I just don´t know what any celebrities look like anymore, so someone tell me! Thanks a bunch!