Monday, July 29, 2013

7/29/13


My shoe is fine I think! I wore it like 3 times this week and it's not falling apart again! So I think it will be fine. If not there are a bunch of members who can help me out. They always want to do everything they can to help us, so I think I'll be fine!

This last week was a little cooler than the last few but still hot. It's like if it's hotter than 40 degrees it doesn't matter if it hits 45 or 50, its all the same. You kind of just zone out and think about something else. But what's really different here verses Sinaloa is that in Sinaloa when there's wind it cools you off a bit, but here when there's wind it's just more burning hot air hitting you, and the shade doesn't give you any relief either. You kinda just have to learn to love the heat and appreciate it when the members give you cool water or an helado. 

All 3 of our baptismal dates fell this week because their parents weren't going to be in town, but we'll see if we can get them baptized not this week but the next week. We put 4 more fechas this week for the 10th and the 17th of August, and they all look pretty sure! So hopefully we can put a few more! There are a couple people that are active in the church that just don't want to get baptized so we're going to work really hard with them too, and maybe we can have a baptism or two this week or more the next week! Who knows, but we're going to have success here, I think!

This week we've been working really hard. We have been going back to the houses of old investigators, and haven't had too much success with them, but they're giving us a lot of references, and those references are helping us a ton.

Right now I'm going to help a lady with her house so if I have more time I'll write a little more later! But if not you'll hear from me next lunes!

Love you!
Elder Lund

Monday, July 22, 2013

7/22/13


Geez California looks so fun! I hope you're all having a great time! When I saw the photos I almost got jealous but I think I'd rather be here! So this week we baptized Juan Carlos and we have 5 fechas for this Saturday, but in all honestly they're all probably going to have to wait a week or two more. This ward that I'm in is awesome! I'm in the most ghetto part of Obregon, so everybody is really humble and accepting of us. Which is really nice for the work!

    The mission president from Hermosillo sent all the ¨frito¨ missionaries here to Obregon to get rid of them. So I was scared that my companion was going to be one of them. But we're working SUPER hard and I love it. We have a ton of people with a whole lot of future baptisms. So hopefully they will follow through. We have a goal to have more than one baptism every week. And here it's more than possible. The Obregon and Culiacan and Hermosillo and Tiajuana missions are the hardest missions to get baptisms in because everybody is so cold toward God because of all the violence, but for some reason this area just took off and we're going to have a lot of success! Our ward mission leader said that this ward's starting to look like the wards in Mexico City (that means its super easy to baptize) so hopefully it will continue to give us people!

    Right now I'm in the district with just me, my companion, the zone leaders, and the assistants. So I'm surrounded by super crazy good missionaries and I'm learning a ton. 

So I bought super glue to fix my scriptures a while back, and I just put some glue on my shoes, and so far it's been alright. They are my fancy ones, but i think they'll be fine. If not I can buy a tennis ball and glue it to the bottom! Today I'm going to try again to send pictures but who knows if it will work! Hopefully!

Scott, Elder Perez, Juan Carlos and family

Monday, July 15, 2013

7/15/13


So right now I'm in an area called Castillo in the most south part of the city of Obregon. Guasave was my old Zone, right now I'm in one of the zones here in Obregon. I'll send a bunch of photos in a minute, I'm in the house of a member right now because their computer is free, but it won't send pictures so we're going to a cyber to send them after lunch. So like at 4 or something.

This week we have a baptism for a guy named Juan Carlos. On Tuesday we took him and his wife to get married, so he can get baptized. He's like 22 years old, with 2 kids and his wife's 18 years old. She is a member, but was inactive almost her whole life. He's really excited and ready. So I'm super excited too! It'll be my first baptism to count for the mission. We also have 3 little kids who are kids of some inactive members in a little city outside of Obregon. They have a baptismal date for the 27th, so hopefully we can work with them and get them ready for that.

This week it was 52 degrees here. I didn't believe my little thermometer, so we walked to this bank that shows the temperature and it was the same! Oh and the road was so hot that my shoe split, like almost in half. But were going to take it downtown to fix it. I guess this happens to almost every missionary here in Obregon at least once.

We have a lot of people getting ready for baptism, but we have nobody for after them. So right now were searching really hard for new people.

My crazy experience for this week was we met this guy who told us he wanted to get baptized in the first 30 seconds after we started talking. So of course we went into his house to teach him. But after about 30 seconds my companion and I felt weird, and decided to leave. On the way out of the house he followed us and started asking weird questions about the bishop. He asked us if he lived in this house down the street (the bishop's old house) and we both just said yes. After we left we called the bishop right away and he told us a crazy story about this guy. Apparently he is an ex boyfriend of a sister in the ward. And since she's divorced, and the president of the relief society the president has to meet with her in the ward council meeting every week and has to stop by with his councilors every month. So apparently she kept saying every week that she had to meet with the bishop, and when they broke up he thought it was because she was in love with the bishop. So the next day he went to the house of the bishop with a pistol and wanted to kill him, but he wasn't home. So that day the bishop bought a new house on the other side of the ward and never went back to his house. And it turns out this guy that wanted to kill the bishop is a guy that people pay to kill people. So he's no stranger to killing people, and it would be no problem to kill the bishop. So we're definitely not going to go back there.. ever.

Well I'm going to eat right now so I'll send the pictures in a couple hours! 
Adios!
Elder Lund

Monday, July 8, 2013

7/8/13



This week we had transfers, and I got sent up to Obregon. I just got here like 2 hours ago so I don't really know much about it, but it seems pretty cool here. But man! It's so dang hot! Right now its like 41 degrees, but I guess last week it was like 47.. But our house has air conditioning! So finally I will be able to sleep without dying! It was 103 degrees in our house last night when we went to sleep. In Angostura the house was just cement, and that just bakes all day in the sun, then at night its like a furnace! But here it'll be nice to have an air conditioner. My new companion is Elder Perez, he's from the same ward as Elder Lopez in the D.F.
 
I guess here it won't rain as much as in Culiacan, but the Hermana told me to keep my rain coat, because when it rains, it rains hard. And we had interviews with our new mission president, and he's really cool. He seems more laid back then President Cantu, but he's definitely still going to be good. And I didn't get my package. I think its still in Culiacan. So hopefully next month! 
 
This week we had the baptism of a kid named Richard. I'll send photos. That was on Saturday. It was a nice way to leave Angostura.
 
Here we had the zone meeting on the 4th of July, and the new president had all the Americans go sing the national anthem in front of everybody. It was pretty funny, I bet you'll find the video of us on the missionary mom website. Besides Elder King, Lopez, and I all celebrated by eating a cake. (Elder Lopez was born in new York and lived there for like 5 months, so we decided that was American enough to celebrate with us)
 
Besides that we really didn't have a lot go on this week. But ya its cool to be in a whole new area. Everything up here is so different. But I like it so far!
Love Elder Lund


O I forgot to write what things I learned this week! Our Mission President showed us a video about miracles, and it talks about how with small things God has been able to do great things. But I got a little different thing out of it. It talks about Moses splitting the Red Sea with his staff, and about David killing Goliath with his pebble. And what I got out of it is sometimes we get caught up in trying to be David or Moses, and do these huge miracles, but more often than not, we're not the people achieving the miracles, we're the staff or the pebble. And when these things are in the right hands, like Moses or David, or in our case, the Lord's, miracles happen. If we just do what we have to do we will see the miracles that the Lord works through us.

Monday, July 1, 2013

7/1/13


This week I found out why it was 115 degrees here with my old companion, and why it's only 109 here now. It's because dumb Elder Goates would put the thermometer in the sun for like 20 minutes before reading the temperature! haha It's not quite as crazy as I thought here! But this week was super cold (according to everybody here) because  it was like 103 degrees from 12 to 4, then about 85 degrees at 5. We had rain 4 times. Its been so nice this week! Its nice to be able to go into the shade and actually feel cool!
      
If you can notice, my English is really dying. I'm forgetting words like crazy, but more than anything, I feel like I'm just talking really choppy! But my Spanish is getting SO much better! My companion tells everyone I'm fluent. (Even though I'm not) just so they'll talk to me really fast and with big words so I can learn more. So this week I haven't understood as well as I did before, but I'm learning so fast. It's awesome! But I still have an AWFUL memory so it's hard to remember a lot of words! Like grammar and stuff I know, but my vocabulary is still small.

I'm going to get the package hopefully this week. We get our letters and packages every zone meeting, and those are usually the first week of the month. And I still don't know the address or my mission president or anything. Hopefully we have a capacitaciĆ³n soon so we can learn the new rules!

This week we worked harder than in any other week in my mission. I'm really starting to love everything about the work. It's starting to be like sports, where I just want to work super hard all the time, because the reward is worth it. 
   
We have a baptism this week for a little boy named Richard. He doesn't count as a baptism for the mission, because he's still 8 years old. But the Branch president hasn't been able to teach him, so we've been doing it. So for me it feels the same as a normal investigator. So I'm really excited about that.

Also this is our last week with Alena before she moves to Culiacan. Hopefully the missionaries there are good ones! She's going to come back here on the 20th to get baptized with her sister, but I have a feeling I'm going to be transferred this Monday, so I wont be here for it.. But all that really matters is that she gets baptized! I'm just excited to get the news that she went through with it.

I don't have a lot of time right now because theres like a million people here in the Ciber waiting for computers!
Love you!
Elder Lund


Scott's 1st zone (Guasave) with new mission president Scott is behind the President and companion Elder Lopez is in glasses two to the right