Moving Day in a Taxi

Alright well sorry I am super late!  My companion got super sick on Sunday night! He had a 102 degree fever and on Monday when he woke up it still hadn't broke and so we had to go to the hospital and we just barely got released yesterday! I figured since that happened I won't have much to write about next week and so I am just going to combine it all right now!  It seems like a lot has happened since I talked to you guys last!  A couple new promising investigators and a baptism!  So here we go!

Tuesday we had a very very long day!  We had big plans to have two different family nights but one of them canceled on us and so we had to fill the time with a lot of contacts and trying to find less actives and all of that didn't really work out for us!  We walked and walked! We contacted in the street! We knocked doors! We went with everyone we could think of! Even active members and nobody was home!  So then we went with the young men to try and find some young men and that didn't work either! We ended up walking around the whole day with nothing! Then it was finally time for the other family night and we were excited to finally get into a house!  So we got there and they had invited a friend to listen to us again! It was awesome to see how we had hoped this activity would work! It was a blessing and we were so grateful to be able to see everything we had done finally go right!  So we talked with the friend after and set up an appointment to go back and teach them! She had even said that she had always wanted to go into the church but she didn't think she would be allowed in!  We are excited to be able to teach her!

Wednesday was more of the same!  We had the food with the Family Macedo and that was awesome I love eating with them!  So we did that and then we headed out to find more people but that was never really that successful!  So then we ended up going back to the family Macedo house so that way we could have the family night with them and it was probably one of the best lessons I have ever had in my mission! You could really feel the spirit and it was awesome!  The mom was there and she hasn't gone to church very frequently and she just broke down and let us know everything that was going on and it was awesome to be able to have the spirit guide us through our planning and through the lesson!

Thursday was a day where we didn't leave the offices.  Elder Olson had to go to Polanco and so I stayed for a capacitation that we had! Turned out the person who gave it was related to someone that lives in our neighborhood!  So that was pretty cool!  

Friday was really the crazy day of the week!  With changes coming up on Monday we had to open up two houses and get everything furnished so that was our task today!  President wasn't able to help and so we paid someone from our ward to drive us around and get everything done in his van!  Well we get the van all loaded up and we take off and then the van end ups dying on us!  It just stopped working out of nowhere! So we get it towed to a mechanic shop and we paid someone else there off the street to help us with the first of two trips and we decided we will figure out what we do from there!  Well we get the trip done and then we head back in Betos Taxi and decide we will just take two really really long trips to get everything done!  So that is what we did! I don't think a taxi has ever been so full before! We ended up getting everything done and we got home at 12 at night!  It was a very very long day but it all had to get done on that day because we had our baptism on Saturday!  So it ended up being a super crazy time!  It was fun though I hope you enjoy the pictures we sent of our trips!!  

Saturday was a really relaxing day!  We got our work done and then just the normal we went and cleaned the font and got everything ready for our baptism! Lucky the young men had an activity so that way they were there! The baptism went pretty good!  I didn't think we would end up having enough water for it but somehow we pulled it off!!  It was a good day!

Sunday just the normal changes thing to get things all done! 

Monday was changes day but the Pope was also here in Mexico and so that made traffic crazy!

I got this picture from Sister Stutznegger and not from Douglas.  I don't believe he was there.  This is what she wrote about it:  "El Papa" is visiting Mexico City - quite the sight! Our missionaries have all walked this plaza in downtown Mexico City. This plaza - Zocolo - is about 3 miles away from our mission office.

We ended up getting everything figured out for the news they got here but Elder Olson was super sick! He had a 102 degree fever and so that was scary but the good news is one of the assistants is a doctor and so that helped us a lot but we ended up taking him to the hospital and we stayed there until Thursday morning.  Then in the afternoon we had to do special changes for some dumb missionaries and so we had to run beds around for a trio and change the mattresses for people that have bed bugs and so that was the whole day on Thursday for us! Again with the taxi! The police stopped us twice this time though but with a little bribing with money we were able to go along without any problems!

Friday we had tons office stuff that we hadn't done all week! It was pretty stressful!  But we got it done then I went to the doctor and we stayed at Presidents house!

Turns out on Thursday I will have a colonoscopy so that is the only new news we have from the doctor!  Sounds like a whole lot of fun doesn't it!  Well I think that is kind of my quick two week letter hopefully it makes a little bit of sense!  I hope you all have a good week and I love you!

Elder Orchard 

I Love This Time I Have to Be A Missionary

This week felt like it took forever! Who knows why!  It was pretty weird and pretty hard to get going for some reason!  We had a pretty decent week and we have been doing good with the people we have but I tell you what it has sure been hard finding people to teach!!  We are kind of at a hard place right now!  Contacting isn't giving us really any results and so we are trying to start and put a little more importance in the members!  We also had an awesome night with Pres on Friday but I will tell you about that in a little while!!  

Monday we were in the offices in the morning and then we went out to the area for a little bit in the afternoon.  We didn't really have tons of great lessons or anything!  We just went out and did some contacting and visited a couple people!  Then we headed to our district meeting and called it a day because it was then time to go home.  

Tuesday we went and saw Abraham and taught a lesson there! He has progressed so much and you can really just see the diference that living the gospel has had in his life.  He has really been doing everything we have asked and he is progressing perfectly for his baptism!  He is really really excited for it!  He will have his interview next week.  Then we went with the Family Camacho.  They are doing good it was nice to go see and talk to them!  They committed themselves to going to our activity on Friday and so we are very very excited to see all of that!  We are excited and lots of people are saying they will go and so we are hoping for a good turnout!

Wednesday we taught a with member lesson at the food to Kathia one of the Cousins of Daniel.  We feel like we are really close to having her commit but she just is missing a little bit!  She is starting to read the Book of Mormon and we are hoping that can change her life.  It is hard because she doesn't really want us to teach her all the much because she has already listened to missionaries before. She actually really really knows a lot and so that is the hard thing.  She just hasn't really had a change of heart to be able to open up and listen and accept so we are hoping for that!

Thursday was a really rough day for us.  We had to wait for the internet to come to the Nebekers house.  So we were there and waiting and waiting and it took them sooo long to get there!  We spent a good chunk of our day there waiting for them. Then by the time we made food for us and headed out we had time for a few appointments before we went to our Priesthood meeting.  So we were just about to go and then they ended up canceling because we couldn't get keys in time to get it open and nobody from the bishopric could make it there.  So it was kind of depressing but it happened!  

Friday we went to the temple.  It was awesome to be able to get there and do a session again.  Then we ate in the cafeteria which was ehh.  Not my favorite but it took away my hunger so that is good.  Then we got home and just got everything ready to go for the activity and so we headed out to that and it was awesome!  We had an awesome turnout!  Pres gave an awesome Presentation on members and missionaries and the ward loved it!  We had all sorts of success and it was just awesome to be able to see everyone there together working as a team!  The Family Camacho was totally into the activity and everything it was amazing!  Hopefully we can start to see changes so that way the ward just gives us references so that way we can find some new people.

Daniella is only 4 but she can recite all 13 Article of Faith.  Picture compliments of Sister Nebeker.

Saturday we ate with one of our favorite ladies from the ward!  She gave us some awesome food!  Then we headed off to the temple with Abraham and a family that was a reference! They were super cool and super chosen! Then only problem is we found out after that they didn't live in our area! They live on the other side of the mission! But I am sure here soon they will get baptized! They are really great and they have lots of potential! They asked great questions and the spirit was definitely there when we were talking about the family and put on a video! It was really really cool too bad they live sooo far away!  

Sunday was pretty lame! Just the usual church and meetings and food! Then we went to our missionary correlacion meeting which was good and we had a family night which was fun! We ate good food and played a really fun game!  It was a good day!  Then we just came home and kind of crashed because we were tired!  It was a long week and we were just exhausted! 

I "borrowed" this picture from Facebook.  The person that added it said  #fhe #halftimeshow.  I'm just guessing that Elder Orchard may have gotten a peek at the Superbowl!

This weeks little thought comes from Alma 26! It seems like I quote this a lot!  But it is something that I love and is so true!  It is talking about the success that Amman and his brothers had in missionary work and it is something that I really really liked! It reads like this:

15 Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

There are tons of people around us that are encircled about by this everlasting darkness!  They are looking for the Gospel and when they find it they can come into this everlasting light! It is such a joy to be able to do what this scripture says and be instruments in the hands of God! I know that us as missionaries really don't do much as far as the conversion process for other people! But when we are converted to the Gospel we can be these instruments in the lords hand!  This is not an experience that is exclusive to missionaries but a promise that goes for everyone that opens there mouth to share the gospel!  I love this time I have to be a missionary! It is crazy to think that it is winding down!  Helping people find this light is a great blessing and I am grateful that I have been able to do that with a few people down here in Mexico city!  It is a great blessing that we have to serve!

Have a great week!

love,

Elder Orchard

Sister Nebeker with a "sweet woman that had them for dinner".  Picture compliments of Sister Nebeker.

Elder Nebeker with his trainers.  Photo credit to Sister Nebeker.

Nebekers are Finally Here!

Heyyyyyooooooo

This week has sure been something!!  It was kind of a long and hard week for us!!  We spent a lot of time getting things ready and trying to make everything work out and it is just kind of going right now!!  We had a lot of good things happen and somethings we are not all that excited about!!  I guess first off is the Nebekers are finally here!!  They are starting their training right now!  The family just keeps getting bigger!  It will be awesome to have them here and we are super excited!!  It will be a good learning experience for all of us!!  So that is kind of the biggest news of the week!!

In other news next week we will be having a baptism!!  Abraham is finally gettting baptized and he is awesome! He is doing great!  Things are really just rolling with him! He studies he does his homework and he understands!  So next week we will be getting into the water again! It has been quite a while!  About four months!  It has been quite a little dry spell!  We are hoping that our ward can start to have a lot of success and start having more baptisms in our ward!  We are hopeful that the Senior couple can come and help us get somethings going and get the work really moving! Apart from that we have the president coming to introduce them in our ward and give some presentation to our ward about members and missionaries! We are super excited to see what he will say!

Alright well on Tuesday we had a really slow day!  Literally nobody was in their house! We just kind of walked around for a little while!  It wasn't our best day ever! Really nobody was there to visit!

Wednesday we had a pretty good day though! That at least kind of made up for what had happened on Tuesday!  We went and saw an investigator that we are kind of working with! She is being really really difficult!  But it was cool because we were with our member that works in the MTC so we did some practices with her and him to work on things and it was really fun!  Then we saw our ward mission leader and worked a little bit with him!

Thursday we had probably our best day of the week!!  We went with the ward mission leader to eat and then we went and only had time for one visit before we went to our PEC meeting! So we went with a family that was in teaching a little while ago!  So we went to see what we could do! They went to church a lot but never actually got baptized! Well turns out the coolest most chosen one of the family is Rodrigo the 12 year old! He put the goal to go to church every Sunday this year! We are hoping that he can get baptized soon!  But they are a family of five and so we have high hopes for them!  Then we went to our PEC meeting and our ward just had tons of great ideas!  Hopefully they actually do things rather than just leaving them as it is!

Friday we went and taught Abraham and it was so easy! It is awesome when people actually do what we leave them!  It is actually really fun to have them teach us as missionaries!  They learn a lot more and you can really see their progress!  And what they understand!  It is really fun to teach abraham it reminds me when we use to teach Laura!  We can teach a lot more in depth and he follows along!  He has really really good comprehension! And then we tried to go see Camacho but they weren't there! IT was so sad!  We are hoping we can see them again this week before it gets too crazy!  

Saturday!  We went to the Airport to pick up our Kids!  Then we went out to a buffet and ate before we went to stake conference!  It was really good!  Elder Valenzuela is amazing!  He says all sorts of powerful things!  I learned a lot!  

Sunday was conference again!  It was probably the best stake conference I have ever been in!  The messages shared were soooo powerful!  Pres gave an amazing talk!  Elder Valenzuela also killed it with his talk!  I left very uplifted spiritually!  It was awesome to see!

Alright the spiritual thought of the week came from an experience Elder Olson and I had about a week ago!  We were talking about how we haven't really had as much success as we wished here in the offices! We are in a pretty hard area as far as baptisms go! Sometimes the work gets slow and we don't baptize all that much!  So we were getting a little disanimated over it!  And we read something in preach my gospel that says we should try to serve and make the ward better wherever it is that we are assigned!  Well in the long time we have here we have seen our assistance (attendance??) at church go from an average of 55 to an average of about 85!  We have only baptized a couple people here but the whole demeanor of the ward has changed!  We have every major calling filled now!  We have our PEC meeting we are making the changes that we need to be an amazing ward!  So that made us cheer up a little bit!  A lot of times as missionaries we base our success off of baptisms! But there is a lot more that goes into it!  There is a scripture in Alma that talks about missionary work!  It is an amazing story that talks all about exactly how it is being a missionary!!  But just one of the verses I love from it goes like this:

 27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

 30 And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some.

 31 Now behold, we can look forth and see the fruits of our labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea, and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us.

This scripture has really meant a lot to me in the mission!  I know that it is really tough being a missionary! Sometimes it is just really hard!  You get disanimated and feel like you can't go on! But I know that God will always be there to do what he did with Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah!  He loves us and wants us to have success!  When we put our trust in him and we are patient in everything and keep working hard we will see the success that we have had when we look back! Just like Elder Olson and I experienced!  Have a great week! I love you guys!

Love

Elder Orchard