Good Health

September 9, 2013

This week has been a rainy one. It has rained every day for the past two weeks :P I thought I got out of the rain when we left Washington but I´m right back with it. Better rain than scorching hot i guess! I am still losing weight, I have lost about 15 pounds since the MTC. I might just come back a 125 pounder! haha.
Everything is going so great in Morelia, Michoacan. We are working hard and having some fun. It seems like a lot of funny things happened this week. One thing that I thought was really funny happened at English classes. It was all members who showed up so we were learning how to pray in English. One of the things they wanted to learn how to say was Te agradecemos para buena salud, or  "We thank thee for good health". The only problem is that they dont really have the "th" sound in Spanish so they were saying "We thank thee for good hell". I dont know why I thought it was so funny but they just kept practicing saying Good Health and chanting "Good Hell! Good Hell!" By the end of the class they were pronouncing Health perfect.
We had the baptism on Saturday! She was glowing, she was so excited and so happy. For whatever reason while we were filling up the baptismal font the water shut completely off and would not come back on. There was about a foot of water in the font so we had to make do. Elder Elizondo did the baptism. It took 5 times for her to finally go completely under the water. The final solution was her sitting with her legs straight out and Elder Elizondo on his knees dunking her back. Everyone who was there was getting into it. "her knee didnt go under!" "Her foot!" In Spanish of course. It was a relief when she finally went completely under. Its a good thing she is a tiny 11 year old, or I think we would have had to have people sit in the font for the water level to raise.
My favorite lesson this week was with Martin. He is doing so great. He has come to church the past two Sundays and just loves when we teach him. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially about the Sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us and how we can repent and be clean once again. Everything is just making sense with him again. He had forgotten a lot of things because he hadnt been to church in a really long time but during our lessons he will start remembering things and just start teaching the lesson himself. One thing that he said that really struck me is that he can always feel the Spirit enter into his home whenever we come over to teaching. That just really touched me that we have the help of the Lord every time we teach. I have been learning the importance of the Holy Ghost the past couple weeks. Our whole goal is to help other people feel the comfort of the Holy Ghost because that is what changes peoples hearts, not us.
I am learning so much every week. I love Morelia and I love being a missionary :)

Elder Del Toro

 Everybody loves churros!

 Baptism!

A home of one of the members in the area.

Man bag

September 2, 2013

I experienced an awesome miracle this week that strengthened my testimony. We have been teaching a 12 year old girl named Alexa who has a dad who would not sign the babtism papers. Alexa´s mom is a less active member and wanted her daughter to be baptized but the hold up was the dad. Elder Elizondo has been teaching her for 5 months but never had the chance to talk to her dad. His wife said he didnt want his daughter to be baptized and he didnt want to talk to us either.  Finally this week we ran into him. He walked in the front door and walked past the room we were in. I just about jumped out of my chair when I saw him! I was way pumped that we finally had the chance but Elder Elizondo told me to calm down. We finished the lesson and he was in the shower. His wife said that he was going to go somewhere after he got out of the shower and Elder E was like dang maybe we can come back another day.. ANOTHER DAY!?!?! We had a chance of lifetime right in front of us. Elder E was terrified of this guy. He said oh well we can have the bishop come talk to him later today, and Alexa´s mom was like yeah thats probably better. A thought ran through my mind. It wasn´t you are a full grown man, you can do this.. It wasn´t oh no my spanish isnt good enough. It was "You are called by a Prophet of God to be a representative of Jesus Christ". I told Alexa´s mom just that, that we are called by a Prophet of God and that we have the authority to say what the Lord wants. So we waited in the hallway inbetween the shower room and his room. He stepped out and I walked up and shook his hand and introduced myself. He was a little taken back. He only had a towell around his waist. So he said he would get changed and then we would talk. It seemed like forever but he finally came out and Elder Elizondo made some small talk. I think for one of the first times Elder E ran out of words to say and looked at me. I told him about the importance of baptism and how his daughter is ready for that step. I talked to him for about 5 minutes. My spanish wasnt perfect but it was better than I had ever talked. When I asked if he would agreed to let his daughter be baptized he replied, "Claro que si". I think all our jaws dropped. I am so thankful for that experience and that I was able to have the words and the courage to talk to him. I am so thankful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost missionaries receive to know what to say. Alexa will be baptized this saturday. After what seems like a zillion lessons, she can finally make that baptismal covenant with her Heavenly Father.

Everything is so good. My spanish is starting to improve very rapidly. I feel like I understand just about everything now. I think I am just about fluent in the Gospel. I am half way done with my infield training! 6 weeks down, 6 to go. I am loving every day of my mission.

Our president informed us that we will be using side bags starting in October. I bought a nice leather bag today. I really like it but I am still getting used to the idea of having my little purse. I will send a picture next week when I am a little more confident about it.

Love you all,

Elder Del Toro

Lucha Lord

August 26, 2013

Another awesome week in Morelia :) I love this place so much. This week was one of the tougher weeks we have had but you gotta taste the bitter before you can know the sweet, right? Elder Elizondo and I had a little talk again in our weekly planning session. I had been making a list of all of the names of members in the ward and organized it by colonias (sections of the city) and he said we arent going to use it because we have plenty of members to teach. I had been working on it every extra minute I had so I was a little upset when he said we arent going to find inactive members like that. So we are trying to find a happy power balance right now. I think we are both trying to take the bull by the horns and there is only room for one, so I´m kinda taking a back seat right now. I love to work though. I swear every night I fall asleep within 5 minutes of my head hitting the pillow. We are just dead tired at the end of each day.
Earlier this week we found some members in the ward that havent been to church in a few years. They are by far my favorite lessons. We found this guy and when we knocked on his door, he invited us in and then walked out the door. We were super confused. So we just went and sat down on his couch. He came back with ice cream sandwiches for us and was so happy to have us in his home. He showed us his new sound system too! Hahaha he blasted some American music for a little bit. Once we got going with our lesson he remembered that he had his Book of Mormon upstairs. He went and got it along with a journal that he had wrote in. He had notes from every single sunday at church for like a year. His books had a lot of dust, it had been 3 years since he went to church, but when he was reading through his journal I could just see that he missed the light that he had at one time. We just watched him for like 5 minutes flip through pages and smile. I love visiting inactive members. When we visit them they remember the happiness they had and I think more often than not, they just kind of stopped going, not for any reason. My testimony has grown so much this week. No matter how long it has been, someone can always get back into the Gospel. They can feel that same happiness that they have been missing.
So I am kind of a Lucha Lord down here. It is super funny because when I say I used to wrestle, people automatically think sweet mask, spandex, and hitting people with chairs and baseball bats. So I have to explain that its kind of like that but a little different haha. At church there are like 4 guys who always get in their wrestling stance and start circling me. I keep telling them they are lucky that I dont have my Lucha mask.
I have been working hard on walking on my hands. Elder Bowen and I started to learn the last week we were in the MTC but we could only make it a few feet. I try to make my morning workouts fun so this week I held the olympics. I was the only contender but every morning I would compete in a few events. My highlight event was definately the ¨"Walking on your hands for as far as you can go event" This one is for sure my favorite. I made it from the baseline to the free throw line on the opposite side of the basketball court. I cant wait to tell Elder Bowen.
All is well with me. I love every day of the mission and I think I am starting to speak some decent spanish :)

Love,

Elder Kadyn "The Lucha Lord" Del Toro

Lechera

August 20, 2013

Hello family :)

Yesterday we went to Guadalajara for a training. It was for all the new missionaries and their traininers. We had to wake up at 5am and we got back late so last night we only had time to check emails and our President told us to write today. The training was sweet, the best part was getting to see Elder Bowen again!! I love that guy. we got to catch up and tell some mission stories and all that good stuff.
My spanish has improved a lot. The first day in the mission we had a meeting and I hardly understood anything. This one went a lot better, I understood almost everything and our Mission President is just the best. He just says the wisest things and is so inspiring.

The Baptism went well! It was very spiritual and she was so excited. I think baptisms are the best. It is amazing to see people have a chance to start a new life and make covenants with our Heavenly Father.
We are starting to turn our focus to the ward a lot more. There is A LOT of reactivation to do. It is a lot of work. There are 800 people in our ward boundaries and only 100 our active. We are trying to visit a lot of the inactive families and bring them back. I am going to learn the area very well the next few weeks. It is a lot of tracking down addresses.

This week we had the opportunity to help a less active sister in our ward. When we asked if there was anything we could do for them she said that she really needed help in her bakery getting some orders done. Haha that was far from what we were expecting but we were way excited to help her in the bakery. It was so cool to learn a little bit about making cakes! they are a little different than in the U.S. They pour milk, cream, and LECHERA into the cake once it is baked so it is saturated with all that stuff. Its a little different but its pretty good! So this is where I discovered Lechera. Lechera is basically sweetened condensed milk. Oh man that stuff is so delicious! I ended up buying a can of it on our way home that night along with some cookies. I kind of went overboard on the Lechera.. I put that stuff on the cookies, and some bananas I had, and just ate it by the spoonful. The can was halfway gone that night and I had a huge stomach ache. I finished of the can the next day for breakfast and dinner. Now, whenever I think of Lechera my stomach hurts :P
I am kind of the baby of the ward right now. It is kind of cool though, everyone is trying to help me learn spanish and they are super understanding that I am trying my hardest. Everyone calls me "Elder Torito". They are taking good care of me :)

Hope everything is going well with all of you!

Love,

Elder Del Toro

Gueras

August 12, 2013

Another great week in Mexico!

This week was full of adventures, hard work, and some good times. I cant believe Im already two months into the mission, it feels like I just left.

So our English classes were... mas o menos. We had 7 people in attendance both times haha. But it is super fun and we have a kid in our class who makes me laugh so much. He is 8 years old and his mom drops him off for the class and he is always trying to get me to help him beat levels on his Play Station Portable.
I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the zone leader this week.. Wow, what an awesome missionary. I learned so much from him in that day. His name is Elder Wilhelm.. He is way tall, another white missionary, and such a spiritual guy. It was nice to speak a little bit of english too. I did have another crazy bathroom experience while I was in his area. We were at a meal appointment and after we ate I asked if I could use their bathroom. I walked in there and started unbuckling and the shower door slid just a little bit. I was like woah.. thats wierd. But the glass looked like if there was someone behind there you could see them. So I unbuttoned my pants and it slid a little bit more. I just stared at it for a minute and then slid it open and their daughter was in there playing hide and go seek. It gave me quite the scare. So I went and got her dad and he pulled her out of there. Thats not even the worst part though. I was so frazzled that I didnt even check if there was toilet paper. so when I was ready, I looked at the roll and it was completely out. My heart sunk. I kind of squated over to the sink and under it I was able to find some baby wipes. Whew. What was a terrible bathroom experience turned into one of the best bathroom experiences I have had since I was a baby!!

Great news! We have a baptism this week!. I am so excited for her. It is set for this upcoming saturday. She is so ready to be baptized, she loves the gospel and has such a love for our Savior and his Atonement. It is amazing, we hardly did anything as missionary. Really, we just introduced her to the gospel and she just took off from there. A couple other people we are teaching a ready for baptism too, one is a girl who has a dad who wont give her permission. The other one has a testimony of everything but is having a hard time making a commitment. We invited both of them to the baptism and I am hoping that gets them excited about the Gospel.

I also had an interview with the Mission President this week. What an awesome hombre. He is so nice and just talking with him made me want to keep working hard. And my spanish was at its best in the interview too! He told me he can tell that I love my mission and that I am working hard.

So about the email subject.. We held the family home evening for the ward this week and it was super fun. At one part it was my turn to explain a little bit about the book of mormon. I was feeling pretty good, my spanish sounded ok and then I started talking about the Nephites and Lamanites and how they faught and said, "Los Lamanitas y Nephitas tuvieron muchas gueras"... All of a sudden the whole ward burst into a laugh and I was standing there in front of everyone super confused at what was funny. So I just gave them a cheesy grin and when they stopped I finished up my part. After, I went over to Elder Elizondo and asked what was so funny. I meant to say they had a lot of wars. wars in spanish is guerras. What I said, gueras, means fair women... back to being a gringo. I dont think they are going to let that one go for a while.

Hope everything is going well back home! I love and miss all of you!

Love,

Elder Del Toro

P-day at the zoo 

Elder Del Toro's favorite caption for this photo, "Who wants to get baptized?"

Royal Flush

Hello everybody!

Another great week in Morelia Mexico!! I love this place. This week started off with a ton of rain. We were walking in water up to our ankles on our way home. And the worst thing was I fogot my raincoat that day. That is the most rain I ever been in for that short amount of time. There was also hail that hurt my cabeza too.
Patience is a virtue. I am working on it every day.  Since that Wednesday we got so much done. It made me realize how much it really matters getting along with your companion. We are teaching a lot of lessons, I am grateful for all the people who are willing to hear the good word.

I love my family! This week my favorite lesson was with Hermana. She is about 60 and her husband has been a member his whole life but she still hasnt been baptized. During the lesson I remembered I had my photo album. I pulled out the picture of the Del Toro fam and told her about each of us and how much I loved each one of them. I then pulled our a picture of the temple. I explained how much comfort it brings me knowing that since I am sealed to my family with the Priesthood, I can live with them even after this life. I am such a baby when I talk about my family, Im sure it was hard for her to understand my Spanish before, but once the tears came Im sure it was a struggle to understand me. I explained to them that her getting baptized is just the first step to them being able to be sealed for all time and eternity. I hope she can come unto Christ.
I swear I will never comment about anyones driving in the states. Holy smokes! The other day we were riding in a combi and I had to stand cause all the seats were all taken and while we were driving he came to a sudden halt and I got slammed into the front of the combi. Those drivers are wreckless. Everyone is wreckless, I cant believe there arent more accidents.

We have english classes this week! the first week I was here I was saying a word in english to Elder Elizondo and a man stopped us and asked if we were doing english lessons. We look at eachother and back at him and said yes. We have been getting things organized and wednesday and thursday will be the first classes. Hopefully it goes well!

So today we were eating at an investigators house and I had to use the restroom. I didnt know if they had one or not but I really had to pee so I asked and they led me to the bathroom. It was a curtain for a door and they handed me a couple wads of toilet paper. I went ahead and peed in the toilet and then realized that there was no flusher!! I then realized that this toilet wasnt even hooked up to plumbing!! so I found a bucket and filled it with the hose and poured it in... nothing, just more full. So I tried to wash my hands, the sink wasnt hooked up to water either. So I walked out and asked Elder Elizondo what to do. I then heard someone go in there and pour a couple more buckets in. Im still not sure how it works but I am grateful that I didnt have to go number 2.

Im loving the work. Time is going by fast and Im understanding more and more spanish every day.

Love,

Elder Del Toro

Guts and Glory

July 29, 2013

Santa vaca!! what a week! I am sitting here just laughing to myself wondering what I should talk about in my letter home. First of all Ill explain the subject of my email. On friday we had a lesson and after the lessons the family invited us to have some food with them. I was pumped because I was starving. We sat down and they pulled out "Buche"... ohhhhhh boy.... buche is pig guts. Elder turned to me and told me not to be scared. I was terrified. I immediately started to pray, just praying that I wouldnt throw up or something. So I went for it. I put some buche in a tortilla and threw a ton of salsa in there to cover up the flavor. It was a lose lose situation cause once I started eating it my mouth was on fire but at least it didnt taste terrible. After I was done all they had to drink was sprite and that made it even hotter in my mouth. The hermana looked at me and said, "no le gusta Elder?"... I made the decision right then that I was not going to be the "nuevo misionero" anymore. I said "no hermana, me gusto mucho, su comida es bieno rico!" and loaded up another taco. 2 tacos de buche for me. I ate the guts for the glory of not being a gringo anymore. They might still think Im a gringo but in my mind I am basically a native.

The mission is a little different than I thought. We do not knock on any doors. We get referals from the members in the ward and from other people we are teaching. It has been that way here for about a year now. We walk everywhere. My feet are so sore at the end of the day!! We also take little busses called combis but that starts to add up so we try to only take a combi twice a day. Our area is huge. We cover the centro, which is the city, as well as other parts around the city. So about mail. We get mail about once a month. haha.. So email is definately going to be most effective. but the adress to send mail/packages is :

Av. 18 de Marzo #3088
Col: Las Aguilas
Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico C.P. 4508

That is the mission office and they hold it there and then give it out about once a month. Im not allowed to give you my address.

Alright mom, here it is. Thanks for making me take piano lessons. They have not had someone who can play the piano in a very very long time so they were thankful that I could play during sacrament. The meetings were a little different than I am used to but it was really cool. I am starting to understand more and more. And when they ask me questions I just smile real big and reply the best I can to what I think they asked. We eat with members almost every day. They really only have one meal here. Its a big lunch at around 2 oclock. So I have my frosted flakes in the morning, comida at a members house, and sometimes a snack at night.
I wish I could write much more but I just really dont have much time. Everything is going well though! I love the people so much.

Love,

Elder Del Toro

 Enjoying his last days at the MTC

 Kadyn and Elder Bowen

 Leaving the MTC and headed to Mexico!

 Elder Elizondo and Elder Del Toro

 Kadyn's humble abode (center black gate)

Elder Del Toro enjoying an authentic burrito