Not Even the Stray Dogs Were Down to Be With Us

Hey all!  How is life going at home?  This week has been super super crazy! It was really hard to get into things and it seemed like everything was against us this week!  Everyone went on Vacations which was really really crappy!  It was hard to get people in their houses and everyone and their dog cancelled on us!  Not even the stray dogs from the street were down to be there with us!  However things are looking up for us! We are seeing tons of potential and are having people that we really think can progress!  We are hoping for the best!  There are lots of people that haven't progressed as well as we would have hoped but we still have faith and we are planning to get things done this week!  It will be just about the last full week of the cycle that we have to work but we are super excited! 

Tuesday was changes!  We went and got all that done and got the news out! We had some really really good news come this cycle!  Then we had the deads and we went and spent some time with them! 

I added this photo because I could see Elder Orchard there in the background looking all official at the table!

We also had to go out to Ixtapaluca for a Maleta (bag) that someone sent out there and they shouldn't have sent it so it has been really really weird!  It was a weird day all in all!

Wednesday was the longest day of the week by far! We hadn't slept much the night before and we were waking people up all night to get them ready for their flights!  The day started at 3 am with about one hour of sleep!  We headed out to the airport and things took forever!  We had lots of things go wrong that we hadn't really seen the whole time that we had been there! I mean I am basically a pro at the whole airport thing now and things were coming up and i was like how in the world does that happen!   It was super super hard to say bye to Olson though!  It was a sad moment!

Laura Lowe (The Stutznegger's daughter.  Elder Orchard has gotten to know her family quite well from being an office Elder.  She is as awesome as her parents!)

It is six weeks that I will be without him but it is like nacho without eskeleto, or peanut butter without jelly, Coke without tacos, and all that stuff! It is just too weird without him here!  So from there we went and got everyone dropped off and then we headed out to our area because we had citas.  It made for quite the day that is for sure!  So we went there and went with a family that was going to give us a reference but they said they couldn't because his mom had died so he took us with his family to sing a song and do a prayer and we talked a little bit with them! We will see if they end up wanting anything from the gospel right now! Then the food which went good we showed up kind of late but it turned out good in the end! Then we just kinda walked around like zombies for a little while! 

Thursday was just about as bad! We tried to find a bunch of people but they weren't home! Then we had to help someone lower the stairs in their house but we did end up going with the Family Aguilar Santiago which are doing good! They are progressing well and had done some reading and we had a good lesson with them! They gave us some amazing tostadas de tinga which I loved!  It was so good! Some of the best I have had!  

Friday was a pretty decent day! The morning just kinda sucked but we had a good time in the afternoon! We had been in a trio but we sent him on divisiones with the zone leaders from Oriental which was good we could go back to working really really hard like we had before and we were able to find a few new people to teach! Hopefully they can just move on and progress quite well.  Then we went and ate with a family that we are teaching their daughter and we are hoping that she can progress enough to get baptized here before we have to head out! 

Saturday was our best day! We found some less actives and found some part member families from it, Then we went and found someone else we had been looking for! The highlight was Enrique and his wife Magali! They are progressing sooo well! They are reading and praying and doing everything that we are hoping they could have done!  Also they are already married which is the best news of all!!  Hopefully more to come from them in the coming weeks! We might move their baptism up depending on how they do! Also we had english and music classes and it was a huge success! We have an amazing family that gives us tons of references and so they just keep supplying us with people to teach!  It was funny they had told us about someone that the missionaries had been teaching before and we got her number and tried to call and set up an appointment but she said she would call us back, well we told her and we said we will keep trying to call them and she was like no I will call and get us an appointment for this week and so tomorrow we will see how that goes! 

Well this week has been full of blessings and we hope to see tons more this week!  Thanks for all your support! Love you all!

Elder Orchard 

Lots of Lessons and Fechas

Wow the weeks just go by faster and faster I feel like!  It is crazy to think that I am in my last cycle!  I guess we just have to take advantage of the little time! Shumway only has four weeks left so we have to work really really hard in this time!  But I guess we might as well get started on this email! 

Tuesday Today we honestly had a really really good day!!  We had tons and tons of lessons and we found a bunch of news and had a ton of lessons with member present! I honestly don't remember how we got so much but it was super super cool! WE also did some divisiones and they went good! We found a couple families that we hope can progress really really well!

Wednesday we  did divisiones with Pantitlan which went super good!  We had tons of fun with them! We had again a ton of success!!  We have been able to work really really hard.  We had a bunch of with member and had another ten lessons today! The coolest part was the family that we had found last week!  They are doing really really well!  They accepted the baptism invitation really well!  Hopefully we can put a fecha with them here pretty quick!  We also went to consejo de barrio and went and found a few people that we have really high hopes for! 

Thursday we went and ate breakfast with a sister and then we headed to the offices to pick up a missionary that wanted to come work with us while his comp went to the doctor and so we went and got him and it was super cool!  We didn't have much the rest of the day though which was the sad part! It is hard to do divisiones two days in a row because we run out of people to teach if all four of us are in the area! 

Friday we went with margarita but we really don't think that she is going to progress all that well which is sad.  WE also went with Aguilar santiago and they accepted the fecha sooo well!  This was my first time meeting them and they are amazing! They have an amazing story honestly!    We also found this really cool guy that let us in his house because his nephew is a missionary and that was a cool little lesson! His wife will be a problem though because I am not sure she will let him progress!

Saturday we had to work on the changes! We got notified that people we weren't expecting were coming.  So we got all that figured out and then we went to the food which was really really good!  Then we went out and found the family ramirez which is ivan who is progressing really really well towards a fecha! But he has to go to oaxaca this week so it will be a little longer until he gets baptized but we just need to teach him some things and then we are good!!  He has most of the things but not all the teaching! The commandments but that will be easy since his wife is a member!  Then in the night we had music and english classes which we had tons of success!  WE got tons of people there and had about six investigators which was super cool!  Then at church we had lots of people show up and they had fechas which was good!!  

I love you guys!  have a great week!  Enjoy the emails while they last because they are going to get shorter and shorter! 

Love

Elder orchard

An Amazing Temple Trip

Alright well this week flew by just like every week!!  I didn't take any pictures sorry but it is okay!  It was a really good week we tried to work hard and we saw tons of benefits!  We contacted a bunch the second half of last week and so we were able to see the blessings the first part of this week!!

Tuesday we were on Divisions with the Zone leaders from Los Reyes.  We had lots of good plans to find some people and our goal was to contact a lot with them!  They kind of struggle contacting so we were really really focused on helping them with that!  So we headed out and we sure were able to kill it!!  We had a really good day! My comp ended up finding 8 news and so he killed it and I was able to put a fecha that we were really stoked about! He was a guy that has had an amazing change and would love to get baptized now! He has come a long way!!  Here in a few more weeks and he should be baptized!

Wednesday we were able to find another seven news! It was a super rewarding day! We have been working as hard as we possible can and we are seeing all sorts of benefits!  we were also able to get some good contacts done and all sorts of good stuff like that before heading into the offices so that we could go to the temple with the people that are finishing their mission!  It was fun to see all the people that I have been with for so long So that was good!

Thursday we went to the temple.  It was such a good experience!

I felt the spirit really strong and had an amazing time there!  It really helped us to keep working so hard!!  Then we went to lunch and that was good! We went to a buffet and so that was good for me to gain a bunch of weight again!

Then we went and had a testimony meeting which went really good!  All in all was a really spiritual day!

Friday we had mission council and that went good! Pres had to leave half way through and so we were in charge for most of the time! We were really able to talk about all sorts of good things that our mission needs! We really need to find more news as a mission and so we talked a lot about that and we have put some goals to try and find a lot more people here in the next little bit of time that we have!  We are hoping to see lots of changes here! We are working hard and hope the missionaries can see that! We were also able to put another fecha today!  

Saturday we had another amazing day! We were able to start off by putting two fechas with a family that we had found last week!  We have had some amazing lessons the past little while! We have seen our area change from not having anything to having a little more than before! WE also had some english classes and found a super cool Family! The only problem is at one point in the lesson the mom looked at her husband and then just started yelling that he was satan and so it was super awkward! Other than that though everything was good!  Wish it could have turned out better than that but sometimes it doesn't! 

Things are looking really good here though! I am super happy and we are just working hard trying to see some blessings!  We have sure seen a bunch but we know that there are many many more people here in our area that we need to help!  One cool thing from this week is we had everything fall one morning and my comp felt impressed to go with a family that we had contacted!  Well we had just contacted the boy one Friday he said we could go on Saturday but then we couldn't find him again! Well he felt impressed to go I said I trust you lets do it and also got some spiritual confirmation! The likelihood of everything working out was really really slim!  It was a 13 year old boy that we had contacted and the chance that his parents will let him was just too bad!  We get there and the grandma comes to the door and says oh come in! It was a cool lesson and they are planning on presenting us to their family this week to meet the rest of them! They seem chosen but I guess we will see how it goes from here!!

Have a great week! 

love

Elder Orchard

Some Legal Problems, A Baptism and We Overhead Plans for a Robbery!

Well this week was a pretty long week that is for sure!  We really worked really hard and we saw lots of lots of blessings! We worked really really hard that is for sure! We worked all week and we contacted a bunch!  We had some legal problems!  We had some interesting conversations!  It was great.

Tuesday we did divisiones with the zone leaders from Ixtapaluca 2.  We had a good day and we started working hard but then I got a call from President.  Well we had opened a house in Fovisste a little while ago and we are having tons of problems out there.  The dueña is accusing her of keying their car and having tons of parties and all sorts of stuff and so we had to hire some lawyers to finish the contract and according to the sister missionaries it was really bad and she was a terrible lady!  Well this day I had to go to the office twice to get things signed and talk with people since I was the one that signed the first contract!  So that ended up taking all day!  

Wednesday we went in the morning to get the contract done and take the things out of their house! Everything went over quite well!  In my opinion none of this was really that necessary and the dueña was super nice and she would have been able to fix the problems! Besides we paid a lot of money in getting them out and in paying the lawyers and getting everything resolved but I guess it happens sometimes! But we took forever cleaning the house and getting everything out and taking it to the new house! It was a whole lot of work and their house is so small that literally there was no room for anything there!  It looked like a storage garage honestly!  It was terrible!  We then went out for hamburgers with Pres and the Nebs so that was cool!  Then we went and talked with our investigators and got all that figured out with them it was a good day!  

Thursday we went and found some cool inactive guy and we started to work with him! He has part of his family and all that that aren't members and we are hoping we can get some people from him! WE also just started doing a ton of contacts and trying to find lots of people to teach! We did about twenty contacts a day and so that was rough but we were able to see some success out of it!  

Friday we started out and had a lot of good lessons and we worked hard!  and then we just went with some people that we were trying to make news and we were able to do it! 

Saturday we went out to a baptism in ixtapaluca and it was good then we just went with the contacts that we had found and we started to talk with them but really we didn't find many people that were really interested

Sunday was kind of the best day! We got super blessed and a family that we had contacted came with us to church!  It was really cool. they came and they were super stoked about it.  Also we went to a baptism and I baptized santiago which was cool again!

 I really love that family and they are doing well.  they went back to church which was really cool too and Tania should be baptized again!  

Alright so one little funny story for this week!  We were walking away from a cita and we were on a really busy road and we have two guys that definitely look like some scetchier guys right there were obviousy delinquents.  so we are there doing our thing and we start listening to what they are saying and the one guy said okay so we get into the taxi and you just stay with him there and hold him down so he doesn't leave and I will go out and collect the stuff from the people we decide to take from.  and all the plan that they had so they were planning how they were going to rob all the stuff it was pretty funny honestly!  They got it all planned out!  Gotta love Mexico!

Have a good week! 

Love

Elder Orchard

A Miracle and a Trip to the Zoo

Well this was just a really really cool week!  At the start of the week we didn't have much!  We had put the goal to baptize five people together and this was our last week to be able to work and get some success so we took off to work with not much!  We found a family last week and they weren't sure if they were members or not so we decided well we better see if they have any registros!  So we headed off to get that done in the offices and I just got a text Tuesday afternoon from mother Nebs saying, you are stoked they don't have any cedulas!  So there we were happy as could be but we still had to get them interviewed let them know and convince them to get it done this week!  SO that is quite a lot of work for one week but it definitely isn't too much to ask for!!  Especially if you work hard enough!  So we just happened to be on divisions the night that we went to look for them and we had taken the zone leaders with us! So we end up finding them and they were super super excited to get baptized! We didn't even have to try and help them to want to!  Then they got their interviews done and that was super cool! The zone leaders said it was a super spiritual experience for them to have!  So that was a miracle we saw this week!  But I guess I will get on with the week!

Tuesday we went and worked hard! We finally got an investigator to commit to getting married now we just have to figure out the date that they are going to do it! so that was really cool!  and we went with someone else we are trying to baptize but they wont go to church but we had an amazing lesson!  And we used something that pres had implemented that really seemed to work for us!  

Wednesday we went and trained all the district leaders on what they were suppose to do!  That went pretty good!  It seemed to work!  Then we went and we tried to find the family which we did and got all their stuff done and we had ward council which was super cool!   They work really well!  And then like always we went for tacos at tacos tepalcates!  It was super good! 

Thursday we had weekly planning and we came into the offices to send something to pres and then headed out to work with the people that we had! We went with all sorts of people today and had a pretty good amount of success! We also met another member of the family that we were going to baptize and we hoped to get him baptized too but then he didn't actually want to do it! So hopefully he will want to get baptized here soon!

Friday we had everything going good and we decided we needed to go out and get things figured out with the pila (font) since it was still full! Well we did that and we got it all drained but we had to take stuff to a house in one of the areas because they had to get out of everything!  Then we were going to go to our special interview so someone could get baptized!  It went good because then we went and put another fecha!

Saturday we went to Chapuletepec with the Nebekers! We went to the zoo and the castle and it was just such a good time! It was fun to go and be with them the whole day! 

Then we went to zocalo and picked up my comps suit and all that good stuff! It was a successful day!  Then we headed back and had our baptism! 

It was a super cool baptism!  One of the ladies got up and bore her testimony and had said that she was praying and asked God for an answer and asked for him to forgive her and then we showed up and said she had to get baptized and that would take away all their sins and she just started crying it was super super cool!  We felt the spirit a whole bunch!  

Then on sunday everyone came we were waiting on!  That was cool and we had a lot of fun!  My comp was there for his last week and so he was just saying goodbye to everyone and we had everything going good!  

Well I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Orchard

A Busy Week of Zone Conferences

Expiration date is after he gets home!

Hello everyone! Well this week has been wild!  We were doing all sorts of stuff with zone conference and so we were super busy and we didn't get all that much time in our area but we were able to see all sorts of success!  We were able to find some more new people that were able to progress really well!  They are already going to church and they have hermanadores and everything and we are so stoked!  We really got blessed this week and we are hoping to be able to find lots of more people this week when we actually get to work!  We already have planned to go with some of the references this week and so that will be good!  Also we are going to capacitate all the district leaders this week so that way we can work more smoothly!  We found a new family this week from some recent converts and so we are excited to see what they can become!  I am sorry this feels really lame already I am just too busy thinking about Americas birthday!

But I guess here is how it went

Tuesday we went to Zone conference in la Perla it went really well!

We changed up our capacitation and we had a lot more success with the missionaries! Once we finished there we headed home and started to talk to the people that had a fecha! We moved one for the next week because of her leg but she is doing really well!  We also tried to talk to the mom of one of our investigators and it didn't really work all that well but we are hoping that she will be able to get baptized! She has the desire but who knows what will happen with her!  Then we just went home and reported with everyone!

Wednesday we were in Neza which also went pretty well! 

We had a ton of people say that we had done good with our capacitation.  so we felt good about it. Then in the afternoon we went to Costco with Pres.  It was super fun! Then we went to Pres' house and started working on changes! We have tons of people that are going home this cycle and so that is why we had to get started right now! Tons and tons of stuff going on!  Then we went to tres coyotes! 

That is such a good taco place!  Then that was it for the day!

Thursday was the last day of Zone Conference! We were out in Los Reyes!  

President Stutznegger on the streets of Mexico.  

It was super good though! It was nice to get them done because we are exhausted! But in the morning before the conference we had to do some special changes because someone was going home and we had a couple problems and so we worked those out quite nicely! Then we went with the missionary that was going home to say goodbye to a few people before we went to the area to be able to visit all the people we needed!  Then we headed to tacos tepalcates!  

The best tacos in all of Mexico city!  We went with the Elder going home and with the Nebekers!  They loved it so that was good!  Apart from that we headed back to the offices to be able to get him ready to go home the next day! 

Friday was our killer day!  We were so tired but we were up and at it early because of the airport! We left about 6:30 and headed out!

Airport Perk!

Then once we got the Elder sent on his way we were waiting for Pres' kids to get here! It was cool to see them and talk for a few seconds! Then we just headed home and went on working and finding some people!  We found a lot of people and had a really really successful day!  

Saturday was our most successful day we were able to find most of our news this day and we were able to go to the temple with some investigators which was nice!  It was a good day!

Well this is my last week with Elder Ostler! He is going to have changes next Monday! Not really 100% sure in the area yet but ready or not here we go!  It will be fun! I will be with my next comp for the next six weeks and then will have one more for the last three weeks! We basically have this week kind of off from morning things and meetings so we should get a lot of work done! We are also planning on a baptism!  Then the next few weeks with be really crazy with changes and getting everyone trained and all that good stuff! I love you all have a great week and a great fourth of July! 

love

Elder Orchard 

No explanation but I'm thinking this is his apartment.