3/28/2011

Hello!

 

Your questions:

 

Things are great with my new companion.  He´s a better missionary than I am, all I need to do is say where we´re going to go at times, and teach half of the lessons.

 

Yes, I´m teaching him, and he´s teaching me, too.

 

Yes, we´re getting along great.  Better than any of the other companions I´ve had, including in the MTC.  Except he gave up trying to learn English.  I´m going to have to ignore him in Spanish so that he learns English if he´s not going to do it on his own.

 

CYNDI!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!  YOU´RE OLD!!!  (Maybe I shouldn´t say that, I´m not much younger... what the heck...)  I´M OLD TOO!!!

 

I read the comments on the blog.  Ranae, you make me laugh! 

 

Oh, by the way, we´re going to do a music program.  Miguel has a whole lot of music (awesome music!), one of the sister missionaries can play violin, and there are two sisters in another ward that sing well.  And I´ll play the piano.  (Miguel is going to sing some and play some violin as well).  I´m excited.

 

All is well, the church is still true - I love you, I need to go.

 

Elder Bartlome

 

Mar 21, 2011

Hey!  How you doin´?

Doing great here - we had another baptism on Sunday.  She´ll get
confirmed next week.  Her dad died years ago, and recently her mom and
brother died, so she moved in with family that are members.  They´ve
talked with her, we taught her, and she got baptized on
Sunday after church.  She´s big and doesn´t like water, so we had to
dunk her six or seven times, but it worked out in the end.

She lives with her mom´s cousin, who has four sons (freakin´ strong!)
that all served missions.  They all speak a little bit of English (not
much).  One of these sons came up to the font after about 4 times and
said in English to me (I baptized her), "You have to push her, man.
Just do it."  It was funny, especially with his Mexican accent.

Nothing much else - work.  We didn´t have a very successful week in
way of numbers, but we´re still working.

I hope Matt (Adams) learns his lesson of how not to live without too
much pain and too much time.

I´m glad that Cyndi had fun with her trip to see Matt in Colorado (and
I´m glad that I have more space in my room :)

Yes, you told me about the marriage - Charles and Amber - wow.  That´s
awesome!  Yes, I know Amber (well, I know who she is).

Yes, we learned about charity in church, too (Priesthood meeting).

Si, yo podría hablar en español con los miembros del Barrio El Dorado
ya.  Habría muchos errores, y no podría entender todo (mucho, pero no
todo), pero si, podría tener una conversación.  Yo creo que ya hablo
mejor que los elderes que estan aprendiendo español allá en sus
misiones, en Utah, porque allá no tienen que hablar español en todo
(por ejemplo, el líder misional habla en inglés).

Está bien.  The church is true!  Keep up the work.  Remember what Paul
says to the Romans about missionary work:  For someone to be saved,
they first have to follow the Lord.  To follow Him, they first have to
believe.  To believe, they first have to hear about Him and His true
word.  And to be able to hear, there has to be someone to preach the
word.  And to preach the word, one has to be sent.  You can be that
someone sent to preach the word so that one of your friends or
neighbors has the opportunity to hear, believe, follow, and be saved
in the presence of God.  And don´t say that that´s only the work of
the full-time missionaries.  "If ye have desires to serve God, ye are
called to the work" (D&C 4:3).  For how beautiful upon mount Zion are
the feet of those that preach the gospel of the Lord.  (See Romans
10:13- 15).

I love you - talk to you later!

Elder Bartlome

Mar 14, 2011

¡Buenas Tardes!

Last week, I didn´t write because we had changes.  My trainer, Elder Nelson, went to Acapulco (by the beach - he can´t swim in the ocean, but he will be swimming in his sweat.  It´s hot and humid), and I stayed here with my new companion.  But the thing is, I´m training.  AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!    I´m traing my second companion, which isn´t heard of much.  I don´t know how I´ll do it, but I´ll do it.  So on Monday, I had to travel to Cuernavaca to meet him and pick him up.  He´s Mexican, so I´m learning a whole lot more Spanish.  His name is Elder Romero.

That 18-year old that I said that we were going to baptize - she moved in with her boyfriend, in the boundries of another ward.  So now she can´t get  baptized until they get married (which they don´t have the money for) or until they separate (which they´re not going to do).  Also, they´re in another ward, so they´re not even in our area anymore.  Sad...

But yesterday, we did baptize another person, at 8:00 in the morning, before church.  He found us in the street a couple of weeks ago, and told us that he wanted to quit drinking.  Most drunks that say that don´t really want to do anything, but he did.  He listened, he accepted everything, he´s really changed, and we baptized him yesterday.  We were going to baptize him in the afternoon, but Saturday, in the interview, he asked if we could do it in the morning - so we did.  And in the Sacrament meeting, he was confirmed, and in Priesthood meeting, he recieved the Aaronic Priesthood.  We´ll keep visiting him, to answer questions, and teach a little of after-lessons. 

We´re also going to baptize this Sunday, after church.  Karina, 20 years old, is now living with member distant relatives, because her mom and brother died recently (her dad had died years ago).  The family with whom she´s living now has talked with her a lot about the church, we´ve taught her the lessons, and she´s ready to be baptized.

Tiffany´s gone!  Holy cow!  That is so wierd!  Time flies!  She´ll do great!  She thinks she´s excited to go after 9 weeks, imagine how excited I was after almost 11 weeks and not knowing when I would get my visa.

Oh, the music went great - we had a zone conference on Friday with Elder Johnson, the area president of Mexico (as well as President Spannaus of the mission), and I participated in two musical numbers.  The first one was with another Elder, Elder Dudely (I don´t like the way he sings).  We did my arrangement of "Rejoice, a Glorious Sound is Heard," but with the words to "Al Mundo ve a Predicar."  The second one was with Sister Cruz, on the violin, and we did an arrangement of "I Know that my Redeemer Lives."  On the last verse, everyone (two zones) sang - in Spanish, of course.  It was awesome!  I loved the topic, too.  We talked about faith in the Lord Jesus Christ - why it´s important, what would happen if there was no Christ, what happens when we don´t have faith, etc.

I heard about the earthquake in Japan - it was 8.9!?!  Holy cow!  No, we´re not anywhere near the ocean, but Elder Nelson is.  I heard that the water level was higher and that they were on alert for Tsunami in Acapulco, but from what I understand, the danger has passed.  Wow, the Second Coming is drawing nearer, but I personally think we have quite a few more years (50, more or less).  Maybe not - who knows but God Himself.

New companion 03-14-11

Two zones with Elder Johnson-Area President

New investigator?



Not too interested

A few pictures - my son (as we say in the mission).  As he is my second companion in the field, my step-dad is my son.  Two pictures of an investigator that we taught, but didn´t progress very well.  And one of the zone conference, with two zones, and Elder Johnson - it was in Chilpanzingo.