Christmas time is continuing to be really strange. Our whole zone had an activity last night - Christmas Day - where we all sang in the park. We set up a keyboard and mics and the whole shindig. It turned out pretty cool, and afterwards we had a table set up with a bunch of church materials, so it turned out pretty successful too. I think I've learned a lot this week. I've learned, in part, what it means to take upon myself the name of Christ. From what I understand, that means the my motivations become equal to His. That becomes reflected in my actions, my desires, my prayers, my success as a missionary. I've become completely preoccupied by my investigators, even down to when I'm sleeping. I've woken up a few times during the night and realized that I wasn't having dreams, I was just thinking things like: What should I teach the Juarez family? What members can I bring with Lupita? When I really take upon myself the name of Christ and work my hardest, we see lots of miracles.

This week we found the Ortiz family. One of their kids yelled at us in the street, asking what religion we were from. We put an appointment, and now they're preparing to be baptized. We visited a guy who's been going to church regularly for months with his family who are all members, and he accepted a baptismal date as well. So, we've got a lot of work to do, weve just have to continue working hard. Happy Christmas!

Also, I finished reading the Book of Mormon. We started a daily reading as a mission when I was in my first area, and we finally finished. But, it literally scared me to not be in the middle of the Book of Mormon, so I read Moroni 10 and then read the whole introduction up to 1 Nephi 2 in the same study.

Lemme splain

Lemme splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

- Painting the new house of the Hermanas in Macapule. There were only 5 paint brushes for 8 missionaries, so I sat on the couch. That led to being dog piled by four portly Mexicans (and Elder Pearson).

- Stake Christmas Choirs. I got roped into three different choirs. It was really fun. The missionaries all sang Joy to the World, and I directed and yelled the tenor part. Elder Pearson and I sang... Campanas de Navidad, and threw in a bunch of key changes and sang a verse with no melody. I don't think anyone noticed.

- Baptisms. Giovany and Elva were baptized on Saturday. So dang cool. Giovany's sister is a recent convert. He's basically pulled a 180 from when I first met him (very grumpy) to right now (...bashful?). Elva is a woman that Elder Johnson and Elder Rendon contacted last transfer. She brought 5 grandkids (they seemed like 25) to the baptismal service, so it was pretty rowdy.- Recieved a foot rub from a Mexican mortician. ...that is all.

- I'm just super excited for Christmas. Elder Mendoza and I are getting along really well. I like Jardìn a lot. I'm starting to get to know the members pretty well - there's a ton. We're planning on having a lot of success during this transfer.

Hot dogs are okay even if you don't cook them.

Christmas Activity

We had an mission Christmas activity this week. It was great. All of the
missionaries in Sinaloa went to Culiacán for the day on Thursday. We played
dodgeball. I lost every round, except for the round of Mexicans vs.
Foreigners (we sang the national anthem). We also had a testimony meeting.
My favorite part of the activity was just being able to see all of the
missionaries and meet those who I hadn't before. It's important to me to
get to know all of the missionaries that I can; I feel bad whenever
missionaries finish that I never ran into.

We're teaching a family of a less active member, who is actually a return
missionary. He and his wife have two girls, one of which - Carla - is *super
* excited to be baptized. I love their family. We taught the plan of
salvation on Saturday, but we brought materials to color, and we all drew a
"map" with the different parts of the plan, starting in pre-earthly life
and following all of the steps to finish at the celestial kingdom. They're
acually the only people that we planned for in our weekly planning session
that haven't now been dropped, so we're nearly starting from the bottom up
right now in Jardín, but that's okay. We're excited to find new people.

Elder Mendoza is sweet. I'm teaching him English and he's teaching me
Chilango slang.

Piano fiend

Hi, I hardly have any time, but here are some photos. I'm now with Elder Mendoza from Veracruz. He is a piano FIEND, and a great missionary, but he kind of fell off the chart during transfers yesterday, so I didn't manage to write e-mails. Elder Mercado headed back to Culiacán. Love that guy. I should see him this week because the mission is going to Culiacán for a a Christmas activity. Things are going great.

Observant

As I missionary, I've become really observant of specific things about people we teach or contact. For example, the various religious artifacts they might have and how that will influence what I should say. I think most missionaries tend to develop this trait, but Elder Mercado is particularly good at it. We were about to knock at the gate of a house, and Elder Mercado said, "Look: well-swept porch, rocking chair in the shade... This is the house of a a man who reads the Bible regularly." Turns out he was, extremely right. This guy's bible was quite literally in pieces and continuing to fall apart from being studied so often.

I did divisions with Elder Rendon during the week, who lives in the same house as us. However, Elder Rendon had a throat infection and could hardly speak at all, so I talked all day. At one point, we saw a woman working in her front yard and I offered to help her. When she declined I looked over and Elder Rendon was already on his knees tearing out weeds, so we just taught her a lesson while weeding her patio.

We've started teaching Angelica this week. Most of the members of her family were baptized a few months back. She's really cool, and she came to church on Sunday, and even invited her cousin. She has a lot of sincere desire to know if our message is true, and to understand why her family has become happier, but feels like she's not recieving an answer to prayers so far. We're working with her and she's progressing well.

Street Contacting

This week was kind of the opposite of last week, up until the last few days. But sometimes shlumpy weeks happen. That's okay. We taught a lot, but I really don't recall many lessons that had quantifiable results or have led to much progress in those we're teaching.

As a mission, we've had a new goal this last week to do 10 street contacts daily. Maybe that seems like a laughably small number to other missions - Elder Tingey, London - but it was kind of punch for some of us in Sinaloa. Honestly, I struggled. And kind of failed. I was just super unaccustomed to street contacting. So we had twenty-three the whole week up until last night, when we just girded up our loins and started to contact everyone. And now, I love it! We went and played soccer with the zone this morning, and I contacted multiple people on every bus we took. Some people are weirded out, but oh well. Now they know who I am and why I'm here. I think the Lord saw us lacking courage to talk with everyone, and so he sent a bunch of people my way to get me in gear. Seriously, people nearly had to convince me to contact them. We were in a bus and a guy who was with his wife and kids started trying to talk to me in English. After some terse gab back and forth, he just kind of paused. "So... do you guys visit peoples houses to preach?" Ah. Yes. That's what we do. We went and taught them a really cool lesson after church, and they already had a Book of Mormon. The lesson went something like this:

"So, Jesus came to the Americas?"

"Yes."

"...cool!"

A teenage girl, Jessica, also had to rattle my cage a bit. We were just trying to buy some cheese from a little store, and as we were leaving, she yelled, "Hey! You didn't teach me anything!" So we went back and taught her something, and she came to church. As we were leaving the little store a second time, the store owner yelled, "Hey! What do I have to do to receive the discussions?" So we went back. Turns out, her husband is an inactive return missionary.

Also, I played bass guitar for like five minutes. That was the first time in over a year. That's okay.

So people are just kind of coming out of the woodwork. After having been sent so many people so blatantly, I'm now ready to talk with everyone I see, and fulfill my purpose all the time, always.

The level of coolness of things that make me excited has radically dropped while I've been in Mexico. For example:

"Yes! An English hymnbook! Alright!"

"What?! Air conditioning?"

"TORTILLAS!"

Also, I've been teaching Elder Mercado English. So far, we've got:

"Much obliged."

"Flabbergasted."

Offered a Quesadilla

I feel good. Really good. I love being in a hurry, and that's how it's been for a week straight. We just run everywhere. Elder Johnson did divisions with me and we managed to have a nine-lesson day. We're teaching a guy named Omar. Maybe I mentioned last week that he wandered into the chapel and stayed for all three hours and loved it. We taught him about the restoration of the Gospel, and when we came back for another lesson, the result was really cool. He told us about how a friend of his had invited him out for a drink; Omar told his drinking buddy about us - the missionaries - and they got sodas instead. He also said that he had just stopped swearing completely. We had never even mentioned alcohol or explicit language in the first lesson, he just naturally started making changes because it felt right. Jesica is on track for her baptismal service next week.She was feeling pretty unsure about it before she came to church last week. I love the impact that fast and testimony meeting can have. Jesica said she loved it, and just felt much more secure about everything after going.

Elder Mercado contacted a house, and a young guy came out. We greeted him, and he said, "Ah, you just caught me in the middle of a meal." He looked down at the quesadilla in his hand, and then offered it to us, "Would you like some?" I don't think there are many places in the world where that happens so often.

We taught a family who have a son serving in Puebla, but he is the only member of the church in the household. It was strange because I just felt like I was teaching the family of one of my companions who was also the only member in his family. They're great.

Attached is a photo of Alan Padilla and I. He's heading out to Piura, Peru on Wednesday (heads up Elder Foutz).

Elder Tingey