March 18th-25th, 2013

Hey,

Hi guys i hope you are all having a great time on your vacation! So Dustin went too? I´ll be anxious to hear all the funny stories after haha. Dad i hope you get feeling better! and in my opinion i think you dedicated a ton of time to your family, i have tons of good memories spending time with you. There are tons of men who hardly know their kids and i see it here everyday. the men here have to work so much because they hardly don´t pay them anything that they don´t spend anytime with their family. That wasn´t the case with you. Don´t worry so much, we´re not perfect but you sure are a great dad. Ask any one else in the family and you´ll get the same response. You´ve already understood well the purpose of life so just keep going strong!

This week i got pretty sick. I had to go the hospital but now i´m better so don´t worry. It was something with the stomach and i only went to the hospital cause i got dihydradted. so i couldn´t work too much this week. But we are now three companions! our new companion is called E. gonzalez and he is from the domincan republic. yes he´s black haha and he talks spanish like they talk english en the southern united states haha. He´s always way happy and keeps us laughing. He is just going to be with us for a week more and then he´ll get assigned to a different area for the next transfer. It´s still been pretty hard for us to find people to teach. But my companion and I have thought a lot about it and we´ve come up with some ways to get more references and to stay more focused. when we used to contact everyone in the street siempre we were focused. but now a lot of the time we start talking about anything in the street and we get distracted and can´t listen to the promptings of the spirit as well. so i think we are letting a lot of the escogidos pass by us and we don´t even realize it. we are going to try to work mas focused this week to be able to contact the people in the street that are ready for us. we are continuing to work with marsalino but he has kind of gone cold on us. he didn´t go to church this week. we are trying to teach leo but it is also really hard because his house is alwasy wild and it´s hard to have a spiritual lesson. we can baptize him, but he´ll just go inactive after, so we are going to hold out a little longer. If we don´t baptize this week this will be the first month of my mission in mexico that i don´t baptize. this area has been the hardest of my mission. But i´m not desanimado or anything, i´m happy to be working and i know that i´m having succes becasue a lot of times i feel the spirit testifying to people through me. I try hard to serve everyone. I have a lot of high hopes for this week, it could be my last in this area. It was nice to see alot of the hermanas of the ward brought me food when i got sick. I have a lot of time here so they all know me and i felt good knowing that they care. I said to my companion, if only they brought us references like they bring us food haha.

well i gotta get going, one of the members here is going to take us to a chiropractor that is going to give us a good stretching haha. the member wanted to take us because he thinks we have back problems haha we just said ok sounds good to us, lets go.

everything is normal here and i continue happy and working. i love you all.

mom the water in the tanks doesn´t get drinken. its just to shower and wash dishes.

love elder broadhead

March 11th-18th, 2013

Hey,

St. patricks day? haha no it doesn´t get celebrated here. I haven´t heard anything about it at least. What is even celebrated on that day anyway haha?? I got to thinking about it and i´m not sure, but here it is not heard of haha. That´s awesome that scott is going to get baptized! Nana told me last week en her e mail but thats so cool. Tell him congragulations for me please. The only advice I would have is that he doesn´t wait for you guys to get there! Mayo is really far away and anything could happen en that stretch of time, if he feels the desire to get baptized let him do it as fast as possible! But be sure to send me the pictures. That news really makes me feel happy i´ll be honest. Now that i understand the importance of baptism. that reminds me, a few months back, i think in christmas, you guys sent me a picture of my baptism and dads. Just to let you know i have been using it a ton to teach and testify to everyone about baptism and it works great so thanks for sending it. I also continue giving away the things you send mom, i give them to my converts and the people that i do baptismal interviews for. But thanks for sending the package with the razors and shirt mom, love ya. Sounds like you guys are gonna have a lot of fun on your upcoming vacations. dad, para answer your question i should be here about two more weeks, that´s when the transfer ends and it´s likely that they transfer me. but who knows i could be here another transfer mas. They just told us today that elder chico and i will be training a new missionary! president is giving to all the zone leaders the chance to train as zone leaders. we are really excited and our new missionary should get here on thursday, but he is having visa problems, coming from puerta rico o cuba and if he doesn´t get here this week he will be here the next week.

we are excited becase we have two probables that could get baptized this week. we are going to work hard with leo and marsalino so that they both commit for this saturday. marsalino has been progressing well and leo is a kid of 12 years old that loves to go to church. so we are probably going to baptize dos this week.

we had an interesting week because our house almost flooded. here in mexico every house has a big tank on top that gets filled with water and then with the help of gravity gives water to the house. the tank of the neighbor had a problem and started to over flow. he wasn´t there and neither were we and so when we got home that night the neighbors house was already flooded and our house was just barley starting. so i climbed up on the roof to fix the problem and much to my surprise found a hose running out of our tank and through the back window of our neighbor on the other side! they were robbing water from us! so i took out the hose and this morning had to chew them out for robbing water from us. I told them it would be ok if they were going to pay the water bill! Who knows for how long they have been taking advantage of the missionaries there.

this week i had a special moment where i learned a little bit more about the purpose of missionary work. The mission is nothing more than an excuse to be able to dedicate two years to becoming like christ. the purpose of our life, earthly and eternal, is to become a god one day. The mission is the only chance that exists to be able to do that. we don´t have to worry about nothing as missionaries. school, work, family, nothing. the only thing we have to worry about is doing, every day, what christ would do if he were here. God has given me two years where my only worry is trying to become more like him. That´s why a mission is so important and that´s why missionaries come back changed men and women. It´s not easy that´s for sure, because were not perfect. But it´s an opportunity that i´ll forever be grateful for. It´s helping me so much progress to that eternal goal of becoming a god.

well i love you all and miss you alot. I am motivated by the fun things that you´re doing and the course that your lives take. thanks for being a great family.

love elder broadhead

March 4th-11th, 2013

Hey guys,

Thanks for the updates.

This week was kind of tuff but also a really good week for me. it was a good week because on wednesday we had a capacitacion de lideres and it was really good. President shared a message about peter and how christ was such a good leader to him. He never got dissapointed in him, he had to repremend him a few times but more than anything he always showed him love, even when peter fell short of christ´s expectations.

I also got to go the temple on friday. it was a great experience because i could see the final goal of the missionary work. eternal families. Everything we do, we do it so that the people can go to the temple eventually. It was awesome to be there and see the sealing and endowment process. they were soo happy afterwards. Also on sunday we had a regional conference here in the south region of mexico. Elder Bednar, Elder Scott, Sister Dalton, and another elder of the presidency of the seventy talked. their messages were great and i loved the conference. it was a satellite transmision that lasted 2 hrs. It got me exicted again for this upcoming general conference.

The week was a little rough as well. it is still not going too well for us here in the volcanes. we really couldn`t even teach too many lessons this week. and by saturday i was already fed up and frustrated because we hadn`t found anyone new the whole week. we had tried every finding activity and we just flat out were struggling. I was getting a little angry when we finally knocked on the door (piece of aluminum) of a shack. (We have started working in the poorer part of our area to try and find some humilde people.) that was when marsalino opened up and agreed to listen to our mensaje. He told us about some of his problems, he is a recovering alcoholic and his wife and kids left him a while back. we taught him about the gospel and invited him to the conference the next day. He accepted and we passed by for him the next day to take him to the capilla. He loved the conference and even stayed extra to watch the baptism service of another ward. He looks really excited to learn more and i feel confident he`ll get baptized. We are going to pass by tomorrow to teach him more. But from this experience i was able to learn again that the lord blesses us only after the trial of our faith.

Today in the morning we went to visit the ruins in the pueblo of zempoala. It was cool. It was the zone activity we had planned for this transfer. the elderes liked it. It was a lot of time traveling though. they are pyramides of the olmecas. i`ll attach some pictures. the tour guide though was a complete loco haha it was funny to listen to him.

mom, if you could look for razor blade replacements for gillet fusion it would be nice. it`s the razor that has five blades. i can`t seem to find them here. If you can`t find them either over there, tell me next week so i can buy myself another razor. If you do find them and decide to send them, another long sleeved shirt would also be nice. my old ones are starting to wear out pretty bad. 16 and a half.

thanks for everything. I love you guys!

love elder broadhead

February 25th-March 4th, 2013

Hey guys,

Thanks for your e mails I always enjoy hearing about the things you do. You guys always say it was just another normal week but then tell me about a ton of cools things that you did that week haha. No week has to be just normal, we only have a limited number of weeks, so make your weeks count! Or even better, do something that makes someone elses week even better than normal!

that`s too bad to hear about uncle don. But our time has to come eventually. I`m happy we have the knowledge about the plan of salvation.

Sounds like ashley has been really blessed by the lord lately. That`s awesome that`s everything is working out for ya!

Tara, pretty cool that you could hear from sister oaks. I still remember when she came to the MTc when i was there. It was good advice she gave then too.

This week has been pretty hectic. I`m not going to lie in these past couple of weeks i have fell into a little bit of a slump. with my studies and my animo. i can`t remember for the life of me how to say animo en english. every missionary comes to a point where he just kind of plains out. I`ve gotten to that point but i don`t want to continue like this. This week we had a zone lideres counsel and the hermana treviño told us a story about how two weeks ago when one of the elders was finishing his mission, the day before he left, a ton of people came to the mission office to say goodbye to him and everyone was crying and everything like that. She said it was becauase he really served well and loved everyone. She said that a lot of the things of the mission we can`t take with us when we go home, but even more important is what we leave behind, the people we teach and the lives we change. I got to thinking and it`s true. a long time ago i realized that the real purpose of missionary work is that the missionary gets truly converted. but that only happens when the missionary doesn`t concentrate on himself. real conversion comes when we forget ourselves and serve others. that is when the change takes place. the hermana treviño said that everyone has a point in their life when they become truly converted to the lord. and for a lot of us that have grown up in the church it doesn`t come until we experience a problem and really look for god and his help. but anyway i have been doing a lot of thinking this week, and continually asking myself, what am i going to leave behind here in my mission? i am trying hard to leave behind the people, my areas and the missionaries a lot better than when i found them. that`s my goal.

this week i could have the chance to go to the temple with my companion because a family he baptized last year is going to be sealed! it`s pretty cool. I`m holding out for a couple and a family to go through the temple in these upcoming months as well. lets hope they make it!

well i love you guys and am happy and serving hard here in mexico. take care and i`ll talk to you next week.

love elder broadhead