Week 98 - 5/13/13

Well I don’t know what more can be said than what we talked about yesterday (Mother’s Day)...

We had some good lessons. We started to teach a 13 year old with Elder M. He is friends with a member. We taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We told him he could pray about it and he had a lot of great questions. Then at the end we asked him to say the prayer. While he was praying he asked for help to know if this was true and then he said while still in the prayer, I think I just felt something help me know if that was the answer. After we asked him if he had thought he had received an answer and he said he was filled with happiness while he was praying. Really cool lesson.

So there was no progress with the parent of the missionary because they were waiting for him to give them an answer and I don’t think he really understood what was going on... so we called President Reeves and then President Reeves called the mission president for his mission and then he talked to the son. Then when the son understood a little better he was able to tell his parents to get baptized before he got home and this week they should get baptized.

Good week. I think those were some of the highlights. Hope that you are all well.

Love you all
Elder Wigington

Week 97 - 5/6/13

Hey 5 de Mayo... was nothing special... I guess in the center there was a parade but here in my area it was a normal day.

Well my new companion is Elder Echevarria. He is from Peru.

Tuesday. We went to changes and then I got my new companion. They started something new that is there are sisters that are leaders over the sisters. And these leader sister are in my zone... so that’s why we had to find them a house. The sisters have like 3 huge suitcases each, plus the 2 suitcases of my companion. We had to take the sisters to their new house. After making a few calls, because everything wasn’t going to fit in a taxi, the bishop sent his chauffer and everything barely fit in his minivan. We got to the area and we paid the rent. Turns out the owner didn’t pay the power bill... so they didn't have power... Then the assistants came and we took all their million suitcases to the house of other sisters that live in another zone. But they only had two mattresses in the other house, so we went to the assistants house and brought them mattresses. By the time we finished it was like 9:30. I felt like I was secretary with Elder M again.

Wednesday. We had problems with our boiler, the pilot wouldn’t light. I had fought this boiler for 2 changes now so I decided I had enough. We went to home depot. Yeah, we live in a pretty great area, we have a home depot. I bought the pilot piece and changed in out. I was so surprised it worked and there are no gas leaks!! Wow can’t believe I fought that thing for so long. In the house of the sisters we had to connect their gas tank and one of the other elders in the zone had the tube so I was feeling like a pretty great plumber at this point so we went and connected, but one of the pieces is really old so it leaks... sad day. Later we had some lessons. We taught Jose Luis and Esmeralda, the parents of a missionary. The sister is still between going to her son’s mission and doing here. But we are making progress.

Thursday. We had weekly planning... but because Elder G is dividing his area with the sisters, they need to plan together. Zone leaders are the only missionaries allowed to plan with sisters so we had to go to their church to be there  while they planned... We came back and ate with the bishop. We had a good lesson at night.

Friday. Zone leader counsel... or I guess Mission leader counsel because the sister leaders go now. It was a good. After the sisters decided that they wanted to change back in to their new house. With the assistant we moved all their million suitcases to their other house and we helped them set up all their beds and such. They just complained about all the problems in the house... as dad would say "Hey listen",I had 1 day to find a house, I’m sorry if you don’t like the water pressure... we got back to our house at 9:30...

Saturday. So we had to fix the gas leak and so we bought the stuff we need, but when we got there we couldn’t connect it because the piece was glued on. Well we got back to our area and we were able to work a little bit. A few good lessons.

Sunday. We had a lesson in priesthood about how to set up a Yahoo email account and then a FamilySearch account but as the brother said a SearchFamily account. I really learned a lot. We had a few lessons at night. Good stuff.

Yeah that’s my week. I look forward to talking to you all this weekend for Mother’s day!

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 96 4/29/13

Wow another week. This was the most busy week ever, I am soooo tired right now. Let me explain...

Tuesday, we went on exchanges with Elder A and Elder B. I went with elder B and I was in my area. We had a couple good lessons. But poor elder, he doesn’t know much Spanish… still struggling.

Wednesday. Exchanges again. This time it was with the assistants. Elder M came with me to my area. We ate with the bishop and the bishop’s wife gave us some giant tortillas like huge, bigger than my head haha. We had some good lessons.

Thursday. Guess what? exchanges again... I went with Elder D to his area. It was good, it rained while we were looking for people.. that’s always fun.

Friday. Again... more exchanges. I went this time with Elder H to his area. He is new but he speaks Spanish pretty well for having 6 weeks. We had given them a referal a while ago and every time they had gone to look for him he was never home. So we went to go find him and he works in a store and we got there and I recognized him and we put an appointment and we left. We had some other lessons. As well we taught a lesson to that guy that randomly ask us for a blessing one time.

Saturday. No more exchanges!! but the assistants called us in the morning and said we had to find a house for the sisters  in the zone... so we went with Elder G and Elder W to find a house. We started at like 12 to 3 and nothing. So we went back to our area to eat and then we went back and searched until 9... I forgot to put on sunscreen and I got so burnt. But at night we did find a good house, a little expensive, but it was the only one that was suitable for sister missionaries...

Sunday. My companion got a call from President Reeves in the morning that he is going to be the next assistant. We had to go to the mission house at 5. We got there and all the missionaries that were going to leave were there. Guess what this means.... the secretary schedule... we had a great dinner. Then we had to take the Mexicans to the bus station at 2 and then the Americans to the airport at 4. And we got back just in time to prepare everything for the new missionaries that got there at 10. So we didn’t really sleep more that like 1 hour and what I could get in during the drive. After the training of the new missionaries, my comp stayed with the assistants and I came back to the area with 2 new missionaries. Got here at 4. The good thing is I can take more time for my pday. But... i haven’t slept in like 36 hours and I would go back to sleep, but I have to be a good example for the news... ugh. It was fun to run the whole secretary schedule again with Elder M. But the good thing was is that I had no responsibility at all yay. Not worrying about paying, just along for the ride. I think my comp will do a good job as assistant he is really diligent, he just gets really nervous in front of people. But I think that will go away after doing a million trainings haha.

Well here I am in internet with two new missionaries and I’m dying and we will leave to work. Good thing I’ll have to teach everything or a would probably fall asleep in the lessons...

Love

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 95 - 4/22/13

Wow this marks 22 months. Crazy.

Tuesday. So we had exchanges and in the morning. I went with Elder W. We had some good lessons. Good day.

Wednesday. Came back to our area, we had a number of lesson. Funny note. We teach active members every now and then to ask for references. So we went with an older brother and we were teaching the first lesson. I was super tired and don’t know why. We had just ate and I was really hot and I fell asleep in the lesson and my comp woke me up and the brother noticed and it was really embarrassing... but we had a good laugh about it after.

Thursday. I woke up at like 4 in the morning with a bunch of stomach pain, etc....I felt pretty awful.... So I rested until like the middle of the day. We taught one of our investigators and she has a lot of desires to learn and get closer to God. We had a couple more lessons as well.

Friday. Zone conference all morning. The buses in the morning were super full and we had to take a taxi. I’m pretty sure he over charged us but we didn’t have time for me do my taxi negotiating that I learned in the office haha. The conference was good, but I’m too lazy to write about it.

Saturday. A few lesson. Pretty normal day.

Sunday. We had church. Then we had a couple lessons after. We found a new investigator and she has a lot of problems. Really poor and trying to pay so her son can go to school. Tough situtations. Very sad, but he was very receptive to our message and she felt much better after the lesson. Hopefully the gospel can help here out.

Well overall it was a good week. We are seeing a lot of progress in our area.

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 94 - 4/15/13

Tuesday. We had our zone training. It was a 3 hour training that my companion and I had to give to help the zone complete its baptism goal. Pretty fun stuff. At night we had a meeting with the Stake President and President Reeves. Then after the meeting President was like. "oh hey, so I have my meeting with the area 70 this Thursday and they want a few planners of the zone leaders. So in the morning I’ll pick up your planner for this change and the one before." Umm... right. I think I felt a little bit what judgment day might feel like haha. I definitely did not fill in any empty spaces... Actually if there was any moment in my mission that I would have wanted president to take my planner now was probably the best... haha.

Wednesday. We did exchanges. I went with a new missionary who, like the others, didn’t know any Spanish. I’m so glad I’m not in that phase of my mission anymore. We ate a ton at 4 for the "food" and then later at 6 we showed up to an appointment and it was with a less active return missionary. He was really excited because he bought us pizza. He told us how he could eat so much while he was in the mission and so he bought on pizza for me and my comp and another for the family.

Thursday. Weekly planning. It’s a good thing my companion was so diligent because I was so distracted for some reason. It was kind of similar to when I have to clean my room haha.

Friday. I literally have no idea. Hmmm... maybe I’ll just make something up. Ok well I don’t know if this happened Friday or a different day, but it happened this week. So I hadn’t refilled my oil container for like 2 weeks now and my companion’s broke so he never had oil on him. A sister asked us if we could give her a blessing. We went to the house, I filled up my oil and we left and gave her a blessing. Then we were going to see if we could find someone to teach and a man stopped us in the street and told us that he was sick and his brother who is a member told him he could ask us for a blessing. We went to his house, which actually wasn’t in our area but we gave him a blessing and were able to pass the reference to the other elders. Pretty cool experience, good thing that sister got sick or i wouldn’t have had oil. Side note, when we got to his house he is catholic so he had his virgin statue and they usually put a big bible opened on the shrine table. I looked at the bible and it was one of the ones that our church makes with the large text for those who have bad sight. The bible there with foot note references to the Book of Mormon and Jospeh Smith translation references. Haha good stuff.

Saturday. So we pretty much walked around the whole day looking for people to teach. We got a reference earlier in the day. So we stopped by her house. We got there and she was alone so we couldn’t go in. Then she was like well, can we do it outside then. We were like wow, she is actually interested, so I made a few phone calls and we found a member nearby that was home. We went and we taught. Very spiritual lesson. She accepted baptism and then said she was going to go church. The interesting part is that her mom was baptized 20 some years ago and move to a pueblo where there was no church then never heard of it until now. I was definitely murmuring earlier that day because we had nothing... oops... haha

Sunday. In the morning we went to take this new investigator to church and she was actually ready to go. She enjoyed church a lot. Another note. ..we are still teaching the parents of the missionary. And thanks to general conference they heard the story that the father went to his son’s mission so he could get baptized and now they want to do that... got to talk to president about that one. 

Hey just i bet you were all wondering how my exercise was going. Well in the morning I’m still doing pushups and pulls 50 pushups then 7 pull ups 8 times. Takes a little over 20 mintues. Then at night 15 minutes of abs. And im at about 92000 pushups in the mission haha.

bout it. Right now I feel a little stomach sick... ugh

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 93 - 4/8/13

Tuesday. We had a trainers and leadership meeting. From like 9 to 5. It was pretty good. It was funny I was talking to Elder M before and he said he is doing all the work that we had to do as secretaries. They had to make some booklet things and they were in the office until 12 at night haha. Anyways in the conference it was good, probably the best part was that the president gave us an example of how to correct someone and the first one was a bad example. Elder M and him sat down and President said, Elder M your tie is really ugly, let me help you with that and then he cut it in half. Didn’t see that one coming haha. Then he gave a good example. So the conference was for trainers and leaders, so that’s everyone on the zone, so we had sent a bunch of new missionaries back to their areas during the conference and they didn’t know how to get around very good… anyways we had to make a million phone calls and by 7:00 everyone was back in their areas. ugh...

Wednesday. Well we did exchanges. I went with elder Iñesta from Puerto Rico. Pretty slow day. They are in an area that’s a lot like Huejotzingo and they don’t have a lot of work. I helped them organize their area book and get the ward directory so they can work better. The tough thing when you’re going into any area like that you really have to work like a month without any results before things start picking up. I hope they find more work soon.

Thursday. Crazy day, we were all over the place. So I forgot my extra backpack with my clothes and deodorant and shaver everything for the next day so I just had to put on all the same clothes. Haha. So I had planned to change when I got back, but as soon as we got to the house we had to go do a baptismal interview, so we did that. Then president called us and said that he was going to do weekly planning with us so we ran back to the house and president was there waiting for us. It was great he was able to help us out a lot with some investigators we had. Good thing the house was clean and I hope he didn’t notice I hadn’t shaved... I think it was pretty obvious... Then we had appointments right after so yeah …2 days same clothes. I’m pretty happy about that because I didn’t have as much to wash today!

Friday. Zone leader counsel. It was good, the spirit was strong. Great food from Sister Reeves. Something cool I learned,  among much more - You need to teach something 7 times in 7 different ways until someone actually learns.

Saturday. General conference. Sadly I had to watch it in Spanish. I mean I understand everything, but it’s not the same when it’s not their voice. Good talks.

Sunday. I was able to watch it all in English. good talks.

 

Week 92 - 4/1/13

I was trying to think of a good April fools joke to tell you but... couldn’t come up with anything, oh well. It doesn’t even exist here. But there is a day that is like it in December... Anywho, well I got some good news. Elder M. told me that Felix is going to go to the temple in the beginning of June to get his endowments so that means I’ll get to go. yay.

Tuesday. Just one of those wonderfully slow days in the mission. I mean even for our meeting with the stake president he didn’t show up. But it’s all good, you got to have a few days like that every now and then.

Wednesday. So we did exchanges, I went with Elder C again. Pretty good day, someone gave us free ice cream. But still not a lot of people were home, mostly I think it’s for the holiday.

Thurday. Back with my companion. We went to teach a reference. The  lesson went well, he didn’t live in the area so we had to pass the reference.

Friday. Exchanges, this time with Elder P. Poor guy, he has like a week in the mission and he doesn’t speak anything. But it was really good because I was able to help him out a lot with some the discouragements he has had in these first 2 weeks. We taught the parents of a missionary and it was a great lesson. I feel like a pretty powerful missionary when I teach them because the sister always cries. But I don’t think it’s so much for the teaching, but that we remind her of her son in the mission and she misses him. But I’ll keep living in my fantasy world that I teach so powerfully that I make people cry haha.

Saturday. Well we found a number of less actives that we had never meet before. It’s amazing how many people get offended in church. It’s kind of sad. For example in one of the lesson we were talking and they said they didn’t go because of work. I felt that was not the reason. So I just asked them if they were offend in church and they said yes. I think both sides can be are wrong. It made me think of this talk http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/what-shall-a-man-give-in-exchange-for-his-soul?lang=eng

Sunday. Normal Sunday. We had a couple of lessons. We had a great lesson with a brother who I assume was offend by the bishop. He hasn’t gone in like a month, but his wife asked us go with him. It’s amazing how talking about the atonement can really affect someone.

That’s about it!!!

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 91 - 3/25/13

Tuesday. Well we had the change meeting in the morning. Big news Elder M is the new assistant. Haha that’s awesome, I knew it was going to happen. He went up from district leader, skipped zone leader. I think he made some of the zone leader jealous. Anyways I got my companion and he just moved up to zone leader. He’s Elder L. Sadly, I’m not junior comp anymore. Sad day. So at this point we didn’t have power in the house...

Wednesday. We went to a district meeting and in our zone we have 6 new Americans. Haha. Very little Spanish. One thing that me and my companion had done well in the past change is that it is pretty common that everyone has a fear of the zone leaders, and we tried hard to be friends with all the missionaries and I now I think they are more open to express challenges with us. Anyways. My new companion is pretty cool, a little more serious than my last companion but all is good. It’s funny he walks really fast. Like all missionaries I walk fast but he walks really fast and its funny because he is a little bit ahead of me but he doesn’t know the area so he doesn’t know where he’s going. But it’s all good haha.

Thursday. The power came back on in the morning yay. Well I got pretty sick to my stomach for some reason. I had a bit of a fever.

Friday. Still a bit stomach sick. We worked the whole day but we had to say within a close distance to the church and the house for an emergency. Oh 21 months wow, old man.

Saturday. I was feeling much better. We went to do a baptismal interview. While my comp was doing the interview I fix the family’s computer. Yeah, no big deal. haha. We had a spiritual lesson with the parents of a missionary. They are pretty great. The mom misses her son a lot. We committed them to baptism but she doesn’t want to do it without her son, but she sent him a letter to see if it would be ok.

Sunday. Well Church. So we had a great activity later at 6. It was an idea I gave to the bishop that I got from a member in Huejotzingo. We had a mission memory night. Everyone brought an article of something from their mission and shared 10 minutes of an experience. Pretty cool meeting, hopefully now everyone will feel the need to help in the missionary work.

Today. Well just cleaning, washing boring goodness. I’m soo sooo sad. President decided that he didn’t want missionaries to play soccer every single Monday as a zone. Sad day.

End of story.

Love You all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 90 - 3/18/13

Wow another week. So we have changes and my companion is leaving so I’ll be getting a new companion.

Tuesday. Exchanges. I went with Elder G in our area. We had an investigator and we invited them to baptism on the 14th of April and they said they wanted to but they’re moving to the north of Mexico and so I guess that will be a free baptism for someone else haha.

Wednesday. More exchanges. I went with elder A.

Thursday. Well we were both in our area and nothing too exciting.

Friday. More exchanges. I went with a new missionary in his area. He has 4 weeks in the mission so we were pretty much lost the whole time. The good thing was is that he had a map and I have gotten lost enough times in Mexico that I can figure things out, so we at least got to every appointment, maybe a little late to some. But it was good.

Saturday we had a meeting for all the missionaries that will be training. Two fresh new Americans came and they don’t have companions yet so they came with us. We did splits with them in our area and it was cool. It’s so funny because they notice all the funny things that I remember that I noticed at the beginning. Haha.

Sunday. Church as normal.

Today Soccer in the morning and my comp is going to say good bye and pack his stuff.

Love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington

Week 89 - 3/11/13

Hey the 3 month countdown. I think it hit me I’m just super tired all the time haha, maybe it has something to do with the fact that my companion is finishing up soon as well. But it’s all good, still working hard.

Monday. After we wrote we went to play beach soccer. There is a place here that has a soccer field that is sand, but it wasn’t very good sand. It had little rocks in it. After about 30 minutes no one could run, really quite a painful activity... not doing that again. Haha.

Tuesday. We did exchanges with a companionship in the zone. I went with elder D from Irvine California, pretty funny because that was Nathan’s mission and Elder D had a brother who served in Wisconsin haha. Pretty cool, but wow haven’t heard so much English slang in so long dude haha. It was good we found this guy and we started to teach him for the first time and he told us that him mom taught him to always talk to white people in French so they understand... He said everything in French and then Spanish. The strange part was that what took him a minute to say in French was translated to 15 seconds in Spanish... maybe it wasn’t really French….

Wednesday. My companion had the great idea that we could all wake up early and play soccer as a zone at 5:30. Not trying to cause problems I went along with it and just one other companionship showed... That’s not happening anymore ugh, that just sounds like a great idea... soccer... at 5:30... right.

Thursday. Exchanges with the assistants. Pretty good. I was in our area and I don’t have much time here so I was glad I didn’t get too lost haha. Everything went well.  

Friday. We went back to the assistants’ area in the morning, which is my old area La Universidad. They had an idea for a service project that we would trim bushes outside of peoples houses and then try to share with them a message. So we were going at it and a couple people accepted. Elder L and I were around the corner from my companion and the other elder. Someone called the police on us and like 5 police cars surrounded my companion and the elder and asked them what there were doing and why they were there. Haha. We were around the corner so we didn’t see it but it was funny that someone would call the police on us for something like that.

Saturday. Normal day with a few lessons. At night we taught some investigators, the parents of a missionary who just barely left on the mission and we committed them to be baptized on the 16 of March so that’s good.

Sunday. Stake conference. It was by satellite and it was good. Elder Bednar and Elder Scott spoke. With the translation it’s a little more boring because it’s not their voice, but Elder Scott knows Spanish so he actually spoke in Spanish and it was a really great talk. Then later we gave a lesson to a reference we had. He used to be a drug dealer, a really tough guy. At the end of the lesson he was crying and he said he had heard a lot of different religions and has not liked any of them, not even a little, and he said he was amazed how in 30 minutes he was crying. The spirit was pretty strong. Good stuff.

Today. well I bet you can guess what I’ll be doing later haha I think it will be more soccer just a guess... haha.

In other news one in of the less active families that we were teaching in Huejotzingo, the youngest daughter was baptized. So that’s cool.

love you all

Elder Curtis Wigington