June 18th -25th, 2012

hey guys,

it was good hearing about your trip to moab. dad i feel bad about your back, something has to be done about it right? what are you plans? i pray for you all the time and have faith that it will improve.

well we had the activity last saturday and everything went great and it was awesome except we only had three little kids come that weren´t members. so that sucked and we were bummed. our investigatores are so dang flaky it´s killin me. everybody performed their parts great though and the spirit was strong we just didn´t have the turnout we expected.

we tried really hard this week to get fifteen lessons with member present and we were barely able to do it so we were way happy about that last night when we got it. we had fifteen with member and twenty two other lessons taught. this week the mission goal is to have every companionship baptize. we have two lined up for sunday night. they are two kids, their brother is the only member in the family and he only is thirteen years old, his brothers, our investigatores, are eleven and nine. when they´re all together it´s classic to watch them interact cause the whole time they´re just trying to bug each other it´s so funny but they´re great kids. the kids are awesome and are completely aceppting of all parts of the gospel. it reminds me of alma 32 16 that says bendito es él que es bautizado sin obstinacion de corazon. o algo así. that´s how the kids are and they´ll be blessed for it.

we´re really trying to increase membership and activity in the branch because there is not enough people to fill all the callings. for example yesterday i gave the opening prayer, both me and elder zamarripa spoke, and then i taught one of the sunday school clases. oh yeah and we passed the sacrament. there´s just not enough active members. also we really need a ward mission leader to help us out, but before any of that happens we have to increase the activity and membership. it´s been kind of tough on us, we haven´t had the success that we´ve expected but we´re working hard and have faith that the lord will bless us with success.


well dad p days we don´t really have time to do much it seems. i´ve only played soccer once and actually two weeks ago sports got outlawed in this mission cause too many elders were getting hurt. i think that ban will be lifted here in a little bit. but this morning we had a bit of an adventure haha. two of the young men in the ward have been asking us to go running with them on p day for like three weeks, and we finally went with them this morning. it was pretty classic cause the ´´run´´ turned into a walk after about five minutes and one of the kids, carlos, got tired and decreed that we would walk the rest of the way haha. they took us way out of town and we walked for about two hours and then hitched a ride back home cause carlos was too tired haha. but we saw some really beautiful country side and got a good exercise. i´m trying to attach some pictures but it´s not letting me so i´ll do it next week. the other kid that went with us, julio, loves to workout and loves to talk to me about my old workout days and how much i could lift and stuff haha. he´s a great kid though. seventeen years old. and trying to prepare for a mission. here in mexico you can leave for the mish at eighteen, just have to finish the ´´prepa´´ i think it´s the equivalent of high school. crazy though. we also had plans of going fishing with the other elders in our district today but we had too much to do and had to turn down the invitation. but we have fun on p days and do a lot of random stuff haha.

thanks for sending the book i´ll be on the lookout for it.

well we´ve got to get going, we are trying to find a rat trap cause we have a bit of a rat problem in the house and they´ve been eating our food so that was the last straw haha. other than that everything is going good and we´re working hard to fulfill our purpose. i feel very blessed. i got an e mail from ben today and it was his first week in the field and he is starting to realize the difficulties of the work haha. it was great to read and he says no one listens to them over there in france and he´s jealous of where i am haha. we´re baptizing second most in the world right now in the veracruz mission. that´ll change though cause in eight days the misison splits and we won´t be back to full force for about six months. during these next months lots of new areas are going to be opening here in the mission. it´s cool to think about because these will be little villages down in the tuxtlas where missionaries have never set foot before. it´s gonna be crazy cool if i get the oportunity to be in a place like that.

love you all and pray for you often. during the day a lot of times i think how lucky i am to have a family like you guys and i honestly am excited to spend eternity with you guys and we can have all sorts of fun. my work right now is to help other families be able to do that. love you! have a good week.

-elder broadhead

June 11th-18th, 2012

dear family,

hey guys whats up! i sure do love getting your e mails they are pretty funny. in all the e mails I got this week i think cuddles got the most shout outs haha. i hope his little surgery and journey to taras house go well haha. have fun in moab as well. i guess you´ll be there when you get this . sounds like a cool trip. pops for my part of the fathers day, my favorite story of you would have to still be the time at the gym when you farted hahahaha. i know that i don´t have to explain any farther.

well this week was a week of a ton of traveling. tuesday we traveled to tuxtepec for clase de zona. wednesday night me and elder wirthlin my mtc companion traveled to veracruz to sleep and then to go to the imigracion office thursday morning and sign papers and stuff. that was a classic time it´s always a blessing to get to spend some time with him. due to some confusion i had to stay in tierra blanca the rest of thursday and i slept there thursday night. it was cool to be able to teach with my mtc companion and see the progress that we´ve made. i still remember when i met elder wirthlin the first day of my mission haha. saturday we traveled to aleman to help the new district leader. his companion got sick and i went out with him to their lessons while my companion took care of the sick american elder. sunday was stake conference in tierra blanca so we had to travel there yesterday. we really didn´t have much time in our area this week but we still got some good work done. we set three baptismal dates or the upcoming weeks. we have this really solid first lesson that we give that always ends up with a baptismal date. we´re working pretty well together, elder zamarripa and i even though we have our differences. (he´s really messy).

well it rained like crazy this week and we´re officialy in the rainy season down here. it makes it kind of difficult to work but i enjoy the relief from the sun and heat. the streets get flooded though and we have to walk in water that´s like ankle deep haha.

oh yeah before i forget could you send me a book called ´´1001 pitfalls of spanish´´. the assistantes told me that it was a great book to really perfect your spanish grammar. i´m not completely sure of that title but it´s a blue and yellow book that says something like that. just send it to the mission offices and i´ll eventually get it. thank you!

in answer to mom´s questions- no i haven´t used my raincoat, we get wet there´s no way to avoid it. also i get all the toileteries and stuff that i need from the bigger cities when we travel. i´m going to get a pillow this week so i´m excited. my cooking skills have not improved. firstly because there is no room for improvement, give me a recipe and i´ll cook it. secondly because there´s nowhere to cook. my favorite food is either the tacos, enchiladas, quesodillas or really anything. everything is great and i´ve loved it all. the food is all really fresh and awesome. what i don´t like is the hot soup and that we usually have as an apetizer every day haha. they don´t understand that hot soup is not that satisfying in hot weather haha.

also as i´ve read this e mail over i´m not sure if i´ve spelled some things correctly. my spelling is going downhill with learning another language haha.

the pictures are of me and the kids of a recent convert family, julio, abraham, y gabriela. another is of a flooded street and the last is of me and my old district leader elder brito.

everything is going well here in mexico we are working really hard and this week our goal is to fulfill the standard of exelence with lessons. fifteen lessons taught with member present and fifteen other lessons taught. it´s always tough to get fifteen with member but we´re gonna do it this week. well tons of things happen during the week that i wanna tell you about but i can never remember them when i sit down to e mail. i think i´m gonna start writing them down so i can remember them in the e mail.

this saturday we are putting on an activity at the church with the support of the branch that´s going to be a representation of the plan of salvation. i´m playing the part of god hahah cause i´m white they made me do it. we´re hoping to get lots of investigatores to come and the members should all be bringing a nonmember friend. so lots of references. there´s going to be food as well and it should be a big success. i´ll let ya know how it goes next week.

pues, ya nos vamos. vamos a salir y trabajar. pero todavía tenemos que comprar algunas cosas por la semana de la tiendita. les quiero a todos mucho y tenga una semana buena con mucho exito en todo.

peace out!

-love elder broadhead

 

 

June 4th -11th, 2012

 

 

hey guys,

thanks for all the e mails and dad thanks for the advice on personal revelation. loved it and i´m going to encorporate it into my teaching. good luck with your injection tomorrow i have a feeling that everything will be ok and it will help. on that note happy fathers day next sunday!! i want to tell you how happy i am to have you as my father and if i can be half as good a guy as you are one day i´ll be satisfied. i love you soo much and hope you have a great fathers day.

tara it sounds like you are enjoying life and vacationing hard core.

that´s cool that you got to see some of my friends. it´s weird to think of them serving missions haha. they need to hurry up and get out here though there´s tons of work to be done.

so last wednesday we had a zone conference in the port city of veracruz. last tuesday night we had to travel there and we slept over in the mission offices that night. it was a great time being there with all the elders and it kinda felt like a big slumber party haha. it´s great that i can still talk with my mtc companion and i´m lucky to still be in close contact with him. the next day we had the zone conference in a church next to the temple. it was great to see the temple in real life, and the conference was awesome i learned a ton. all the new missionaries and the missionaries that were departing got to go up and share their testimonies. so i got to do that as well. it was cool to see the difference between the departing missionaries and the new ones like me haha. we didn´t get back to tres valles until seven that night so it was a pretty big two day trip. it was a great experience though.

well today starts the next transfer and my district leader is leaving for his home in ecuador. i´m sad to see him go he´s taught me a lot and he was a great missionary and example. we´re actually going to head to aleman to say goodbye to him and have a little party when we finish up here at the internet cafe. we´ll be getting a new missionary to fill his spot that is coming from xalapa. i´m not being transferred north so i will be in the mexico veracruz mission and not the xalapa. the work is the same everywhere i really didn´t have a preference, it´s just a little bit cooler (not as hot) in the north.

so like three days ago we were walking to an appt and we pass a house that has a bunch of kids sitting in the front yard eating a fruit called papaya. there´s like three or four of them and we greet them in passing, not thinking anything of it, then all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye i see my companion duck and then i get nailed in the face/shoulder with the rind of a papaya haha. and i turn to look and all the little kids take of running haha. so i had papaya all over me and for a split second i was way mad but then i was overwhelmed with a complete feeling of love for the kids. and at that point i felt like a true missionary cause i had been persecuted for the sake of jesus christ and the scripture came to mind, ´he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it´ i´m not really sure why or how that applies but i really love that scripture now. and i know that when someone suffers something for jesus christ, that person is blessed. so i guess i feel blessed for getting pegged with the papaya haha.

we´ve been struggling getting people to come to church so we don´t have a baptism lined up for this week but last night we found two great families to teach and my companion and i both felt that they were elect families. we´ll see what happens with them but we have high hopes.

i gave a talk yesterday in the ward and for the first time in my life and went over the time i was alloted to speak haha. i´m not sure what happend but my talk was on charity and i just got on a roll and kept going. i didn´t have time to prepare anything but i guess i´m at the point where i can just give a talk now without having to take a bunch of time to prepare haha.

well we gotta get going now but the pictures i attached are one of me going to slap a donkey, one of our blue house, and one of the zone activity that happened like five weeks ago in tuxtepec.

oh yeah mom in answer to your questions it rains about everynight and i lay in my bed and look out the window/hole in the wall and watch the lightning. it´s pretty cool. but it´s roasting hot in the day and i´m sunburned but not quite as bad with this umbrella that i´m usin. good to hear that you finally got my letter haha. i can´t even remember what i wrote though

i love you and hope you have a wonderful week this week! good luck with everything, have faith in the lord and remember that this life is short so we have to take advantage of the time we are given!

 

elder broadhead

 

 

 

 

 

May 28th - June 4th, 2012

Dear fam,

well it was great to hear from you all, and yes mom time is flying. i can´t belive how quick it is going. my only reference is your letters that you send me. i´ll be reading about something that happened with you guys and be like wow i can´t believe school is already ending or something like that. time is not the same for missionaries haha. and yeah i can communicate with people pretty good but spanish is still the most frustrating thing by far. i just wanna be fluent already haha. also sorry mom i don´t have time to answer all of your questions about the details of the living situation just know that i´m doing just fine and that we grocery shop and only eat with members for lunch. and sometimes the member that we live with gives us leftover breakfast. she´s really nice and helps us out a lot.

but yes we did have a baptism this last saturday! it was great experience to be baptizing someone and helping them make that very important covenant with dios. i was a little nervous but everthing went fine and it was a great baptismal service. actually efren, the young man we baptized is on the computer two down from me haha. he´s a great kid with a strong testimony. he´ll stay active. there´s about five hundred members here in my area and about one hundred consistently make it to church. that´s including both the branch and the ward. it´s a tad bit frustrating.

well it was crazy hot this week here in tres valles and the sun is very strong, and we walk in it all day. sometimes its difficult and i get tired and frustrated with spanish but if i have learned one thing so far it´s that the savior is always there for me. i rest well in the comfort that no matter what the world throws at me or how hard it gets He is there for me always and knows how i feel and is willing to help me. cause he loves us more than anyone can imagine. that knowledge gets me through the tough times.

but we have had success in finding families that are ready to hear and accept the gospel and we have two families on date for this month of june. we had a lesson last wednesday i believe with one of the families, and we brought the second counsellor of the branch to help us with the lesson. low and behold he did more harm than good but it was classic to witness. so we get into the lesson on the plan of salvation and hermano constantino, the member that we brought, starts going off on all sorts of deep doctrinal issues and quoting scriptures out of nowhere and me and elder zamarripa are just sittin there dyin as we watch the family get more and more confused haha. he talked about the lost pages from the book of mormon, how abraham was chosen to be a prophet in the preexistence, and even a little bit about the temple covenants haha. it was crazy and we learned that we should tell the member exactly what we want them to say, before the lesson starts.

the other family is a mom and her son and they are pretty awesome. we invited them to read and pray about the book of mormon, and yesterday, both of them told us that they had recieved a solid answer. it was awesome, they were soo excited to tell us, and then the mom told us that she thinks god sent us to her house to help them. we told her that´s exactly what happened.

well it´s the last week of the transfer and i´m going to be with elder zamarripa for next transfer as well at least. and the mission is going to split so it looks like i´ll be in the southern half, the veracruz mission. we reorganized the house this morning to change things up for next transfer haha. and when i say reorganized i mean we swapped the beds and the desks. also i have unlimited pesos to spend haha. i think there was some sort of mistake when i got reassigned so i have waay too many pesos on my card. so we have been eating a little bit better lately haha. i´m calling it a blessing in disguise.

have a superb week guys i love you sooo much and am thankful to be part of your family. tell nana i say hi!

-love Elder Broadhead - is that enough capitilization pops? hahahaha

 

jk i´ll do better next week. love ya