Do not send photos with blood and no explanation. Mom

This week was like a hot air balloon takeoff. At the beginning of the week, we had very minimal success. The summer arrived, and I was fighting off some strong attacks of laziness. We were occupied by trying to get everything set up for our ward activity, a "Movie Theater Night," and the schedule we had made for the nightly family home evenings started to cause our time to go to waste when most of the week's assigned families forgot. We had everything ready for liftoff, but we lacked the fire. My companion and I decided to experiment; we would just put our all into the next day, and do everything right, and see how the results changed. We lit the fire, and our hot air balloon took off. The latter half of the week was great, and we saw fruits of our faith and sacrifice.

First, we had the movie night on Thursday. A great group of investigators came out to see "17 Miracles," a film about the pioneer trek to Salt Lake Valley. From there, we started working hard to find new investigators and get everyone from the ward activity to got to church on Sunday as well.

We found some really cool guys. We knocked on José's door, and he let us in before we had even said anything. Different members of his family started filtering through the house during the lesson, and each time he would try to convince them to listen in before we could even invite them. He went to church on Sunday. He actually ditched his only school class of the week to go. We also found a guy named Sergio. He looks like a real thug. However, that preconception seemed a lot different once we were inside and met his one year old daughter and talked about the importance of parenthood. Maybe he is a thug, but he also wants to be a good father. We started teaching, and he started to go off on this rant about the prophet Moses. A bunch of people started coming to his front gate to talk to him, and eventually we were kind of losing control of the lesson, so we invited him to church and gave him a pamphlet. Sunday morning, Elder Smalley saw him on his bike and told him to go to church, and he went too! After running wild Sunday morning, we managed to have ten investigators come, seven for the first time.

I think I've learned a lesson. Without fire - without diligence, and dedication and sacrifice - we're grounded. But faith gets us up in the air. And it's just more efficient to tract from a hot air balloon.

Semana Santa - Easter

I read a talk titled "the Fourth Missionary" during the week that helped me realize a lot that I can improve and how to improve it. Basically, my goal is to become a truly consecrated missionary. As I progress during my time preaching and serving, not only should my behavior change, but my actual nature. I should always strive to apply Christ-like attributes and always move forward, towards the light. If I'm doing my best and giving my whole self to the work, I won't worry about irrelevant "real world" stuff, or I won't compare myself to other missionaries. I guess I can't really explain well what I'm thinking, but it's a good talk and has changed how I think about a lot of things.

We started teaching this guy named Ruperto. He's 72 and still sweeps in front of his house every day. Fulfilling his neighborhood duty. He was obviously a punk in his younger years. We also found the Sapienz Parra family, whose mother is a less active member, and they're basically eternal investigators, but we're hoping that they'll progress to baptism this time around. Our biggest hope at their house is Susanna, who was a friend that was there during the first lesson who also accepted a baptismal date. We're hoping to meet her family, but, apparently they only speak Misteco, which is a dialect that I think is generally spoken in Oaxaca and was left by the Mayans. Something like that. I'm just excited to find them and then teach all of the lessons, caveman style.

At the beginning of the week, we found a cool lady named Manuelita. We contacted her in front of house, and as we entered in, the first thing I saw was a giant picture of the Pope, and then she pulled out a Jehovah's witness Bible, and then she told us that she currently attends a Christian church. So... what is she? We just went for it and taught her the Restoration and she accepted a baptismal date as well.

My experience with Semana Santa this year was much different. Yes, there were lots of drunk people. However, there was nobody else. The city was nearly deserted during the middle of the week, because everyone goes to the beach or the water park. Elder Smalley and were literally running down street after street, just looking for houses with people in them and contacting everyone we saw. It was fun, but it's unfortunate that you can only have those exciting, adrenaline-pumped contacting times when you're not really having success, because running from place to place means that people are saying "no." So it was a fun week, and we had a new investigator at church, Maira's mom, Lola.

Family, hope everybody had fun in San Lucas! Say hi to the arch for me. And if you run into a guy selling crepes in Puerta Vallarta who is Mormon, Taoist, Buddhist and believes that people can shoot fire out of their hands, tell him that Elder Tingey says hi, and buy some of his crepes.

Forkrails?

Maira was baptized! But, I don't have any pictures, because I wasn't there, because I was picking up my new companion! It's been a complicated week. Maira is really cool, her neighbors are members and we've been teaching her family during this month. We'll keep working with the rest of the family, but for now Maira is the newest addition to the ward. I'm now training again.

Elder Lopez got sent off to the southernmost part of Sinaloa, and Elder Smalley arrived! He's from Levan, UT, and sometimes has a pretty wicked accent when he speaks English. He was telling me about his house, and said, "Over here we have forkrails."

"Wait, what are forkrails?"

"... four corrals. They're right next to the crick."

He served for three weeks in Fresno while waiting for his visa, so he's pretty much arrived pre-trained.

I think I sometimes try to hide it when my mission is more difficult. I don't really know why. I want all of my letters to be positive, so when it's rough, I feel like I don't have a lot to say. The mission has been like a roller coaster, there are really, really great times, but sometimes it's really hard too.

One of the more spiritual times during the week was the new missionary orientation for Elder Smalley's group. I translated for the assistants, and as a side effect got really pumped up too. The new missionaries are just contagiously faithful.

Hospital in Culiacan

Luìs was baptized! He's from a part-member family. We've been teaching everyone from the non-Mormon part. Our whole district came to the baptismal service with investigators, and there was a quiceaños party at the church right afterwards, so we just kind of ushered the investigators out to mingle.

I ended up at a hospital in downtown Culiacàn in divisions during the week to give a blessing to a member who was in pretty bad shape. Honestly, it was pretty rough. It was a pretty sad place. But, as we were walking around, loads of people were like, "Elders! I'm a member!" "Hermanos! I'm a member too!" or "Mormones! I'm from Cuba but was baptized in Utah and moved to Mexico!" Just all sorts of stories. It was an experience.

We're continuing to work with some good families and should be able to continue baptizing during this change. We've been trying to utilize lots of ward activities in order to fellowship the investigators really well (I feel like I've forgotten how to speak without mission vocabularly). Elder Lopez and I refer to the street where Luìs lives as the "magic street" because the majority of our progressing investigators live there. It makes it easy to get everyone to church on Sunday. We're planning on having a combined baptismal service next weekend for all of the companionships in our district to finish off the month well.

Unmarked white van

Biggest news of the week: Tania was baptized. It was a miracle. Her conversion process has been really cool. On Saturday, she just came with us all day and went to all of our appointments.

She was super stressed out, until we went to Bishop Gonsalez's house. He told her about when he had been baptized. She finally decided that she wanted to do it, has just been super happy and unstressed since then. Also, free of sins. A load of investigators made it to the baptismal service, and most of them went to church the next day as well.

We're working with a good-sized pool of progressing investigators. And we were able to find a really good new family during the week. A member had lended them his copy of the Joseph Smith movie, and we arrived right after they had watched it.

We had to go to the immigration offices during the week because our... something... expired, so they could take our thumb prints again and make us take pictures while we're frowning. Elder Schwab and I were walking there when the office van with the rest of the missionaries stopped in the middle of the street so we could get in. I just want to know what everyone thought when they saw two gringos walking in downtown Culiacán who suddenly got pulled into a big, unmarked, white van.

This is how we move.

This is how we move.

Trying to show how excited we are about the new house.

My companion is Egyptian!

Elder Sandoval and I had a really great last week together. We focused

A LOT on teaching to people's needs, and it worked out really well. We
found some great new families. We started teaching Pedro, who is the
brother of a recent convert from when Elder Richins was here,
Fortunato (they're both like 70 or 100 or something). Pedro is blind.
It's been interesting how our teaching changes because of that. I was
hoping he could read Braille so I would finally have an excuse to
order a Braille Book of Mormon, but nope. He's really great and
surprises me with his comprehension.

We moved into a new house! It is about 50 times better than our old
house, and about a sixth of the size (it's just one room). It is
probably the best house I've seen in the mission, with a washer AND
dryer, air conditioning, and bunk bed - much better than our previous
bed (the floor).

Also, I have a new companion. Elder Lopez, from Michoacàn! He was
already in my district, and we've worked together before. Last time I
did divisions with him we jumped off a cliff, and then taught a family
at the bottom of the cliff, who later went to church. So, I'm excited
to work with him.

As for this week, we have some good progressing investigators and
hopes to find many more. We're teaching a girl, Tania, who is from
Kansas! She's cool and reminded me that Americans generally like
reading a lot more than Mexicans. I got her and English Book of
Mormon, and I asked her how her reading was going, and she said, "I'm
only on Chapter 12." Wh-wh-wh-what?

-Elder Tingey

A pumpkin? Young Folks by Bjorn

Picture - ...pumpkin?

I was in divisions with Elder Lopez during the week. We were off in this remote valley, and suddenly, I heard a loud, ghostly melody being whistled. Young Folks by Pete Bjorn and John! We started running around trying to figure out where it was coming from. Turns out it was a truck selling water. So, things are continuing to not make much sense.

Erick was confirmed and is still hilarious. He pulled out my Gospel art book and showed me the picture of Nephi shocking his brothers, "Look, it's Laman, Lemuel and Goku!" We're now teaching his sister's boyfriend, Jesús. He's really cool, and just showed up on his own to church! He plays trumpet in a symphonic band and in a "banda," so we have a lot to talk about.

The ward here is starting to get more pumped with all the baptisms that are going on. We've been trying to really work with the members and continue doing things to get everyone more excited about missionary work. The mission is doing a Valentine's Day activity where we invite all of the members to write cards to friends and family members with their testimony inside, and then the missionaries deliver them. We're also planning an open house for the beginning of March.

I love Mexico. I love that kids have fun by practicing soccer and playing accordian in the street. I don't mind that our neighbors play music so loudly at 2 a.m. I love that the last guy who slammed a door on us took the time to shake our hands first.

Our ward mission leader gave us a bit of really vital advice: the importance of centering our teaching in Christ. A simple, fervent testimony of the Atonement is more powerful than teaching all of the doctrine of all of the mission lessons, and people become converted by gaining a testimony of his divinity.

For this week, we have Santiago's baptism on Saturday. He's a really funny kid. He gets kind of distracted during the lessons - "Hold on, I want to see how many pages the Bible has!" but he's progressing a lot and is super excited.