5/27/2013

Ya its definitely still hot as fire. This week actually wasn't too bad though. It was like 105 more or less. But the problem is it never cools down! I woke up at 2 in the morning and it was 95 degrees in our kitchen. Thank goodness I have a huge fan blowing on me all night!! But ya I feel normal in the heat now. And the supermarket is super cold to me now, and it's like 80 degrees! My backpack is doing fine! We used to bike like 10 miles a day, more or less, but one night we were biking and my pedal broke off in the middle of riding, so we haven't biked in like 2 weeks. And I feel like I lose weight, then we go and eat at a member's house, and they won't let you stop eating for like 3 HUGE plates, then I feel fat!  I feel like I'll be the exact same at the end.

This Wednesday I got SUPER sick with an infection or something in my stomach. And we don't have any money for this month because my companion had to come from the farthest south part of the mission and hasn't been reimbursed yet, so I had to take money from my card from home for a shot and pills, but they will put the money back onto my mission card. I also had to buy a taxi to take people to church yesterday. There is a member every week who takes us the 30 miles to pick up investigators and bring them to church. But yesterday he wanted to sleep, so we had to pay. And, yes, here that is a legitimate excuse. Its ridiculous how lazy this branch is. They complain every week that they don't have a chapel. And that we don't have baptisms. But they don't realize, missionaries get people ready for baptism, but they won't get baptized if they don't feel welcome in the ward. And they do nothing to welcome anybody because they're lazy. And they never do home teaching or visiting teaching, so all the baptisms go inactive.  In total I took 400 pesos from my card. But my watch somehow flew off when we were in the back of a truck, so if you could put one in that envelope that would be cool!

So we have this one investigator, Rosario, and he was super promising. Had a baptismal date for 2 weeks from now, and was all ready to be baptized. But one night his wife lost 1500 pesos. And they couldn't find it anywhere. So we told him to have faith and that everything would be alright. Then we shared Matthew 17 where it says with little faith people can move mountains. He said the closing prayer and said that he just wanted to be alright, and if he didn't find the money that it was ok. Anyway we came back like 4 days later, and he had found the money, but he now thinks with faith he is literally as powerful as God... He told us that he has enough faith that he changed the rules for himself so that he doesn't have to go to church or pay tithing. And that he doesn't need the blessings from those things because he can get anything he wants with faith. And he wont believe us that it doesn't work like that because he has faith, so he can change the rules so it does work like that.. So we had to drop him this week. 

We had a baptism set for this Saturday with a kid named Wilber. He has a testimony and is all ready to go. But he doesn't have money, so he can't pay tithing. so we're giving him a job at the church this weekend so he can earn a couple dollars and pay tithing on that. So looks like it will have to wait until next week. In our mission we have super strict rules for baptism. They have to go to church 2 times on their own (we can't even call them to remind them), never have a problem with word of wisdom or law of chastity for a month, and have to fast, and pay tithing before baptism.

O I found out that up in the new mission it's 10 degrees hotter in Celsius, so like 20 degrees hotter in Fahrenheit. So now I kinda want to stay in Culican mission!

This week we had a goal for 100 street contacts. We only got 74, but we met a ton of new investigators that are really potential.

Love you guys! have a great week!

Love Elder Lund

Visit from an Apostle

In one week with my new Mexican companion I learned more Spanish than all my time in the MTC and with Elder Goates. His name's Elder Lopez, he's from the D.F. en Mexico, and his family moved to Provo when he was in the mission. So I guess that's where he's going to go back to after he's done. He has 21 months out in the field. At the beginning of the week he would tell me a lot of stories, but I never understood anything! But now we can communicate basically normally. Pretty cool because now I can talk with real Mexicans! 

  He said he came on his mission without a testimony, and hadn't read the Book of Mormon. He just came because his girlfriend made him. But after a couple transfers he got a testimony of his own and started working hard. Then after a year in the mission his girlfriend got married. But he stayed out. Elder Goates was a super hard worker, but Elder Lopez KILLS him. He's our district leader, and is always working hard. President told me if he would have worked hard his whole mission he would have been AP for sure. But I'm glad he's not cause he's teaching me a ton.

  We got to go to Culiacàn on Friday for Elder Holland which was pretty cool. But seriously, it was super frustrating to not be able to see our investigators for 3 straight days. Plus today, because it's P-day. It was cool to shake his hand too. He said when he shakes the hands of missionaries he can look them in the eye and tell how they're doing, and he said our mission is the best he's seen in years, in terms of how the missionaries are feeling. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we're getting baptisms! 

  All Elder Holland talked about is keeping us active after our missions. He said how can we count on the flock to stay active if we can't count on the shepherds. I'll bring my notes with me next week. I got a TON of good quotes and stuff. haha He kept saying stupid, which is like the worst swear word here because he didn't know it was bad, haha it was super funny. And he kept saying that as missionaries we are apostles, and that the word Elder is significa of a special witness, and that the Quorum of the twelve uses that title because, besides president for the prophets, its the most important calling in the church. And that the only difference between him and missionaries is that he has keys we don't have, and that we give all day everyday to the work, he gets to go to Jazz games and stuff.

  He also talked a lot about Sister Monson. And how she never once complained about how her husband would drag her all over the world, and how he goes into hospitals to give a friend or family a blessing, then gets asked by basically the whole hospital for blessings, and forgets that she's out in the car waiting for 5 or 6 hours! He said he called him right when he heard, and that President Monson wouldn't talk about himself or accept his pity, and instead asked where he was going, and said "Tell the missionaries in Culiacan that I love them and wish I could be with them right now." Elder Holland said that President Monson would go to the hospital all the time and sit in the room when she was sick in a coma, and just talk with her, and cry with her and laugh with her, even though she didn't know he was there, and that he's super super bummed and we need to all pray for him to have strength to get through it. Kinda weird to think that he's a real person with real feelings huh.

  The last thing he talked about is his typical missionary talk about why this is so hard, not just the mission but living as a strong member of this church. And he said that "Any joy or freedom that we feel from the church had to go through Gethsamane and the cross on Calvary to get to us." Those occasions weren't easy for Jesus, so why should we think in turn that this would be easy for us to live the gospel, to stay in the church, and to keep a family in the church. And that we owe it to Christ to at least bring him one convert, so he doesn't have to worry about us. And that we don't have the right to damage the image of the church for his grandchildren by not living the gospel in all things. And forever we will have the title "Returned Missionary" We can't get away from that.

  I swear down here you're just sick all the time.. You kind of learn to love it! Last night was the first night I've gotten more than 5 hours of sleep since Thursday, and I feel like I'm running out of energy, but a talk by Henry B Eyring keeps jumping in my head. He reads the last 2 verses D&C 107, where it says we have to work in all diligence, never being lazy or slothful. And that when his body begs for rest he gives himself this rallying cry "Remember Him" he says "Christ showed us a powerful example in what he did in his 3 days in the spirit world before his resurrection" His work here was complete but he was determined to keep going. He said "this is something I consider whenever I feel I have done some hard task in his service" It's crazy how hard this work is, And I definitely have asked for an easier way, but its nice to remember that I'm not the first person to ask that, Christ did a long time ago. And for him there wasn't an easier way, so for us there can't be an easy way either. I find that when Im tired, or our investigators frustrate us, or we feel like giving up, when we remember him and push onward, we receive the most blessings, and are able to bless the lives of our investigators the most. It says in DyC that if we put on the whole armor of God we will be protected from those fiery darts of the adversary. I picture that like a bulletproof vest. When you get shot with a vest on it hurts like heck, but you don't die. Thats how it is with the Gospel, when we are wearing the the full armor of god, those fiery darts from satan can hurt us, can push us to our limits, but they can not break us. Thats a promise from the lord. 

This week was great! loved every part of it!

Hope everythings going well at home! Tell Mommer thanks for her letter!

Love Elder Lund

Exciting Times in Mexico

So, this week was the most frustrating week ever because we had the lider de misional (I don't know the word in English.. Ward mission guy) scheduled to work with us every day. But in the mornings he would always bail! So we had to work with no plans, and walk for HOURS to get to the pueblos he was supposed to take us to. So we felt like we weren't accomplishing anything. But the Lord blesses us if we work hard. And we worked HARD. So we didn't get down or let ourselves be mad, we just worked and did the best we could. And when we got our numbers for the week it was one of our best weeks. I don't know how, but it was amazing! 

I wasn't going to tell you this story because I didn't want you to worry but it ended up being pretty cool so ill tell you anyway!

We have an investigator named Norma. She lives with 7 kids in a tiny house with no water or electricity. They also have her daughter in law, Marie Cruz. who's like 25, living with her. So Norma is really interested and would be baptized if she would attend church. But Marie Cruz is dating a drug lord (I'm not kidding) and she is addicted to cocaine and meth. I really felt like we needed to teach Marie Cruz, like a super strong feeling. But It was weird because I felt like we needed to wait a little bit because she wasn't ready yet. So we kind of forgot about her for about a month and just taught Norma. Anyway on Friday night there was a shooting at a gas station like 4 blocks away from our house and 3 people were killed. (That's what I didn't want to tell you) I was super excited because thats the first crazy thing I've heard of happening since I've been here. Last night we went and visited Norma because she has had crazy work this last week and couldn't attend church. She works all day picking tomatoes, and only gets 5 hours off until she has to go back the next day. So we visited her and she told us that one of the guys that was killed was the boyfriend of Marie Cruz! And that she decided she wanted to stop doing drugs, change her life, and talk to us!! HOW CRAZY!!! It's so awesome how God prepares people. Even when drug lords kill other drug lords here it's God preparing his children! Coolest thing ever. That's how protected we are down here, too. When something crazy happens it's because God's giving us something to work with.

We also have an investigator who speaks English, which is awesome for me! He is 13, and his whole family are investigators, but they were gone for this lesson. We taught him the plan de salvacion and he said he felt good and peace. And we told him it was the spirit. He kinda was like cool, whatever, when we told him. But later in the lesson he said he'd been praying for more than a year for God to send him a sign, or a direction to take his life. And he hadn't connected the dots yet. So I told him, do you think maybe us being here is the sign from God? And he started crying and said he couldn't deny the church was true. That was awesome too.

This week was great! I´m honestly loving Mexico. Everything about it is awesome! Even the 110 degree heat!

Love Elder Lund

Pictures from Mexico

     We just opened up a new city that no missionaries have been in since any member here can remember, and probably ever. I guess like a year or so ago there was a crazy gang drug fight, there and so missionaries didn't go in there, but this area is one of the safest in all of Mexico now, and we decided to go contact all our references in that city. There literally couldn't be a nicer, more peaceful place in the world. Everybody is so nice there and they're all escojitos (Golden Investigators) to the max. There is this family, the Vazquez Cerritos, that are really interested and they decided to come with us to church yesterday to our extension. We only do sacrament meeting at the extension and it's under a tree in somebodies back yard with like 10 people max. But my compañero and I give talks every week. Any way they have a little girl with some crazy disease that she's not going to live through. She was born with it and now she's 10. And they don't let her leave the house so she doesn't risk anything. She has to wear a doctor mask all the time, too. Anyway when we picked up the family she and her twin sister had to stay at home and she tried so hard not to cry, but she loves the gospel so much that she couldn't hold it in anymore and she ran inside.

Hopefully we are getting more missionaries and splitting our area so they can have an extension in her city.

    We also adopted a kitten! haha We found it outside our church in Angostura. I'll send a picture of him!

    We have an investigator named Norma who is so ready to be baptized but she always makes up excuses on Sundays so she doesn't have to come to church. I think she's hiding something. But she only has to go to church one more time! That's it. And she won't do it!

    This week we brought my clock with the thermometer and it said it was 111 degrees. It's burning up here, and everybody keeps saying how happy they are that the summer heat hasn't hit yet.. The new mission is in the Sonora Desert, I guess, and that's the hottest part of Mexico by a lot. I'm kinda hoping I get transferred down to Mazatlan or something so i can stay in Culiacan.

    Tell Kevin and his team good luck in the playoffs! 

Love Elder Lund!

 Nice bike

 Scott's town in the distance

I'm guessing this is a member serving them lunch, but I'm not sure.

Frustrating Week

This week was awful! We didn't have any investigators at church, and 6 of our investigators had setbacks for breaking commandments. They have to wait a month from the last time they drank coffee or broke any other commandments, they have to go to church on their own twice without us asking them to, and they can't be living with someone they're not married to. The biggest problem besides coffee is they have boyfriends or girlfriends when they're married to someone else. They just move apart instead of getting a divorce because they have to travel all the way to Mexico City and pay a bunch of money to get a divorce so they just move apart. So they all are dating people that they're not married to. We also had a baptismal date for a lady and her son set for Wednesday, we cleaned the font and had the interview all set up, but she didn't go to church yesterday!! I was so mad! Also my companion and I got super sick! But we had appointments so we still worked all day, just as hard as normal, but It was so exhausting!

So this week was the first time someone has told us not to go to the south side of Amgostura because it wouldn't be safe for a couple days for us. That night when we got back into Amgostura we had to ride our bikes through that dangerous part of the city and there were literally like 50 cops scattered around, and checking every car going in and out of the city. They were here for like 2 days then one morning we woke up and they were gone. We didn't hear gun shots or anything, they just apparently got their guy and left without a fight.

Also apparently the US army is coming to Mexico and especially Sinaloa to fight the cartels, so a bunch of the members think that the American missionaries are going to be taken out of the Culiacan mission. But our mission president said that's not even being considered. So hopefully not. Oh but by the way I'm most likely going to be part of the Ciudad de Obregon Mission starting in July. So it doesn't even effect me if they do take the missionaries out! That mission is a lot safer, but it's still right along the drug trade. Right now I'm at the very south part of where that mission would be.

We also this week got thrown out of a house of 2 of our most promising investigators because their dad doesn't want them to leave the Catholic church. He told us he loves us and wants us to come talk to them but not about the church. Which is our only reason for being here so that kinda was a bummer.. But we know their neighbor is a menos activo so we're holding Noche de Hogar (I cant remember English anymore!) in her house, so hopefully we can animate her while we teach the two investigators.

So what the heck is happening around the world!? We keep hearing these stories, a little about Boston but not enough. And the middle east and stuff. But we have no idea. All I know is the people here keep saying '' I'm so glad I don't live in United States because it's so dangerous there" because they don't report here when a narco invades a school cuts all the kids heads off and sticks them on a fence.. They just hear about the bombs going off in the united states. There hasn't been a time here where I didn't feel 100% safe which is pretty cool, because I wouldn't ever walk around here if i wasn't a missionary. There's little houses the people build where people die, and there are a couple houses on every turn in the roads because they are drunk and drive into ditches, and in the city from being killed they have houses everywhere. But apparently its super calm here right now. But I guess it's about to go crazy.

So my apartment is the nicest one in the mission, but it's also the smallest. But I don't really notice cause I'm either asleep or sitting at my desk when I'm there. So it doesn't really bother me. But I would like a couch and water that's actually clean! The showers nice though! It's only ice cold, but it's way past a hundred degrees here so its nice to cool off. Honestly the nicest thing I brought with me is those handkerchiefs! So amazing cause I literally drip sweat during the lessons after sitting down for 45 minutes cause its hot! And when we ride bikes it's unreal gross!

I'm going to ask Elder Holland if he remembers Dad! Apparently Apostles have the best memories in the world! There was a talk on it in the MTC while I was there, but It was so long ago, so idk! Maybe it will get a conversation where I can get a picture with him cause we're only allowed a hand shake.

Thanks for the talks! I couldn't watch the links but I just printed out the written ones! And I'm feeling good. Still sick but that's how its gunna be for 2 years so I'm getting used to it! My companion likes to talk the whole lesson so I haven't been talking as much with other people as I would like, but I'm understanding almost everything so that feels good! I guess the people here are more direct and mean when they talk so its easier to pick up cause they don't use a bunch of fluff words. My problem is grammar, and now I've been doing spanish grammar its hard to use the english grammar! 

Love Elder Lund

"I Promise I'm Safe..."

Mom, I promise I´m safe hitch hiking! Ha, its so much nicer than riding bikes! Yesterday we had conferencia de Rama. So because the rama is a mission thing since its not a ward yet, President Cantu had to speak. He told us there that we can bring a few investigators to the meeting with Elder Holland! I'm so excited! Didn't Dad know his son in high school?

I see people, and specifically kids, that I feel so bad for. They all live the saddest life. No money, basically no house.. and no toys. And they all live with their grandparents, since their parents are on drugs or in jail and stuff. That's the story with almost all kids here. It's so sad. But they always are so happy. I just want to make things better for them. Almost all of the houses here have one main room made of cement, then they cut out doors to make other parts of their house with cardboard and stuff. There aren't a whole lot of houses just out of cardboard but there are some, they're called invasions. We had to do tithing yesterday, and the highest tithing was 150 pesos. That means they only earned 150 US dollars that whole month.. And that was the highest. I don't know how they live. We are always busy here which is awesome! We have 4 more investigators committed to baptism this week, but the biggest problem is they can't drink coffee or break any commandment for a whole month before they get baptized, so the dates keep getting pushed back. It's so frustrating.

This week we got chased by a member's puppy for about 2 miles on the way from Alhuey back to Amgostura. It was sprinting the whole time! I don't know how it kept up! We decided to bring it back to the house and decided that God didn't just let the puppy follow us for no reason to distract us and make us waste time. So we prayed to know why he kept us in the city. Right when we got done praying we saw Rosario. About 30 minutes later he accepted baptism. I know the Lord needed us in Alhuey. So he sent that crazy little dog to chase us and bring us back.

We also met a mom and a son named Sulema and Abel. They are the daughter and grandson of a reference we had. The Grandpa hates the church, but the mom and son love it. Also they have a friend Fernando who is super investigating the church. Anyway we meet in the house of the grandpa all the time to talk about the church with them, and they attended church on Sunday. They were both crying during the mission president's talk. They know it's true and accepted a fecha (Baptismal date) for the 11 of May. We also have this lady named Evelia, who accepted baptism for the 4th of May. But we haven't taught her in almost two weeks cause she's never home! so I don't know how that will work out..

This morning I realized I can read the scriptures in Spanish and it actually makes sense! It was pretty cool! I still can't speak hardly at all, but I can understand way better now!

Love you guys!

Elder Lund

The MTC district- 5 elders headed to Culiacan, 3 elders to Oaxaca Mexico, 3 sisters to Costa Rica

Scott and Camille with companions just before Camille left

Scott, Camille, and Hannah from our ward -Hannah left for Milan, Italy, at the same time Camille left for San Antonio

In Mexico with President and Sister Cantu (and Jesus)

 The new North American arrivals -5 from the MTC and 4 from Visa-waiting in other missions

 The apartment -looks about like his room at home. 

The 4!

When my mom heard the stats of the church read in General Conference last week her ears perked up. She sent Camille, Scott, and me this message:

April 6, 2013:

President Monson announced the number of missionaries currently serving-

65,634

and the 4 are

Äldste och Syster Oscarson

Hermana Lund

Elder Lund

I love having 4 missionaries serving from my family! She forwarded Scott's email this week, which I appreciate, because between the two we can get a fuller picture of his frame of mind. Here is his email to fellow missionaries, Grandma and Grandpa. (punctuation and cap-corrected for your reading ease :))

Dear Grandma and Grandpa

My new area is a huge area called Angostura, It has a bunch of pueblos, little towns, that are super spread apart. We have to hitch-hike in the back of trucks or ride bikes everywhere. The close cities take about 25 minutes to bike to, and the far ones take about 30 minutes in the back of a truck. The people here have nothing, but because of that they are able to have everything. I love the people here. Reality either hasn't hit yet, or I'm just in love with the reality that's here. It's been great so far. Food's good, people are good, and my companion's good.

I only got to see a little of the Sunday morning, from The Primary president on, and we got to see all of the Sunday afternoon. even though I understood about 0 of it! So if you want to send me some more notes that would be awesome!

Thank you so much for explaining the Holland talk! I heard the last 2 minutes in English where he talked about Joseph Smith, and that's all I understood. He is so powerful!

It's so hard to see the people here struggling with drugs, or other very real trials. Especially ones that are involved with the drug trade that we can't teach because if they are at church they put everybody else there at risk. They have to move far away in order to become a member. No matter how willing. But I know if they really desire to follow God's commandments, He will provide a way for them. And if we work hard 100% of the time we will will have the words to comfort them and help them.

I can't believe you're that close to the end of your mission! It seems you just barely left!

It's nice to be the 4! That effort of missionaries just shows to me how important this work is in the last days. We are out here to gather the last of the fold, so we have to look under the cracks where other missionaries have swept over to find those elect.

The thing that hit me during conference was the song Come Come Ye Saints. It says "Todo Bien" which in Spanish is, Everything Good, or all is well. Hearing that come out of the mouths of people that have almost nothing hit me super hard. No matter how hard this work is to complete, if we can give just one person that feeling of Todo Bien, then it's all worth it. The ice cold showers, the 115 degrees with 90% humidity, the scorpions, the tiny apartment, all of it. It's all worth it.

One thing that also hit me is how Jesus wasn't too excited about doing the atonement. He asked God if there was any other way. But He knew it wasn't his will but God's will that mattered. And he never complained once. Never. We thrust in our sickle. We decided to come out here. We signed up for the hard work, because it was God's will. Jesus didn't complain when he was bleeding from every pore, he didn't complain when he was being whipped and spat on, and he didn't even complain when he was being nailed to the cross. He didn't say it was to hard, he said "Not my will but thine be done" then did something no man could have endured. He entered a tunnel of darkness and came out on the other side with "Brightness and Glory that defy all description" No matter how long, dark or hard our tunnel is, God's promise if we endure it well, we will be blessed beyond recognition. And God's promise is more than enough for me!

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Lund