Monday, November 25, 2013

Say it how it is Brotha Cruz

November 25, 2013

This week was so awesome!! For sure one of my favorite weeks :)

Cosme got baptized!! We are so excited for him. His family was able to to come from out of town too so that was sweet to see him with his mom and sisters. The water was cold and I had to dunk him twice but all went well :) He was confirmed yesterday and received the priesthood and yesterday in the church Elder Gonzalez and I noticed how different Cosme looked! His countenance is just diferent and we told him and he said that he feels better than he has ever felt in his life. Cosme is the man.
This week we had some really funny experiences. We were eating the other day with a family and the Hermana was telling me how well my spanish has gotten. I was so excited, but like 5 minutes later she asked me a question "so are you elders still showering with cold water" and I was like, well Hermana, we still dont have a boiler but we bought gas and we heat up water on the stove and use that. She looked at me super confused so I kept explaining that I pour the hot water on myself with a big cup and I was acting it out and then everyone just started laughing. I have no idea how I understood her question how I did because she really asked me if I had ever been in their dining room to eat.. Ah man. spanish level back down to zero. I still question how in the world I interpreted her question like that. She said oh elder del toro don´t worry you can share your problems with us anytime. haha. how embarassing now the whole ward is going to know how I bath myself.
We got to do some sweet service this week! we were the moving crew for an Hermano in our ward. He called us up and said he need to move a couple things from his old house so we were happy to help. Holy smokes there were more than a couple things. He had a huge gas tank, a bed, a table, and some other stuff. And the best part is that he didn´t have a truck. We carried all his stuff like a mile across town by foot. haha. I got volunteered to carry the gas tank. I was sweating like a pig when we arrived but we got it done.
The last funny thing that happened was by our good friend Martin Cruz. He was asked to say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and was super nervous because he just became active again and was asking me what he should say. I just said to pray for the things that came to his mind. He got up there and did just that. The funniest thing is that he said "please bless the people who haven´t woken up yet because they are lazy, that they can come to church today". And would you believe it, our investigator Pedro showed up about a half hour later. The power of prayer... Thank you Martin Cruz.
Elder Gonzalez and I are doing awesome. We will miss thanksgiving this year but that´s alright because Elder G doesn´t know what it is and I always had to diet for wrestling during the hollidays anyways. I am so greatful for the time I have to be serving the Lord.

Love you all,

Elder Del Toro





Monday, November 18, 2013

Mexican Chinese Food

November 18, 2013

Hello everybody :)

This week was another good one here in Morelia. There were some really awesome things that happened. First of all, the whole Montes family attended church this week! we were super excited for that, and especially because Pedro helped us with a role play in sunday school because we taught it this week. He basically feels like a missionary. He has come with us a couple times for lessons with really old sisters in the ward and for the role play he gave to ward lots of insight on how they should go about finding people. What a great guy. He needs to attend church a few more times to be baptized but he is definately making progress :)
Our investigator Ramon is way ready for baptism but he still feels unprepared. Honestly, I have never seen someone so prepared. We fasted this weekend and the poor guy looked like he was going to pass out. He fasted for like 35 hours!! His baptism date was for this upcoming saturday but he wants more time to prepare so we just keep supporting him and helping him prepare for his baptism.
Cosme´s baptism is this upcoming saturday. His family is going to come in from out of town to be apart of it. He is very excited and very prepared :)
We are very excited because we have a lot of less active members of the ward coming again and making lots of progress. The best thing is when we lose a less active because that means they have received a calling in the ward and are back to being actives. That is our goal with all the less actives that we teach.
We had divisions for a day with the other Elders and Elder Gonzalez forgot is flip flops at their house. Poor guy had to wear grocery bags on his feet for his shower.
We also found out this week that there is only one thing worse than bad american chinese food... bad mexican chinese food. We had some real bad chinese food this week that tore us up. In one of our appointments the bathroom was right next to the living room and Elder G had to go.There were some terrible sounds. Those darn barking spiders.. We made a promise that the next time something like that happens the other companion will ask the family to sing a hymn with 4 verses to help our companion out.
Everything is going great with Elder Gonzalez and I. We have got to be the happiest pair of missionaries in Mexico.

Love,
Elder Del Toro


Sunday, November 17, 2013

Smile :) Families are Forever

November 12, 2013

Hello fam and friends :)

First of all, thanks for all the birthday wishes. The birthday was different but I think I like birthdays on the mission more than at home. I think it was the first time I have ever really been grateful for a birthday. It wasn´t about presents or singing or anything like that, I really realized how blessed I am to be born into such a great family, to have the Gospel in my life, and to have 20 awesome years!  It was a kind of a long day because we had to travel to Guadalajara for a meeting. It was 4 hours there, a two hour meeting, and 4 hours back. It was a really long day, but it was cool to hear from the President and to talk to Elder Gonzalez for 8 hours about life as we know it for haha. And yes, he did sing to me (in espanglish) and bought me an ice cream when we got back last night.

Elder Gonzalez and I had another awesome week here in Morelia :)
He keeps telling me that I am becoming more mexican each week. We had lunch with a family this week that had some chiles that they said were the hottest. So like most missionaries would do, we took them to the test. It was us two and the other two missionaries in our ward. We each took our turn with the smallest and most red that we could find. Those are the ones that kick the most. The chile drew tears from Elder Harris and Gonzalez. Elder Medrano was sweating so much he had to walk outside for a little. But my chile didn´t really kick that much so they picked another one for me and the same, it didn´t kick much. I have been noticing that I can handle some serious spicy food lately! My tongue is definately mexican I guess. Elder G told me that I am the man and that now he knows why I have so much hair on my chest. haha.

We had some really awesome lessons this week. My favorite was with the Careño family. Hermano Careño was baptized a year ago and his wife 9 months ago. We had them planned for the last lesson of the day on Sunday and holy smokes it was the only lesson sunday. All of our appointments fell threw and we were walking around all day just to find people not home. It was way rough and we were way tired and discouraged so when the Careños were home we were so excited. Our lesson was on temples and we talked about how they can be sealed as a family with their two kids here in the near future. They have plans to travel to the Salt Lake City Temple to be sealed there but are having problems getting their visas and they are sacrificing a lot to have the money to make the trip. It was such an awesome lesson, we talked about how great a blessing it is to be able to be with your family for time here on earth, but for time and all eternity. We told them how happy our Savior must be that they are making that decision. Hermano Careño got super emotional and started crying and then I lost it when I started talking about how grateful I am that my parents made the decision to be sealed in the temple and then Elder G was tearing up sharing his testimony about the temple and Hermana Careño was crying because everyone else was way emotional. But it was such a powerful lesson. The spirit was so strong and I think all of our testimonies were strengthened about families and the temple. How great a blessing it is to have this Gospel in my life. It is lessons like those that make the mission all worth it.
We are very excited for our investigators Cosme and Ramon. They are planning on being baptized the 23 of November.

I am one happy missionary :)

Thanks for all the love and support

Elder Del Toro





Monday, November 4, 2013

Día de Los Muertos.. A killer holiday

November 4, 2013

Hello family and friends :)

This week was Día de Los Muertos. It was pretty cool to see a different tradition, and best of all the sweet bread they sell during this time. mmm!! Pan de muerto is to die for.. no pun intended ;)
They also kind of celebrate halloween here. It was cool to see some scary costumes and some trick or treaters. I experienced my first attack this week too! Not really, but kind of. We were walking back home at night and there was a little girl and her little brother trick or treating and they were outside our gate so I said if they waited a second I would bring out some candy that I had. I grabbed my bucket of candy and dropped a couple pieces in their bags. A couple other kids saw and came running. A few other kids saw them and followed behind them. There were like 20 people outside our gate with there trick or treating bags. Kids with costumes, teenagers without costumes, parents with kids, parents without kids.. It was like when you feed one seagull at the beach and then 30 seconds later there are a ton of others that come out of nowhere. It was super funny though. I was happy to share my american candies with them :)

We also had some awesome lessons this week. We are teaching this boy named Miguel who is 10 years old. He is the son of a lady in our ward that hadn´t been to church in a few years. He loves soccer. That is all he talks about, all he does, and all he lives for. He is a way cool kid. So we started teaching him a few weeks ago with his mom and these past couple weeks we talked about the blessings of going to church. At first he said there was no way he could come because he has soccer games on Sundays. We kept teaching him the importance and kept inviting him and this past week he decided that it was the right thing to tell his coach that he couldn´t play on sunday because he was going to come to church. We were so stoked to bring him! It´s way funny because we go pick him up and ride a combi back to the church with him and I think everyone who sees us thinks that we are his dads. hahaha. It´s way funny. Miguel is such a good example to me of how important it is to sacrifice for the Lord what you love most. It really made me think about what I am going to do when I get back when I have situations like Miguel. I think I have learned more from him than we have been able to teach him.

Elder Gonzalez and I are doing so good. We are getting along great and are trying to work our hardest every day. He wants to learn english super bad. We have been trying to talk english in the mornings and nights when we are in the house. My english has been improving as well. At first I said things really wierd and had to translate from spanish to english every time I spoke. It´s super hard to speak english when you are speaking spanish all day every day. I speak, think, and dream spanish. Sometimes I feel like english is my second language. I love it! :)

Hope all is well with you guys :)

Love,

Elder Del Toro

Elder D and Elder G at a zone meeting