Monday, January 26, 2015

Chispas! I Am Going to Get Robbed!

I found some snow cones and even rode the bike for them!


Alright well this week wasn't terrible!!  We found another new guy and he is pretty cool!!  So we have Alvaro(who is a champ) and this guy named Julio and his two kids!!  Things are slowly starting to progress here!  We are slowly starting to see the blessings of hard work!  We are finding the people that are ready to hear us and we have finally got really cool people!!
Me and Elder Lund at church
Alright so about this Alvaro fella.  He is a boss!!  He asked for a talk from President Monson so that he could hear what the prophet has to say!  So he is currently writing a review for us so that way we will know that he read it!  He is so excited to get baptized on the 15th!!  He is inviting everyone to go from the ward which is good!!  We are so excited that he is so cool and so ready for everything!!  He is filling out the extra study sections of the pamphlets and he is going to be a great member!  

Funny story from this week!  Julio is a contact that we did about a month ago going to buy some tacos!  Well we started walking down the street and there was this guy wearing a hoodie with the hood over his head and a backpack! Then he crossed the street after he saw us and so me and Elder Lund were freaking out a little and thought we were going to get robbed!  He ends up just talking to us while we were going down for tacos and then left! He told us about how his mom is a member but he has never talked to missionaries before!  So then that was it and I just thought "well that was scary... glad that turned out good"!!!  Well then earlier this week we got out of a lesson and this guy yells from across the street,  ¨Hey, speaka Spanish?¨ And he gets out of his car and starts walking fast towards us!  It was also night and so I thought to myself ¨Chispas! I am going to get robbed¨.  Well it ended up being this Julio guy again and we set up an appointment to teach him!  It was kind of funny though because the first two times we met him we totally thought we were going to get robbed!!  

Alright so the word of the week is embarazado.   Estoy embarazado.  I am pregnant!

Have a great week and find a way to go out and help the missionaries!!
Me and Elder Norr on divisions this week.  This is the Elder that was supposed to be my father (trainer) until I hurt my knee in the MTC.
Love,
Elder Orchard

P.S.  Guess what?  I just talked to (emailed...I will get his number next week) Levi Thompson (a friend from the 9th ward serving in the Mexico City West mission) and we are going to try and go to Center together here in a couple weeks!!  That will be fun!  I will be sure to get some good pics!  They have to baptize three people before they can get permission though.  Glad our Mission President isn't like that!

Me and Elder Guerrero from the Dominican Republic

roadkill

Some guy on the roof doing who knows what?!

Espiritu Santo street (Holy Ghost for all you English speakers)

We went on a hike today.




A cross with Mary holding the baby Jesus at the top of our hike.

Monday, January 19, 2015

I Sure Don't Miss the Cold or the Snow


A tianguis (street shopping)
This week was a good week!!  We found a new really cool guy!  His name is Alvaro and he is an absolute stud!!  He is like seventy years old and has a hard time talking.  He sounds like the smoker commercials and so I struggle to understand sometimes!! But regardless, he is a stud!!  He stopped us on the street and asked where the cult meets!  Then he said he was new in the area and he was looking for a temple to go to.  So we went in and taught him and he was just a stud!!  He already can find the scriptures on his own and we have members that can't do that!  He came to church with us and he is just a really cool guy!!  He was like contributing to the class and everything!  He is such a cool guy!!  I think we are going to take him to the temple this week.  He is going to get baptized on the 15 of February I think is the date that we put for him! 

Now a funny story!  Elder Lund has some cards that he gives to people that have his info like email address and all that good stuff!  Well it has his home phone number on it too! Well a couple weeks ago he gave one to Javier.  Well I ended up leaving my camera at his house on accident!   And so Javier, being the great kid that he is, decided that he was going to call us and let us know so we weren't worrying!  Well he ended up calling Elder Lund's home phone and Javier was telling us that he called and someone answered and so he said ¨bueno elderes?¨ Then the person on the other end started talking and he knew it wasn't Spanish and he thought it was English so he hung up.  Then he started thinking, I think Elder Lund made those at his house, so how would he have known what number he would get in this area!?  It was so so so funny when he told us this story!  We were both just cracking up!!

So then that same night Javier told us about how he just finished the Book of Mormon.  So Elder Lund says, "okay, Javier, if you can tell me the three groups of people that came to the Americas that it talks about in the Book of Mormon I will buy you a hamburger combo meal at this place by his house!  So Javier says "the Jaradites the Nefites and the Lamanites?  No, not Lamanites it was the Mulekites!"  And WE just looked at each other in astonishment!  I couldn't have answered that until I was a missionary and he just answered it like that!! This kid is so cool!!

Other than that we have just been working hard with trying to find some people!  There are tons of people that we have but they aren't fully interested so we are trying to narrow it down to the people who really want it and are working hard to finally get that first baptism!!  

Me and Elder Lund next to graffiti

Russell told Douglas about speaking in the YSA ward conference yesterday and how sick he was of the cold weather.  Douglas' response:

I have been lucky.  It is nice having four missionaries in the ward because that way we don't speak as much!  I am sure that I will be the next missionary to speak, though.  The weather here is awesome!!  I love it...I really lucked out.  Sometimes in the night I need a jacket but other than that things are good as far as the weather.  I sure don't miss the cold or the snow!!

The Spanish word for the week is chistoso.  This means funny like as in this story is funny!  Tengo un historia muy chistoso. 

I love you guys!!  Have a good week!

Love
Elder Orchard

who knows why but they paint the trees white

more graffiti

me on the Nacho Libre bike

typical Mexican street

A street in our area.  Good luck saying that!  Remember...the "h" is silent

Elder Lund's contraption to boil potatoes

We rearranged our room!



Elder Brown, Elder Lund and me with our tromps at church.  They are a Mexican toy you buy for like 8 pesos.

more tianguis

This sweet Virgin Mary light up thing I am going to buy next Christmas!

A BBQ we had

My new Nacho Libre mask I bought

My new shoes

Monday, January 12, 2015

It is Always Cool to Learn More About the Culture Here

Our dodgeball and soccer nights with the Young Men!  We look pretty mean and good, right?!
Alright so this week was just an average week!!  It started off with us contacting a lot just trying to find people that we could teach!!  It went alright and we found a few people but the problem was when we went back with them it seemed like they were never there!!  We did find an old investigator that looks like he will progress just fine he just hasn't had time to listen because of work!!  He is a cop and so he has to work every other day!! The only problem is that means he can only come to church every other week!!  This is why the five Sunday thing is so crappy!!  This guy is a golden investigator but he can't get baptized for at the least 10 weeks!!  

Tuesday was a big holiday here!  It is called Reyes Magos Day (3 kings day).  This is basically Christmas here so all the kids got gifts and all that good stuff!!  They also eat a bread thing that is called rosca.  They bake little babies into the bread and if when you are eating it you have a baby in your piece you have to buy everyone tamales or at least that is what the legend is.



Well back in the day when there was only like two babies in the whole thing they would bring tamales but now they put like ten in the bread just for fun!!  It is always cool to learn more about the culture here and how they do things different!!  

Well since we didn't really have any investigators we decided that we were going to try and just kill it in the less active people column this week!!  We taught 11 different less active families throughout the week!!  One little funny experience from one of the lessons we had!  We were teaching about prayer and so we started by reading in the guide to studying the scriptures(only found in the spanish scriptures) and so then I asked her "so what is prayer, Yoana?"  And she told me,  "well, I think that prayer is like when you send a message to God.  Yeah like if God had a Whats up (new app kind of like texting)  I would just send him a whats up which would be my prayer!"  I just looked at Elder Lund and wanted to start laughing it was so funny!  But I had to try and find a way to make it relate from that point on!!  It was bad!!  Then they invited the other missionaries over to eat on Saturday and Elder Brown told us that we were invited too!  Well we showed up and it turns out we weren't really invited officially...  It was really awkward!!  They answered the door and I wish you could have seen Yoana´s suprised face and the fact that she couldn't comprehend why both sets of missionaries came!!  It was priceless!!  However they did come to church after so that was good!!  

Things with Javier are hopefully going to happen soon!  We went by to have another lesson with his mom again but she cancelled on us so that sucked!!  I guess she used to do this same thing where she would say she was going to be there but then leave and so we just are going to drop in from now on!  It is a great lesson plan we have for him though!!  The goal is to just help his mom to realize how important it is and read her some scriptures from second Nefi 31 which talks about the Gospel!  His birthday is coming up on the 30th of January so we need to find something to get him for his birthday but that is kind of a struggle here!  We will probably end up getting him some cards again or something!  Hopefully we can find him a cool gift so his mom will just continue to like us!!

The word of this week is cuate.  It means like bro or dude.  
Example: Ay cuate que vamos a comer hoy?
Hey bro what are we going to eat today?

I love you guys and have a great week!! 
Les quiero,
Elder Orchard

My card in President's office that says my name is Russell Keith Orchard

Torta a la cubana we ate the week that was huge and had like five diffferent types of meat on it.  It was amazing!!!!!  You guys should open a torta place while I am gone!!

soccer highlight

typical Mexican doorbell

bugs we drank to help with your health or something

cool picture I took this week at sunset


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A Surprise Message

Every now and then I get a surprise message and/or picture from Sister Stutznegger.  It always makes me SO happy to get a mid week peek of my boy:).  Her latest message really touched me.

Sister Stutznegger:  Elder Orchard was in the office today.  His comp had to go to immigration.  He is doing so well!  He really adds to this mission!

Me:  Sister S, you really are the best!  Your thoughtfulness for us moms who love that extra word, and occasional picture is SO appreciated!  He does seem so happy and we know he is in great hands!  Thank you:)

Sister Stutznegger:  He reminded me today to always count the "Orchard factor" when counting our net gains and losses (those coming in minus those going home).  He reminded me that it could happen at anytime-we both were laughing so hard!  Keith told him that he refused to use the "Orchard factor" so that meant he just didn't ever get to go home.  We all were having a great laugh!  He really has gotten into our hearts pretty quickly!

Doug has the BEST in the Stutzneggers and I am so grateful for their sacrifice to serve at this time of their lives.

I asked Douglas what he did while he was in the office.  His response:  I read a little in the Book of Mormon, took down the Christmas tree and helped the President move some things.

Monday, January 5, 2015

We Worked Really Hard and Had Some Fun


Alright so this week we had absolutely no investigators!  We dropped them all on Sunday because they really didn´t want it and weren't progressing!  So this week our goal was just to contact and contact and contact!  We found some new people so we are hoping that they can progress and actually be good!! 

Tuesday I was on divisions with Elder de Leon (companion of Elder Norr).  We worked really hard and had some fun!!  We taught twelve lessons on just that one day!  It was a great time honestly! 
Me and Elder de Leon in the moto taxi that was full of the virgin stuff


New Years was kind of slow.  We didn´t really find anyone home!  We didn´t work New Years Day so me and Elder Lund tried to stay up and celebrate the new year together!  Well, we fell asleep at like 11 with all the lights on and we kind of just failed as far as that goes!

We finally gave Javier's mom that lesson and we totally rocked it!!  We now have another lesson planned to go and give them this week to talk about what Jesus Christ has taught us and that he is our example in everything and he said come follow me!  So, discreetly talk about baptism and just planch her!  We are hoping for good things to come out of this! 
The gift that Javier gave me for Christmas with candy in it
Me and Javier playing cards on his bed
I feel like my letters have been slacking for the most part these last few weeks and so I am sorry for that!  We just haven´t had anyone progressing and so it is kind of hard to tell you cool stories!  However here is one decent story for now hopefully it is good enough!  So a few weeks ago Elder Lund was buying shoelaces and from behind us in English we hear, ¨You two are a long ways from home, where are you from? Utah?¨  Me and Elder Lund just didn´t know what to say and so I was just like uhm yeah....The guy then said,¨Okay, well I'll see you around!¨  So then the next week we were getting off a bus and we found this guy again!  So we talked to him and it turns out he lived in California for 40 years and worked for the government then came down here to get married and start a family!  So we set up an appointment to go with him and we should go see him next week with his family!  We are hoping we can have a cool story come from this!!
The note for Romel...the guy we found
The word of the week by the way is chispas.  It is like dang it, shoot or rat farts!

I love you all and hope that you will have a great week and a fantastic New Year!

Love,

Elder Orchard
Elder Ordonez from Honduras

Me and some buddies

Ponche, a traditional drink here!  It is like warm apple juice but it has fruit and some sugar cane in it!  The sugar cane is good, the drink is good but the soggy fruit at the end is nasty!


Me and Elder Lund at our favorite taco place

Us doing Tangled lanterns