Monday, March 30, 2015

It All Started Out With Going To The Hospital

Us getting tacos
This week was kind of tough I am not going to lie!!  It all started out with going to the Hospital because my comp got a little sick!  He has falla reinal!  I have no idea what it would be in English but it has to do with your kidneys so we went to the doctor that day and well we couldn't work so that was kind of boring!!  I watched all of The District that day and I learned a lot!!  So that was good!  He is doing better now though that was the only day that we got restrained and so that is good!!  But that is why I got this picture of the typewritter.  It was like stepping back into the past!

The rest of the week we did a lot a lot of contacts and everyone just declined!  But really ugly like!!  So we started to get a little depressed and so we decided to go to the church.  Well once we were in the church there was a member there with a friend that wanted to learn more about the church and so we taught her and she was really cool!!  She has some problems but things are good.  We taught her and things should get better! Well if she would just come to church!!  Ugh that is the problem with most people we teach, they want to learn but don't want to keep commitments!

Lets see anything else cool happen?  Well just that we are actually starting to see improvement with our ward!  They finally want to help us out!  It helps having another set of Elders here that is actually working.  They are getting excited!!  We are starting to try and have Preach My Gospel classes but they don't show up!  But the ward is finally starting to take the steps to work as a functioning unit.  I am loving Preach My Gospel and there are all sorts of great things to use from there!  One says that the way that missionary work is suppose to be is that the members find people and that the missionaries are just there to teach.  Obviously we have to do contacting and things like that but we are supposed to receive people through the members to teach!! One thing I have realized here is how much work there is to do and how much the members can help with the work!  I will definitely start to help once I get home!!

This week we will not be allowed to work on Friday at all and then on Saturday we can only go to conference at the stake center which I have heard I will watch in English but we will see.

I was sitting outside studying and a lizard came next to me!  And it like started to do push ups and it was funny because the word for push up and lizard are the same in Spanish.  It made me laugh!!  So this week's work is lagartijas and it has two meanings.  The first is a lizard and it also means push-ups.  ayer hicimos un buen de lagartijas.  ayer ví una lagartija.  Yesterday we did a lot of pushups and yesterday I saw a lizard!

Have a good week and I will talk to you next week!!
Les quiero,
Elder Orchard



Our hike


8 people, 1 taxi

Carnitas or a dead pig.  That was our breakfast the next day.


Monday, March 23, 2015

We Are Already Starting to See Some Improvements



So this week was transfers week!  The good news is that I am still here!!  No surprise since they told me I wouldn't leave and because I am still training Elder Preciado!  However I did go to pick up the old assistant and bring him here!!  It is awesome being able to work in the same ward as him!!  I am already learning so much!  I take every chance to try and pick his brain!!  We are already starting to see some improvements!!  It is a complete change because the last companionship here didn't really work all that hard and so now that we have two sets of missionaries working hard we are starting to see some good changes!  The members are starting to want to help and we have really began to see everything change! We are FINALLY recieving some referenses or however you spell that sorry! I was terrible at spelling before and now I Speak less then 30 percent english during the week and so I am struggling writing home!  But that is good right?  Anyways we have already in just one short week have started to see changes in the ward!!  Except I ate chicharon again this week! That is the death of all american missionaries!  It is tough!!  I will try and get a picture of it next time we eat it!  Chicharon means gut ache and diarreah within about thirty minutes of the food!

Alright as far as really cool stories for this week we don't have much!  We are really struggling finding people to teach and finding people that are wanting to progress!  So this is where we are at right now!!  However there is one guy whose name is roberto!  He is the guy from the seafood!  Well he is basically a forever investigador however this week he came to church!!  Thanks to preach My Gospel we were able to commit him to coming to church!  I absolutly love Preach My Gospel!  I am so blessed to have President Stutznegger here!  He is putting a really big emphasis on PMG and so we have a lot of time to study!!  Well thanks to the principles that I learned in Preach My Gospel I commited him to coming to church!!  
Elder Smith who just went home
So we are having some success but we also have some things happen that I just can't believe!!  The other day we went to a Less active families house for an appointment that we had planned and called and confirmed!  So we show up and I knock on the door and we wait.  then I knock again!  Then I yell water to see if maybe something else will get them out of their house!  Well nothing!  (This family has a history of hiding from us).  So finally I went and knocked on the window and waited and waited.  Well part of the curtain was open and I could see in the house and all of them were just sitting at the table silently waiting for us to leave!  I was a little frustrated and so I yelled through the window, It is okay we will just come by a different day!  Have a good day!  That is somehting that happens a lot that I am kind of sick of!!  One thing that is funny however is that we have a little time system haha!  With the other missionaries when we establish something we establish it in american or mexican time.  If it is american time we establish it and that is it!  If it is mexican time we plan it thirty minutes in advance!  It is sad but it is very true that that is how people are!  
View of the city from the roof




This weeks word is Estrenar! It means like to break in or to make a debut!  Estamos estenando Elder Mafi aqui en paraiso!  We are breaking in Elder Mafi in ward paradise.
have a good week and I will talk to you all again next week!!  
Love,
Elder Orchard

Service project we did painting a house...again

Monday, March 16, 2015

This Week I Saw Something That I Can Never Forget

Alright so this week was a good week!  We had a lot of fun with the work that we did!!  We worked hard!  We may not have received all the success we were hoping for but we worked hard!!  Still just doing lots of contacts but not many people are accepting us!  However I did come up with a new way to get into every door! All you have to do is ask for a glass or water!  Boom right in!  The people are usually nice enough to give it to you and it is a great entrance!  It was funny because the first time I did it I didn't tell Elder Preciado about it!  I knocked the door and said are you thirsty?  He said what and they had already opened the door so it was so funny!!  But it worked because we got a new appointment with the people later hahaha!  
Elder Padron, a buddy
Alright well this week I saw something that I can never forget!  We had just gotten done with an appointment so we start walking to the house!   Well we see this taxi pull up in front of our house by the hill we live on and two guys get out of the car!  Elder Preciado tells me be careful I don't like the look of these guys!  Well there was a girl literally right in front of our house texting on her phone!  Well there was the victim.  The guys robbed her right in front of our face like ten yards in front of us!  If I close my eyes I can still see the replay.  I can see everything perfect and can still hear her scream!  I can still see them take her phone and backpack.  But as missionaries there is nothing we can do!  Some guy tried to help and save her but it didn't work.  This happened like at 4 in the middle of the day!  It was something that scared me and I will always remember that!

So I have been teaching Elder Preciado some English!  He does alright and he already knew a  little bit before the mission!  He has kind of some signature phrases that I promise I didn't teach him!  But they are really funny at times!  We were walking in the street and he was like hey what is the difference between damn, and daaaaaammmmnnnnn!  Haha it is just too funny!  We always have moments like this!!

Alright well next week is missionary week in church just like every fourth Sunday!  So I will get the chance to speak and I am pretty sure that I will be speaking about the work of salvacion because that is a typical topic for the missionaries!  Well I found a great quote this is something that I thought was worth sharing! 
“It will be a great day,” taught President Gordon B. Hinckley, “when our people not only pray for the missionaries throughout the world, but ask the Lord to help them to assist the missionaries who are laboring in their own ward”

One of our key indicators is lessons taught with a member present. So my challange to you today is that we can not only pray for missionary work but that we can get out and do something about it!  Learn the lessons and help us out!!

The word of the week is regalar.  to gift more or less.  Nos regala un vaso de agua?  Will you give us a glass of water?

I love you all and have a great week!  I will talk to you next week!!

love,
Elder Orchard

Ferrari sticker on a Ford, very typical

pencil thing I bought this week

Me and Elder Solomon in the store of a member

Javier was asleep when we got to his house

Zone party last night



Monday, March 9, 2015

This Week Wasn't Terrible



Coconut I bought this week.  It was good.



This week wasn't terrible!  We have really been trying to find some people to teach and so we do a lot of contacts!  I am getting pretty decent at them and I just like to have a little bit of fun with all of them!  Some of my go to questions once they reject the contact:

Do you have time for God?
Do you think that God is Catholic?
How many Churches did Christ establish here? But how many are there?  Do you know how to know which is the right one?

Just a few little things that I like to do!  I mean we have to have a little fun!  But my favorite that I got like five kids on this week!  The kids come to the door and they are like my parents aren't home!  Oh that is okay but hey will you ask them when they will come back?  yeah sure! Then they run and ask their parents and it is always a good time!  

Cute kid helping a guy move paint on a Nacho Libre bike but his pants kept falling down!


Not many success stories as far as working this week but we did find some cool people that might have potential to progress!!  So this week I wanted to talk about the food because we had quite an interesting experience this week with food! 

So Tuesday was my first time eating chicharon y salsa verde! Chicharon is pig skin and it is kind of gross! Chicharon normal isn't bad kind of just like a chip but in salsa verde the best way I can describe it is like boogers!  It is bad!!  So then it was like okay that is fine!  I mean it happens and sometimes our food isn't the best!  So then we were suppose to eat with the bishops wife!  Well they have cameras outside of their house and so we sat there and rang and rang the doorbell so we finally call and she basicaly said you guys were suppose to come the week before (not true) so the food has ran out sorry elders!  I was kind of upset with her but I guess it is okay!  And then even later in the week we ate with someone who has the nickname the Sister Spicy because she always cooks us food that is so spicy!  Her food is almost the only type that makes me wanna cry at times!  It is really really really hot!  Like you go to the bathroom and it is terrible!  It feels like someone has just set the inside of your body on fire!

Alright now a cool food thing!  It is called two for one tacos friday nights!  However many you buy gets doubled!  So for three dollars you can get a coke and ten tacos!  The deal of the century!  Every friday we go!  No wonder my pants are ripping on me!! 
Tacos 2X1


Needless to say we haven't had the best food experiences this last week but this week should be better!!  We are going to eat huaraches with the members tomorrow so I am so ready for that!

Now to answer your questions!  We teach usually around 30 lessons a week!  The goal is 40 but this week we taught 35 and that is a usual week!  But no not really anyone that has started to just blow us away!  We need to find people this week so we can baptize again before my kid's training is over!  But other than that nothing exciting to report sorry!!  

This weeks word is Comida or food  La comida esta samana fue un poquito chafa!  (According to google translate:  The food this week was a bit crappy.)

I love you have a good week!

Love,
Elder Orchard

Chile that was so good.  It had cheese in it and it was really good!






Pina colada that was amazing!!

Monday, March 2, 2015

I Couldn't Remember How to Pray in English

Hola Familia!

I will appologize in advance for anything that doesn't make sense and things I spell wrong.
me making seafood

Salsa de Habanero that I can eat with almost no problems
This week was a really different week for us!  We have been doing a ton and I mean a ton of contacts all week and it just seems like we are not getting any results!  It is really frustrating!!  We do all sorts of stuff and the people send us to the Gomma all the time!!  I have gotten decent and sometimes I can get people to reconsider!  The funniest was this week though!!  We knocked a door and this little girl came out and she is like what?  I was like are your parents here?  and she told me no!  So I told her, Ask them when they are going to come back!  She said okay and walked back in!  So then the dad comes out and he was like no we don't have any time for you guys we are really busy!  So then I was like Hermano no tiene tiempo para Dios? (you don't have time for God)  And he paused for a little bit and was like no we are busy and so I just told him okay have a good day and we left!  Elder Preciado was kind of freaking out I don't know if he was scared or thought it was funny!  Haha I was enjoying myself though!!


me on a bike
(Just so no one is confused, Douglas is not in a bike area.  He walks and takes public transportation.)
Another Funny Story from the week!  We had just finished the meeting we have every Saturday with our ward mission leader!  Well I was picked to say the closing prayer and they asked me to say it in English!  That was probably the hardest thing I have done in a long time!  I literally couldn't do it!  I switched into spanish after like four sentences because I litterally just couldn't remember how to do it and it sounded terrible!  One of the other elders was like that was weird I didn't like that at all!  So basically I am toast when I get back!!  I will have to learn how to speak english again!   I mean I can usually speak fine here but that is with other americans that also speak spanish so my way of talking isn't weird. 
mini soccer

a party in the Sacrament room...that's how we do it in Mexico
Other than that not much happened!  We found an investigator but he already dropped us so that is really crappy!!  We will find someone this week though so I am not super worried!  I know that we are going to start to see the Lords hand in his work!  

The word of the week is cerro or hill.  hoy en la mañana subimos un cerro.  This morning we hiked a hill.

Have a good week!!

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Orchard

Excerpt from his letter to his dad.  Russell asked him if he started reading the book he mailed to him Drawing On the Powers of Heaven:  I did start and I almost finished but I have been studying a lot of preach my gospel in the morning and at night I am exhausted so I will hopefully finish soon!  But yeah it is good!  I have really been trying to focus on my prayers and make them better!  I think it was something I always just kind of took advantage of but I have been trying to be better with those!


5 people in the back seat of a taxi










Almost everything is spelled wrong and it made me crack up laughing!! 
This is how it should be spelled: 
Bienvenidos por Favor Bajar su basura gracias