Plans A, B, C, D and Jose Luis 10-15-12

Hey! We had a great week last week. Lots of miracles. I'm feeling great. I have a strong sense of my purpose and how to fulfill it, and I've just felt pumped about sharing the Gospel. Elder Baltich and I were blessed to find a lot of new people this week that are progressing. 

We had a visit from our cool traveling assistants: Elder Frias and Elder Sanders. They spend four days in a different zone each week. My companion and I worked with them in our area, and it was awesome. It's kind of like opening a new area in the middle of our area. We have a system in our mission where we should put Plans A, B, C, and D for every hour of the day. It made nightly planning kind of rough because we had a to double all of those plans (that's eighty specific households of plans, whether they be investigators or less active members or whatever), but it turned out well. We ended up looking through the long lists of less actives, and a couple times when I couldn't think of anything, I would just put José Luís. If I run out of plans, I just ask the nearest guy were José Luís lives, and there are usually three or four on that block. Then we contact the guy that we asked, then we contact all of the José Luís houses. It was good working with them and we ate a lot of PB&Js.

We're teaching a cool family. We met Hermano Jorge on the bus ride back from Culiacán a few weeks ago. He's been inactive for a good amount of time, but he has a testimony and is super excited that we've started teaching the family. His wife, Magdalena, has gone to church a few times a while back with a ward member she's friends with. Their kids are way smart. We read and explained Ephesians 2:20 while teaching the message of the Restoration. About twenty minutes later, Jorge Jr. still remembered the verse and said, "Apostles and prophets!" when we asked what two of the foundations of Christ's church are. Everyone was impressed. 

So, we worked really hard to get everyone to church on Sunday. We had committed all of the investigators during the week, we had committed their member fellowshippers to pass by for them, we reminded them with texts the night before, woke them up in the morning, fasted, said specific prayers, etc. And... no one came. We just took the sacrament and went off on our bikes to go by for more people, and... nothing. Saturday night we had a list of over twenty possible investigators that seemed pretty sure. But, nope. I guess we're learning an important lesson about everyone's free agency. Nonetheless, we're pumped and have high hopes for next week. 

Also, New Fruit of the Week: carámbolo! I think it's called starfruit. 9/10. It's awesome. It's like a giant grape.  

Bye!

Shrimp Season 10-8-12

Apple + tamarind coating + half kilo of Tajin

Hello! We've had sort of a complicated week. I felt like we didn't get a
whole lot of time to work in our area, and the time we did have didn't turn
out to be very effective. However, we have high sights for this coming week
and the rest of the transfer. We have a nice chapel here in Escuinapa (the
only one in the district, actually) so we had the general conference
broadcast right here in a our area. We spent a lot of time on Saturday and
Sunday trying to get all of the investigators to go. In the end I hardly
got to see much of it at all. And the part I did see was mostly spent
battling with some *really* rambunctious kids to keep the door of the
chapel closed. But I still love conference. Carmen and a friend came. Alma
did not come, and apparently hasn't been able to change her work schedule
around yet.

On the way back down from Culiacán last week, we stopped in Mazatlán for an
eye exam, so I finally got to know Mazatlán a bit. We took one of the
well-known "pulmonías" to get around. It's like a golf cart/taxi. I always
secretly wanted to work in Mazatlán.

So Alma and Carmen are still our strongest investigators. Elder Baltich is
still cool. We're really just focused on finding now to build a stronger
investigator pool.

It's shrimp season here in Escuinapa. I've eaten shrimp soup, shrimp tacos,
shrimp tortas, shrimp burritos, fried shrimp, breaded shrimp, and even
shrimp tamales (with the whole shrimp in there, feelers and head and
shell). I love it. Bye!

Zona Escuinapa: the littlest zone

Mazatlan's famous pulmonías.

Escuinapa

Sorry. It's spelled Escuinapa, not Esquinapa.

We had a pretty good week. This is a very funny place. It's certainly got the Sinaloa mission feel to it. We have had some fun floods that led the walking around in fun wet shoes and socks. The branch is really small, but there are some really strong branch members that help keep everything move forward. The branch president was a missionary here a few years ago. 

We're teaching the Belmonte family. The two oldest of the kids are recent converts from last week and the week before that. On Sunday, one was called as Young Men's President! They're way cool. The most progressing investigator is the mom, Alma. She has a growing testimony of the Gospel and should be baptized soon as well.

We had a good experience with reactivation. We visited and fellow shipped a less.active woman who was the Primary president years back. On Sunday, she came on her own and brought her two kids! Everyone received her well, and we were happy that she came. I was asked to speak, which was fun. We were also in charge of the third hour class at church, which was fifth Sunday. We ended up explaining our Day of the Dead activity that we're going to have in the graveyard in November to start to get all the members involved, and get them started on their genealogy. 

Elder Baltich in my first Escuinapa rain storm!

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!