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.

2/28/2011 in Mexico

Singing AND playing the piano!



Zone Conference




I love Baptism T-shirts




Dinner at member's house



Hey!

 

Thanks for the letter.  Sounds like things are going well.  Just to let you know, I enjoyed all of the food that I listed last time except the cactus. 

 

Zone conference was great - Our zone only had three baptisms up till that point (we ended up with six for the month of Feb. - yes that´s bad for this mission.  Our goal as a zone was 33), but Pres. didn´t scold us.  He just taught about pretty much becoming a better missionary, and growing closer to God.  It´s not only our zone that´s having problems, the whole mission is.  Thanks for the advice, Deane!

 

Oh, we´re baptizing this week.  Amazing story.  An 18 year-old young woman (Zaira) is the girlfriend of a used-to-be-inactive mormon.  He decided he wanted to come back to church, so he brought her with.  She liked hearing about the church, and we taught her, but she never accepted a baptismal date - she always said that she wants to learn more.  After weeks and weeks of this, my companion had decided that he was going to drop her, because we had taught her everything, and she still said that she didn´t want to be baptized.  She just wanted to learn more.  But on that Sunday, she came up and asked Elder Nelson (my comp.) when we were going to come over again to teach her.  Elder Nelson said that he saw something different about her in that moment, and he had the thought, "She´s going to get baptized."  So he scheduled another appointment.  When we started the lesson and asked if she had any questions for us, she asked about eternal marriage in the church.  So we explained that, and priestood, and that she needed to be baptized to have an eternal marriage, among some other topics.  At the end, she told us that when she had read and prayed at first, she had felt a peace, a kind of "I can breathe again" feeling, that she hadn´t felt since very young.  She had been too scared to mention it.  Also, she had had a baby two years ago that died in the first week of life with her boyfriend, and that prompted her now to want to know about God´s plan for him, and for her.  Also, she´s pregnant with her boyfriend again, and she wants to have an eternal family with him.  So she´s getting baptized on the 4th of March.

 

Oh, there´s a lady (the grandma of a girl that I met in choir) that has me on her list of missionaries to whom she sends monthly newsletters (uplifting stories, etc).  Picture of an awesome cat attached (maybe that will make up for the drunk cat that I sent previously).  Also other pictures of (in no particular order):  zone conference, p-day with new zone t-shirts (which mean "I love baptisms), Elder Olsen in the middle of a backflip, and me eating steak at a member´s house.

 

¡Pues, la Iglesia es verdadera!  No hay otro camino mejor en la vida que el camino del Señor. 

 

Have fun, and take care!  Know that I´m jealous when you´re shivering.

 

Elder Bartlome

2-21-11

Hey, mom!

 

I heard about the Ward Conferences.  President Porter sent a letter to the missionaries in the stake letting us know about a little that´s going on, and he told us about how he´s doing those.  He also left us an inspiring note at the bottom of the letter:

 

Warning: Exposure to the Son can prevent burning.

 

Wow, sounds like things are going great there!  I´m so jealous of the snow.  No, we didn´t get any snow where I am.  

 

Yes, I would love to do another family calendar.  I´ll have to remember to send more pictures.

 

I heard about what´s going on in Egypt.  I wonder if that tension will lead to anything to do with Revelation 11 (specifically verses 7-11). 

 

Congratulations on your mortage!

 

Tomorrow, we´re having a zone conference.  President Spannaus is going to iron us, because our zone only baptized 3 people this last change.  (Yes, that´s bad for this mission).  Our whole mission´s down in baptisms, I don´t know why.  But I´m doing a piano solo, so I´m looking forward to it.  I´m doing a medley of 284, 293, and 27, that I made up yesterday.

 

Food update - I have now eaten, on top of chicken foot, which I already ate months ago, chicken heart, ribs, lungs, pig skin, and cactus. 

 

The church is true!  Christ lives and will come again.  I look forward to that day.  The Book of Mormon is AMAZING, and true.

Elder Bartlome

Trip to caves--baptism

Hey, mom!

 

I´m glad things are going well.  I´m sure you did great on your piano solo, and I´m sure that you´ll do great on your cello solo next year :)  Good job! 

 

No, I didn´t get Dallas´ letter.  I´m sure that I´ll get it soon (I don´t know if soon means days, weeks, or months, hehe).  I´ll write him back as soon as I get his letter.  It might take months for him to get the reply, depending on the mail.  I´m still working on writing some of the responses to all of the letters that I got on the 4th of February. 

 

Kyrin, you are a child of God!  Don´t you ever forget that:)  You can always talk to Him, for He is your Dad, and wants to help you.

 

No, the rabbit wasn´t a Christmas present (though that would be interesting...).  I got to hold it at a house with inactive members - we were baptizing their 9-year old and 8-year old daughters, and hopefully re-activating the family as well.  The baptismal service was Saturday.  It´s interesting the difference of the preference of temperature between me and the kids here.  I got in the water, and thought it felt great!  When the girls got in the water, they were shivering.

 

Baptisms.  No, we didn´t baptize on the 5th, but we did on the 12th.  On investigator had a date for the 19th, and she´s really getting the gospel - but she just hasn´t come to church (things keep getting in the way). 

 

Today, we went as a district to see some caves in Taxco.  As we were coming out, we passed the other district on our zone on thier way in - what a surprise!  They´re not as cool as those in Timpanogos (temperature-wise or otherwise), but still, they´re awesome.

 

I didn´t hear anything about Cuernavaca in the news (not that I hear anything in the news, anyway).  Although, I did hear something about the king of Egypt - he got killed, or what?  You don´t have to worry about my safety, we´re never anywhere dangerous, or in dangerous circumstances. 

 

I just looked at the blog - looks great!  Thanks for your support, and thanks for being awesome!

 

The church is true!  Keep the commandments!  Have a holy, righteous mortal life!

 

Elder Bartlome

¡Viva México! 2/7/2011

Hey, mom!

I finally recieved all of the Christmas stuff!  Cards from many in the ward, the El Dorado Primary package, the family calendar, the music clothes - it felt more like Christmas Saturday than did the 25th of December!  When we went to eat on Saturday, the family was just taking down their Christmas decorations, so that made it feel even more like Christmas!  Thanks for the calendar and the clothes - I love it.

My week with the other companion went well.  He´s annoying at times, and quite a slob in the house, but he´s fun.  I finally got him to contact a couple of doors, and he helped teach a little in some of the lessons.  Yes, I learned more Spanish.  I was so glad when my companion came back.

I´m doing great with money.  Thanks!  Use as much of my savings as you need to... that is the ONLY reason I saved up that money, was for my mission. 

You keep counting your blessings, staying positive and happy, and enjoying life!  The church is true!  I love it more and more every day!  I love you, too!

Elder Bartlome