May 21st-28th, 2012

hey whats up fam!

hey it was great to hear about your hawaii trip terra, sounds like fun. and everything else seems to be going great as well. i got to the city of aleman by bus mom, we do lots of travel by bus and we went to tuxtepec this morning to do some shopping with the other two elders in our district. it was a good time. hey pops thanks for the letter, as always i love em. and i wanna wish you a happy birthday this upcoming week! i love you and hope you have a great day, try not to do too much yard work on your b day haha. thanks for being the best dad an elder could ask for i love you so much. also if you want a mexican birthday gift for later just tell me what you want and i´ll get it ok!

well we had a good week this week, i went on splits to aleman and i´m going back again this week to work with the district leader. things are really spread out there and there is not very many people so we do a bit of walking. the elder slade that i was serving with there is new as well and he was really really really nervous when we started out the exchange. he´s a little bit shy and so i got to do most all of the talking and teaching, it was a good learning experience for the both of us. after a few lessons and when he realized that we were still missionaries entitled to the help of the lord and he relaxed a little haha. we even gave a blessing to one of the members. but the highlight of the week is that we´re going to have a baptism this next saturday! it´s going to be my first one and it has been ever so elusive. it´s a cool story though and added to my testimony of the power of working with members. his name is efren, that´s going to be baptized, and he is an investigator that comes to church every week but didn´t want to get baptized. he´s fifteen years old and loves to talk to me about lady gaga cause i´m american and he thinks i know all her songs haha. but the branch president invited him to go on a camping trip with the other three youth in the branch and so he went, this was last friday. when they got back he told us that now he wants to get baptized. and it´s all thanks to the examples of those other youth and the branch president. efren was able to see their examples and also see how the gospel blesses all aspects of life, not just on sunday. i´ve learned more and more how importnat the members are to missionary work. so we´re working really hard to bring members to lessons and to try and organize a ward/branch council and get a ward/branch mission leader called, to help us. it´s tough to fulfill all the callings here in mexico cause there is a lack of priesthoods holders. the majority of the curch is women here. i think in part to how much the men have to work, even the bishoprich take turns working on sunday, and also the fact that women are more open to things. either way we need to find some more men to teach, and activate the inactive priesthood holders. there are tons of inactive members here haha. but we have a lesson with an inactive family scheduled for tonight, they have two boys that are awesome kids and will strengthen the ward a ton if they would just come to church. one of the harderst parts is to get investigators to come to church, but we had a family come this last week and they had a great experience, they could only stay for sacrament meeting but they liked it and should be baptized on the ninth of june. we´re going to have an open house activity on the 23 of june and also we are organizing a class where i teach english. both of these activities should bring in lots of references and new investigators as well.

well everything is going great here and we are working oh so hard. only after the trial of our faith comes the testimony, as it is written in helaman. and just like what happend with alma, success comes after MUCH labor, which means we are about to have a ton of baptisms here in tres valles! haha also my spanish is coming along, i am able to understand people a lot better now, made progress with that this week.

i love you all and wish the best for you. i keep you in my prayers always and love ya peeps.

-elder broadhead

p.s. i had my first pants crapping (pooped my pants) experience two days ago haha. sorry mom, i only include it because tara ash dustin and probably dad, and maybe you too will get a laugh out of it.

May 14th-21st, 2012

hey fam,

hey guys!!! thanks for all the updates and news, keep movin forward. hey mom before i forget, could you e mail me a list of everyones birthday and other important american holidays i can´t seem to remember too many of them haha. that´s cool to hear that the brother blades served in tierra blanca, that´s where my mtc companion is serving. the fruit is very good here. i absolutely love the fruit drinks. i´m not sure how all the hermanas make them but they are really good and refreshing on a hot day. my favorite is agua de orchata or agua de pina. ooh so good. well dad we have district meeting every week and zone conferernce every threeish months. we had interviews with the president this week as well. i sure love him, he´s a great mission president. really self sacraficing. his wife is great with all the medical stuff as well. they had to leave a daughter behind to come be mission presidents. it´s amazing to me the faith the people down here have. the members make such unimagineable sacrifices for the lord. it´s really strengthened my testimiony to see it and how they are blessed for it. it reminds me of a story that happened this week. we have been teaching a little boy and we needed a member to accompany us to a lesson with this boy, so we asked a recent convert named abraham, he´s nine years old, to come with us later that day. he was very eager and willing to help and to tag along with the missionaries. he´s a really cute pudgy kid haha. but so three o clock rolls around and we go to pick him up and he is in the process of trying to attach a mug of water to his little bike cause we were in the hottest part of the day. sweat dripping of his pudgy face, he had combed his hair and put on shoes for the event, trying to look his best, and my heart just melted because he was so willing to help us. we told him that we were going to walk and that he couldn´t bring his bike but he still was excited to help. after about the first quarter mile he had drained his water and was struggling a little bit but had this look of determination i won´t forget. well we taught the lesson and he bore his testimony and i was so proud of him. afterwards i told him that he´s going to make a great missionary one day and his face just lit up haha. oh and also we bought him a snack on the way home for his troubles haha. it´s just one little example of how the people here are so great and self sacrificing for the work of the lord.
but i´m not too fond of the jehovas witnesses haha. we found a lady and were teaching her, and she refferred us to her neighbor and so we were teahing two families that lived right next to each other. everything is going great until one day we pass by and the lady says, i am not going to read the book of mormon anymore and i´m not going to be baptized and i don´t want you guys to come back. well low and behold her son is a jehovahs witness in cancun and she had called him to get his opinion about religion and he told her lots of lies bout members of the church. then this lady tells her neighbor all the same stuff and the neighbors proceed to tell us that now they´re not going to be baptized either! it was really frustrating. i think it was elder ballard that said the devil established that religion with the sole purpose of halting missionary work. aaaahhhh. they sure do love the bible though. oh and also i´ve been getting really sunburned so i had to resort to using an umbrella hahaha i feel like a dork with it but don´t have any other choice. it´s pretty classic though, my companion loves to make fun of me for it haha. well i´m going on exchanges tommorrow to the city of aleman and i´ll be with an americn elder so i´ll get to speak some english!! spanish is coming along, still frustrating but i´m working on it. gets better every week. well that´s about it, i´m going to try and attach some pictues again so hopefully it works this time. well i love you all and of course pray for you very much and i wish the best for you this week! love ya!

love elder broadhead

May 7th - May 14th 2012

dear family

well it was great to talk to you all yesterday and to hear your voices!! christmas will be the next time, we´re in for the long haul now haha! well dad the spanish keyboards are different and it takes me forever to capitalize things or remove haha´s so unfortunately you´re gonna have to deal with it. sorry. that story about cuddles cracked me up. poor old guy. well maybe your back pain is a sign that you need to stop doing yard work so much pops!! but i hope you find out some good things at the doctor.

well after i talked to you peeps last night i got hit by a huge diarreah attack. worst yet. and i had no choice but to use the bathroom at the branch presidents house. it was not pretty.i think it was because i´m pudgy and was desperate for a chocolate milk so i bought one like two days ago, but it didn´t taste right. i´m pretty sure that was the culprit. no more cm for me. anyways we had a zone activity this morning which included playing soccer and having a bbq. it was classic to watch all the missionaries trying to light the charcoal for the bbq haha. also these mexicans are dang good at soccer. i suck but it was still a good time. well it´s been raining pretty hard these last few days, it feels nice at first but then gets annoying when you have to walk around soaking wet. the rainy season is coming up!! i like that better than the dang heat. well we´ve been teaching a guy named amador and he is going to be baptized. he´s a really big stud and he knows that the gospel is true. it´s great to see his testimony grow every day. there was some confusion and he thought he was going to be baptized yesterday at church haha, he was completely willing but we told him that it wasn´t for another few weeks, he was bummed. there are a lot of people that are ready to hear the gospel here. lots of descendents of the people of the book of mormon. they are really layed back so you have to be very bold to get them to do anything, but it works. it´s difficult sometimes because most of the men have to work on sundays, and so it´s quite the task to get the men to church. but we promise blessings, and i´m sure once they go they´ll want to go again. also i hemmed my pants the other day mom!! it looks really ugly but it is holding up for now. i was proud of myself haha. well i don´t really have much else to say since we talked yesterday. everything is going well and i´m settled in, feeling good and we´re going to have a great week this week. very successful i know it. we´re working hard to try and meet the standard of excelence for our mission, for the key indicators. and if we do the promise is that we´ll baptize every week. i believe it is possible. my spanish is coming along. the most frustrating thing is when i think i´ve said a perfectly good sentence and the person looks to my companion and says, what did he say? aaah it´s frustrating. we´ll i guess i´ll try to attach some pics now. also it takes me forever to e mail president treviño cause i have to do it in spanish so i better get to it.

thanks for everything family i love you all soooo much and know that you are all there for me and i couldn´t have asked for a better fam. love ya all. peace out till next week. have a great week!

love elder broadhead

April 30th - May 7th, 2012

Hey fam,

whats up?? sounds like everything is going pretty good, except for the usual problems. I pray for you guys sooo much. well i´m definintely here in Mexico haha. We flew in on this beater of a plane and it took awhile to get through customs because they couldn´t understand us haha. some of the other elders had their bags lost but luckily mine came through without any problems. i have been assigned to the area of tres valles. and i´ll tell ya this place is the hottest place i´ve ever been in my entire life. i am constantly sweating and there is not a moment in the day when i´m not wet. its been a crazy adjustment. i´m constantly thirsty haha. we live in a little place that is definitely not very nice by my spoiled american standars. but as i´ve come to find out it´s about average for here in mexico. i remember uncle stirling telling me about a place he lived in where you could poop shower and shave standing in the same place. i laughed at the time, but it´s not too funny when you have to live it haha. the month of may is the most hot of the year so i´m just tryin to make it through may for now. wow it is so hot it´s incredible. you would´t believe it. tres valles is the hottest in the mission they tell me. also when the mission splits in july i´ll probably be staying in veracruz mission because that´s where i am now. i´m about three or four hours south of veracruz. we traveled on a bus here last tuesday. its really out in the middle of nowhere. its a jungle for the most part. mostly dirt roads and huts. you can look at it on google earth or something. also i´ll try to attach some pictures. it´s pretty crazy though. also i only get mail every three months. so if someone is wondering why i didn´t write them back, that´s why. my companion se llama elder zamarripa. he is from tiajuana. he only speaks spanish but is really nice and patient and a great missionary and trainer. i´m lucky to have him. church was pretty classic yesterday. we are over a branch and a ward and it´s a little different than in the states. we had six of us in priesthood meeting of the branch and spent the time arguing over if you start a blessing by addressing father in heaven or the person by their full name. it was classic and eventually the truth won out. we have some great investigators and the people here are incredibly nice. they always let us in to teach them. the members are very self sacrificing and help us out a lot. our baptisms for next week are efren and leonardo, so you can pray for them dad, thanks. well everything is going well and e. zamarripa is telling me to hurry up so i gotta get going. i´ll try to do pictures next week. well i´ll call on sunday!! love you guys, thanks for it all.

love elder broadhead