19 going on 60

Monday April 21, 2014

Hola :)

This week was a pretty crazy one. It was semana santa so there were a ton a celebrations in the streets with lots of bands and lots of toritos. We found a beautiful toro that a family made for their celebration. It`s huge!! And it`s called the "Apocalypto". They let me try it on and dance in it like they do. The best part is that they are 5 families all related that live in the same street and said that we could pass by a day this week to teach them. I think we`ll have to teach from one of the roof tops!!

This week I also realized how much of an old man I am. Not really that I`m an old man but I realized that all of our best friends here are all over the age of 60. I never thought I could be such good friends with people 3 times my age, but we really are best friends. They love when we come over and they always tell us stories about the good days.

Things are going great with all of the people we are teaching. Antonio and Maria (two of our best friends) are so excited for their baptism the 3rd of May. Maria talked to her daughter who lives in Nebraska and told her how happy she is so we are going to contact the missionaries their and send them to her house. Daniel is doing awesome. He hardly swears anymore and his back is doing much better. He is also going to be baptised on the 3rd. The Arredondo family is doing alright. Julio is having a hard time stopping drinking but his family is helping him and giving him lots of support. We are hoping that he can stop drinking and that the whole family can be baptized on the 3rd of May. We have high hopes for the third of May :) haha. We are praying lots and working hard.

Everything is great! We had a little earthquake this week and EVERYONE panicked. And it looks like the rainy season is starting up again already!!

Love you all! Make it a great week!

Elder Del Toro

Animalitos

April 14, 2014

Que pasa mis calabazas?

This week was another good one. We had a lot of sweet lessons this week, I started taking it easy on the soda, and we have a ton of pet cucarachas.

I don`t know what`s up with all the animals here but they are just crazy. The cochroaches just keep invading us and all of the dogs hate us here. But this week we visited an investigator just in time to see him training his roosters how to fight. I had never even heard of roosters fighting but it was crazy, they drew blood!! And then another day we were at a guys house who has a huge dog that looks like it could it people. And it tries!! it loves to play by biting your arms. And the guy was like don`t worry he doesn`t bite hard, he just likes to play. And then he just told us we were a bunch of babies because he wouldn`t let his dog bite us. Hahaha. So I late poly bite my arm!! It didn`t hurt too bad but the picture just wouldn`t turn out right so that dog was chewing my arm for like 5 minutes!! but we got a good photo :)

I think the coolest part about this week was at church this sunday. Our investigator Marìa is just was excited about the gospel and LOVES to talk about how happy she is now that she is learning the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This sunday at church was sacrament meeting for those who want to share their testimony. The wards aren`t huge here so to take up all the time just about everyone has to take their turn. But with about 15 minutes left it seemed like everyone who was going to share their testimony had already done it. So I leaned over to Marìa and told her that she could bear her testimony if she wanted. She was like "you don`t have to be a member to share your testimony??" and I said "no way, everyone is probably dying to hear from you" so she handed her purse to her husband and marched right up there. It was one of the sweetest testimonies I had ever heard. She just expressed how greatful she was to have the opportunity to hear this Gospel and she said how excited she is because she knows it is true and it has changed her life. After her testimony, four ladies all stood up at the same time to walk up and bear their testimonies and they said how much they needed to hear Marìa`s testimony.

Everything is going great here. Thank you all for your support!

Love,
Elder Del Toro

April Fools!

April 7, 2014

Hello Everyone :)

Why hello my dear friends and family!! another good week here in morelia! This week felt a little longer than most. I kind of got robbed at the beginning of the week :( It wasn`t really robbed by definition. But I sure made a fool out of myself. To make a very long story short, some people on the street contacted us, invited us into their home, told us they were less active members of the church, told us a sob story, and asked for money. And I ate every word they told me. It wasn`t until after that nothing made sense that they had said and when I called the President he told me that we weren`t the first to be tricked by those people. I was so sad that someone could do that to us!! And the worst thing was that it happened on april fools day. I was humiliated when the whole mission got a text message the next day to be aware of those kind of people.
But on the bright side I learned an awesome lesson about forgiveness. I was so bitter that night, I hardly slept at all. I just kept running the situation through my mind and I just kept being mad at those people. And then I realized how un-christlike that is. Our Savior Jesus Christ was spat on, whipped, punched, and hung on the cross and his last words were to His father pleading that he forgive those people because they knew not what they did. We can learn so much from our Savior`s example.

And the other great thing was conference!! I LOVE HEARING THE PROPHETS VOICE!!! I absolutely loved all of the talks that were given this weekend. I learned so much about how I can improve both as a person and as a missionary. And the other best part is that we had eight of our investigators come to watch conference with us!! I just kept thinking stuff to myself like... "I am so glad Julio is hearing this" or "this is EXACTLY what Antonio needs to hear". I am so grateful that we have a living prophet called by God to teach us the will of our Father in Heaven.
Being a missionary is great :)

Have a great week!! love you all!

Elder Del Toro

here is a picture of our district :) I like to call it the "distrito torito"

Another 6 weeks!!

March 31, 2014

Hello my friends and family!!

This Elder Del Toro is one happy missionary!! I got another 6 weeks in this area with Elder Ormeño!!! I was thinking back to when I first got to this area 3 months ago and how negative I was about everything when I really it`s like the best area ever and my companion is a man and a half. I have really grown love Elder Ormeño. I think he is my favorite companion I have served with so far. I realized that you can grow to love everyone, you just have to get to know them first. I am so glad that I have the oportunity to serve another transfer here with Elder Ormeño. We have big goals for these next six weeks.

This week we had the baptism of Melquisedec and Judad. It was a sweet baptism. The two brothers were super excited for that day. After Judad was baptized he told Elder Ormeño and I that he felt like God had dunked him right in the water and gave him a big hug. It was such a sweet baptismal service.
We found a super cool new investigator this week. We talked to Antonio the other day in the street and he told us that he has always wanted someone to explain things to him about God but he had never had the chance. We visited him the next day with his wife and they told us that 8 years ago Antonio almost died from an operation and they doctors had told them that there is no way that he should be alive. He told us that he had a dream of Jesus Christ coming to him with a lamb in his arms and telling him to follow him. He told us that when we showed him a photo of Christ with a lamb in his arms, he remembered that dream and he knows that the reason he is still alive is to follow Jesus Christ. He came to church with us this week and liked it a lot.

Life is good :) I am super excited to to hear the words of the prophet and his apostols this weekend!! I feel like a little kid the week of Christmas!! :)

Love you all!!

Elder Del Toro

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