Week 51 On the descent!!!

Well this has been like the greatest week ever!!!!

So besides my brother getting home and showing me trunky photos of home with the family this has been an awesome week! On Thursday, Tania and Pablo got married and then on Friday they held their reception in the chapel with Rosa and Andres who got married the week before (so it was more like a double reception). Then on Saturday was their baptisms!!! We had 8 other elders there with us because there were 3 elders whom had previously served in this area and their companions, and two elders from our district here that brought an investigator. One of those elders who came was my MTC companion Elder Hemeyer who started his mission here in this area and he was actually the one that first contacted Rosa and Andres. He baptized Rosa because she wanted him to baptize her. My companion baptized Mikaela, a member from our ward baptized Andres and Tania's father-in-law Marcos baptized her. 

I got to give a talk during the baptismal service and it was pretty good. I was pretty happy to give it and of course being able to make Rosa cry during my talk haha. It was sooo great seeing them all get baptized. It was such a special moment for sooo many people. Tania has waited years to be able to get baptized and Rosa and Andres waited like 9 months and there were so many missionaries that did soo much for them and to be a part of it and to be the last elder that got to finally see them reach the point of baptism was just sooo great! The elders that came were just sooo happy for them because they finally got to see them get baptized! Then on Sunday they all got confirmed and Pablo and Andres got ordained to the office of Priest in the Aaronic priesthood so that was super cool. Then after church we went to eat lunch with a family in our ward and then after finishing lunch with them we left and right as we left and were in the street I looked at my watch and it was exactly 3:00 in the afternoon and I realized that it was 12:00 noon back home and that church was finishing at that exact time and my freaking brother was at home (not sure if he went to all 3 hours of church or not) but either way I was like freak, he's home and recently finished giving his homecoming talk!!! Probably at home now with all of the family eating food that my parents cooked...😥

Anyways I am on the descent now haha!
 

Yep I am hitting a year this Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We call this the descent (well at least I do, im not sure how many people refer to this as the descent but it basically means that the first year of the mission is slow and the second year goes by a lot faster) Im probably going to burn a white shirt and eat some fried chicken.

Well folks what more do you want? Probably some pictures right? Ok hold on...

1. me, E' Lopez, and Leo Suarez (an awesome member here in the back with the suit) with the 4 that got baptized from left to right (Andres, Tania, Mikaela, and Rosa)

2. The 10 Elders with Mikaela and Cristian (he was going to get baptized but his mom wouldnt sign the form to allow him to get baptized 😥

3. All in White (the guy on the left is Bro. Noble (he baptized Andres) and on the right is Marcos (Pablo's dad, Tania's father in law))

the two above (me, Rosa, Andres, Pablo, Tania, and E' Lopez)

this last one is after Tania had her baptismal interview Saturday morning

Also wtfetch everybodys got a freaking beard (Josh, Chandler and Zakk) Especially Josh, his beard is huge!

Anyway it was an awesome week here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll send yall some photos of the reception as well! Anyway take care everybody! Have a great week!!!!!! Love you all!!!!

-Welks

Week 50 He's going home!

wow well I can't believe that Jake is already going home!!!! That flew by pretty fast especially for me being on a mission for half of that. This also means that I only have a year left?!! Holy fetch the time just goes by sooo fast. 

Also Elder Arthur Anderson is finishing the mission this week but is not going home because he just doesnt want to leave this place quite yet. (not really sure why he wants to spend more time here than he has to) hahahaa just kidding this place is awesome especially after getting to meet soooo many great people here! And the food during the winter season is way better than any other time of year here! 

Well this past week was awesome! We spent almost all of our time with Rosa, Andres, Tania, Mikaela, and Christian because they are going to be getting baptized this Saturday!!!!! Tania is getting married on June 15 and Pablo (Tania's husband) has his birthday on June 16 and then of course the baptisms on June 17 which is also my Mom's birthday and my brother's homecoming party thing so yeah its going to be an awesome week! 

Oh yeah but this past week was good too! Like I said we spent a lot of time with those 5 that are going to get baptized. Yeah besides that I really dont remember anything from the past week except for something crazy that happened yesterday morning. So as you may or may not know me and my comp live in an apartment complex on the 4th floor (which is super dope cause we have an awesome view of our area, we have everything super close to us (stores, supermarket, post office, ice cream parlor, restaurants, etc), and its just awesome as heck and it doesnt get cold in our apartment) Anyway back to the crazy thing that happened. So in the complex next to us lives a family of 3 (dad, mom, and their daughter) and the dad is active in the church, the mom has mental problems and doesnt go to church anymore cause she just tells us that she doesnt have anymore faith after experiencing some challenges in her life and then their daughter is 13 and she is just like really shy and doesnt want to leave her apartment to go to church and what not. 

So the mom is also very worried about her daughter about 34/7. Every time that her daughter leaves to go out with friends she picks up the phone and calls like 50 people like 50 times each to ask if they know where her daughter is. Also the daughter has a boyfriend who is 18 and from what I heard is that he too is always worried about her and is the kind of guy that would like freak out if his girlfriend got a papercut or something like that. And the daughter has some problems too cause she wants to leave her parents house and live with her boyfriend?? Like wtf. Anyway so one day like a month ago the mom found out where the boyfriend lived and told us to go talk with him and get to know him and invite him to church but she didnt want us to tell him that she sent us. (which is kind of wierd). And then she told us that she would be fine with her daughter living with the boyfriend if he got baptized and then if they got married and that they could live in their apartment with the parents (like WTF lady! You cant be serious, she is 13 and you would let your daughter make a decision like that like wtf!). Yeah so we didnt go mainly because he doesnt live in our area. 

So yes this woman is crazy and she always always always is calling us, sending us texts, and voice recordings like 5 times a day at least! Well, for the past two weeks no but before that it lasted for like 3 weeks and me and E Silva were just soo sick of it. Well ever since Silva left she hasnt been bugging us too much but yesterday, Sunday morning, do you know what she did? She came to door of the block we live in and was at the bottom (cause there is a door and you cant enter unless you have a key) and she was ringing the buzzer to our apartment at 7:30 am!! Me and my comp were still in our garments cause church doesnt start til 9:30 and she was ringing the buzzer at 7:30 am! So we actually didnt know who is was at first cause I didnt know how to use the phone to talk with someone that is down there at the call thing and I was trying to talk with the person but I didnt know that there was a button you had to press. So I sat there and was like "the person will leave in like 2 minutes, whoever it is" but she wouldnt stop ringing the buzzer and so I opened the window and looked down and shouted "hola!" (or "hello" if you dont even know .00001% of spanish) and the lady walked out (cause in front of the door at the bottom there is a rain cover thing) and the moment that I saw her head I already knew who it was cause she always wears a bandana on her head. But she didnt see me so I told my comp "lets wait for her to leave" because even if I wanted to go down to talk with her we were still in garments. So after about 10 more minutes of her ringing the buzzer my comp answered the phone and figured out how to use it and she told us that she needed to talk right now so by this time I was already dressed but my comp just put a tshirt on and we went down and she was talking for about 25 minutes about her daughter and how she needed us to pass by at 10:30 to take her daughter to church but it starts at 9:30 but she told us that her daughter only likes the classes but we explained to her that we dont have time and that we cant leave the church at that time and she just wouldnt stop talking and every time that we finally ended talking I would go to close the door and then she would have one last thing to say about her daughter or her family or something and that happened like 10 times and I was finally at last able to close the door and we went back up to the apartment and it was already 8:30 and my comp still hadnt showered so he hurried and we able to get to church on time luckily. 

So yeah it was sooo wierd that she came to our apartment in the morning. I didnt know that she knew where we lived and now I want to move haha. Yeah it was really hard to explain all of that stuff and there are a lot more things that happened and a lot more details to that story that I am going to write in my journal but this will definitly be something that I talk about after the mission. 

Any my brother Jake is already going home!!!!!! I have a list of things that he missed while he was on the mission that he needs to do so next week I will take a picture of that list so yall can see.

Anyway take care!!!! Love you all! Have an awesome June 17th!!!!! Happy 52nd Birthday Mom!!!! (dont watch Ephraim's Rescue. There is a part in the first 20 minutes of the film when Ephraim returns home after 3 years of working away from his family and returns home to his mom it is nighttime and they are talking about what happened while he was gone. Yeah dont watch that part. hahaa)

-Welks