What a weird week...

March 24, 2014

Hola mi familia y amigos :)

This week went pretty good!! It was a pretty wierd week this week because nothing really wierd happened! So I don`t really have anything cool to say this week.
This week we had the baptism of Brandon!! It was an awesome baptism. His whole family came, including his grandma who has been a member for a long time but none of her other family members have been baptized. She gave a talk in the baptism and her and her grandson both cried and were very emotional. I was so excited for them. And after Brandon got baptized his little sister asked her mom if she could be baptized now. haha it was super cute.
Daniel is another investigator of ours that just keeps surprising us. He seems like he was such a rough guy before but now he is way into the gospel and is like 40 pages into the book of mormon.
The Arredondo family is still doing great! We have plans to make them french toast the morning of general conference because they ALWAYS give us a ton of food when we visit them.
The "niños escogidos" are going to be baptized this week. They are the two brothers, elias and juda. They are super funny. One of them kind of looks like he could be my son and the other kind of looks like he could be Elder Ormeño`s son.
Everything is great!! A bunch of Elders went bowling today for p-day. I think the americans had a better time than the latinos haha, a lot of them had never played before and had a lot of gutter balls.
Elder Ormeño and I are hoping we don`t have transfers next week. We are both really content here and neither one of us wants to leave.
Thanks for all the support! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Elder Del Toro

Milk...?

March 17, 2014

Hello everybody!!

Another great week in Morelia Mexico!! I hope I serve my whole mission here. I have big dreams of a new mission opening here.. "Mission Mexico Morelia" Ah man that would be the best. The stake president and I were talking the other day and we decided to give it all we got and he said maybe before I leave, this state of Michoacàn would have enough members to open up the new mission. I`ve got big hopes :)

So at the beginning of my mission it seemed like I always had bathroom stories. I think I`ve pretty much got that part of the mission by now, but recently I`ve had lots of food experiences. This week I had my first experience with leche de vaca.. for those of you who don`t speak in espanish, that means cow milk. And like yeah almost all milk comes from cows right? but we are talking DIRECTLY from the cow. This stuff doesn`t come in the gallon containers. So on my mission I have learned to never turn down stuff that people offer you, they think it`s super rude. I`ve never been a fan of milk but I have learned on the mission to drink it. But oh man, this milk is diferent. It`s not really white like I`m used to and it`s just got a super bad texture.. it was like I was drinking milk with cottage cheese in it!! And it was warm!! and this was no glass of milk, this cup was huge!! But I drank it all. I almost had tears in my eyes, but I drank it like a champ. They figured out I was a first timer with leche de vaca and they said I was done for. They didn`t tell me until after that the first time you drink leche de vaca, it really messes you up. Great. So we walked out of there and a half a block later I was throwing up. And the next day was a little tough on the bowels. But I`m convinced that now that I got the first time out of the way I can handle it.

The work went great this week too! We have been blessed to have a lot of work and a lot of sweet investigators. This week I remembered a couple magic tricks, too. I can make a peso dissapear and I have a pretty cool card trick. They all love it!! It looks like we will be having a baptism this weekend with Brandon and another 2 next weekend. The Arredondo family didn`t make it to church this sunday so we are hoping that they will be baptized in april. Daniel Zamora our 76 year old investigator has been to church twice now and reads the book of mormon every day!! He has changed a ton. The first time we taught him he swore like a sailor, but now he is like a little choir boy. Awesome things are happening here in Morelia :)
Love you all!! Hope you have a great week!

Elder Del Toro

Can I get an "Amen"??

March 10, 2014

Hola familia :)

Another good week here in the motherland. Weeks just keep flying by for me!! It`s like every week is a day for me. But things are still awesome here.

This week we had the long awaited tacos de cabeza with the Arredondo family. Best tacos I have ever had. Seriously, I ate until I couldn`t breath anymore and then I had one more taco. They offered me the eye, but I said that I`m taking baby steps. I just didn`t like the idea of looking down at the taco and having it looking right back up at me.

Wow, I had quite the experience this week. Probably the coolest experience I have had on my mission. On thursday in the street we stopped and talked to an old guy who was trimming his tree outside. He told us that he has a little group of his own that meets in his house to study the bible every saturday so of course we had to invite ourselves. Saturday we showed up and even though everyone looked at us a little wierd, we sat there content as ever. So they started with a prayer which was a little different than I have ever seen. There was on guy saying the pray and then everyone else had their hands in the air and were saying stuff in violent whispers. I decided to say my prayer in my head. So after that we sang a song. They didn`t have books though, so we just had to clap our hands with them. That was the hardest part, we literally sang and clapped for a half hour straight. I was sweating pellets!! I thought the guy with the tamberin had the cooler job but I didn`t have the nerves to ask if I could take a turn. So all that passed and we studied the bible a little bit. We studied the miracles of Jesus Christ and his Apostoles. The preacher guy didn`t allow comments so I just sat there and prayed the whole time that he would give us a chance to share our testimonies. At the end I raised my hand and asked if I could say something. He had no problem with it so I bore my testimony that we have the Priesthood Authority once again on this earth. I shared with them how God has called another Prophet to guide his church with twelve apostles and the same authority that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had. I explained that we have been called by this prophet to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was super cool because they say "amen" a ton there and I got like ten "amens" and "halelujahs". I think that is the strongest I have ever felt the spirit on my mission. We gave a Book of Mormon to the leader and he said that he is going to read it. They said that we could come back anytime we want. What a cool experience.
Have I mentioned that I love my mission? :) It`s the best.
Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Del Toro

March of the Toros

March 3, 2014

Greetings from Sunny Morelia :)

Things just keep on getting better!! This week, the Arredondo family came to church with Julio looking just like a missionary. We gave him a short sleeve white dress shirt and a tie. That guy walked in like he was the prophet. He is always so happy to be there at church. We also had "the niños" come to church with us. They are two brothers Judà and Melchizidec who we found from some of their older siblings who are members who haven`t come for a long time. But the best was that Javier and Javier Jr. came to church. Javier is one strange dude. He recognized one of the members in the congregation and walked over there and grabbed him by the cheeks like a grandmother grabs her grandkids by the cheeks and shook his head back and forth, grabbed his hand and kissed it, bowed to him, and then came back and sat down. Wierdest thing I have ever seen in sacrament meeting. Ruben, the husband of a sister in our ward came with his wife and then when she left after the first hour, he stayed for classes and bore his testimony about how he wants to change and how he just loves coming to church. Best Sunday ever.

This saturday was a celebration of toros!! There were a bunch of people wearing masks of bulls and marching around the streets at night with people following behind playing music and yelling and what not. It felt like the homecoming parade or something!! I asked some kids in the street if I could take a picture with their toro mask. The little punks charged me 5 pesos, but it was an offer I could not refused. They did a little dance after too, so I guess it was worth my 5 pesos. I had never been so proud to be a Del Toro.
Things are going great here with Elder Ormeño and I. Last night I wrote in my journal, "The Lord is working miracles in this ward. I can`t believe I have the oportunity to be apart of it". I am so greatful that I have the chance to serve as a missionary at this time and to serve the people here in Mexico. It`s the best and most important thing I have ever done.

Love,

Elder Del Torito

La Rata

February 24, 2014

Hello friends and family :)

This week was such a great one!!! We are workin real hard and seeing some great progress. So this week our landlord passed by our house to take some of his stuff out from under our stairs. He came with his mom and so we were talking to her while he was taking out his stuff. All of a sudden a fat rat ran out from under the stairs!!! Elder Ormeño and I may be the hope of Israel, but definately not when there are rats involved. Elder Ormeño ran out of the house and I was three feet in the air. But this little old lady took action. She took her purse off of her shoulder and swung that thing down like Thor. The rat was still scurrying so she stomped on its head twice. Holy cow this woman is crazy!!! She picked up the rat by it`s tail and tried to hand it to me. I just put my hands into the air haha. So she walked outside, saw a dump truck and ran over there and threw it in there. What a hero.

As far as the work goes, I don`t think we could ask for more. We have had a lot of people to teach and this week 9 or our investigators were able to come to church! We started teaching a family last week, the family Arredondo, and they were there at church!! It`s the first family I have taught in my mission. I don`t know why I haven`t had the chance yet but I couldn`t be happier. They have three kids, Hasani (16) Joselin (12) and Erika (8). They are so cool!! The mom signed up to feed us next month, they said they are going to feed us tacos de cabeza... I`m a little nervous for that. I had one oportunity to try cow brains in my mission and I turned it down. Everyone gets a second chance though,right? haha. We are a little disappointed because our investigator Angel is having some troubles. He came to church on sunday but when he got home his sister got super mad at him for going to church with us and she told him if he gets baptized in our church he`s got to move out. He is 76 and his sister is the one who takes care of him so he is in a tough situation. His baptism was going to be the first of march but he said that he can`t. We are going to keep working with him and keep praying for him and his sister. This may sound terrible but his sister has cancer... so it could be possible that Angel doesn`t have to make such a tough decision here in the next few years. Everything is going so great here. The weather is getting hotter and hotter :P I`m guessing that mexico didn`t do so well in the winter olympics, it`s never winter here!

Love you all,

Elder Del Toro