April 25, 2011

Hello...

How are you?....

Things are going well here.  Not having much success, but we´re working.  The church is still true, no matter how many people reject it.  They´ll regret that they rejected it one day when they realize the truth and it´s too late to change their mind, because they didn´t have the faith or the open mind to recieve it now.

One morning, before we left to work, a couple of Jehova´s Witnesses missionaries knocked on our door.  When they saw that it was us, they looked disappointed.  They tried to give us a pamphlet, so I tried to give them a Book of Mormon.  They didn´t take it.  They showed us a scripture in the Bible ("All scripture is inspired of God"), and tried to use that to explain that only the Bible is scripture.  They didn´t even understand that the scripture that they shared only proved them wrong.  That´s the power of the devil - he puts wrong interpretations of scriptures in the minds of men.  I´m curious to see how they´re going to react in later days when they realize that they were wrong and we´re right.

We went on divisions.  I went to Taxco, with the companion that I had in the MTC.  That was interesting.  Elder McKee (also from our stake), the district leader, came to this area with my companion.  It´s nice to have a change.

Ahhhh!  Lapreal!  That´s so sad..  at least we know where she´s going, and that she´s going to be with her husband again.  You´d better tell her that she´s awesome, from me (ahem... please).  I´d play a song for her if I were there - will you play one for her, from me?  You choose which one.

Not much more to say.  The church is true!  Never give up proclaiming the good news, to family, friends, anybody that will listen.

I love you

Elder Bartlome

P.S.  I attached a couple of pictures, taken in Taxco.  Taxco is built on a hill.  In one, you can see how unorganized they build the houses.  The others are of a sign that I really like.  There is a really big Christ statue in Taxco, and Acapulco is a city.  This sign makes me laugh, because apparently Acapulco is in the opposite direction from Christ.

April 18, 2011

Hi mom!

Elder in Spanish is the same as in English, but you pronounce it with a Spanish accent (of course).

We had Stake Conference yesterday and Saturday.  I played the piano for the two sessions on Saturday, and a sister in the stake played on Sunday.  Also, there was a musical number on Sunday - two sisters from another ward sang "Learn of Me," from Janice Kapp Perry (in Spanish, of course).  It was awesome!  I wasn´t sure if I was listening to a CD, or actual people.  It´s not very often that I find people here that have an ear to stay in tune (that sounds terrible, I know, but it´s true...).

Oh, and President Spannaus came to the Stake Conference, with his wife and two daughters, and spoke (his wife spoke, too).  His wife spoke on ideas for missionary work among the members, and he spoke on the gospel from Adam down to Noah, with the end result that no one can live with God again without baptism. 

Not much to write this week.  I´m glad that everything is going well there.  We forgot to fast last Sunday, too, so we´re fasting today.  I´m hungry.  We´ll eat at about 4:00 (it´s 1:40). 

That will sure look good - a painted kitchen.

I´m still in my first area, Iguala, a city about an hour drive from Cuernavaca.  And it´s still hot-hot-hot!  And getting hotter.  I´ve never sweated from my arms before (not that I´ve realized). 

Hey, I saw rain!!!  And lightning!!!  I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It usually only rains at night, so it´s still deathly hot in the daytime, but still, I love the storms!  I haven´t seen rain since the MTC, and when it rained a few nights ago, my companion didn´t wake me up (grr.... I slept right through it).  But it rained last night, and I love the lightning!  When a storm comes for the first time after I get back home, I´m going to find a patch of nice grass outside, lay down, and just enjoy it.  I don´t care if I catch a cold by doing it.

The church is true - keep strong in the gospel!  It´s the only path the has all of the truths that we need to return to live with God again.

Elder Bartlome

Hey, mom -

 

I´ve got a couple of stories this week.

 

First.  We had an earthquake!  It was small, and a lot of people didn´t even notice it, but we did.  On Thursday, and about 8:50 in the morning, Elder Romero said "Esta temblando" (It´s trembling).  I looked, and sure enough, the house was slowly rocking back and forth (slightly, but surely).  Lullaby!  That´s the first earthquake that I´ve ever noticed in my life.  It was 6.2 in Veracruz, and 5.something here.

 

Second.  I´m sure you probably already saw the photos - not something you see everyday, huh?  We were walking to our next appointment, and we turned a corner, and there´s a flaming car right there!  Wow.....  It looked awesome (maybe not to the owner of the car). Nobody was hurt.  Apparently, the owner had just taken it to a mechanic, and the idiot left a block of some sort in the exhaust.  So it heated, and heated, and heated, and heated, and BOOM!  Luckily, the houses in front of the car had cisterns (huge containers of water, because the water doesn´t come to the houses every day), and one of the houses had a whole bunch of buckets.  So we, along with a whole bunch of neighbors, helped to put out the fire.  Then the policemen and the fire truck showed up.

 

What was funny about that, was that when we saw the car on fire, we stood there for a couple of seconds staring at it.  Then the first words that my companion said were, "Your camera!"  - not "where´s some water?"  or something else like that.

 

I´ve been on the mission for almost seven and a half months!!!  Time flies!  I´m old.  I´m going to die in a few short 85 years... I´m depressed now..... :(  Just kidding. :)

 

Nothing much else to say.  I still haven´t seen a drop of rain here (except a couple of times that it seemed that an angel sneezed - a drop here, and a drop there).  But the last time I saw rain was in Provo, in the MTC.  It´s a treat when we see clouds, especially when they actually cover the sun.

 

The church is true!  Keep smiling, and keep following the Lord.

 

Elder Bartlome

4/4/2011

Hey mom!

 

All is going well.  I absolutely loved General Conference - yes, we saw all of it.  I even got to see one of the sessions in English.  Did you know that Elder Richard G. Scott speaks spanish?  He recorded his own talk in Spanish, so we heard it in his voice.  A few other people did that, too. He certainly has an American accent when he talks Spanish - I can hear it.

 

By the way, I´m jealous of the organ workshop.

 

My companion is awesome.  I don´t know why I´m called a trainer, he´s a great missionary already.  Except he gave up trying to learn English for a while.  Seeing as it says in Preach My Gospel that you should learn English on your mission if you don´t already speak it, and also it´s a rule in our mission, I threatened him (in a way).  I had already tried making a plan to help him learn in a nice way - that plan failed, and for a time, he refused to try to talk in English.  So on Friday, I told him that if he doesn´t make a plan that I agree with by Tuesday (tomorrow), I´m going to completely ignore him when he speaks Spanish, and I´ll only speak Spanish with the members and investigators.  He´s making a plan. 

 

I don´t think the music program thing is going to make it.  We haven´t practiced once as a group yet.  We´ll see.

 

The church is true!  Keep pressing forward in the work of the Lord!  And invite someone (a nonmember) to church, everyone that reads this.

 

Elder Bartlome

 

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.