Jackson Thanksgiving week letter

i would like to apoligize, I{m realizing that my grammer and spelling in these emails are pretty awful.  As i learn spanish i feel like everything I learned in all my english classes, especially ap language this last year, is going straight down the drain.  So please forgive me as I continue in my bad language.

This week has been pretty nuts.

There was the first war between cartels and the marines when I have been present, but we were so far away that we couldn{t even hear anything.  WE just got a call that we needed to stay where we were for the moment, and continued to teach our lesson.  I guess its actually pretty normal here… which is kind of sad to say.  and I{m definitely glad that we were not anywhere close to where it happened.

We are moving houses right now which has made everything a little bit more crazy.  We finish packing today and move tomorrow, to this place called satelite, which is basically like the suburbia of rio bravo.  But its definitely a lot different than the suburbias of the US. ill have to take a picture of our new house and neighborhood.  theres thousands of little concrete houses with two rooms, a bathroom, and a livingroom-kitchen type thing, but their tiny.  It will be interesting.

Sadly no thanksgiving celebrations in Rio Bravo mexico.  Thought of you all eating, sleeping, and watching football with family.  But i{m still grateful to be here.

This week Hector, the brother of Glenda and Maritza, and Maria, the sister of of Jose, were baptized, and it was fantastic.  We will continue to visit them almost every day, But this once again means that we need more families to start teaching, and most likely this week will be knocking on lots of doors.

This last week we had a fundraiser for the marriage of eduardo and Liliana, and we helped them  make tamales which was pretty cool.  WE then borrowed the bikes of Jose and Glenda to sell the tamales to all the members of our branch.  It definitely made me wish for a bike.  We got to places that usually takes 30 minutes in 5.  And it is finally official, they are getting married this coming monday in nuevo progreso, and Elder De La Rosa and I are going to be witnesses for the wedding, which i think is pretty cool (hopefully I will qualify with only my temporary residence).  But anyways i{m super excited that we get to be there for this special time in their lives.

As always, I{m so happy to be a missionary and so happy that i have this chance to serve Heavenly Father and others and learn about a million different things.

Hope you all had a great thanksgiving!

Elder Downey

Jackson’s letter Nov. 23

Don’t have a lot of time so this is going to be short.

Well this week has been pretty good.  Theres good and bad days, and we had some great days this week.  Jose and his neighbors Glenda and Maritza got baptized sunday after church! And we have a date set for Jose’s sister Maria and Glenda and Maritza’s brother for next week and we hope it will all go well!!  It was such an amazing experience because this is the first time I’ve had a baptism where I was there when we found them and for all the teachings.  It was so cool to see how happy they were.  One of my favorite things is when people come to church with us and tell us how peaceful and tranquil they feel, because its true.  We can teach whatever, but what they feel is the important part, so I’m always so excited when they tell us they really feel it.  And Jose Glenda and Maritza all said that they felt that this day was really special.  Its so amazing to think that now there is the possibility that we can all meet together again in the presence of God and Christ, and that Elder De La Rosa and I were there to help them along the way.  I am so happy to be a missionary.

This next week we have a bunch to do, We’ve been arranging everything for the marriage of Liliana and Eduardo… theres been a lot of barriers to jump, but if everything goes as planned, they should get married this coming monday and Liliana will be baptized the same day.  We’re crossing our fingers and praying even more that it will happen.  Another special moment this week, we were in a lesson with Liliana and Eduardo and I was sharing something that I’ve realized while being on the mission, which is how important my family is to me, and how the gospel really, actually, truly blesses families.  Its a little funny how we don’t realize these things until we don’t have them, how I never reaqlly truly realized how important family is until I don’t have them every day.  But I was sharing how I am so so so happy that they get the opportunity to have what I have had all my life, and they then went on to share how they have felt the change in their lives as well.  It honestly is so amazing to hear our investigators bare testimony to us that they know these things are true.  Honestly one of the best feelings in the world.  Again I say, it really is amazing to be a missionary.

Sitting here writing, all that I can think about is these moments.  These moments make up for all the bad, all the frustration, all the feelings of inadequacy.  Because theres a lot more of these moments than the good ones, but the good ones always make up for it

From left to right, me, Glenda, Maritza, Jose, Maria, and Elder De La Rosa.

Love you all and hope you all have a fantastic week.

Elder Downey

Week 7

The weeks are really starting to fly by.  The time in the CCM felt like forever, and the time here feels like it has just flown…. it blows my mind that I{ve been here in the field longer than in the CCM.

Slowly by slowly the spanish feels like it is starting to come.  I{m starting to be able to understand people better, and though I still really can{t express myself the way i want to, day by day I am getting more fluent.  Something that really helps me is telling stories.  Whenever we{re walking, which is a lot, I always tell stories because it helps with all the different verb tenses and also isn{t something that I say often (like the lessons which I say all the time), so I really have to think about what I{m saying.  Its kind of funny, I{ve noticed that in my journal, which i still write in English, though am thinking about switching to spanish, sometimes Spanish construction comes up.  For example I was writing about an investigator and without thinking I wrote that he has 26 years, not that he is 26 years old, because in Spanish it is El tiene 26 anos.  Its also funny, sometimes people who know English will come and talk to me in English, and it takes me a little while to get used to the English again.  After one encounter i told Elder De La Rosa, I don{t think I can speak spanish or English anymore. Everyday I am grateful that I have a native as a first companion because it is making me learn spanish.  Sometimes its frustrating, but its worth it.

This week was pretty good.  First experience I{d like to highlight, we met this lady named lupe while we were walking in the street.  She is probably about 90 or 95 years old, and she asked us to stop by her hosue when we could.  We did the next day, and it was really sad.  Her husband is dead and she doesn{tr have any kids and therefore no grand kids or great grandkids.  She has no one.  As she was telling us, she was crying and crying just talking about she feels so alone and every night she is terrified that she{s going to die alone.  And as she told us all these things, I was totally filled with a love for her and a desire to serve her and help her feel and know that she has no need to worry, that Heavenly Father loves her and has a plan for her.  I think for the first time in my life I really experienced charity, the Pure love of Christ, in my life.  This was on saturday and I believe we are going to see her tomorrow.  And this entire weekend, Elder De La Rosa and I have been talking about how we can help her.

Another cool expereince we had was with Jose, well, actually more so the family of Jose.  I think I said last week, we started teaching Jose, and then his friends and his sister, and this Sunday his sister Maria and his friends Glenda and Maritza came to church with us.  After two lessons on the Word of Wisdom (because we don{t always find all four of them together in the house so often they get repeats of lessons), yesterday Jose told us that he smokes and drinks, and I don{t really think he understands the importance of keeping this commandment.  So he didn{t come to church with us because I think he said that he basicallly was hung over.  But we{re goign to work with him on this, because he{s still a great guy and Im pretty sure he wants to change.  Anyways, after church and dinner yesterday, we went to their house again and found two more of their siblings there and one of their brothers in law.  Their mom as well.  And it was awesome.  Their mom is always there, and she has a very strong personality and does not want to listen to us.  But its funny, whenver we teach, we teach on the patio, but Their mom is always inside the house listening and paying attenion because occasionly she will shout something from inside the house about are lesson.  Well last night she came out and actually listened to us, and Elder De La Rosa was talking about families and how this gospel can bless families, and it was the strongest that I had ever felt the spirit in a lesson, and everyone was silent and totally focused on him.  It was honestly amazing, their mom opened her heard and we are really seeing the blessings of our two fasts per week.  It was another moment when I was just so happy to be a missionary.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Downey

Week 6

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This week was pretty good.

Interesting story

Our house got contacted the other day by the Jehovah’s witness missionaries and as soon as we opened the door, their faces got a little more white than usual.  It was pretty funny.  Elder De La Rosa talked with them for a little while, and after he told me how much he had to control himself.  he used to be a Jehovah’s witness, and said there were so many things he wanted to say, but didn’t want to fight or be contentious…. I also realized then how little I know about other churches.

This week was pretty good with our investigators.  We have one named Jose, around 26ish, and we taught the first few lessons and thought he was a drug addict because his hands shake like crazy, and we were up front with him and asked him about it, and he said it was from his work.  But the last few lessons with him have been great.  In one, he even asked his two friends and sister to come join, which meant we got 3 new investigators! And he also helped them understand certain things which was totally awesome.  Although, the last two weeks, something last minute has come up and he hasn’t come to church, so sometimes we question how interested he actually is.  This happens with a lot of investigators.  But he always says how much he wants to come, and said he will next week.  But he also said that two sundays ago.  We’ll see.

We also have an investigator who has a taco shop every night. Theres a rule that we’re not allowed to eat in the street, which is very dissaopinting because it always smells so good and I always want to try real mexican street tacos, but Elder De La Rosa said that since he is our investigator we can trust him and eat his tacos, and they’re fantastic.  And we didn’t get sick either! Although as an investigator, I think he just likes to talk more… hes a really charismatic guy, and he contacted us when we were walking by a few weeks ago.  We’ll see.  But he also has a nephew who works with him who is 16 who has shown quite a bit of interest so maybe there’s a better chance with him.

Lilianna and Eduardo should be getting married this week, which also means she will be baptized this saturday which is super exciting.  We had a family home evening at their house last night and watched the Joseph Smith movie, with them and Eduardo’s family (familia castillo) who are members, though fairly recently baptized and reactivated.  They’re always so much fun because there are like 10 kids all under the age of 10 who are super crazy but just love the missionaries and I always feel loved when they’re around.  But also, Lilianna invited her friend as well, and she too is interested so there’s one more new investigator.  She is also trying to convince her mom to start talking with us as well.  Missionaries always talk about golden investigators, well, Lilianna is the golden investigator.

The mission is definitely hard, but my testimony, and me as a person, grows every day and i am so grateful to be here.  Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Downey

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Halloween

This week was pretty good!

A Few interesting things:

Yesterday after church we had dinner with a young couple, around 25ish, Hermano Abraham y Hermana Marylee, who are both fantastic because they always come to lessons with us.  But we went home with them after church, therefore the dinner wasn{t ready and had to wait like 20 minutes.  And during that 20 minutes I tutored Abraham in math which I just thought was hilarious.  It was pretty interesting trying to help him in spanish, but it was pretty fun.  Again another time where I felt like I could really use my talents to help people.  I was surprised I could remember how to factor.  All my math teachers would be proud.

Also yesterday during church, I went into to practice for the third time with the primary, and the leaders told me okay you have an hour, do what you want to help them, and I was incharge for an hour.  It was fun, I started thinking of all the times i was in primary and how the leaders would get us to sing better and louder.  I think the next time we{re going to try the balloon thing when the balloon goes up if they{re singing good and it goes down if they{re not.

Yesterday, our house was invaded by ants, and they got into my sealed bag of fish crackers which was pretty devestating, probably the worst part of the week, but we got revenge and killed thousands of them with higly concentrated soapy water.

For halloween we stayed out all day like normal.  The most interesting thing that happened was a guy stopped us to talk and we asked if he went to any church and told us no because he deals drugs.  Its always funny when people like this or drunk people stop us, they always have something interesting to say.

Though there are hard times on this mission, they{re are also amazing times.  This week we were contacting, i was on splits with Elder Catalan, an elder in our district, and we stopped to help an older lady, about 55ish, wash her car. Her name is Martha. She started saying how she was really interested in what we had to say, because she lives alone, and a lot of her children have problems and she feels like she needs something to strengthen her.  She also started asking questions like why are there so many churches, how can I increase my faith, things like that and it was just awesome because these are questions that we can answer! We didn{t have time to teach anything, but Elder De La Rosa and i came back the next day and taught the first lesson and it was fantastic.  We got there and she was like oh I was just reading the pamphlet, please tell me more this is so interesting.  And that her conversation with us the day before was something like she had never had.  She also asked for a book of mormon, we didn{t even have to offer.  And during the lesson, she would say things like this is what I need in my life, and in the moment I was just so happy to be a missionary.  Because I know how this gospel can bless people{s lives in so many ways, and to see them realize and accept this, I can{t even describe the feeling.  Moments like this make all the hard parts worth it.

Except the problem is she didn{t come to church so we{re going to go see what happened this week, and stop by more than just once a week.
Have a great week!

Elder Downey