Esquinapa

Hello! 

I'm now in a little place called Esquinapa. It's as far away as possible as
I could have moved from la Paz, all the way down at the southernmost part
of Sinaloa. We had a good final week in Pioneros. Veronica wasn't baptized,
but she will be soon. We had a Family Home Evening with Bishop Irigoyen and
had a really good lesson with her. Sunday, in the Gospel Principles class,
the discussion was about baptism, and it basically turned into a testimony
meeting of all of the recent converts trying to resolve all of the concerns
that Veronica had. It was really cool. But now I'm here with Elder Baltich!
He's from Florida and went to BYU as well. I'm really excited to work in
Esquinapa.

 Goodbye!

New motto: Let us not be weary in well-doing.

New motto: Let us not be weary in well-doing.

Calafia-Pioneers district sunrise dock photo shoot

I had an interview with President Cantú towards the beginning of the week that was really great. No, we didn't watch Brumby videos. But he did tell me some really cool stories from his mission. At the time, it seemed kind of odd. However, during the week, I was able to apply lessons that I learned from each story, and miracles happened. He basically told me: Elder Tingey, you're standing at the edge of a river with a strong current. The Lord has asked you to cross. You're looking up river, waiting for the current to settle down. It's never going to settle down, so cross now! the Lord doesn't care if you swim, scuba dive, pole vault, build a bridge. Just don't end your mission without crossing.

We also discussed the importance of teaching in order to discover the doubts of the investigators, and not really going on with teaching until we find them. We passed by briefly with Angélica on Sunday. She and her family still haven't gone to church. We were teaching, and I just said what we had talked about in the interview. It was like magic, she was really upfront and frank about the doubts she had. Turns out some cool neighbors came by and told her that the young, blue-eyed guys with backpacks were going to make her go to church, and then afterwards, they wouldn't be able to play sports, go to parties, etc. So we resolved her doubts one by one. We just need to help her have more member friends and her family will be set.

Esteban was baptized! It was awesome. I told his dad that we'll get the font ready for him for next week. The challenge is that his dad is so busy that we've only taught him half of the Plan of Salvation the whole time that we've been teaching the family. Esteban's baptism was a result of a lot of faith and good works, and it was a growing experience to be a part of his conversion.

For next week, we're working with Veronica to help her be prepared for baptism. We know and she knows and the Lord knows that she can be ready, it's just going to take some work. One of her biggest motivations is being able to teach her family once she's made the changes necessary to live the Gospel. She's awesome.

Back in the day, Elder Allen took my place in Angostura with Elder  Monroy.

Hitching a ride, just like old times

David and Esteban!  Future Elders.

Esteban's baptism

Happy Birthday

Cool sunset on top of a neighborhood called "Ciudad de Cielo" (it's like climbing Olympus to get there)

Hello!

Thank you all for the well-wished birthday. Once again, we had a crazy week, and we've been highly blessed. Elder Allen and I ended up going down to los Cabos on Tuesday! It was an effective trip, but it was a good chunk of time away from our area for the week. We came back real quick-like on Wednesday. I had the chance to stay the night with my MTC-district buddy Elder Mortensen, which was great. Los Cabos is a cool place. 

We found a teaching record in our area book of an old lady name Macelina and felt like we should go with her a few weeks ago. We taught her once, and she was nice and said that she had gone to church twice a while back when the missionaries had passed by for her in a ride. Since then, she hadn't gone at all. We felt like we should go back with her during the week, and we managed to arrive when her son, Lino, was there as well. He told us that he had recently had some marital difficulties and that he also had trouble giving up an alcohol addiction. We had a simple, powerful lesson with them. We discussed the concept of faith and works. If you pray for something and then don't act, or give God a medium through which he can help you, how can you expect a blessing? 

Has Lino asked God to help him stop drinking? Yes. But then if he goes and hangs out with the same bad group of friends that conduces his drinking habits, where's the blessing going to come from? Has Lino asked God to help him have more family unity? Yes. So would going to church be a good way for God to instruct him and help him apply the Gospel better at home? Certainly. That was basically the lesson, which ended on a really strong commitment to go to church the next day. We walked really quite far to pass by for them in the morning, and both Lino and Macelina were all ready to go, in their best Sunday wear. It was awesome! So the lesson applied and worked because they felt the Spirit and that motivated them to make a change. We took a bus with them to show them that they are capable of making to church on their own in the future.

It ended up being a really good day of church. All of my converts were there, which is a good sight to see. The Ríos family walked over a mile to get there and showed up  a little tanner at the end of the sacrament meeting. Esteban and Esteban went too. Another cool new investigator who went is named Veronica. She's a very young grandma, and her mom is a convert as of two years ago. One morning, she decided to flip the Bible open to a random page and read something in Proverbs about Jehovah instructing us in wisdom or something that she really took to heart. And then we knocked on the door! In the Gospels principle class, she was taking notes and asking cool questions and generally participating a lot. I'm happy with the people we've been able to find this week. We're really trying to baptize, and I know that we'll be blessed to be able to soon if we work with the right motives.

Goodbye!

Zone meeting (Elder Arellano looks like a dead guy because it's his final change. Sorry the picture looks like we're being transfigured)

This is how we stop the bugs

Elder Allen made me a birthday sign (he's going to treat me to some American-style barbeque today at a good-looking restaurant we saw in Centro).

Lots of traveling.

Hello! We're doing pretty good. We've had quite a bit of traveling that's
complicated things, but it's been fun. We've tried to seek opportunities to
share the gospel on the go! We flew to Culiacán again during the week, and
we're going to go down to los Cabos tomorrow night.

We were really blessed to find two new families during the week! We went to
the house of an investigator and there was a woman there named Angélica.
She accepted a visit, and when we went to her house we had a really
powerful lesson. Turns out, she had been taught by the missionaries in the
Forjadores ward a few weeks ago, but moved and lost contact. She said that
she had seen *us* (Elder Allen and I) in downtown la Paz and wanted to talk
to us, but was scared that we would think she was weird.  So she was happy
to re-establish contact. She hasn't been to church yet, so we started
simply explaining what we do each Sunday, and she stopped me and said,
"What do you have to do to be prepared to be baptized?" We ended up setting
baptismal dates with her and her sons. She's way cool and really
interested.

However, our challenge of the week was getting everyone to church. We had
set up rides and everything, but the morning of, it didn't work out as well
as we had hoped. On Saturday, we had about 14 investigators that we
expected to go, but the only ones that made it were two kids, Jesús and
Juan Carlos "el Güero," who were all ready when we came by in the morning.
They were *really* rambunctious in Primary. So were now kind of recovering
and trying to focus on getting all of the progressing investigators to
church next week.

I'm loving my time with Elder Allen. He's awesome. For some reason, the
work has been pretty difficult, but we're working through the challenges.
My goal is just to help others to feel the influence of the Spirit more,
whether it be a stranger in a street contact, a member whom we ask for
referrals, or the other missionaries that we're working with. We're able to
have many spiritual experiences each day. Hope everyone is well, and
seeking their own experiences too. Hurrah for Israel!