Wednesday, June 24, 2015

God Loves Us and He Knows Us

Well this week was awesome!  To start off the pictures most of them came from the aquarium we went to!  It was super fun!  Alright so things are going really good! I am still loving life in the offices and things are just going good!  We have been working really hard and are just keep trucking on!  I will try and send some pictures of the offices next week so that way you guys can know what it looks like!  













I have awesome comps!  Things are going good and it is awesome that we have this trio and everyone wants to work so hard!  Sometimes it is tough and we don't have very much time to work but I have really started to learn the importance of time!  If you don't we only have like three lessons in a day and that doesn't cut it! I have already been able to learn so much from both of them and I am excited for the time we still have! However it is flying by!  Before we know it Elder Norr will be gone!  I make sure to remind him every day!

The whole financial side of things is kind of hard/stressful sometimes!  It is just a lot of work haha and I am not the greatest with the whole money side of things!  But little by little I will go learning!  I will  be great at the whole money management after I get done with this special assignment!  The best part is probably working so close to Pres and Sister Stutz!  We learn all sorts of stuff from them! It is funny doing their finances because you can see how they are by what they spend all their money on!  It just makes me laugh sometimes!  

We also had the chance to go the airport to send off some misisonaries! It was funny we get there and Sister Stutz  was like this is airport trip number 120 for us in the year we have been here! That is such a big amount but it seems like I will be going to the airport a few times!  The Mcdonalds selfie comes from the airport and it was really good! 

I want to tell a story that was a testimony to me about how God loves us and how he knows us!  We were doing some weekly planning and we decided to look at our area book and go through a list of old investigators!  Well we prayerfully selected a few names of people we wanted to try and go visit.  Well we had one name and we went out and looked for these people!  Well we ended up finding the first person in there house and we started talking and out of nowhere she started crying.  Well we start to teach a little bit not much and she just says ¨I have been going through a really tough time and God knew that I needed you guys!¨  It was super cool!  She is an awesome golden investigador!  She had read the Book of Mormon until Alma chapter 42 and she does prayers and totally understands and will start to progress really well here in the next few weeks I think!  It was a double testimony builder for me!  I know that God is not only preparing people for us to teach as missionaries but that we are all sons and daughters of him!  He knows us, he hears our prayers and he wants to help us! He knows what we need and he will respond to us!

Have a good week I love you guys a bunch!
Love,

Elder Orchard
Nerf guns!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

A Maid, Couches and Walmart


Well this week has been kind of crazy!  The whole change to the office was cool and we have been having a good time here!  Things sometimes get a little wild because we are living here with the other secretaries and occasionally the assistants!  Sometimes sleep is a little hard to come by!  But it is super super fun!  The week was definitely different then the missionary work I had done before!  We have a little more to do and so I work basically half days in the field!  I will try and give you a run down of what happened this week!

Tuesday was changes and so we went to Neza and had all the changes which I already knew where and with who I was going so more just hanging out and saying hi to everyone!
Goodbye Elder Ybanez

Elder Hammond went home

After we got to the offices and I just got settled in at the new house and did all of that stuff!  We went out to the area and worked for a little bit and called it a day!  

Wednesday was P-day again!  We went to Teotihuacan (the pyramids) which was super cool!  I took tons of pictures and we had a lot of fun!















However it was like a three hour trip which was kind of crappy but it was a good bus at least and we got to sit down instead of standing up!


It was tons of climbing stairs but I really enjoyed the trip! Super cool experience that we had!

Thursday was Polanco day!  We had to take Pres and Sister Stutz to get their fingerprints and green cards and stuff in the morning! But then we had to be back in the afternoon to pick up and drop off other papers!  Needless to say it was a cool day spent in a super rich part of Mexico city!  We went to this cool museum that I got pictures of!  Fun day as well!





Friday we were supposed to go clean out houses all day but luckily we had two trios and so Elder Norr and I went out and worked!  However usually that would have been me and my comp going to clean the houses and all that stuff!  So last week Elder Blotter only worked Tuesday and Saturday!  Talk about a crazy week!  I have never been so tired in my life I don't think!  We always have something to do!

Some interesting things about the offices:
We have a maid, It is a great time!
There is some more stress.
You get to work close with Pres. which is awesome!  He is really funny and a great guy!


The only problem is it is really comfortable! We have a maid, we have couches, Walmart close, tons of food and they are working on putting in a full sized kitchen!  It is awesome!  I am having some fun and just trying to work with the little time we have each day in the field! IT sure makes it a lot easier to give it all you got!

Have a good week and I love you guys!  

Love,

Elder Orchard

Monday, June 8, 2015

Financial Secretary

Cookies!!!!!!!!


Alright so I will be having changes again tomorrow!  I will be going to a ward that is called Leandro Valle and I will be the financial secretary!  Elder Norr will train me for six weeks and then he goes home and I am on my own!  Kind of fun it will be a good experience for sure!  I am kind of nervous but am excited at the same time!  I will always be with the President and will live in the offices which is kind of cool!  There are usually four Elders that live there but I will be in a trio and occasionally the Assistants are there with us too.  I am going to have fun.  It isn't as much working in the field and my p-day will be Wednesday.  I don't know if I will write Monday or Wednesday just so you know! We have a different p-day than the rest of the mission because we need to be there because people are always in and out of the offices.  The other set of secretaries have p-day on Tuesday so someone is always there.  So that is kind of the big news of the week.  I have known since Tuesday so that makes it easy as far as packing and such!
Daily Coke
Alright so other things that happened this week!  We found a super cool family that is progressing really really good!  We were a little scared because she was like yeah I didn't like that the last church I went to tried to baptize me right off the bat! So I was like crap we are going to have to work with her on this to get her to a fecha!  So we decided to wait and see what we could do about it!  So we go back the next day and I was like okay so we will just try and commit her to being baptized at a future time!  So I start and I was like Well maria just so you know we also bapti... and she cuts me off and was like yeah I will totally get baptized don't even worry about that!  and I was like oh okay and we also put dates to work for like a goal to work towards and she was like how about on my birthday which is the 17 of July?  And I just looked at Elder YbaƱez and was like yeah that should work!  It was super cool.  She is super ready and I am excited for their progression! She has a husband and a daughter that we are still trying to work on right now!  But things are going good out here for now!  Too bad I am leaving so soon!  I am so excited for what this ward has done! 
ward glasses activity
Also just a little funny insert for this letter! We weren't allowed to work yesterday because of the elections! And Saturday we had to be back early because it was supposedly dangerous! Hmm...who knows it is just kind of funny!  Everything is different here!  They paid people to vote for them and so the elections are all pretty bad if you know what I mean!  I guess not bad just different! 
Funny picture I took like all the drunks


Have a good week and I will talk to you guys again next week!

Love

Elder Orchard

Jacket I bought

Lime Pie


money says SUD santos de los ultimos dias (saints of the latter days)

Lighting in a house rather than through the ceiling it just comes through the wall and they hang it up.  It made me laugh.


Monday, June 1, 2015

Everything I Eat Goes to My Hips

Palomitas!  (popcorn)
I am not going to lie I had kind of a really slow week!  I guess not really slow but we had a typical week so it kind of felt like just normal!  I don't know!  WE finally got a really cool reference from a member!  Hopefully they will start to progress!  We are putting a few more fechas with people and things are just going how they should!  I am loving my time here even though the hills I climb are huge!  My grey suit still doesn't fit me!  Crap!  That one might be staying in this area! haha 

I can not believe how fast time goes! It is already summer again! We will have transfers this next week and rumor has it that I am going to get transferred!  Kind of sad I was just starting to like this area and get used to the hills!  I am kind of scared that I am going to get even fatter but I will work on it!  The problem is that all the food goes straight to my butt!  I am going through my midlife crisis in a way I think!  Everything I eat goes to my hips!  

Funny ish story for the week!  So we got a new Elders Quorum President (we had a little bit of a say in it) and so we have been really helping him in his new calling!  Well we go over there this week one day and he was totally just playing Minecraft!  This guy is like 55 and has grandkids and he is just playing Minecraft with his kid and so he plays that a lot!  haha But he is super super funny and cool!  He built an MTC there in the game haha he always has us cracking up!  

Depressing story of the week..the price of Coke is going up! :( And the coke I am drinking has 117 percent of my daily sugar intake  That is why coke is so much better here!!  Coke count from the week, 7 litres of coke I have drunk.

Friday we had a movie night!  That was a great turn out! We had popcorn, drinks, chicharrones!  The works! Candy, everything!  However if the members wanted to come in they had to bring someone!  We made movie tickets and everything and it was so so so successful!  We are slowly but surely seeing the ward come together and help us out! It is awesome!  We have more activities like that one coming up and are so excited to see how we do!
Welcome to cine sud guest staring Elder Hernandez and Linares

Watching Meet The Mormons

Me and Elder Hernandez


This weeks word would be Boletos It means tickets!
Hicimos boletos para el cine! WE made movie tickets!

Love you guys!  Have a good week!

Elder Orchard



Habanero pepper.  It really hurts going in, doesn't hurt coming out.

I bought MANGOOOOOO