Week 48 - 5/26/12

Wow, what is there to say, everyone is sending me their emails on smart phones, I feel left out haha. The president approved our new house and it AWESOME.  It has two full bathrooms.

Ok, Sunday.  Well we had church.  That was cool.  Felix was confirmed.  So we spent some time looking for houses.  And then while we were walking around some ladies came up to us and invited us to their church.  It’s called La Luz del Mundo, the light of the world.  And well I tell you this because they convinced me and baptized me and now I’ll live here forever.... haha.. just kidding.

Monday, It was Elder R.’s birthday.  Sister Reeves made him cupcakes, mmmm, special office treatment. 

Tuesday.  Hey I turned 11 months in the mission, can you believe that!  So, today was a leadership meeting and a meeting for trainers, so missionaries were around all day, so they kept us pretty busy.  But the internet went out and was gone like the whole day.  You think this would be a bad thing, but with so many missionaries around when they wanted us to check to see if their money was in and stuff we could just tell them the internet was out. So we have to actually use a lot of our own money to pay for stuff that you can’t use the credit card for and then redeposit it later.  Anyways Elder H. was leaving so he wouldn’t be able to do it, so I had to give him 700 pesos of mine and then it was going to go into my account later. So I literally had 5 pesos left at the end of the day.  That is like 50 cents.... ooh also because I bought a pull up part from Elder R.  I’m going to start working out again haha. 

Wednesday.  Well our first day in the office without our trainers.  They all went off to their areas and we are left to do everything here.  Also our only investigator right now dumped us.  Who knows what happened.  A brother has been helping us and she just called him and told him that she didn’t want to hear from us anymore.  But we are getting pretty good at keeping everything in line with the money.

Thursday.  Well more office work as normal.  This was the day where we had to be all in zeros, and of course we were…. after all it is me that we are talking about haha.  But the other secretaries have a ton of work with visas and I’m soo glad I’m not doing that.  The older secretaries, not Elder R., but the ones before him let some of the visas expire and there are a lot of problems with that.  Trying to prevent our assistant from getting deported.... I’m glad that is not my job right now.

Friday.  So the president let us have the car and it was my turn to drive.  First time in Mexico.  WOW, can I just say nerve racking........  They drive so crazy down here.  But the fun part is you can hook like crazy if you want, it’s just part of the culture.  You know how sometimes if there is a long backup behind a green light, sometimes it takes a bit to get going, wow does everyone start hooking and wow is it fun to just jump in and hook your heart out as well. Haha. We had to go get some office supplies so I drove and it was crazy.

Saturday.  Well the whole p-day  we spent preparing our new house.  Moving out the owners stuff.  We are living on the second level of a member’s house.  It is really cool and I can’t wait to move in.  The night before, we had to tell the member that we are living with right now that we would be leaving.  Wow, talk about awkward.   Something like dumping a girlfriend, not that I would know anything about that.  But yeah elders had been living there for like 5 years and they were really making bank on the house. They were charging 1900 pesos a month and you’ve seen the house.  This new one is going to be 4000 a month, yeah that’s right, double what any other missionaries are allowed to pay for rent. (But it has to be nice because we will have other missionaries staying with us a lot.)

Well that’s about it.  I’m just feeling super spoiled right about now.  However, for the past couple days we have gone back to bucket showering.  What happened is we ran out of gas and we aren’t going to buy more because we are moving out at the end of the month. So just check out how we are heating up the water. It will be in the pictures.

OKKK

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 47 - 5/19/12

Ok another week in the office.

Sunday.  I skyped with you for Mother’s Day, so you already know.

Monday. Well there are not many exciting things to say when we are in the office the whole day. The president and his wife got new iphones. That’s cool, I helped them set it up.

Tuesday. We went to a place to fix the screen on Sister Reeve’s [mission president’s wife] laptop. It’s called the plaza of technology. You think it would be heaven for me, huh? But really I have never felt like there were more people trying to rip me off in one place. Haha. Yeah basically everyone was selling the mice with the retractable cord and cell phone chargers haha. But then we had the baptism of Felix. That was pretty cool. He is a really great guy.

Wednesday. Well again fairly normal day. We had to buy a ticket to send an elder home.

Thursday. Well we had this conference with a guy from Mexico City. It was like 3 hours. Then regular office stuff.... then we went back to our area. We taught a lesson to a woman, Lupita.

Friday.  We went to Costco and.... I tried a bunch of free samples. They sell a lot of American food. We also found a crazy shirt in the house you can see from the picture.

Saturday. Today. We went to the place to wash clothes and.... they weren’t there. Sad day. So we washed them at home. Then we went to the center. There was just a whole bunch of government protesting going on. There was this presentation of these Brazilians. They did something called capoeira. It was pretty cool. Then we went to this little market place. There was a guy selling these wire puzzle things. It was cool. I bought 2.

All is good; we have a lot of fun in the office while we are working.

That’s about it, no flying cellos for me. Haha

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 46 - 5/12/12

Ok, well what a crazy week this week.

Monday.    Well we woke up early so that we could go to the hospital to pay a doctor for an elder that was going to have a surgery.  So we were there at the hospital from like 7 to 11ish. ugh.  Then we had to go back to the hospital later that day to pay for another elder.  We had to take 27000 pesos from an atm. wow. Then we went back to the offices.  Then at like 10 we went again to the hospital because the assistants told us they needed us to go.  So we went in taxi, and when we got there they said they didn’t need us anymore so we went back with them.  That was really annoying because we had to cancel an appointment to get there. But whatever... I guess you will find that the assistants are kind of like our enemy. 

Tuesday. We had to go to the hospital again....

Wednesday.  Well good news.  There is a sister in our area that lets us use her washing machines.  Haha, so our clothes will actually be clean.  [He has hand washed them up until now.] She washed them for us this time because we didn’t have time to wash them because we had to go to the offices.  I wonder what she thought of my clothes haha. Ok so this is going to sound pretty nuts.  We were on the way back to our area. Elder H. was driving.  He totally ran a red light.  Well we almost got hit on the side, but he swerved and we didn’t.  Anyways to our luck, a cop was right behind us.  Soooooo we got pulled over.  And.... he was going to give us a ticket of 2000ish pesos.  But then he said, well if you would like to buy me dinner I guess I could just let you go with a warning.  So Elder H. gave him 400 peso and he let us off.  I honestly never thought that cops would actually do that. I had heard of it before, but I didn’t believe it was true... haha.

Thursday.  I fixed Sister Reeves (mission president’s wife) laptop.  That was cool...  A sister made us malts... sooooo good. 

Friday. wow what a crazy day, I left the mission and everything.  We had to take an elder to the Mexico City airport because he was having medical problems and pres wanted him home asap.  He wanted someone to translate for him, and the other Americans had things to do in the office.  So we left at like 11ish. It was like a 2 hour ride.  We got there.  We ate at Carls Jr.  mmm good eating. Then we dropped him off at the check point, they wouldn’t let us past a certain point, just like in the US.  Then we went and bought Krispy Kreme in the airport.  YES!!! soooo good, I can’t believe how good they tasted after so long.  Wow can you believe they had Krispy Kreme in Mexico.  Anyways we were on the way back and....... a cop pulled us over.  Elder H. was driving again.  Apparently there was something wrong with our plates. Soo they wanted to take the car... impound it and charge us 3000 peso... but because we were in Mexico, we had to pay them off again... this time for 600. But this time it wasn’t our fault; it was someone else’s….whoever is in charge of the car stuff.

Today.  Well as we don’t have limits, we went to a place called Cholula.  It had a pyramid that is covered with dirt and a giant catholic church on top of it.  All of us 6 secretaries took the car.  Then the assistants got ticked off because they wanted to use it.  So they called the pres and asked permission to use the car and they told us we had to come back with it.  But the thing is we never have needed to ask permission, so they pretty much just tried to be meany gators to get the car.  But we were already there and it was pretty much too late. But it was cool.  I bought a hammock. It was like 100 peso, that’s like 8 dollars. 

Well that’s life in the office.

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 45 - 5/6/12

Hey so what’s up?  You are probably wondering a lot of things right now.  Where am I, Who am I with, what I am I doing on the email on Sunday.  All these questions and more will be shortly answered.

Well just to get things out of the way I’m in the area La Universidad.  Half my area is a college campus... it is right next to La Margarita (his first area)… I’m coming “home.”  haha.  But why I’m writing, well, I’m the Finance Secretary for the new mission which will be Mexico Puebla Sur (South)... My p-days are Saturdays, but I didn’t have time to write yesterday.

Okay, so what has all happened…

Tuesday.  Well we got to the changes and they told me I would be the next Secretary.  Right now they are training us.  We went to their house and it is super nice.  But we are going to the missionaries for the south mission so we had a house from another area.  When we got to our house it was awful!!!!!!! There was mold on a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink and we spent a lot of time cleaning and such.  Then it smelt too bad so we went to sleep with the north secretaries....  Anyways.  We don’t have rules... or we don’t have bedtimes or limits, well the mission is our limit.

Wednesday.  Our first day in the office.  We learned how to do some of the things of the office.  Reimburse things and such fun fun fun.  Then we went back to our area to look for a new house and have a lesson with this investigator who is soo good, he will be baptized the 15th.  We looked for a house, but couldn’t find much.  They told us we need a nice house, because a lot of time the new missionaries go with us. haha

Thursday.  We went to the office in the morning, normal stuff.  They are just teaching how to do some of the work.  Then we went back to our area, had a meeting with the bishop .  These emails I think are going to be pretty boring haha.

Friday.  Well in the morning we took a taxi, yeah, if we take a taxi the mission will pay for it.  We went to a zone leader conference.  We ate breakfast. It was great; we had waffles strawberries, blueberries and eggs sooooo good.  Then after breakfast we went around buying stuff that we would need for the conference.  Speaking of which... I might have to drive here.  That scares me....  Then we returned for dinner.  Also very good.  MMMMM brownies.  Then... that was about it.

Saturday.  Well pday! we went and played soccer a bit with the assistants. Then around 4ish we went to the center of Puebla.  After all it is 5 de Mayo....  It was crazy, tons of people.  But nothing too exciting.  Then we went to that giant church again.  Then upon leaving, well we were wearing normal clothes and I had my WI shirt on.  A girl came up and was all super excited cause she was from around Milwaukee as well. The some random people want to take a picture with us.  Yeah fun stuff lol.

Sunday. First day at church and then back to the offices haha.  Just doing office work.

So I fixed a computer that was dead in here and remove a virus from a flash drive. Haha. I love it. Ugh I just haven’t had time to do pushups, I think I’ll get weak and fat... no.

Much love,

Curtis Wigington

Week 44 - 4/30/12

Well, we don’t actually have changes until tomorrow. I am leaving Serdan, but I don’t know where to.  My companion is staying here.

Ok, Tuesday. I ate probably the most disgusting candy I have ever had in my life.  It was this pepper covered chew ball thing. There is really no way to explain how awful it really was, so I suppose you will just have to take my word for it. A sister challenged us to eat 3 for a bunch of cookies.  You know me, can’t turn down an offer like that.  They eat those like they were candy.  Ok... well my patience was tried.... someone, who was not me, was showing off to the sister how strong our phone was.... notice the past tense... was. Anyways he dropped it/threw it.  It went sliding across the floor of the store, out into the street, and got run over by a giant coach bus.  The phone was quickly operated on by Doctor Wigington, but even his great nerd skills were not great enough to repair such damage.   However not all was lost, we were still able to recover the SIM card.  So we are borrowing a phone from a member right now, but using our SIM card. 

Wednesday.  I went out to El Seco to have divisions.  They are closing down El Seco, so I helped move everything out of their house and return stuff to members.

Thursday.   I had slept in El Seco and we had returned everything, so I just had one blanket.  And I was freezing cold, I mean freezing!!! It was really really cold.  Anyways, we headed back to Serdan.  Then we went to the food.  It made me really sick.  However, by the night I was feeling better.

Saturday.  Monday is the day of the kid here.  Dia de niño.  But the whole week they have had things going on for the kids.  It is kind of funny because every day is kid day pretty much haha.  There was a parade, but no fire trucks being driven by Uncle Bob, sad day.  Kinda let me down on that one. 

Sunday.  We went to church. We visited some people.  Pretty much we were just dying to know the changes.  They didn’t tell us until 10 at night.  We have Monday to say goodbye and clean the house.  I’ll find my new area out tomorrow in the morning when we travel out to Puebla.

Week 43 - 4/23/12

Ok well guess what, 10 months... Yesterday I went into the double digits. haha

Yeah my hair has gotten pretty bleached from the sun, but what is weird in my eye brows have bleach out a lot as well.

Some might be wondering about the volcano... well I’m really far away from it. If it blows up, I’ll be fine lol.  The rest of mine zone would die though lol.  I can’t even see it from my area.

Wednesday.  Ok... so today we had divisions with the district, but because our areas are so far away from each other, both companionship where going to stay in our area.  Ok...  so we went to visit a less active brother and we actually had a pretty good lesson with him.  We ate, then followed up on a few contacts we had made earlier on.  It started raining really hard, so walked through the rain to visit an investigator.   So we taught her some and it was really good.  Then it had pretty much stopped raining, so we went to visit some other people and they weren’t there. 

Thursday. We did a little bit of contacting.  Probably heard one the strangest excuses not to have time to listen to us.  “I just don’t have time right now, it because I have to give a couple of my friends injections because they are sick.” Oh ok... mmmm... ok maybe some other time then... 

Friday.  Surprise leadership meeting... we woke up at like 5 to get to the meeting in Puebla at like 9.  The meeting lasted until like 12 ish.  Then on the way back there is this market place.  I bought this awesome sweatshirt, it was pretty cheap for a name brand. Most likely stolen, or it’s a clone or a copy.  Anyways there is this place, it is like a supermarket that is called Waldos.  They sell root beer.  But no one drinks it here, so there were only like 6, so we bought them all.  Root beer is sooooo good, I haven’t had it in sooo long.  I had forgotten how amazing it was. 

Saturday...  Anyways we then went back to our area to an appointment.  We were reading a bit from the proclamation to the world with this investigator.  She was asking some really hard questions.  Then we went to the food, and the sister had a friend there.  She had gone to church like 3 times already, but we hadn’t been able to teach her yet.  She was already reading bit from the Book of Mormon and everything.  I asked if it was fine if we had a little lesson and we taught the first lesson, the restoration.  Then we went with some other investigators and we made donuts with them.  That was fun.

Sunday.  Church as normal.  Then we went to eat with the bishop.  Last week I had tried to help him recover his e-mail account.  Then this week he wasn’t there, but the sister started talking about it.  I wasn’t sure if what I did was going to work or not.  Then I thought she said "His e-mail account got erased,"  I just got in defense mode, ready to explain a million reasons why it wasn’t my fault.  Then she continued, "I have no idea how you did it, it was really amazing thanks soo much."  Oh I guess the Spanish could still use a little more work.  I actually did recover it haha. 

Week 42 - 4/16/12

Monday.  We spent the night in Puebla.

Tuesday.  We had a zone conference.  Really it was just super long... from like 830 until like 5 ish, with an hour break for food.  Wow, the wood benches really take a toll on you...  Then we had the same type of tacos that I got sick off of so I was barely able to eat them.  Just that taste makes me feel sick now. 

Wednesday.  Well we had to do a lot of our p-day stuff because we couldn’t wash our clothes and stuff while we were in Puebla.  But a while ago when we were with another elder, he made this egg, ham, and cheese sandwich thing that was super good, so we were going to try to make one.  However, as you have seen from the pancake pictures our pan is not super good; it doesn’t cook even or anything.  So I bought this like 80 peso pan and it has advanced heat control technology and everything.  So then our eggs cooked super good.  Basically it was like a big roll cut in half.  We put mayo on one side and catsup on the other.  Then cheese and ham.  Then the warm egg melted it all together.  It was such a wonderful thing, soooo goood.

Thursday.  For breakfast we made those egg sandwich things again... soooo good.  We went to a few appointments and then to the food.  We ate and it was really spicy. Really spicy. 

Friday. We had to leave to go to Puebla again.  We went out on the bus again.  We got there and went to stay the night with other missionaries.

Saturday.  We woke up bright and early to go to the conference with Elder Bednar. 

He talked about a lot of things.  One thing that I like the most is he talked about being agents not objects.  He gave an example, he said, "Have you ever heard a closing prayer that goes something like this, please bless all those that didn’t come this week that they will be able to come next week.  He then said, you have to promise me all that you never say that in a prayer again.  You can’t expect God to do you work for you.  He said for a benediction you should say something like this, God, We all know of at least one person who should be here, but isn’t.  So, we, all who are in the sacrament meeting, will go out, right after the church services and go get them.  The only thing we ask of thee, is that you might inspire us so that we don’t all go visit the same person.   He said it much longer and better said, but something to that affect. He said praying for something that doesn’t require our own action is not a prayer of faith. He talked about some other things to, I hope they give us a transcript or something.  But one other thing I’ll share is he said something to the effect of if you look at a man’s family, you will know what kind of a missionary he was.  So, thus, Dad you’re awesome. Mom too, but in this context, it is about Dad lol.  It was really a great experience, we all got to shake his hand, it was cool.

We went to Mcdonalds after the conference.  It was good. It tasted just about the same as in the US, just it was really expensive and didn’t really fill me up completely.  But it was cool to have it again.  Then pretty much the rest of the day was just coming back to our area.

Sunday. So all the kids(from last week’s e-mail) got confirmed at church.  I help the bishop with his computer.  And we went to visit a few people.

Week 41 - 4/9/12

Well here I am again.  It was actually a pretty busy week.

Tuesday. Today was pretty much just the day that we used to get the kids ready for baptism.  We went out to the pueblito to teach a few of the kids.  Also I was kind of sick on Tuesday. 

Wednesday.  Well this was the day of the interviews for the kids, so the zone leaders came out.  First we went to get the interview with Nefi.  If you look in the pictures he is the little kid who is sooooo happy, like it looks like he could be on a cereal box lol. Then we went out the pueblito San Fransisco.  We had the interview with Wendy and David. They passed just fine.  Then there is the other girl who lives even farther out. We actually don’t know how to take a bus there, normally our mission leader takes us, but this time he couldn’t.  SO anyways while we were waiting they got their bunnies out and then, well not quite a tornado, but a sand cyclone or something came.   It was coming right for us and we were like, ohhh that doesn’t look good, so we ran inside.   It must have been about as wide as our house in WI.  Oh we also made pancakes... mmmmmm... sooooo good.  We really don’t measure out anything when we make them and these were sooooooo thick; like one and you were full.

Thursday.  We woke up bright and early like 6ish and went back to return Elder Pineda with his comp.  Then Johnson had a leadership meeting in Puebla at like 12ish.  So we just chilled in El Seco, Fosters area for a little bit.  I went off with another Elder... Elder Mendoza.... I think.  It was the first time I had been with another elder who has been on his mission less time than me.  Cool guy, he is from Colombia.  Anywho.  We went to the food and there was this little kid who just loved that I had curly hair as well so he wanted to take a picture. lol.... 

Friday.  Well divisions in El Seco... The Dry... haha. Anyways, they have such little work to do. They live in a little city like us, but just have no investigators or anything.  I really would not like to be there.   We played Uno with a family.  I just think its soo funny how they call it Uno, they should call it one or something.

Saturday. We left early in the morning for our area.  We got back and we still didn’t have the last interview done.  We had talked to a brother about bringing Angela out from the pueblo.  However, he calls us at 4 saying hey, I can’t come out... we are like why... he said he didn’t have enough money to make it out. So we just told him we will cover any expense to come out here.  So he agrees and the zone leader comes out and we have the interview.  Then all went well.  All interviews done… ready to go. 

Sunday.  We found out we would have to go to the city.  That is always bad news lol.  So we go to church and all the kids showed up.  There were 5 kids being baptized from a less active family we were working with.  One was 8, so it didn’t count for us but it was cool - I baptized Wendy. And Johnson baptized Nefi, Julio Cesar, Angela, and David.  It was pretty awesome. Sooooo....  it was cool because this is about how many baptisms the ward has had in the past year.  And there was a stake guy there and it was a good impression for the ward because they are really trying to get a new church because this one is sooooo small and old.  It is about the size of just our chapel in the building at home.  But that was cool.  Then we just went and packed our stuff to go to the city.  There was this huge line to leave so we waited for like an hour in the line.... in the rain. Of course we didn’t think it was going to rain so we left our umbrellas in the house.   Well we got out here we went to another Elder’s house to sleep the night.

Monday.   We had to have interviews with the zone leader... who knows why.  But then we well, up until now... played soccer.  I had forgotten how bad I am at that.... lol whatever.....  We have a zone conference tomorrow and that’s why we are out here.

Sooo i havent gotten the package yet. All of them are taking longer than normal. The secretaries say that they are opening evey package that comes through, so who knows when ill get mine...
Pretty crazy week... 

Love Elder Wigington

Week 40 - 4/2/12

Sad day, no April fools here.  They do have a day in December, I think the 28^th, that is called the day of the innocents where if you lend someone something, they never have to give it back... kind of weird.  Nope, winter coat still wrapped up on the plastic bag, but apparently there are some parts of the mission when you would need it.

No package... but we are going into the city this week, so I might get it then.

So the video was a ward activity that the relief society did to celebrate something of RS.... so I just took videos to make mom feel she has it easy in Wisconsin; pretty much all the sisters danced.

Tuesday-Friday... just regular stuff…  contacting, teaching a few lessons.  We have been working with the 9 year olds to learn the lessons and get them ready for the interviews that will happen this week. On Friday morning I woke up with a small fever, and a sore throat.  I took some Advil and it calmed the fever so we went out as normal.  I still have the sore throat and it’s kind of annoying... good thing for ibuprofen. 

Saturday.  We watched conference in the morning in an internet cafe and then again later the second session.  Then some visits after that.

Sunday.  We had to go to the church to watch conference to be with any investigators that came. So we had to watch the conference in Spanish... ugh.  It’s just so hard to pay attention to it in Spanish. Under the Spanish voice over you can hear bit and pieces in English just taunting you... At least I didn’t put my head down and take a little nap like someone else...  Then we went and visited a few people after.  Then we watched the priesthood session because our church building doesn’t have satellite access (even though we do have the biggest satellite in the world in our area...) so we had to watch it the next day through internet.

Sooooo what talents might you ask that I’m working on now.  Well I’ve been working on writing with my left hand, but cursive and... handstands.

Ok that’s all the” funness” for the week ok....

Week 39 - 3/26/12

Well an interesting week... a whole bunch of 9 years that needed baptizing came out of nowhere.  We are looking at baptizing 4 kids on April 8th....  So less actives from the outside pueblitos (little towns) started coming to church and have kids that are not baptized.

So I saw something that was sooooo funny.... There was a guy on a motorcycle.  Then on each side holding on the back of the motorcycler were 2 guys on a bike.  Then holding on the back of one of the bikes was another guy on a bike. It reminded me of how the geese fly to save energy.

Tuesday. We were in talking to an investigator in his door setting an appointment and I started feeling a little dissy.  I thought that was weird.  Then I realized it was an earthquake.  It was just like kind of a slow movement that you could feel the ground moving under you.  Basically I just felt dizzy.  I guess I must not being doing something right, I felt the earthquake this time, I guess the angels aren’t carrying us around anymore lol.

Wednesday.  We just did regular mission stuff.  We found the two other 9 year olds that want to be baptized.

Thursday.   We were teaching one of our investigators, Eddy.  Anyways he really wants to be baptized, just that he isn’t married. 

Friday,  Well we were supposed to have divisions with the zone leaders.  It was their turn to come out to our area.  They had never been to our area before so they were really late getting out here.   We went to eat and it was some kind of pig meat, but it was kind of well.... interesting... me and Elder Walker both had teeth in our food. Idk if it was tongue meat or what... who knows.  Then we went out to one of the pueblitos to teach a little girl named Angela.  She is really funny.  With all of our progressing investigators being little kids well I was thinking of just switching out with Becca haha. 

Saturday.  Well the zone leaders left at like 7 in the morning.  We found someone new from contacting who is like a hard metal rocker. Dresses in all black and everything... about our age.  Kind of different, but I think he might progress.  Who knows.

About it...

Week 38 - 3/19/12

Wow what a week. Well where do I start off....

Tuesday.  We found a less active that lives out in a pueblo that has a daughter of 9 years old.  We taught her and she is really funny.  We drove out there with our mission leader and he drove soooo fast.  His car does not have seat belts and I saw him get up to 80.  Well interesting Mexico fact... I have never seen someone use a seatbelt here....  we did a family home evening as well.

Wednesday. A little contacting and random visits.

Thursday. Really kind of a slow day. Not a whole lot to do.  In the night we went out to El Seco, the other elders’ area, to have the district meeting.  Rather that coming back we just stayed the night.  We were going to have divisions, but they didn’t have enough money to pay for the bus to our area.

Friday... Just random visits nothing too exciting.

Saturday.  wow what a day.  Well we were pretty sure that we were going to have changes today so we went on a quest to say good bye to many people....  So we went and said good bye to a bunch of friends took pictures and everything.  Then we bought pizzas for one of the families that is really poor, but they are always giving us pan and hot chocolate. Pizza is pretty expensive, or I guess not expensive, just about the same it would cost in the US.  They were pretty excited.  It was a lot of fun.

Sunday.  Church in the morning.  Then we said good bye to more people because we were sure we were going to have changes.  Then we waited and waited.  And we never got the call from the zone leaders until like 9 at night.... then we got the big news........ we don’t have changes.... we are staying here.  We now feel really really dumb for saying goodbye to everyone....  But yeah we are here together for another 6 weeks.  I like this area even though the work is a little hard.  Just about every other area in the zone is baptizing about 6-7 a change.  But whatever, I have a lot of fun with Johnson and the families out here.

Thats about it, a little shorter email...

Elder Wigington

Week 37 - 3/12/12

Well what happen, well, let me just tell you.

Soooo....

Tuesday.  We woke up bright and early at 4:30 in the morning so we could get to the Stake Center in time for the meeting.  We got to stake center at like 8:30 just in time for the district leader meeting. After this meeting ended, I went off on divisions with one of the zone leaders. Anyways so we went to an appointment with one of his investigators.  She was an interesting one... said a lot of words that i don’t know... and that usually means that they are not the best words to be using. Then we headed back to the house, we studied, then we went out again.  So then we went to a less active.  Then something really funny happened.  She asked me if I had a sister. And then went on about how beautiful my sister must be.  Wow, Becca is even getting shout outs from Mexico.  Then we went to sleep on the hard hard floor.

Wednesday. Well.......  we woke up.  Went to interviews with the President.   Then we had training from the assistants. We went on the bus to get home. We got back at like 8ish.  Then I opened my birthday box.  Well the Mexican government wanted a little bit of the birthday fun as well I supposed and had opened about half of the gifts.... but at least I got them, from what it seemed everything was there.  Wow those gifts were so creative I loved it.  Becca, I love the idea of tricking the people with the pen.  I mean, I wouldn’t want them to think I had a pen.  Then they won’t try to attack because they will be like, wow that’s a scary knife. Then Matthew, those cards were awesome, the notes were funny.  My companion got really jealous of the Pokemon ones haha. The workout cards are cool, some of the workouts look pretty tough.    And always the food is super.  Rice Krispies are awesome!

Thursday. We really didn’t have much work to do in our area. So we just did a whole bunch of contacting!!! Like a ton!  We contacted 70 people! We knocked like a million doors.  And that’s really all we did.

Friday.  We returned to a bunch of the appointments that we had set with the contacts and like no one was there.  Yeah.... 

Saturday.  We did a little more contacting.  We found this guy we began to teach and he agreed with everything we said... sometimes before we even finished saying it.  We were talking about baptism and how Christ was baptized and he said yeah, they do it a little different now.  And I responded we did need to do it just like Christ did it, and he then said yes absolutely I mean we have to do it exactly like Christ showed us. Then I just answered, so will you do it just like Christ did it and he said yes.  So that was interesting, we will see if anything ends up happening with him. 

Sunday.  Someone from the stake came and gave a talk about how everyone needs to pay their tithing. Then we had one of the most scary foods I’ve ever had in my life.  Half was this meat, but I don’t know if I can call it meat.  It really didn’t have much flavor... I have no idea what it was called but the texture was between chicken skin and the fat on a stake. Ugh..... I was just praying that it would turn in to mom’s pot pie or the soup “she makes on purpose” lol.  [Note: Curtis strongly dislikes the pot pie and soup he is referring to!]  Then we made some visits and that is about it.

Yes what a week huh.

Week 36 - 3/5/12

Tuesday.  We did some contacting in the morning.  After we ate we followed up on some contacts and they were not there... The weirdest thing happened.  Some sand storm thing started.  The air was just full of sand and it would get in your ears and mouth and everything.  The whole sky was brownish.  We tried to go outside as little as possible because I don’t think it’s really good for you. 

Wednesday.  We had our district meeting.  Then we went for our money at the ATM with the other members of our district. Soon after they left we got a call from one of the other Elders in the district.  He told us that he had left his credit card in the atm... so we went to the bank and seriously waited in line for like a hour and a half, just to find out that if some forgets their card, the machine eats it.  We visited the really old investigator again.  We have a really hard time trying to teach him how to pray.  He forgets as soon as we explain it. 

Thursday.  Mostly just stopping by less actives and contacting.

Sunday.  Regular Sunday, church like normal.  Then we visited some investigators and then a recent convert.

News...  We have to go to Puebla tonight for divisions with the zone leaders.... ugh.  We have to say until Wednesday, because we then have interviews.  I really don’t like sleeping on the floor in other elder’s houses...  But good news! In April Elder Bednar is coming to our mission.  That is cool.

Ok that’s it.

Elder Wigington

Week 35 - 2/27/12

Another week, and still no birthday package....

Anyways, to answer your question, do I understand everything in Spanish?  Well mostly.  Like the only times I really still have problems with the language is when some topic comes up that I have no vocabulary for.  I can understand what they are saying even if I don’t know every word, but I just can’t talk about it good.  I don’t know if that made sense or not....

Tuesday, regular day... just some visits to less actives and contacting. 

Wednesday.  haha, so we went to a brother's work to help him with his English homework.  He’s like 50ish, but now taking English classes.  So when we got there he all of a sudden had the idea that he need to rearrange his office.  So he spent like 45 min while we were there moving his desk and trying out different ways of positioning it.  Then by time he was done... we had to go.  Then he asked us why we couldn’t help him.... it made me laugh.  Then just not much.  A bunch of appointments falling through and everything.

Thursday. Some contacting and not really much else.  It’s starting to get a lot hotter.  Well not hotter, but the sun it just really strong here, burns really fast. 

Saturday.  Well up this point we literally had 0 investigators.  But on Saturday we found one who let us in and said we could go back. He is an interesting guy. Like 25 with really long hair.

Sunday.  Well church.  Then we went to these investigators... well they aren’t really progressing and we really have stopped visiting them, but they invited us to eat with them.  But what they didn’t tell us is that it was going to be a party for their baby Jesus.  Basically when we got there, there was a baby Jesus that was sitting on the table and everyone was sitting around it watching the movie the Terminator...  We quickly found an excuse to leave.  Then a visit to some recent converts.

But that’s about it.  All of the light bulbs in our house are starting to go out, it is really annoying, because it’s such a pain to buy light bulbs, not really, but no missionary wants to spend money on house care....

Thats all!!!

Elder Wigington

Week 34 - 2/20/12

Before anything.  I loved the little package, the valentines letters were really funny.  Also, Becca you sent me that DearElder and it was pretty good. I laughed a lot.  Thanks soo much.  I have yet to get my big package. The zone leaders left it in their house.  By the time the conference was over it was too late to go to the zone leaders house to get the package...  so I won’t get it until like sometime in march when they come out for divisions...........

Ok well....

Wednesday.  We had our district meeting, and then returned to our area.  Basically at this point we had not had a good sleep since Saturday night.  We went out and made a few visits. And really nothing that notable happened.

Thursday.  Pretty much the most depressing day in the mission.  Part of the reason was….well, it was a bad day……but when we were in the city we were there when the other district reported their numbers, and frankly the other district had amazing numbers and such.  Anyways we started off the day washing our clothes, because we couldn’t do it on our last p-day because we were at the conference. So then we went to a few people that we had contacted that said we could come back, and then they didn’t let us, that’s not anything new.  Then we went to an investigator that we had found in the street and accepted the baptism invitation if she got an answer to her prayer. When we showed up she said she was busy, and that she was going to be busy for the rest of forever. That’s ok, that happens, no problem, we only had taught her one lesson.  So then we went to a family that had been progressing really well.  They were renting their apt from a member and things were going pretty well.  We showed up, there weren’t there.  We asked the member that lived next door and they told us that they had moved and aren’t going to be living here anymore.  They moved to a pueblito, or little town, that is still in our area, just 1.5 hours away....  Sooooo then we had been given a reference from some other elders for an investigator that moved to our area and was ready for baptism and everything.  We called him and asked when we could visit him.  He told us that he wasn’t going to move to Serdan anymore. But he was kind of just making stuff up, so who knows what really happened with him. We just passed the reference back to the elders that gave it to us.  Then.... we went to a less active who has always let us in and we get along fairly well with him. When we got there we knocked on the door of his store.  We could see him on his computer working. He looked at us and then just kept working. We knocked again and he just kept going away on that computer...... and pretended we weren’t there.  Then we went with another investigator and that actually was just a normal lesson.  Then we went back to the house, sad day.

Friday.  At this point we really didn’t have anything to do, after all everyone dumped us.  So we went a knocking.  We made 30 contacts, which means we probably knocked 60 doors.  That was about 1.5 hours.  Then we went and ate.  Then we made 20 contacts.  Sooo far.... nothing has resulted from these contacts... not even one lesson.  That was the most contacting I had ever done in a day.  Basically then we just went with our investigator Edilbuerto.  He is doing good.  He just needs to get married.  But we agreed to do a fast with him on Saturday to Sunday, to help him convince his "lady" to marry him.

Saturday.  We did another 34 contacts.  Fun stuff.  We started the fast.  Wow, 84 contacts in a week, that’s a lot. 

Sunday. Well fasting for the second time in a week fun fun.  We went to church.  Then we visited Eddy again and went with some recent converts but that’s about it.

 Ok well.  hmm. 

Week 33 - 2/13/12

What a very interesting week.   Well not really, but my birthday was interesting. I’ll get to all that later.

The problem is right now I’m in the city [Bosques], and I didn’t bring my journal, so I really can’t remember exactly all that happened...

Tuesday, we started working on the secret birthday prank project that we were going to play on the Tae Kwon Do family.  Basically the plan was to make a box and then pay a cake place to cover the box in frosting and everything.  Then to write on it something to indicate it was not a cake [in English]. After reflecting on it I should have wrote "the cake is a lie", but I didn’t think of it, so I just put "this is cardboard."  It was made out a bunch of cereal boxes, all frosted flakes.

Wednesday, well.... we had our district meeting.  A Mexican elder from our district and was really excited to come to our area and take pictures of the snow on the mountain. I was just happy it was far away; I’m going to be more wimpy than mom with the cold by the time I am done here in Mexico. 

Thurday.... We knocked a whole bunch of doors...

Friday. We just a knocked a whole bunch of doors in the morning.  Sometimes we contact stores, but we feel awkward if we don’t buy anything. So it was my turn to contact, so I grabbed from the top of this shelf some of those wafer cookies with frosting in the middle.  I grabbed it, and then realized that it was covered!!! I mean covered in dust. You could barely see the picture on the wrapping.  Anyways, the guy was watching me and I felt too embarrassed to but it back... so I just took a big breath and blew off allll the dust. It made quite a huge cloud. I paid for them and contacted the guy, set an appointment, and left.  Upon leaving, I saw that the cookies had indeed expired on Dec 11....  I’m pretty sure they had been sitting there longer than I have been in Mexico, and that’s not a joke.  And yes... I still did eat them. They didn’t taste too bad.

Saturday.  My companion woke up at 12:00am to sing me happy birthday. Honestly, for the life of me, I do not remember him doing it.  Apparently I said, thanks, but I really don’t remember anything.  Then we went to a few appointments.  This guy was there and he had a bunch of questions for us and told us, if you can answer these questions I’ll go with you guys, if not, I don’t want to see you again. We were actually able to answer his questions very well and I guess we are going to go back.  But I think he just likes to have deep conversations about the Bible.  Then we went to a one or two more appointments.  We went to the food. We ate fish. It was the first time that I have eaten fish in Mexico. It was literally just a fish that had been thrown on the frying pan. It was watching me the whole time I ate it.

Ok then we went for the [Birthday] cake and took it to the house of the Tae Kwon Do family.  It was actually super heavy to carry, I mean it was huge. When I got there they threw all this confetti all over me. They were super surprised how big the cake was.  So we got the brother to cut it for us and it was really funny.  He thought the knife wasn’t sharp at first.  Then we went out and bought a real cake and they sang me happy birthday.  When it is your Birthday, you have to bite the cake before they serve it. Then they push your face into the cake. I knew they were going to do, I just didn’t feel like trying to resist at all.  It was quite fun.

 Ok Sunday….  We had to go to our stake conference.  We live really far away, like 2 hours away.  So a member told us he would give us a ride if we wanted.  When we got to the church he charged us each 50 pesos! That is how much it costs to get there by bus, and this van was packed with like 9 of us. And he charged the same even though we weren’t going back with him because he said, “I could have gotten other people to come both ways, so you have to pay the same.”  And on the way he ran over a dog!  The van was so packed and hot, that I felt like I was going to throw up.    Anyways we went to the conference. In a talk there was a girl who had put in her papers for her mission but didn’t get her call.  And she said she was talking about it to her boss and her boss told her that she should value her time here in Mexico, because she could get sent to somewhere they only eat a lot of meat like Canada….  because it’s so cold that they don’t have fruit there.........  right........ So we ended up going with another companionship and we split up so go to some lessons and stuff.  Then we went to the apartment at night and sleep [in Bosques].  But before that we go some interesting news.  The president wants all the missionaries in the whole mission to fast today for a conference that we are going to have tomorrow. So we are going to have to stay [in Bosques] another night.  Who knows what it will be about.

 So we woke up, played some soccer until like 9... then me and my comp went to the grocery store and we each bought a box of cereal and a liter of milk since we are in a city away from our apartment.  The corn flakes came with a free spoon and we ate the cereal right outside the supermarket out of plastic cups.  People just walk passed us and looked at us sooooo weird.  Anyways we did this to prepare for the fast, because now we are fasting.  I literally ate a whole box of corn flakes…. well not a whole one, I had like 2-3 more cupfulls left, but I ran out of milk and was about to throw up.  But it was a box of like 660 grams.  Take a look at the cereal in the house to see how much it was.  I really impressed myself.

 Now we are here in a internet cafe, our cell phone ran out of battery, so we don’t have a way to communicate with any of the other elders and we don’t know what we are going to do today.  Yeah, so that’s it!

Elder Wigington

Week 32 - 2/6/12

So this week we had changes [transfers], but I stayed the same.  Elder Izaguiarre is the new assistant; he was my zone leader in my last area.  Then, Elder Rodriguez went home this week. He tore his achilles tendon and will have to be home for 6 months, so who knows if he will come back.  Then we have a new zone leader.

So something really funny happened. The other Elders from our district are in El Seco. They were in a member’s house and the radio was on. The radio station is in our area, Serdan.  The radio announcer gave a shout out to all the people from Wisconsin.  So then the El Seco elders asked us what the heck were we doing that the radio announcer gave a shout out to me. lol.  It must have been for the people from WI that we ran into the other day. I’m just so famous here, even the radio stations are giving me shout outs. lol.

Wednesday.... we taught this family. That is really good. They are good friends of a member.  I think they will progress pretty fast.....

Thursday we went to a member’s house and while we were there all the power went out, and it was at like 8 so it was all dark. So we lit a candle and told stories around it. It was kind of funny.

Sunday.  We went to church, and I taught the gospel principles class. I had a really bad cold and was kind of out of it.  So my comp told me after the class that apparently I said it is important that we hunt in the temple.  Well, it’s because in Spanish “casarse” is to marry, but cazar, which is pronounced the same means to hunt. So I said it’s important that we “cazemos”, when i should have said, “nos casemos”.  So yeah, go hunt in the temple.... But really that’s all that happened that was exciting.

Sorry it was such a boring week.... 

Elder Wigington

Week 31 - 1/30/12

What happened this week? Did I hear yellow submarine sung by a Mexican, did I have to crawl in our bathroom window, or did I find another investigator who says she is possessed? I guess you will just have to read to find out!

Tuesday! So we met someone in the street just doing our contacting and she told us that we would meet up in the central, by the fountain. We were just waiting there and this old man came and started talking to us and we asked him if he would be interested in hearing our message. So then we started teaching him and bit. Then after like 15 minutes, he was like, now that we are friends and in such close confidence, will you lend me 10 pesos..... I felt so used haha. Well, you just tell them that we don’t ever carry money. Then he left. And the woman never came to central.

Wednesday. Today we had divisions, but both companionships came out our area. So I went with Elder Vargas and we went with the family that is teaching us Tae Kwon Do and told them E. Johnson had left (transferred) and they got really sad. We had told them on Monday that one of us was going to be changed. Then they said we want our 2 little whiteys - it really doesn’t translate well, but it goes as gueritos. It was quite funny. Then that night we switched back companions and we went back to the karate family and they were very surprised. lol.

Thursday. In the morning, my comp played a very cruel and unusual trick on me. We left the house, but not the gate in front, and I asked him if he had the keys, because I forgot my spares. Then he said no.... we always leave the bathroom window open, or unlocked, so if something like this happens. So he is bigger, so he wouldn’t fit so I had to climb in head first in this little window. I was about half way through, and kind of got stuck, and my comp ran in the house and took pictures of me from in the bathroom... gerrrrr. It was actually pretty fun, and now you too can enjoy the pictures. Then we went to a family to go with them to teach their neighbor, but the neighbor wasn’t there, sooooo their daughters taught us how to make french toast. It actually turn out really awful, it was way too hot, so it cooked the outside but on the inside it was raw eggs... rocky style?

Friday. We went to a member’s house to teach a lesson with the woman that we met in central.  By the end of the lesson she accepted to be baptized, but before you get too excited, wait for the rest of the story to come later in the email. Then we went with the karate family and we peeled some bean things. Then at night, I tried to make some mac and cheese that I had bought at the supermarket. It looked like it might be good, much to my disappointment, it was rather gross....

 

Saturday. Well when we had contacted this lady, she told us that we could find her house by the Corona, a bar, by an electronic supply store, and she had avocat tree. Soooooo we were walking back and forth between this bar and this electronic store looking for one of these trees. We thought to ourselves, this would probably be a good situation to have a Mexican companion, we both had never seen one of those trees before... Anyways she saw us and showed us the avocat trees. They were like little bushes. There was no way we would have thought they were trees.... Anywho we started teaching her and she was telling us a little bit about herself. Then she said one time I let mormons in my house and they right away started taking down all of my pictures of the virgin. They right after asked us, what religion are you exactly... welll we are the mormons lol, and we explained those other people were probably not actually mormons. Anyways she invited us to come back and everything, but it was quite funny. Then it rained! It never rains, only a little though. We visited another one of our investigators and he played guitar for us (Yellow Submarine), and we harassed his puppy.

Sunday. We went to church!!!... and no one showed up. So sad. We visited some less actives.

And that’s it!

Elder Wigington

Week 30 - 1/23/12

Well what happened this week in the mission you might ask, well let me tell you.

Tuesday.  Well in the morning we went to a less active’s house, and using my great knowledge and skills I removed viruses from his computer and flash drive.  But I told him that they would come back if he didn’t go to church. Not really, but that would have been funny.  Then... my comp lost the keys to the house and to the church.  Good thing I always had the spare house keys in my backpack.  But we still haven’t found his set...

Wednesday. We had our district meeting in our house because the keys to the church were lost.  So that was fun, never a good idea to let other missionaries in your house, they always want to eat your food.  We had a good plan. We hid all of our food, but some old bananas.  haha.  I think I told you about the old man who wants to be baptized.  We went to visit him.  Then we decided to do something super dangerous... cook something.  Yes we made pancakes, or as they call them here Hot Cakes.  We made them and it was pretty tough.  Our pan didn’t have a handle, so we had to use a rag to hold the pan still.  But they were quite good.  Do you know what lechera is? We used it instead of syrup, it was really good.  Then we went to bed with very full stomachs.

Thursday. So we did quite a few contacts this day. I think like 20.  So in one of the contacts we talked to this older lady.  She told us I’m not interested in your religion, but you make really good priests because your handsome, super handsome.  Or in spanish son guapos, guapisimos.  That contact was in the street.  We later had the luck to knock her door.  She came out, and told us, “I already told you I think you are very handsome, but I don’t want to hear any more.”  Then we went and visited a less active family whose father died last Saturday.  It’s pretty sad actually.  They have two sons of 10 and 11.  I guess on the good side they are now doing to try hard to fix things in their lives and be sealed as a family.   They have the biggest house I’ve seen in Mexico. The father was the owner of the radio station here.  We explained a bit about the plan of salvation to the kids and I think the sister of the wife will be baptized soon.

This might be the best story ever.  So we went to a member’s house and when we got there the dad was just about to go out because apparently there was a puppy on the lose behind their house. I’m not sure what happened, but I think some highschoolers were messing with it earlier in the day, and it got away from them.  Anyways, the brother asked if we could help him catch it.  So we went out with him and his daughter Susan.  So we were looking around for it and we saw it run away.  It was pretty hard to follow it because there were a lot of cut down trees and brush where we were.  So I saw it and went around to the other side of where Elder Johnson and the brother where going.  That way I could cut it off.  So.... They scared it out and I saw it and sprinted after it.  It was quite fast.  I ran and to my luck it had a leash on it, must have been from the highschoolers.  I managed to catch up with it and step on the leash.  It managed to pull the leash from under my foot and ran off again.  I caught up again and step on the leash, then grabbed the leash with my hands so it couldn’t get away.  Susan quickly came over picked it up and calmed it down. WOW, what more could Serdan ask for than missionaries that save puppies! lol  It was pretty epic -  jumping over branches and dodging trees. 

Friday. At night we made pancakes in our room, because we sprayed poison in the kitchen and bathroom. We had a bunch of ants and so we sealed ourselves off from the rest of the house and our room smelt of wonderful pancakes and was a bit warmer. yay.

Sunday. Church. Then we went to do some contacting and the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me happened!!!   I found a car with a WI license plate.  But something even better happened on Monday.  We went shopping and we wore our regular clothing, because we buy food, go to internet and then train, just so we don’t have to change like 5 times.  So we went into the grocery store.  We entered.  We went toward the milk.  THEN!!! I saw a woman wearing a WI shirt.  Then I looked down, I was wearing the same shirt.  When we got in check out she was in front of us.  And she said to her little girl in English, "look they speak English." Then I asked her if she was from WI.  And she said yes.  It must have been her car!!! It’s rare to meet anyone from the US that is not from LA.  Or to see US plates that aren’t Texas, but WI what are the odds.  Wow what a day!!!

We went with a member to a waterfall.  It was by far the most beautiful place I have seen in Mexico, with the rivers and waterfalls and everything.  It was quite amazing.  It was close to the mountain, and all the hills were super green and really quite amazing.