This week went by fast...

I feel like I just sent my last email! But it's all good! So big things that happened this week were my bag broke so I had to buy a new one... But that is ok stuff is cheap and decent quality down here so my companion says it should last me at least 6 months and it was like a full $10... well maybe not even that XD

 my shoes shows the difference after 1 day of walking and working in Rio Grande, I cleaned of part to show the original color.

my bathroom, showing what it looks like and that there is no door... Just a shower curtain

my bathroom, showing what it looks like and that there is no door... Just a shower curtain

my view as I walk out my front door

one more picture of the St. George squad from the CCM

So, last Monday after I emailed we met with Estrella and then with Paco. These two investigators are our most progressing, Paco has a baptismal date in 2 weeks! And Estrella is talking with her parents about it. Estrella is 13 and her older sister is less active but we are trying to get her back to the church as well. She is pretty good at chess but I still beat her. Not by a lot though.. I was worried that a thirteen year old would win for a bit... But Paco is great too! His mom is a recent convert and she is awesome! And not just cuz she feeds us all the time when we stop by! She was baptised three months ago and let her kids decide when they wanted to be baptized. Paco will be the last of his immediate family to be baptised but that is good cuz his sisters are great supports to him and so is his mom!

Tuesday we had our district meeting and I understood a decent amount of what was going on! I can usually understand when white people are speaking spanish but only like half the time understand Latinos... But it's getting better!

Wednesday was fun cuz we planned a full day of appointments and then at 8:30 we get a call saying we need to go to Puerto and be there by 2 because at 2:30 we will leave for Salina Cruz for the new missionary meeting... So we had planned to leave for Puerto at 6 and just sleep in Puerto but we cancelled our appointments and left for Puerto which was fun! I like Puerto because you can always see the ocean! In Rio Grande it's kinda too flat to see the ocean... But we got to eat with a member on the beach in Puerto like straight up on the beach in the sand under a pavilion. It was super fun. We then took a 5 hour bus ride to Salina Cruz which was long and boring but not terrible. We spent the night there with some other missionaries

Thursday we got up and went to the meeting for the new missionaries which was fun! I got to chat with Hermana Aden for a little bit, the one person from my district that came to Oaxaca with me and then we left and went back to Puerto. The bus we were supposed to take got stuck in a blockade... So we took a really cheap lame bus that was hot, uncomfortable and really not fun in any way. But after what felt like 22 hours we got to Puerto and spent the night.

Friday morning we studied in Puerto and then came back to Rio Grande. We taught Divinidad, who we just contacted last week and started teaching her. We taught her about prophets and I think she is really interested. We also taught Estrella and that is always fun.

Saturday was good! Best part of the day was having lunch with Paco and his mom, because they have a nice house so we ate inside and she made a really good pasta. We also met with Hermano Thomas who is a really solid member, he's super fun. He runs a store downtown, well as downtown as Rio grande has... But he's got bunnies too! They are cool.

Sunday was good cuz we had a linger longer thingy where we got food after church and its always good when we get food. We taught Mercedes who is an investigator that is starting to progress more but her husband Julio is not very interested and likes to drink.

Yeah, that was about all my week, lots of teaching and I'm starting to see my spanish improve! Thanks to everyone that is emailing me, it is really great to open my email and see a bunch of unread emails!

First week in the field!

Wow, so I'm in Rio Grande and it is insane, it really reminds me of when I lived on Guam cuz it's super hot and humid, there is sand everywhere, I don't think my shoes will ever be clean again.... But before I forget let me describe the pictures. 

A couple of them are of these "washing machines" that a member let us use today.... I was disappointed when I saw it because it is not a washing machine. Its a topless bucket that spins... But it's all good, because at least we have something!

Washing Machine

Washing Machine

One of the photos has me, Hermana Gates, and Elder Hobbs, because we were the St. George crew while at the CCM!

St. George crew

The skyline is the skyline of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, because I was at the mission home and got a picture.

skyline of Oaxaca

skyline of Oaxaca

One is of my bed... Yeah not much to see there...

my bed

But one is of my companion in a lounge chair because it was at the member's house that we washed our clothes in and I joked about because Oaxaca is warm all year round and some parts are touristy, my mission would be a two year vacation! Yeah, that one moment is the most vacation I've had in the entire week here, but it has been super fun!

vacation

So because I didn't really get to write last week I've got a lot to say but not a lot of time... So lots of stuff but brief will be in this email. First of, Friday through Sunday of two weeks ago were all pretty sad because it was our final says at the CCM but also exciting! Lot's of pics but I'll probably not send those out because it takes a lot of time to send photos. Monday morning at 6:40 I left on a plane to Oaxaca. And the Oaxaca airport is smaller than the St. George Airport!

After that we hung out with mission president and had a lot of meetings and talking. Someone after my mission needs to remind me to show them the 14th article of faith because it is so true. But I don't have it right now, so I'll have to send it later.

Then Tuesday, after I spent the night in the mission office, I got a 12 hour bus ride to Puerto Escondito which is an hour from Rio Grande. I got there at 8:30 at night and met my companion and some Elders who are in Puerto and one of them is from Logan! He's super cool! After spending that night in Puerto, we had a district meeting the next morning and then we went shopping and took all my stuff and all the food we just bought as well to Rio Grande! We got there about 1 and got settled and then ate at a members home. We had some other appointments but I'm running out of time so I will tell you about my AWESOME investigators next week!

Well some are awesome. And then there's some less actives who just stopped believing and they like the idea of the church but have no belief at all in it. It's really hard to work with nothing. Try doing it in another language and yeah, you can tell how that turned out.

Anyways I've been super busy have been able to help find and teach a bunch of people! What I really love about the coastal zone in Oaxaca is Everyone is very willing to listen. Most everyone at least!

This is short

So my Pdays are now on Monday and I don't have hardly anytime to write but I just wanted to say that I get to meet my new Latino compañero but it's not till after a 12 hour bus ride to Rio Grande that I get to meet Elder Seañez! I'll be great but the package that you sent me will probably not get to me for another few weeks because my area is so far from my mission home. There is a more direct route through the mountains that would be faster for my bus to take but the turns are too sharp so I need to drive all over Oaxaca... I'm super excited though!!

Please forward this on and summarize it on the blog. Also any letters that get sent just need to go to my mission home as well as packages and then they will give them to me.

Google maps of where Rio Grande Oaxaca is.

My Mission home address for packages and letters

Elder Jason Loosle
Huerto de los Ciruelos 101
Fracc. Trinidad de las Huertas
68120 Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Mexico

Week 5 - Last week at the CCM!

So I leave the CCM Monday morning at 3:30 in the morning which I am having a lot of mixed feelings about because well I am excited to go into the field but I'm super nervous and I don't want to say goodbye to all my friends I've made here, like my companions and my district and other districts that we've gotten close to. But it´s happening on Monday, dark and early so my Pday might change next week to a different day. But also I'll get an extra chance to email people on saturday night so if anyone email me you might get a response then. But I won't send out my weekly email or anything until my next Pday in OAXACA!



So, Friday was a pretty average day at the CCM last week. The most different part is that in gym time Elder Vea tried to spike the ball and I was able to get a solid block for the first time, usually I'm nowhere near the net when he spikes it but this time I was there and it was AWESOME! But also we had the second to last lesson with one of our investigators because our teacher is leaving us for another district :( So that was sad but the rest of the day was good!

Saturday was also really fun but kinda sad because we had our last lesson with our investigator Vanessa. But we had a good lesson with Jesús on temples and that was fun! We also had a fun Book of Mormon lesson! I didn't teach it Hermana Aden did and it was on 1st Nephi 17.  All the days just have been blurring together so I'm not quite sure what else happened on Saturday...

But Sunday's are ALWAYS MEMORABLE! We got to practice our song that we are singing next Sunday with district 8A and it's coming together! I can't wait to sing it because it sounds really cool. And I like singing. Also we practiced for our Tuesday night devotional and the barbershop quartet I'm in and singing the 3rd verse with, is so much fun. Practice started rough but we worked through the problems. Also, best part of Sunday... It was Mother's day so I got to call home! Talking with my siblings and parents was so much fun and I'm super glad they are doing well! Oh also the first thing that happened on Sunday was there was a 5.5 earthquake in Oaxaca, but not much damage was done because of it. But they were worried an aftershock might hit México City so at 2:45 in the morning the earthquake alarm went off and my whole casa left to go into the safety circle, the green circle with arrows in one of the pictures. But my casa was the only one that had people leave on my street! It was a good thing nothing happened because otherwise like half the CCM would've gotten hurt cuz they slept through an annoyingly loud alarm... We ended Sunday with the Restoration video and I've never seen that video all the way through but by the end when Praise to the Man was playing in the background and Joseph was on his way to his death, I felt the spirit so strong and I realized that I have no room to complain when Joseph Smith gave everything he had, including his life to help the work of the Lord, and all that has been asked of me is 2 years.

So Monday was fun, I'm not sure if I said this last week but a new district came in last week and we bombarded them with candy because that is what happens with the new districts, and one of the Hermanas is from St. George and we went to Mission Prep together! Well went to is kinda stretching the word because I think we both went twice but we talked in Mission Prep and I totally forgot that she was going to be here before I left! Her name is Hermana Gates and she's super fun. We have a very similar schedule to their district so we got pretty close to them pretty quick cuz they are also in our ward, and have our same gym time. It'll be really sad when we say goodbye because they have become pretty good friends with all of us!

Tuesday, one of the Hermanas in the district that just came in and we became friends with left to go home because she was struggling a lot and was having some problems that came back from before her mission. So that was really sad. But the good thing was that both of my companions taught a book of mormon lesson for our district in two different chapters in Alma and they were good. One was about the resurrection and one was about teaching. Also we got to teach Jesús about marriage and Alejandro (our new person we are teaching, who is our maestro Hermano Guerrero, who is playing the role of an inactive member) about faith. We are teaching two people every day but because they are just our teachers the lessons are not great sometimes. I mean they are consistently fine now but Tuesday we had really good lessons with both people. Tuesday night was SO GREAT! We sang Señor Te Necesito(I need thee every hour) for choir and the quartet that I am in rocked it! We also had a solo Hermana sing half the first verse and a duet for the second half and that was rocked even more.

Wednesday was great but sad. Because it's starting to hit us that a lot of the stuff we are doing is the last time we will be doing it... Like TRC. It was really fun! We taught Soledad for the third week in a row and also Hermana Tenorio, who is not related closely to Presidente Tenorio..

Today was fun! Last Pday so we had to do a lot of stuff like get haircuts and get our luggage weighed. Fun stuff but kinda sad. But we also took lots of pictures today. And so it's kinda sad cuz it's our last Pday out here...

But with that there is not much else to say and I'm kinda over time with my hour for emailing so I'll bear my testimony in spanish next week ;)

Peach-o's es vida.

My new scripture case. It is of a rock in México that has what people assume to be an interpretation of Lehi's dream! It's a really old rock 

Construction that kicked my district out of our class

Funny district picture. Left to right, Elder Russon, Elder Loosle, Hermana Aden, Elder Vea, and Hermana Mapusua has her head turned around. 

District picture.

My mini casa

Map of the CCM.

Our attempt at a Beatles picture, other people's camera´s had more luck with less awkward looking people.

CCM life is winding down

A lot of the stuff that we are doing at the CCM is become very similar because we eat food, teach our maestros, sleep (for not nearly enough time), have classes and go to devotionals. But while it is kinda similar there are definitely little things that make it really great! 

So last Friday after I sent my last email my companion Elder Russon got a haircut and there was like no hair cut hardly. He basically looks the exact same but with a little bit shorter sides. We also had a lot of fun in gym and working out which I'm really enjoying a lot!

Saturday was good! We as a district got to teach a lesson to the other district that left 3 days after. I taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and they taught me the law of chastity. It was interesting to say the least. But it was good. Then we also had an extra TALL session which was super boring but I mean it is helping me learn the language so I can't complain.

Sunday, oh mi palabras (oh my word) Sunday was so good. It was fast Sunday and so we started fasting after lunch on Saturday which is a bit weird to me but that is how México does it so it was just more different than anything else. We had a testimony meeting in our branch and it was super great and super spiritual because one of the three districts in our branch was leaving the next day so we had a really spiritual meeting. The branch that left also sang nearer my God to thee and that was really good. As we all sang the closing hymn of "All creatures of our God and King" I was conducting and even though there were only like just over 20 people in our branch, it sounded like there was at least 50+! I know that angels were singing with us and helping us testify of our creator and our love for our Lord. Sunday night we saw a video on the book of mormon and how it changed two lives, Parley P. Pratt and some italian guy whose name I don't remember. But at the end it had a little written testimony on the screen and walking home I started to cry just a little because of how much the spirit was testifying to me of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I know it is the word of God and I know that this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ and that He is the light and the way to eternal life.

Monday was good! We struggled really hard teaching Jesús the first four commandments but we didn't prepare nearly as well as we should have. But we got Vanessa to commit to a date for baptism, and even though it is fake, it still was really good!

Tuesday night there was a pretty good devotional on how much we can do as missionaries even if we don't see the blessings immediately. We went over the commandments with Jesús, all 10 of them and he committed to live them! It was nice, but he was kinda confused on adultery. 

Because of that we taught him the law of Chastity with him on Wednesday, and he said he would live it except that he is having his girlfriend who he has a kid with move in with him so that is no bueno. He is a rough investigator sometimes but we'll talk to him about the importance of marriage and eternal marriage and hopefully he'll get it.

ALSO!!! Tuesday night and Wednesday night I made a beautiful creation! So my district and the other district that is in my branch that came into the CCM with my district, are singing next Sunday (the week after mother's day) in sacrament meeting because that is the last week we will be here and we struggled to decide what to sing for a while. But then we decided that Acompañame (Abide with me) sounds really good to the tune of Be still my soul so we are singing the first two verses of that to the tune of Be still my soul in spanish and then singing the second verse of be still my soul in english as the last verse and the Hermanas sing the first verse except at the end where everyone comes in, and then the Elder's sing the second verse except where we all sing a little repeated phrase at the end, and then we sing the last verse all together on parts and it's going to be great! But on Tuesday and Wednesday night I was cutting and taping the different parts of the hymn onto the other.

Also... speaking of choir, Next Tuesday I am going to be in a barbershop quartet singing the third verse of Te necesito (I need thee every hour) for choir! I'm singing base and we are having the four parts out of the hymn book but the soprano part will be dropped an octave and the alto will be the normal range so it will be like a descant alto thing going on and that will sound awesome. There is also going to be a solo for a Hermana for the first verse.

And one more thing... I ran into one of my EFY friends from two years ago at chior! It was funny cuz I really thought she looked familiar but I couldn't get my head around why and I didn't see her nametag until she was like... "You were in my EFY group" and I thought for a second and then was like OH YEAH! But to be fair she does look different and I hadn't seen her in two years... but I had just talked to her over facebook probably less than 2 months ago... Oh well it was fun knowing someone!

Today we went to the temple and that is always great! It hasn't been a super exiting Pday but it has been a bit rushed because we are about to go play volleyball with another district who also has Pday today. But man it's a bit weird

knowing that next Pday will be my last one at the CCM....

Yo sé que la iglesia de Jesucristo de los santos de los últimos días es la iglesia verdadero. El evangelio que está compartiendo es verdadero. Yo tenía dudas en el pasado pero ahora yo sé que este evangelio es verdadero con mi toda corazón y alma. Este evangelio es el evangelio de Jesucristo realmente.